The Week That Was: January 27 – Feb 2

Former commissioner, Fay Vincent, passed away at age 86.

We’ve now passed through the final week of January (all 674563 days of it), and have arrived in February, the month that baseball returns! While the Tigers had their own exciting news late Sunday evening , there was a lot of other stuff that went down this past week.

A former commissioner (who actually seemed to like baseball) passed away; this year’s face of MLB The Show has been selected; Max Scherzer has a new home; and the Yankees get candid about what they did and didn’t do after losing out on Juan Soto.

Former Commissioner Fay Vincent Passes Away

There was once a time when a baseball commissioner was not just a mouthpiece for ownership, and actually wanted to grow and do what was good for baseball. That seems like a long-forgotten era at this point, but one of those great commissioners passed away this past weekend.

Fay Vincent was a former lawyer who was MLB commission from 1989 to 1992, a short run, but a memorable one. As assistant commissioner, before he took over the mantle, Vincent was part of the team that negotiated Pete Rose’s withdrawal from baseball following his betting scandal. After Bart Giamatti died suddenly, Vincent succeeded his friend to become the eighth commissioner of baseball. A few of the wilder moments of his career included a World Series interrupted by an earthquake, an owners’ lockout, George Steinbrenner being expelled, and appointed the committee that changed the definition of a no-hitter to require nine complete innings. Vincent wanted to do away with the DH, but never managed to make it happen in his short tenure.

Vincent didn’t make a lot of friends with baseball’s owners during his time in office, and a no-confidence vote from those owners made it so Vincent was never able to finish the term started by Giamatti. Vincent seemed to have great ideas for baseball and a strong sense of fairness and justice—he was the one who refused to allow Pete Rose re-instatement—there was never really an opportunity to see what he might have been able to achieve.

Vincent clearly loved the game, because even after his time as commissioner ended, he wrote several books about baseball.

He passed away from bladder cancer on February 1st. He was 86.

• Tyler Kepner memorializes Vincent. ($)

Quick Hits

• Rob Manfred reflects on a decade as commissioner .
• Elly De La Cruz will be on the cover of MLB The Show 2025 .

• SABR Awards finalists are announced if you want to go through some of the best baseball writing this year .

• Manny Machado gets candid about the Padres’ quiet offseason .
• Daniel Brown shares the lovely memorial for Ricky Henderson . ($)
• Ichiro Suzuki has a very chill response to learning about his election to the Hall of Fame.
• Max Scherzer is heading to the Blue Jays on a one-year deal .
• The Dodgers apparently felt the need to add more pitching depth… ($)
• Are the Dodgers poised to be the next big dynasty in sports?
• Despite complications, Shohei Ohtani appears to be on schedule to return as a two-way player this season .
• The Yankees open up about their offseason moves after they lost out on Juan Soto.

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