Fay Vincent, Baseball Commissioner in a Stormy Era, Dies at 86 (New York Times)

By George Vecsey
George Vecsey is a former sports columnist for The Times.

Feb. 2, 2025 Updated 3:12 p.m. ET

Fay Vincent, a lawyer who presided over Major League Baseball as its eighth commissioner during a time when it was shaken by labor strife, the first shadows of steroid use and, quite literally, a powerful earthquake that interrupted the 1989 World Series, died on Saturday in Vero Beach, Fla. He was 86. His death, in a hospital, was caused by complications of bladder cancer, his wife, Christina, said. Mr. Vincent lived in Vero Beach.

Before reaching baseball's highest office, Mr. Vincent overcame a debilitating injury as a college student to become a law partner, an official in the Securities Exchange Commission, chairman of Columbia Pictures and vice-chairman of Coca-Cola.

But he was most visible to the public in his time as baseball commissioner, from Sept. 13, 1989, to Sept. 7, 1992, rising to that post in a period of grief. He had been deputy commissioner under his good friend A. Bartlett Giamatti when Mr. Giamatti died of a heart attack suddenly at 51. The owners of the major league teams then handed Mr. Vincent the reins.

A little more than a month later, he was present when, shortly after 5 p.m. on Oct. 19, 1989, the Bay Area experienced a severe earthquake -- 7.1 on the Richter scale -- that caused San Francisco's Candlestick Park to rumble, as if ready to fall apart.

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I was at Candlestick Park the day of the '89 earthquake. Never forget the ground shaking under us and the concrete ceiling above us (we were in lower reserved) swaying back and forth as did the towers in the outfield.

Addendum: I remember seeing Joe DiMaggio, who as I recall lived in SF at the time, in a seat on the field. I also recall seeing Will Clark and Mark McGwire chatting before the game.