The Fay Vincent Sessions
“I ended up making probably $200,000,000 in a ten year period because of that one breakfast.”
Before we get to the breakfast that made former Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent a wealthy man, let’s begin with the accident.
“When someone writes my obituary, they’re going to ignore the accident ’cause it won’t occur to them that that was the pivotal event in my life.”
Any time you see Fay Vincent standing, you will notice his cane. The cane is his constant companion. It has been since college. Since the accident.
“I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t regret the fact that I can’t walk properly, and that I have to use help, and I use a wheelchair. Every time I have to deal with it, it bothers me.”
I recently visited Fay Vincent, the eighth Commissioner of Major League Baseball, at his home in Connecticut, for my Wavemaker Conversations podcast. I wanted to talk baseball, eventually. But first I wanted to learn more about the accident and the remarkable developments that followed.
Fay Vincent was a formidable athlete. 6-foot-3, 230 pounds. He was recruited by Williams College to play football. He was captain of the freshman team.
Vincent remembers the final game of the season, against Williams’ arch-rival Amherst.
“I was big, and I was doing some damage that day, and they couldn’t block me. The Amherst coach yelled out ‘if you don’t start blocking that kid, he’s going to kill someone.’ And I thought that was the ultimate affirmation … I’m not going to forget that, because that coach is worried about me, and I kinda like that.”
One month later, a friend played a practical joke, locking Vincent in his dorm room. Vincent couldn’t knock down the door, so he opened the window.
“I went out on the ledge. It’s December 10th, 1956, and the ledge was covered with ice. I was stupid. I fell and it was a fourth floor window, so I fell four stories.”
Fay Vincent was paralyzed for months, from his chest down. If he were your son, what would you say to him?
“And my mother, who was a great woman, said to me ‘look, your brain is fine. Your body’s hurt badly, but there’s nothing wrong with your brain. And you oughta be able to construct a very good life centered around your brain, not on your legs.’”
Fay Vincent internalized his mother’s advice.
Despite the many months of school he was forced to miss, he set out to graduate from Williams on schedule. He took seven classes a semester. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and went to Yale Law School, where he failed to achieve a central academic goal, a failure that stung him for two decades. He explains why in our podcast. How did he respond to his setback?
“I responded by being aware that there are a lot of smart people out there, and that being smart was only part of it…. I could become prominent by being diligent. I could make up for sheer brilliance by just being a hard worker.”
And so, Fay Vincent, after graduating from Yale Law School, worked diligently, first in a law firm, then at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the federal agency that regulates Wall Street.
After about two decades of diligence, an esteemed investment banker, Herbert Allen, invited Vincent to breakfast. Allen offered Vincent a major position in the movie industry.
“I said, come on. I’m not a businessman. I don’t even go to the movies. I don’t like the movies. I have no interest. And you’ve got the wrong guy.”
Fay Vincent accepted the job: president of Columbia Pictures.
“I ended up making probably $200,000,000 in a ten year period because of that one breakfast.”
How did Fay Vincent, a guy with no business experience, enter an industry about which he knew nothing, and make a fortune?
The answers are revealed, layer by layer, in this episode of Wavemaker Conversations: A Podcast for the Insanely Curious.
As you’ll hear, Fay Vincent is a Hall of Fame storyteller.
As for his cane: it has always been a burden, but never an excuse.
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