HE IS SUPER AND HE'S PROUD TO BE FAY: I just finished "The Last Commissioner," the autobiography of former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent, and I must say I can't remember the last time I was so disappointed with a book.
As a longtime chronicler of the idiocies of baseball under the Bud Selig regime, I was looking forward to an intelligent analysis of the game from the man who Selig drove from office, preferably with astute commentary on all of the events in baseball (on and off the field) in the decade since. Unfortunately, that's not the book Vincent wrote. Instead, he put together a self-serving collection of unamusing anecdotes, doting tributes to pretty much everyone Vincent has ever met in baseball, the author's creepy fixation with umpires (his father was an ump), and a tiresome amount of name-dropping. Vincent, for one, makes sure from page one that we know how close he's always been to the Bush family, as he mentions over a dozen times that he once roomed in Midland, TX, with Bucky Bush (brother of Bush 41). Vincent's rampant use of the phrase "my very good friend" makes Sid Hartman sound like the world's loneliest man.
Vincent, clearly still upset that he was driven out of the game in 1992 by a cabal of hardline owners led by Selig and Jerry Reinsdorf, gave some excellent, damning quotes to reporter Frank Deford for his profile last year of Selig (Sports Illustrated, 7/8/'02). The book's very title, after all, signifies that the author rightly considers Bud's commissionership illegitimate. But Vincent was clearly so committed to writing his memoir as a touchy-feely reflection on his years in the game that he spends much less time than he should on the most important events of his tenure, namely the banishment of Pete Rose from the game by his predecessor Bart Giamatti, and Vincent's losing power struggle with Selig. The Rose chapter feels incomplete and unfinished, and Vincent doesn't touch on his departure or the current woes of the game until the very end. Hell, Bud Selig is mentioned in the book fewer times than Bucky Bush is.
I remember reading that around the time of his ouster, Vincent was considering writing a memoir about his time as commissioner and the circumstances under which he left, but backed out of the deal at the last moment. I would still love to read that book, as clearly few people have the insight into the intricicies of the baseball business that Fay Vincent does. But as of now, after this misfire, the ex-commish is 0-for-1.