Giamatti Constantly on Vincent's Mind : About Bay Area Series? 'Something Eloquent and Memorable'

Giamatti Constantly on Vincent’s Mind : About Bay Area Series? ‘Something Eloquent and Memorable’

By JIM DONAGHY

Oct. 16, 1989 12 AM PT

Associated Press BASEBALL WRITER

SAN FRANCISCO — Hardly an inning goes by during the World Series that Fay Vincent does not think about Bart Giamatti.

Mostly, baseball’s new commissioner thinks about what he misses about his good friend.

He misses many things, but especially the eloquence and the humor.

For six months, Giamatti and Vincent made plans for baseball. Their plans included attending Giamatti’s first World Series as commissioner in October.

But Giamatti had a fatal heart attack on Sept. 1, and a couple weeks later Vincent took his friend’s place.

During the last 10 days, Vincent has spent a lot of time in the Bay Area attending the playoffs and World Series.

At the Oakland Coliseum on Sunday before Game 2, Vincent was asked what Giamatti would have thought about a Bay Area Series.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Vincent wondered aloud. “He would have said something eloquent and memorable, I’m sure. It is beyond me.”

Vincent, however, does have the ability to make people around him feel comfortable despite still grieving for his friend.

“For me it’s still hard to believe,” he said. “It seems so unreal. I still feel Bart is here.”

Vincent’s thoughts drifted and he looked to the outfield sky, then to the commissioner’s box where Giamatti would have presided and told his stories.

“His son threw out the first ball yesterday, and this World Series is being dedicated to his memory,” the commissioner said. “The tributes were nice.”

Giamatti, a Renaissance scholar, also loved to write about baseball, and his words painted a picture of feelings, rather than statistics.

When a visitor would call on Giamatti, he showed a shy excitement when bringing out some articles he had written about the game. If you wanted, copies were available.

“Before he died, Bart finished a book, and it will be coming out soon; you’ll enjoy it,” Vincent said. “He asked me to read it, and I told him I particularly liked the end of the third chapter. He asked what was wrong with the first two.”

But just as the game goes on, so does the job of the new commissioner.

In the months to come, Vincent will be faced with tough labor negotiations and expansion.

“I don’t think expansion is necessary, but it probably will happen,” Vincent said. “It’s difficult to deny expansion. There is a terrific interest in various areas of the country.”

Vincent is a former CEO at Columbia pictures and a high-ranking executive with Coca-Cola. Giamatti appointed him deputy commissioner because of Vincent’s keen business sense.

When it comes to the negotiations with the players’ union, Vincent said he will be “opportunistic” in helping the process.

But the few days of the World Series is a time for fun and, this year, a time for reflection.

“I never had so many good invitations,” Vincent joked. “I went to some World Series games in 1986 when the Mets played Boston and in the early ‘60s when the Yankees were in it. This is great. I think the World Series is a terrific event.

“Bart and I had looked forward to being here together.”

One would like to think they are.