The Man Who Would Be Commissioner

Fay Vincent died yesterday at the age of 86. He served as commissioner of baseball from 1989 to 1992. It was an interesting time. Vincent admitted to owners’ collusion in trying to suppress free-agent salaries; banned the Yankees’ George Steinbrenner from day-to-day control of the Yankees; and forced an end to the spring-training lockout in 1990. The former movie CEO and lawyer made the mistake of thinking the commissioner was independent of the owners. Bud Selig and Jerry Reinsdorf taught Vincent otherwise. The Sun-Times ran the AP obituary, mentioning Selig and Reinsdorf’s involvement in Vincent’s ouster. The obit on mlb.com skipped that bit of information.