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The Last Commissioner: A Baseball ValentineOn a beautiful July morning in 1991, three men gathered in a hotel suite for an informal breakfast and conversation. The discussion ranged widely over events and characters of the past, famous names and fabled accomplishments flowing along with the coffee and juice. Two of them, Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio, were the ultimate symbols of athletic glory for generations of American men. The third man, Fay Vincent, was living a dream, sitting with and
On a beautiful July morning in 1991, three men gathered in a hotel suite for an informal breakfast and conversation. The discussion ranged widely over events and characters of the past, famous names and fabled accomplishments flowing along with the coffee and juice. Two of them, Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio, were the ultimate symbols of athletic glory for generations of American men. The third man, Fay Vincent, was living a dream, sitting with and asking questions of his boyhood heroes. Fay Vincent never set out to be the commissioner of baseball. He got into the game alongside his good friend A. Bartlett Giamatti, as deputy commissioner, when Giamatti was named to the sport's highest office in 1989. They spent their first spring and summer dealing with Pete Rose's gambling, and Vincent's legal expertise complemented his friend's moral thunder. But that was to be their only season working side by side, as Bart Giamatti's heart gave out just days after the announcement of the Rose suspension. Vincent found himself the only logical candidate to fill a position as guardian of the best interests of the game he loves. In The Last Commissioner: A Baseball Valentine, Vincent takes us along for the ultimate fan's fantasy camp. As commissioner, he got to talk baseball with the likes of Yogi Berra, Larry Doby, Warren Spahn, Ernie Banks, Eddie Lopat, Whitey Ford, and Henry Aaron. He brought his legal training to bear on the delicate issue of whether Roger Clemens uttered the magic word that would justify his being tossed out of a playoff game (and it's not the word you think). He was one of the few outsiders at the annual Hall of Fame banquet for the new inductees and their immortal peers, where he watched, amazed, as Johnny Mize demonstrated to Ralph Kiner his method of hitting an inside pitch -- a piece of advice from forty years past. And he brought equal respect and attention to the greats of the Negro Leagues, listening to the gracefully told stories of Joe Black and Buck O'Neil, slowly learning how Slick Surratt earned his nickname, hearing Jimmie Crutchfield give as good a definition of a well-lived life as we will ever know. Vincent shares these stories and more: his high regard for umpires, instilled in his youth by his father, an NFL official and respected local ump; his close relations with the Bush family, forged in a summer spent working in the oil fields with his schoolmate Bucky Bush, the 41st president's brother (and 43rd president's uncle); his unusual experiences with the relentless George Steinbrenner, including the famous meeting where the Yankees owner was facing a two-year suspension and plea-bargained it down to a lifetime ban. Vincent also gives his candid views on the state of baseball today, firm in his belief that the game will survive its current leadership and even prosper. Through it all, Vincent's deep love of baseball shines through. His most remarkable accomplishment as commissioner may have been to emerge from the office with his fandom intact. The Last Commissioner is truly a valentine to the game, written with the insight and vision that comes from the lofty perch of the ultimate front-row seat.Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 09/21/2007
ISBN: 9781416578017
Pages: 336
Weight: 1.14lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.79d
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4.8 ★★★★★
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Product Reviews
★★★★★ 5
A Great Read... (for those in the legal field)
A great gift for those in the legal field. We ordered several for gifts throughout the year.. Made a great little gift basket with a bottle of whiskey :)
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Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2026
★★★★★ 5
Elegant, useful
Simply the best book on legal persuasive writing ever written.
Interesting, useful, fun, full of great anecdotes. Terrific discussion of statutory interpretation. Great references to scholarly classical treatises on rhetoric. This book is wonderful both for its analysis of oral argument and for its discussion of written forms of persuasion, like briefs. I wish I had had it earlier.
My only complaint is the same one I have with virtually all modern style manuals: they advocate a simplistic prose style, characterized by short, conversational sentences, avoiding unusual words, eschewing Latin phrases. But I personally often find prose that breaks these rules a refreshing change. I enjoy reading a word or phrase I rarely see but that is perfectly chosen. And I enjoy learning new words or phrases. This book would condemn two of the greatest legal prose stylists out there: John Marshall and Learned Hand, both of whose opinions often contained sentences that would not work so well conversationally, that were full of long, convoluted sentences and classical allusions. My sense is that in this joint work Justice Scalia, who can write rich and interesting prose, pushed back against some of the simplifying strictures of his co-author.
Furthermore, I think that often too much emphasis on simple words and sentences serves to make more complex ideas too difficult to express or to understand. Thus, the book (like most books) argues against "jargon," but jargon, once learned, is often a much clearer way of expressing something than a rephrasing.
And the Roe v. Wade anecdote is great! It explains a lot...
In any case, I am hardly qualified to criticize Justice Scalia, whose writing is far beyond my own. Anyway, this is a great book.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2008
★★★★★ 5
Recomendado para todo estudiante de Derecho
Libro fácil de leer y fácil de comprender. Recomendado
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Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2026
★★★★★ 5
Wonderful and useful book.
Format: Kindle
I am very glad I purchased this book. I used it over and over again. Wrote many notes and it added much value to pursue my cases at courts. This is a true asset for providing an overall overview with much advice.
I also purchased his other book The Winning Brief, but that is only available in paper format and it is mainly for linguistic help in writing briefs for appellate court, for the purpose of really perfecting your writing. At lower courts or supreme courts you just do not have the time to think in that much details and these courts may not even read it. You are lucky if you can say two sentences on court appearances. They do not put that much into details when making judgments, so most likely your case ends up in the appellate, and here that book becomes valuable too - The Winning Brief.
Again, this book really excellent and pleasant to read. The Kindle version was easy to search for anything, word, phrase, notes.
5 star book. THANKS.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2018
★★★★★ 5
Amazing survey of the internet law to today
Excellent text and survey of internet law, its history and origins and discussions around where the law is trending. Highly recommend for anyone interested in internet law or anyone supporting teams developing products or services that touch the internet.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 25, 2024
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