Fay Vincent, who took over as Major League Baseball's commissioner in 1989 and navigated the league through the earthquake-disrupted Bay Area World Series, has died at the age of 86, MLB announced Sunday.
Vincent had undergone radiation and chemotherapy for bladder cancer and developed complications that included bleeding, said his wife, Christina. He asked that treatment be stopped and died Saturday at a hospital in Vero Beach, Florida.
Vincent served as baseball's eighth commissioner, taking over following the unexpected death of A. Bartlett Giamatti in 1989. He resigned from the position three years later. Giamatti, a longtime friend of Vincent's who had previously hired him as deputy commissioner, died of a heart attack at age 51.
Vincent's first major test came a month into the job.
Just before first pitch of Game 3 of the 1989 World Series between the Athletics and Giants, a massive earthquake struck the San Francisco area. Vincent was immediately thrust into action, opting to postpone that night's game at Candlestick Park, and later the World Series as whole, for 10 days as the area dealt with the earthquake's aftermath.
The decision wasn't universally praised; some thought the World Series should be canceled given the tragedy. But many saluted Vincent's compassion and decision-making during such a sensitive situation.
"Fay Vincent played a vital role in ensuring that the 1989 Bay Area World Series resumed responsibly following the earthquake prior to Game 3, and he oversaw the process that resulted in the 1993 National League expansion to Denver and Miami," current MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement Sunday. "Mr. Vincent served the game during a time of many challenges, and he remained proud of his association with our national pastime throughout his life. On behalf of Major League Baseball, I extend my deepest condolences to Fay's family and friends."
Turmoil followed Vincent during the remainder of his three-plus-year reign.
In 1990, baseball endured a 32-day work stoppage as owners and the union battled over free agency, arbitration and revenue sharing. Vincent ultimately announced a basic agreement to the CBA, but the lockout wiped out most of spring training and postponed the start of the regular season by a week.
Later that year, Vincent issued a lifetime ban to New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who had paid a known gambler $40,000 to find dirt on then-New York outfielder Dave Winfield. Steinbrenner was allowed to resume control of the Yankees in 1993.
Vincent issued another lifetime ban in 1992, this time to 1980 NL Rookie of the Year Steve Howe for repeated drug offenses. An arbitrator reinstated Howe a year later.
Under Vincent's watch, baseball expanded to 28 teams, with the Rockies and Marlins gaining approval from major league owners in 1991 and beginning play in 1993. As part of the expansion, Vincent ordered that the National League pay $42 million of $190 million received in expansion revenue to the American League, and that the AL provide players to the two new NL teams in the expansion draft.
Vincent also was a proponent of realignment and sought to have the Cubs and Cardinals move from the NL East to the NL West as part of a reconfiguration that would begin in the 1993 season. But some teams were against the proposed change -- the Cubs fought it through the courts -- and the realignment that Vincent sought never took place.
Vincent ultimately resigned in September 1992 -- two years before his five-year term was due to end. A month earlier, major league owners had issued an 18-9 no-confidence vote in Vincent, whom some were dissatisfied with due to his involvement in the 1990 labor negotiations, his rules on expansion revenue sharing and his thoughts on realignment, among other issues.
Vincent, some owners believed, was too player-friendly.
"Unfortunately, some want the Commissioner to put aside the responsibility to act in the 'best interests of Baseball'; some want the Commissioner to represent only owners, and to do their bidding in all matters," Vincent said in a statement announcing his resignation. "I haven't done that, and I could not do so, because I accepted the position believing the Commissioner has a higher duty and that sometimes decisions have to be made that are not in the interest of some owners."
Milwaukee Brewers owner Bud Selig replaced Vincent as commissioner.
A Connecticut native, Vincent remained in baseball after his resignation, and he served as president of the New England Collegiate Baseball League -- a wooden-bat summer league for college stars -- from 1998 to 2004. The winner of the NECBL each summer is awarded the Fay Vincent Sr. Cup.
Earlier in his life, Vincent worked as a lawyer in New York City, served as president/CEO of Columbia Pictures and was an executive vice president of the Coca-Cola Company, where he ran its entertainment division.
In 2019, Vincent disclosed that he had been diagnosed with leukemia.
"My diagnosis means the game of life is turning serious and the late innings loom," he wrote in a Wall Street Journal Op-ed.
"I cannot let the way my life comes to an end destroy the way I would like to be remembered. Dying is still a part of living, and the way one lives is vital, even in the dying light."
