Fay Vincent - what I learned from a Baseball Commissioner even though I've never thrown a baseball!

A student asked Soen Nakagawa during a meditation retreat,

"I am very discouraged. What should I do?"

Soen replied -

"Encourage others."

Essential Zen

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Several years ago, Esquire Magazine highlighted fifty male celebrities from entertainment to politics to sports, each of whom offered a snapshot of the person who helped to make them who they are today.

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I was moved by each response and in the ensuing days spent time thinking about who has helped to make me the person I am today.

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Beginning from my time as an undergrad at Fordham U, I’ve been fortunate to cross paths with a number of remarkable men and women from various famous and not so-famous corners of life. One of those people is Fay Vincent who died this past Saturday.

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He was a noteworthy enough person to have his obituary land in the Sunday edition of NewYorkTimes.

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The headline reads:

Fay Vincent, Baseball Commissioner in a Stormy Era, Dies at 86

He presided in a period of union strife, the emergence of steroid use, the banning of Pete Rose and an earthquake that rattled a World Series.

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?I remember him, though, as the man who graciously taught me the art and the gift of listening.

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In 1989 he became Baseball’s eighth commissioner. I first met him, though, a few years earlier when he was Executive V.P. of Entertainment for Coca-Cola, which, at that time, owned Columbia Pictures.

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I’d just resigned from ministry as a Catholic priest, having been a member of the religious order of Jesuits. I had made a leap of faith (pun intended) and was without work, hoping to find my way into the world of film production.

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I was so very much the “bubble boy” coming out of the bubble. I was lost – and knew it.

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Through a friend (the true Hollywood way), I got a meeting with Fay. At the time, I was clueless as to his stature.

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I with met him at the legendary Beverly Hills Hotel. He was in town for a typical bunch of meetings and somehow he found time to squeeze me in. I was beyond nervous and uncertain.?

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“Cordial” doesn’t begin to capture his graciousness.

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He ushered me into his bungalow and as I was about to sit down, he picked-up the phone and called the front desk. He asked not to be disturbed for the next fifteen minutes.

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He then turned and matter-of-factly said, “So, tell me your story.”

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For fifteen, uninterrupted minutes, that’s what I did.

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At the end, he simply said, “Well, we have to get you a job.”

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I wanted to cry as I felt such relief – because in my state of disbelief ?he was able to turn my struggle into such a simple matter.

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He instructed me to call his assistant the following Monday and she’d have names for me to contact.

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Come Monday, I decided not to call since the more I had thought about our meeting, the more I’d convinced myself that he had just been “nice” and didn’t really mean what he’d said.

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Yes, I was / am New York Irish Catholic!

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On Tuesday, his assistant called, wondering why I hadn’t contacted her. When I told her, she was taken aback and assured me, “If Mr. Vincent didn’t want to help you, he wouldn’t have led you on.”

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Well, eventually I did get a job thanks to his introduction –? but – that’s another story.?

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Fay Vincent became a hero of mine.

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He listened when there was no reason to do so.

He gave me his full attention when I was desperate for someone to see me.

He believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.

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Those last three sentences read like clichés – and yet they are as true as true can be.

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In all these years since that generous encounter, I have been committed to being for others what Fay was for me.

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For Fay, his meeting with me was but a speck of a moment in what became an illustrious career.

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For me, though, it was a Masterclass in graciousness and in the art of impactful listening.

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I’ve told this story innumerable times in workshops and classes and I tell it again, here, in this posting, with warm gratitude.

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What about you – who helped make you the person you are today?