Vincent was a baseball research legend
but somehow our conversation that day turned to his battle with stomach cancer. Then, as in the many times I chatted with him over the past few years, Vincent was forthcoming about his struggle. He talked about his treatment sessions, about the chemotherapy and the harder days.
He told me about the moment years ago when doctors told him he had months to live, and how he respectfully disagreed. That day, in that press box in Woodbridge, Vincent told me his goal was to live long enough to score the 2018 All-Star Game at Nationals Park. He sure came close.
I didn’t fully understand what the disease had taken from him until I noticed the old picture on his MLB identification card a few months ago. He was hardly recognizable to the man in that photo, hair gone, face gaunt. But the life never seemed to wane, not even as he weakened in recent months.
Every conversation left me so grateful for all I had, but also left me more determined to find what I didn’t — that ability to be positive, to appreciate, and to find perspective. One day this season, for example, Mr. Vincent wore one of those hats that looks like a visor and has fake hair popping up in the middle, an American Flag edition. He cracked up when I noticed it, and said “How’s my hair?” Press boxes are full of complaining, a prerequisite for life as a sportswriter. In that way, but no others, Vincent was out of place there.
One evening in June, he pulled me aside. He told me things had taken a turn for the worse, that his cancer was spreading. Doctors had told him it would be the cancer or treatment that killed him, he said. He had fought them both off for some time now. But the cancer was nearing victory.
Still, nothing seemed dire. He was there, scoring the game, something he did less this season than he had in the past because of his worsening condition. I asked him if he would ever consider telling his story. I thought baseball people — both the kind that have swung a bat in a big league game and those who never came close — would appreciate his devotion, how the game meant so much to him. He said he would rather not, not yet at least.
“Someday, when I decide to score my last game,” Vincent said with a smile. “I’ll give you the exclusive.”
As it turned out, David Vincent scored his last game at Nationals Park that day.
I know I won’t be alone in thinking of him often as I pass through the cafeteria tables where he used to grab dinner before the game, and pull me aside to chat about something or another, always with a smile, never without a corny joke.
I know I’ll never fully know the extent of his contributions to SABR and the game the way some of my older colleagues do, as evidenced by the outpouring of support from the baseball media community as word of his death spread Monday.
And I know that now, when I hear a scorer say “E6,” or “hit,” I’ll notice every time, and think of a man who loved the game so much it loved him back until the end. He will be missed.