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Fay Vincent leaves a legacy of civility, respect, and triumphs on behalf of the underserved

The former baseball commissioner was noted for welcoming all who played a role in the national pastime — including former Negro Leaguers.

Former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent signs an autograph for a young fan during spring training in 2006. Vincent died Sunday at age 86.
Former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent signs an autograph for a young fan during spring training in 2006. Vincent died Sunday at age 86.Read moreRichard Drew / AP

Francis T. “Fay” Vincent Jr., considered by many baseball purists to be the game’s last big-tent commissioner, died Sunday at the age of 86.

The man noted for welcoming any and all who played a role in the national pastime, never took heed in the belief that he was beholden only to those who paid his salary — the team owners.

The appreciations, obituaries, and walks down memory lane to the bad old days of labor warfare undoubtedly will focus on how his term was cut short because he would not accede to his bosses’ wishes to give them his full attention while holding players, umpires, and their unions at arm’s length. Full attention, that is, except when it came to labor negotiations, expansion, and the disciplining of a certain unruly owner of the New York Yankees.

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Vincent often would talk of regret. He dearly wanted to see his efforts to include all the game’s many contributors and participants in the collective finally transcend mere battles over the size of the slices of baseball’s financial pie.

What he never apologized for, even after he was forced to resign after three short years was this: He treated all with respect. He loved his stars, but also those who never rounded a base, sparing time for every groundskeeper as if they were a Gehrig or Greenberg, and every rookie as if he were Ruth or Jackie Robinson, no matter the consequences. He even loved talking with the media, all but unheard of by those in the boardrooms.

He felt a big house had rooms where peace could be found, contracts could be successfully brought to fruition. He, like his predecessor, Bart Giamatti, was a romanticist, and felt baseball should hold itself to a higher standard of civility.

Oh, well.

Vincent had another mission beyond bringing an end to the labor wars. He wanted the game to acknowledge the Negro Leaguers who had been denied the opportunity to become major leaguers because of the color of their skin.

Some may have asked why it still even mattered. Vincent became commissioner in 1989, when he was elevated from his deputy commissioner’s post following a fatal heart attack suffered by Giamatti, Vincent’s close friend and the seventh commissioner of baseball.

Vincent’s sudden rise occurred 42 years after Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, shattering baseball’s heinous color barrier, so his vision may not have been a front-burner issue for most. Still, Vincent saw the necessity of representing a population that was historically marginalized by a game and a nation. Otherwise, how else could baseball truly right the wrongs of racist owners, teams, commissioners, players, and fans if it didn’t acknowledge the inhumanity of its own role in making Jim Crow acceptable in America for so long?

So it was that in 1991, he attended the Baseball Hall of Fame’s first-ever Negro Leagues’ Reunion as a full-fledged sponsoring partner, an MLB first. His main purpose was to deliver a keynote address during the closing banquet. He did more than that.

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After consulting with NL president Len Coleman, Vincent told a rapt audience something never heard before. He officially apologized to all Negro Leaguers for baseball’s half century of segregationist policies, becoming the first commissioner to do so.

As I sat in the audience, reporting for the New York Times, I was mesmerized as he said: “As the eighth commissioner of baseball, I say to you with sorrow and regret, I apologize for the injustice you were subjected to. Every decent-thinking person in this country agrees. Your contribution to baseball was the finest kind because it was unselfish.”

There had been no heads-up that such a statement was coming. When he revealed his intent, his words stunned.

Just moments before, the elderly former players had entered the ballroom proudly, wearing their ancient woolen jerseys and team jackets, the swagger evident in their banter and collective carriage. The renewed competition and rivalries quickly gave way to other emotions.

The room filled with grown men and women (yes, female pro baseball players) who had spent their primes waiting for some formal recognition of the wrongs they knew they’d endured. Now the only sounds were the proud athletes openly weeping.

Vincent was not yet through. He and Major League Baseball Players Association chief Donald Fehr had previously agreed to do something extraordinary. They unveiled a joint MLB-MLBPA venture to underwrite health insurance for the players and their spouses for the rest of their lives.

Like many of the players he addressed, Vincent is now deceased. As stated before, he will more readily be remembered for not finding a road to lasting labor peace.

He didn’t let a devastating earthquake kill the remainder of the 1989 Bay Area World Series between San Francisco and Oakland. Alas, he was no longer around to save the 1994 Series. His successor, Allen “Bud” Selig, the first-ever owner-turned commissioner, joined with other club bosses to do what no world war, depression or pandemic could. They canceled the 1994 Fall Classic because of an ugly, unresolved labor stoppage.

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Today, I choose to remember not Vincent’s regrets, and the game’s failings, but one man’s triumphs on behalf of the underserved.

The former head of Columbia Pictures, an avid historian, and a prolific writer, Vincent did not fade away once out of office. He formed a group called the Vincent Fellows, which included Hall of Famer Larry Doby and Dodgers pitching legend Joe Black, two of the first to follow Jackie to the majors. Also in the group was a wondrous Negro Leaguer and storyteller, Slick Surratt. I tagged along, privileged to serve as media inquisitor and historian as we crisscrossed the country to meet with college students anxious to learn of that blight on our history known as the Jim Crow era.

Vincent underwrote that venture, as well as an expansive oral history project for the Hall of Fame that captured the journeys of some of the most influential players and other contributors to the game in the 20th century. In 2006, he chaired a committee that elevated 17 Negro Leagues pioneers, including Philadelphia’s Effa Manley, owner of the Newark Eagles, to the Hall of Fame.

I last spoke to Fay just a couple weeks ago. We remembered fondly our time on the road with Joe and Slick and Doby (what Larry preferred to be called). He sensed he would see his old friends soon, for he told me his time was short. He was at peace with that.

As we spoke, I choked back tears. My accomplishments while covering the game over 40-plus seasons would not have been possible if he and Bart hadn’t insisted that the baseball establishment pay attention to a newbie reporter from a middle-sized, out-of-NYC market paper (the Hartford Courant in Connecticut). I will never forget either because of that. And I will never forget Fay Vincent.

As the now-deceased Bill “Ready” Cash, formerly of the Philadelphia Stars, reminded at that historic reunion long ago: “I hope this reunion serves to change some minds about [Hall of Fame-worthy Negro Leaguers]. We earned it.”

So, too, did Fay.

Claire Smith is the founding executive director of the Claire Smith Center for Sports Media at Temple University. She is in the writers wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame and a Red Smith Award honoree.