Owners to Talk to Schott : Baseball: The executive council will meet by phone Tuesday to discuss allegations of racism against the chief officer of the Reds.

Baseball’s executive council will meet by phone Tuesday to begin an investigation into the Marge Schott controversy.

A team owner and member of the executive council told The Times on Saturday night that, pending the result of that investigation, there is a strong possibility that the chief executive officer of the Cincinnati Reds will be asked to resign at the winter baseball meetings in Louisville, which begin next weekend.

“If an investigation proves her statements are accurate,” the owner and council member said of the racist and anti-Semitic statements that have been attributed to Schott, “she will probably be asked to resign at Louisville, and for the good of the game and herself, I hope she does.

“If not, I suspect she will be suspended for life. The situation has become too destructive to baseball.”

Former Red employees, in depositions taken for a wrongful-firing suit last December, said Schott made racist references and kept a swastika armband in her home. Sharon Jones, a former employee of the Oakland Athletics, subsequently said that she heard Schott say during a conference call with other owners that she would rather have a “trained monkey” working for her than another black.

The owner, who declined to be identified, said Saturday night that Schott might not recognize what she is saying and how she is saying it, but she has a penchant for making remarks of that type.

“Gentile, white, Hispanic. It’s anybody and everybody,” the owner said.

“She doesn’t trust anybody, doesn’t like anybody. Everybody who works for her is stupid and incompetent. She seems to harbor a lot of negative feeling.”

In an interview with the New York Times published in Sunday’s editions, Schott only seemed to inflame the situation while insisting she is not a racist and that she is “sick and discouraged” by the controversy and “tired of the falseness.”

She acknowledged using racist terms, but said she meant it “only kiddingly.” They were “joke terms,” she said.

She acknowledged, as well, that “nigger” is a demeaning word but said, “blacks call it to each other, too. I’ve been in the business world for 24 years and never had any problem with discrimination.

“I’ve got a Jewish manager in my car dealership who is like a son to me. And it hurt when it was reported that I called Eric (Davis) and Dave (Parker) ‘nigger this’ or ‘nigger that.’

“I love Eric. It hurt me when they booed him here. I love his parents, really good people. I called Eric the other day and explained to him that it wasn’t true. I tried to call Dave, too, but I haven’t reached him yet.”

Schott also recalled being admonished by National League President Bill White for using the word “Jap” when speaking with him this week.

“Bill said to me, ‘Marge, will you quit that!”’ she quoted White as saying. “I said, ‘Bill, I didn’t know it was so bad. But I’ll stop.’ I didn’t mean to insult the Japanese. I love them. I have the greatest respect for the way they’ve come back in the world.”

Schott also referred to the suffering of relatives in Germany during World War II and said: “Hitler was good in the beginning, but he went too far.”