COLUMN LEFT / JESSE JACKSON : Hit a Schott Out of the Park for Baseball : The Reds owner deserves her peers’ censure; now will they clean up their all-white act?

For years, Marge Schott, owner of the Cincinnati Reds baseball team, has been an embarrassment; now she is a scandal. She is accused of making blatantly racist and ethnic slurs about African-Americans and Jews.

Schott initially denied making some of the comments and discounted others as “joke terms.” But this is no joke for major league baseball. And this week at the winter club meetings in Louisville, Ky., the owners considered sanctions against Schott, ranging from fines to her ouster from baseball. They did so in part because the U.S. Senate antitrust subcommittee, chaired by Ohio’s Howard Metzenbaum, is holding hearings on whether to strip major league baseball of the 70-year exemption from antitrust laws that makes baseball teams cash cows for monopoly owners.

On Wednesday, Schott offered an apology to those she has offended and said the remarks attributed to her had come from her mouth, not from her heart. She said she didn’t want to hurt anyone, or baseball. Her apology is appropriate and should be accepted. Still, she needs distance from baseball for a year or more and some sensitivity training.

But while the owners probably will censure Schott as a “detriment to the game,” they would do well to remember the teaching of Matthew in the New Testament, who warned against beholding the “mote that is in thy brother’s eye,” while ignoring the “beam in thine own eye.” As Schott herself said in apologizing: “Minority issues have been present in baseball long before I came to the game.”

When Al Campanis, the Dodger general manager, made similarly outrageous remarks in 1987, he became the scapegoat of the day. But his and Schott’s slurs took place in circles that are almost exclusively for whites. If Schott were to defend herself by quoting how other owners and general managers talk in their closed sessions, how many would escape unscathed?

The owners should focus not simply on Schott’s language, but on their own behavior. Schott employs only one black in her 45-member front office staff. But minorities are notably absent in all of baseball’s power positions. There are 28 presidents but not one is black or Latino; 28 general managers, not one minority; 28 directors of personnel, chief scouts, chief financial officers, on-air play-by-play commentators--all whites.

This is a quota system, with the quota for minorities set at zero. Forty-five years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, the players on the field and the fans in the stands are integrated, but the front offices are not.

There is no excuse for this. Minorities are shut out by lack of access, not talent.

It has become fashionable in some circles to dismiss affirmative action as “elitist,” serving only to give an unfair advantage to unqualified minority candidates. Since legalized segregation is behind us, the argument goes, everyone has equal opportunity under the law.

But look at the staff of any institution exempt from affirmative action--whether Congress, the Supreme Court, the White House under Reagan and Bush, or major league baseball luxuriating in its antitrust exemption and tax loopholes--and you will see patterns of hiring that systematically lock out minorities and women.

Baseball is as American as apple pie. The President throws out the first ball of the season. Congress gives it special favors. Its stars are national heroes; its games are broadcast around the globe.

It is time for baseball to deal with more than one Schott at a time. The players themselves should take a lead in this. Too many have accepted dollars at the sacrifice of dignity. They have the prestige and the power to speak; their silence has helped no one.

They should remember the legacy of Jackie Robinson who opened these doors to them. Each year after the season, he would tour the country speaking at NAACP meetings, using his personal triumphs to empower others.

Our country’s leaders should insist that baseball join the modern age. Congress should insist that a strong, independent commissioner be chosen, with a mandate to enforce affirmative-action guidelines--goals, targets and timetables for irreversible structural change. Each team must ensure that minorities have access to the power pipeline.

President-elect Clinton, who repeatedly said in his campaign that we have not one person to waste, should speak out, not simply against Sister Schott’s language, but against baseball’s behavior. He can signal private industry that a quota of zero is unacceptable. Certainly, he ought not grace baseball with his presence on opening day, unless baseball opens up to the new climate that he represents.