New Britain Herald, CT
Nov 17 2004
Fay Vincent may speak at chamber event
By SCOTT WHIPPLE, Staff Writer
NEW BRITAIN — At Yale Law School, they were as close as the three
musketeers. Following graduation, they went their separate ways.
Bart Giamatti became commissioner of Major League Baseball. Fay
Vincent, a securities lawyer, ran Columbia Pictures for nearly 10
years before succeeding Giamatti as commissioner in 1989 following
his death. Harry Mazadoorian became a published author and law
professor at Quinnipiac University.
On Thursday, Mazadoorian will receive the New Britain Chamber of
Commerce’s prestigious Distinguished Community Service Award. Vincent
will be on hand for the celebration, and may say a few words on
behalf of his long-time friend.
“There are few people you meet in life about whom nobody says
anything bad,” Vincent said Tuesday. “To my knowledge, nobody has
ever said anything bad about Harry. Everyone likes him.”
Vincent said he and Giamatti used to call Mazadoorian “the designated
friend” after baseball’s designated hitter.
“The three of us had a lot in common,” Vincent said. “We’re all
ethnic. Harry’s Armenian; Bart was Italian; I’m Irish. We were all
from families that didn’t have much to start with. Harry’s family
worked for (The) Stanley Works; my grandfather worked for Scoville’s
in the factory.”
Vincent said that although Mazadoorian has become a significant
figure, he’s never changed.
“He’s always been very likable, very smart,” he said. “And he loves
New Britain.”
Mazadoorian and Vincent talk every day. Often, they chat about
baseball.
In September 1992, baseball owners voted 18-9 for Vincent’s
resignation. Vincent had ordered New York Yankees owner George
Steinbrenner to resign as the club’s general partner. Steinbrenner
had made a $40,000 payment to confessed gambler Howard Spira for
damaging information about Yankee star Dave Winfield.
“I liked having a job where part of it was going to baseball games,”
Vincent said. “I liked hanging around the ballparks, talking to the
umpires, managers and players.”
What he didn’t like were “the politics, the back-stabbing owners, and
all the anonymous quotes about me in the newspapers.”
Vincent spent the summer of 1956 at George W. Bush’s boyhood home in
Midland, Texas. He worked for George H.W. Bush in the oil fields that
summer and lived with the Bushes. The president was 9 years old then,
playing Little League baseball, and hardly a major league scout’s
dream candidate. When Bush owned the Texas Rangers, Vincent told him,
“You’d better be nice to me. Remember, I saw you play Little League
baseball.”
Barbara and George Bush were hospitable to Vincent that summer.
When Vincent got elected baseball commissioner, President George H.W.
Bush called to wish him well.
“If I had known you were going to become baseball commissioner when
you were working for me in the oil fields back in Texas, I would have
been a lot nicer to you,” Bush allegedly said.
Vincent replied, “Mr. President, if I had known you were going to be
president, I would have been a lot nicer to you.”
To Vincent, George H.W. Bush has always been a hero.
“I look up to him,” he said. “And, Georgie, his son — as we used to
call him — has come on to be a great man. I admire him, too.”
On Thursday, Vincent’s wife, Christina, will accompany him to the
awards dinner at the Student Center ballroom of Central Connecticut
State University. He said he hopes Mike Halloran, another Yale Law
School grad and gridiron great from New Britain High School, will be
at his table to cheer Mazadoorian on.