NEW YORK — Fay Vincent, who became an unexpected commissioner of baseball in 1989 after the death of A. Bartlett Giamatti, then was forced out three years later by MLB team owners intent on a labor confrontation with players, has died. He was 86.
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.
“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,” Rob Manfred, who has been the sport’s commissioner since 2015, said in a statement released Sunday.
A lawyer who became a movie studio executive at the behest of a college friend, Vincent had been retired for three decades and lived in Vero Beach as well as New Canaan in his native Connecticut.
During his three-year tenure as commissioner, Vincent had a string of what he called “three-cigar days,” angering owners by becoming the first management official to admit the collusion among Major League Baseball teams against free agents after the 1985, ’86 and ’87 seasons. He suspended New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, divided expansion fees between the American League and the National League, attempted to force NL realignment and negotiated a settlement that ended a lockout during spring training in 1990.