Overview
He never set out to work in baseball, and so he never got co-opted by it in one direction or another. For Fay Vincent, baseball was a midlife lark, a chance to be a part of the game he'd always loved, to see it from the lofty perch of a field-level seat. He knew the game exerted a mighty hold on those who loved it; he had no idea how many doors inside those inner chambers would open to him once he had become part of its history.On one glorious morning of the midseason All-Star Game, Vincent got to sit, enthralled, as the sole audience for a private discussion of the game and its nuances between Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams, the heroes of his youth. (It was probably the longest conversation the two ever held, and Vincent ultimately found himself perhaps the only person to work his way out of and then back into DiMaggio's good graces.) He met and talked baseball with the likes of Yogi Berra, Warren Spahn, Joe Garagiola, Eddie Lopat, Whitey Ford, and Will Clark. He brought his legal training to bear on the delicate issue of whether Roger Clemens shouted "You motherfucker" or "That's a motherfucking strike" at an umpire in a playoff game (the former would justify his having been tossed from the game; the latter skirts offense but lands on the safe side). He was the lone outsider at the annual Hall of Fame banquet for the new inductees and their previously-so-honored immortal peers, listening and watching as the stories were retold, arguments re-raised, and techniques passed along. (Vincent watched, amazed, as Johnny Mize demonstrated to Ralph Kiner his method of getting around on an inside pitch - a piece of advice that might have been more useful were their playing days not forty years in the past.)
Being Baseball Commissioner puts you in the center of a unique slice of American life. The glorious history, the inside arcana of the game, the personalities, the pleasures - all these are there, and the job comes with the best seat in the house. But it is also a job presiding over a big and growing business, with contentious labor disputes and issues of the division of the spoils clouding the joy the game is supposed to bring. Vincent touches on these aspects - he is remarkably candid about his view of some of the owners, including the inept machinations of Bud Selig, and his respect for the more honest and capable guardians of the game in the upper ranks of the players union - but his main subject is the game itself, not the business. His book is divided into nine chapters - nine innings - each dealing with an aspect of his commissionership and the game in the top of the "inning", and a nine-man lineup (no DH for this purist) of shorter takes on players, umpires, owners, and other worthies in the bottom of each inning.
And what a period it covers! Vincent joined his friend A. Bartlett Giamatti in baseball's hierarchy just as the Pete Rose gambling investigation was getting underway. His portrait of the principals and the course of the negotiations is riveting; the evidence, says Vincent, was overwhelming, and Rose's ongoing denials are laughable and suggest that he had only a dim understanding of the agreement he signed. In just two months, Vincent had to deal with the culmination of that difficult matter; Giamatti's death just a few days after the announcement of Rose's banishment; his own elevation to an office he'd never sought nor dreamed he'd ever hold; and the aftermath of the major earthquake that struck the San Francisco Bay Area just as a World Series game was about to start. Vincent was magnificent through these ordeals, and his descriptions of the inner workings of the sport at such times makes for fascinating reading. (And not just the sport: he tells an unforgettable story about how first baseman Will Clark, baseball legend Willie Mays, the commissioner himself, and a foul ball all converged in an instant that showed the amazing instincts that separate great players from mere mortals.) He also tells fond stories of the two U.S. Presidents he calls 41 and 43: George H.W. Bush, whom Vincent got to know in the 1950s when he worked as a roughneck in the oil fields with Bush's brother Bucky; and George W., who was owner of the Texas Rangers when Vincent was commissioner, and who turned to Vincent for advice about whether to pursue a political career.
Throughout, Vincent maintains his good humor, and his love of baseball is the paramount force behind this most unusual memoir. The Last Commissioner is a loving valentine to the game that grips so many of us, even as we recoil from the business aspects that threaten to choke the pleasure from it for us paying customers.