Committee to Investigate Schott Case : Baseball: The Angels’ Jackie Autry is among the four who will study the allegations of racism by the Reds’ owner.

Baseball’s executive council selected a four-person committee Tuesday to investigate the racial and ethnic remarks that have been attributed to Marge Schott, chief executive officer of the Cincinnati Reds.

The council, which met for an hour by phone, said in a statement that the committee has been asked to conduct the investigation “thoroughly and with all appropriate dispatch.”

A member of the council who declined to be identified said it is possible that the committee will have a report ready by Monday, when the council meets again at the winter baseball meetings in Louisville, Ky., “but we would rather do it right than be restricted by an artificial deadline.”

The council member said that although there has been a considerable investigation already, Schott and others will be interviewed over the next few days. The member said that the committee was established to create the basis of due process and prepare a “beachhead of evidence” that will withstand any legal challenge by Schott, if she is suspended or asked to resign.

The committee consists of Jackie Autry, executive vice president of the Angels; Doug Danforth, chairman of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the American and National League presidents, Bobby Brown and Bill White.

Autry, who has said that Schott should face disciplinary action if the remarks attributed to her are accurate, said Tuesday that as a committee member any further comment would be inappropriate.

Schott, meanwhile, did not return messages left at her office and home. In an ESPN interview, she said she was “prepared to fight” any charges against her but also hinted of a willingness to sell her interest in the Reds, saying, “I never want to be someplace I’m not wanted.”

On Monday, Schott had denied the racist remarks attributed to her by Sharon Jones, a former employee of the Oakland Athletics, saying that her life was an open book.

“Unfortunately, that book is ‘Mein Kampf,’ ” said one baseball official Tuesday.

Jones, who has accused Schott of saying that she would prefer to have “a trained monkey” working for her than another black, is among those who will be interviewed by the committee. Many of Schott’s statements belittling blacks, Jews and Asians come from depositions taken during a wrongful-firing suit filed by a former employee last December.

Said one council member, who also declined to be identified: “Most of us have only read the excerpts that have appeared in press accounts. The committee needs to read the entire transcripts and talk to other people.”

During the ESPN interview Tuesday, Schott was asked about the swastika armband she has at her home and said it was given to her by an employee 24 years ago.

“There’s a lot of people who have things from the second World War and from the Confederate war, but I’ve never thought (of it) as offensive,” she said. “I don’t know the big deal about it.”

Asked how Schott’s freedom-of-speech rights weigh on the Major League Agreement that authorizes a commissioner or the executive council to fine, suspend or place a player, umpire or club or league official on the permanently ineligible list for conduct or acts not in the game’s best interest, a baseball official said:

“There have been dozens of cases where a commissioner fined or suspended owners for public comments or otherwise exercising their First Amendment rights. That would not be without precedent.”

There have also been two cases in which an owner was forced to sell. Commissioner Ford Frick forced Fred Saigh to sell the St. Louis Cardinals in 1954 over an income tax scandal, and Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis forced William Cox to sell the Philadelphia Phillies in 1943 in response to a gambling scandal.

Carl Kroch and George Strike, two limited partners in the Reds’ ownership group, were quoted by the Cincinnati Enquirer Tuesday as saying that Schott should be barred from baseball for life if her statements are found to be accurate. In addition, NAACP Executive Director Benjamin L. Hooks said Schott should resign, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson said he would schedule an anti-Schott rally during next week’s baseball meetings.