Reds’ Good-Luck Charm: Hair of the Dog

Shortly before the start of an exhibition game in this subdivided swamp, Marge Schott, principal owner of the Cincinnati Reds, visits her manager, Lou Piniella.

Marge looks about furtively and, deciding the coast is clear, slips Lou several strands of dog hair.

It isn’t ordinary dog hair. It comes from Schottzie, the faithful canine of Marge, who also works with Schottzie’s backup, Sigfried Von Schottzhof, billed as Siggie.

Before maybe 60 games last season, Marge delivers hair from Schottzie to Piniella. And you needn’t be reminded that Cincinnati has a very big year.

It is so big, in fact, that four World Series games are played and, bolstered by dog hair, Cincinnati wins all four.

Now, at Plant City, which sounds like a place where they pot chrysanthemums, Marge slips Schottzie’s hair to her manager, who responds: “It is only an exhibition game. Are you sure we’re not making our move too soon?”

She assures him they aren’t, indicating the Cincinnati owner has come to play this year, making the Reds again a force to be reckoned with.

Last year in the regular season, the Reds win 91 games, a number not rated excessive. But, unwaveringly, Piniella tells you he will settle for that figure this year “because it will be enough to win the National League West again.”

Lou is mild for one so exposed to life’s hardness. Never a minor league manager, he served only a year and a half as coach for the Yankees when, suddenly, he is named manager.

In order, he wins 90 games and 89 games. No one pays attention. At Cincinnati, he wins 91--and he is a tactical genius in the class of Norman Schwarzkopf.

Concludes Lou, “Tell me the game is sane.”

At New York, Lou moves from manager to general manager, back to manager and out.

Still, life with George Steinbrenner is conventional in the context of what he encounters at Cincinnati, thundering with commotion in the backwash of the Pete Rose debacle.

Vestiges of the case linger. Over the locker of Jose Rijo, pitching stalwart of the Reds, is pasted the sticker: “Pete Rose Belongs in the Hall of Fame.”

Up until now, he has been admitted only to jail and a halfway house. He did it to himself, but many of the players he managed retain a soft spot for him.

The team that won the National League pennant last year and then blitzed Oakland in the World Series remains very much the same this time--same pitchers, same infield, same outfield, same dogs.

This isn’t bad, considering the Reds led their league last year in hitting and fielding and finished second in pitching.

“We are very young,” Piniella points out. “Only two players on our roster are past 30.”

Eric Davis, who hits more home runs than most people, is only 28, but is still in the recovery stage of an unorthodox injury. Pursuing a fly ball at Oakland, he fell and lacerated a kidney. The odds against lacerating a kidney in a baseball game are even longer than against lacerating a liver, although pondering the two, some would call it pick-it.

Preferring treatment in Cincinnati, Davis charters a plane whose tab the Reds’ owner lets him finger, figuring he could have flown commercial.

Davis calls her cheap, which upsets her to where she fingers the tab, but it doesn’t help the kidney, which is slow mending, but will be all right.

Not far from the ballpark at Plant City, the Reds’ minor league players occupy a low-budget motel, the kind that doesn’t leave a mint on the pillow, and the major leaguers revel in the comparative luxury of a Holiday Inn.

That would be the major leaguers who don’t choose to rent independently. Many do, no doubt making the trip to Florida with their butlers, who bring up breakfast in the morning with a copy of the Wall Street Journal on the tray.

The living whereabouts of Marge Schott this spring aren’t known, but she used to reside at the Holiday Inn, which obviously admits pets.

Cheering the Reds to a World Series championship, she continues to operate her auto agencies in Cincinnati, confiding to us one time:

“When our salesmen are working on a customer, I remind them we go for a profit, but not a wipe-out.”

One can’t ask much more of a dealership, but noting it is only the exhibition season and Marge already is slipping Schottzie’s hair to her manager, you tend to suspect she doesn’t aim to make this a year of Ms. Nice Guy.