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Fay Vincent, former Major League Baseball commissioner, passed away on Saturday at the age of 86. He had been receiving treatment for bladder cancer, according to ESPN, but complications in that treatment led to his death. MLB released a statement announcing Vincent’s passing on Sunday.
Vincent took over as MLB commissioner for Bart Giamatti in 1989, following his sudden death just five months into his tenure. Vincent has had his name come up in this digital pages on more than one occasion, as he was the commissioner during the 1990 lockout, and the stepping stone then-owner Bud Selig used to grab the commissionership for himself.
Vincent wasn’t exactly a pro-player commissioner, but his term came during a time when any sentiment favoring the players was viewed with contempt by the owners, who were doing their best to destroy the union and its power. Years of collusion under Giamatti’s predecessor, Peter Ueberroth, made it difficult for the players to trust the owners. The owners then locking the players out in 1990 certainly didn’t help things, and Vincent said as much to the owners, which he detailed later on in his book:
“The single biggest reality you guys have to face up to is collusion. You stole $280 million from the players, and the players are unified to a man around that issue, because you got caught and many of you are still involved.”
Vincent would end up ignoring the owners’ desire to keep the lockout going, and helped facilitate a deal with them. Which angered the likes of Selig and the rest of his supporters, and led to a vote of no confidence in Vincent. Selig would take over as interim commissioner, engineer the 1994 strike by the Players Association — the players had no choice but to strike, because the owners were “negotiating” like a group that wanted a strike to happen so they could blame a work stoppage on the players and cancel the World Series to really drive their points home — and then not let go until it was time to pass the reins to Rob Manfred decades later.
Basically, MLB decided, because of Vincent, that there was no room for anyone like Vincent any longer. No more outside hires as commissioner, no assuming the risk that a commissioner would ever side with anyone besides the owners again. Which is how we end up where we are now, where a different commissioner wouldn’t necessarily mean a better one: they’re hired very intentionally for a very specific purpose, and Vincent, in their eyes, crossed that line by not just telling the owners they were wrong — that in itself is fine and sometimes necessary to keep them in check — but by then acting on their wrongness to help to end a lockout, a move that inherently benefits the players, even if the goal was more to benefit the sport and get everything moving again rather than sticking with the lost cause of the ‘90 lockout.
It’s because of this that I end up thinking of Fay Vincent quite a bit, despite the brevity of his time as commissioner. There were certainly commissioners who had more happen to them and did more in their roles, but Vincent’s legacy stretches on into the present, due to the nature of what it was he did in his short time in the role. Again, he was no friend to the players, but compared to some of his predecessors and certainly those that followed, he was a fairer sort. The sort the league won’t allow to hold that job ever again.
The A’s are moving to Sacramento for the 2025 season and a couple or few more after that, depending on how things go with the stadium construction in Las Vegas. What they aren’t doing during their residency, however, is calling themselves the Sacramento A’s. Here’s the thing, though: that’s very stupid. They play in Sacramento, it’s where they are now for the next few seasons, they’re the Sacramento A’s until they aren’t.
The San Francisco Chronicle agrees with this, as columnist John Shea explained over the weekend:
…The Chronicle has decided not to follow the A’s guidelines and will call them the Sacramento Athletics or Sacramento A’s online and in print stories. The Chronicle’s sports editor, Christina Kahrl, who grew up in the Sacramento area an A’s fan, signed off on the decision, along with using the “SAC” designation and not “ATH” in the standings and other agate. Other Hearst newspapers are aboard as well, a nifty decision that oozes with common sense.
Glad to see my former editor Christina Kahrl in the right here. I’ll be following suit, as well. Not that this is a big regional paper or media outlet, but I’m not referring to them simply as the “A’s” or “Athletics” for the next three or four years. And it’s not solely because that’s the kind of thing that would annoy A’s owner John Fisher were he to ever see it written out that way (though, that would be a fun bonus). No, it’s just common sense, as Shea said. They’re in Sacramento, they’re the Sacramento A’s. This isn’t like the Blue Jays being forced to move to Buffalo briefly because of travel restrictions at the height of the pandemic, and still getting to be referred to as the Toronto Blue Jays. The A’s chose Sacramento. They chose not sticking in Oakland, they chose to make their way to Las Vegas eventually; they chose the location, they do not get to choose their name in this way.
Plus, “ATH” looks really goofy. And we’re not even in the late-80s Bash Brothers’ era, so I can’t joke around and say it stands for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Human Growth Hormone. So really, what’s the point?
The annual voting for the SABR Analytics Conference Research Awards is open, and while none of my work from 2024 was nominated this time around — hey, it’s happened twice before — you should still (1) check out the pieces that were nominated, and (2) cast your votes for the potential winners.
There’s some excellent work here, from a variety of outlets and authors. If nothing else it’s a great way to catch up on some of the year in analysis and research.
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