Reds Owner Schott Barred 1 Year, Fined for Race Slurs

Baseball’s governing Executive Council made it official Wednesday, culminating an investigation into Marge Schott’s racial and ethnic slurs by suspending the Cincinnati Reds owner for one year.

The council, in a statement signed by the 10 members, also:

* Reprimanded and censured Schott “in the strongest terms” for her use of “racially and ethnically insensitive language” and “sternly warned her” against continuing that practice.

* Directed her to attend and complete multicultural training programs to be conducted by an organization acceptable to the Executive Council.

* Fined her $25,000.

If Schott complies with all of the terms and conditions of the sanctions, the suspension, which starts March 1, may be lifted on Nov. 1. If reinstated, she will be on probation until Feb. 28, 1994.

Schott did not attend the Executive Council meeting, but her attorney, Robert Bennett of Washington, said she has agreed to the terms and will not sue, though “she does not agree with the views and opinions” contained in the Executive Council conclusion.

“She is upset and depressed, though I don’t mean that in a clinical sense, because she believes she has been singled out,” Bennett said. “She believes that many in baseball, from A to Z, have used similar language, and she has acknowledged and apologized for using that language.”

Bennett said he had a 53-page court complaint ready to file, based on his belief that Schott has a right to freedom of speech and her statement fit none of the categories that are cause for discipline under the Major League Agreement. The agreement, which provides the rules and protocol by which baseball operates, stipulates that only detrimental “acts, practices, conduct and transactions” can be disciplined, he said.

He said Schott decided against the suit because they were able to incorporate in the agreement with the Executive Council several factors most important to the Reds majority owner.

“I’ve learned that a reasonably good settlement is better than a successful lawsuit,” Bennett said.

Among those factors:

* While prevented from participating in the day-to-day operation of the Reds during her suspension, her ownership interest and status as general partner will not be affected.

* She will be permitted to attend games and sit in the executive suite at Riverfront Stadium, though not in the owner’s box behind the dugout.

* She was permitted to pick the person who will run the daily operation of the Reds and chose General Manager Jim Bowden, a key element in the agreement because she has had problems with some of the minority owners and, club sources insisting on anonymity said, did not want them in charge during her absence.

“The players and fans represent her family,” Bennett said, “and she did not want a long litigation to take away their focus from the games on the field.

“She does not think she deserved to be suspended, but she feels she accomplished some things by way of the agreement that would have been jeopardized by a suit, even though we felt we had a very strong case.”

The Executive Council decision was announced 8 1/2 hours after the start of Wednesday’s meeting.

Bud Selig, president of the Milwaukee Brewers and chairman of the council, said the decision was based only on the evidence and not pressure from Jesse Jackson or anyone else.

He said that the council did not insist on Schott yielding her right to sue and that there were no negotiations, which Bennett scoffed at. Bennett said the negotiations between his staff and attorneys for baseball began Tuesday night and continued throughout the long meeting Wednesday. Many owners on the council left the meeting several hours before the agreement was announced.

“The evidence was substantial and convincing,” and Schott’s statements were an unacceptable embarrassment to the game, Selig said.

“In my 24 years in baseball, I’ve never heard anyone else use that language, and I’m startled and dismayed when people say it’s part of an overall pattern,” he said.

The investigation into Schott’s remarks was triggered by two former employees’ depositions in a wrongful-firing suit.

Schott, in the depositions, was alleged to have called former Cincinnati outfielder Dave Parker “that dumb nigger” and to have made references to “sneaky goddamn Jews.”

She has since admitted using the word nigger and said it was possible she had referred to Martin Luther King Day as “Nigger Day.”

She has also said she kept a swastika armband in her home and could not understand why a former employee, who is Jewish, had taken offense. In a New York Times article, she was quoted as saying, “Hitler had the right idea for them (Jews), but went too far.”

The four-person investigating committee of the Executive Council, according to the 10-page opinion the council distributed Wednesday, interviewed more than 10 people and concluded that there was overwhelming evidence that Schott frequently made demeaning references to blacks while talking to employees of her organization.

The opinion states that Schott also made frequent references to “Jew bastards” and “dirty Jews,” and that she commonly referred to Japanese as “Japs.”

“Mrs. Schott has urged that her insensitive language was private free speech and therefore the council should not act against it,” the opinion states. But “the witnesses, by and large, were employees of the club and subjected to this language during their baseball employment. And in at least two instances offensive language was used in a public location to strangers, in her box at Riverfront Stadium.

” . . . Mrs. Schott’s remarks reflect the most base and demeaning type of racial and ethnic stereotyping, and many were made about players the club had under contract, thereby indicating an insensitivity that cannot be accepted or tolerated by anyone in our industry or in society in general.”

The remarks, Selig said at a news conference, were punishable under baseball’s “best interest” provisions. He said the council, in assessing the appropriate remedy and punishment, took into consideration Schott’s significant generosity on behalf of charity and youth programs, as well as the fact that she recently implemented a minority hiring program with the Reds and established a scholarship at a predominantly black Cincinnati high school.

She is the fourth club owner to be suspended in the last 50 years and the first by the Executive Council, which is made up of Bobby Brown and Bill White, the American and National league presidents, respectively; Selig; Stanton Cooke of the Chicago Cubs; Eli Jacobs of the Baltimore Orioles; Tom Werner of the San Diego Padres; Fred Kuhlmann of the St. Louis Cardinals; Carl Pohlad of the Minnesota Twins; Bill Bartholomay of the Atlanta Braves, and Jackie Autry of the Angels.

Autry, a member of the committee that investigated Schott, was in touch with the council by phone Wednesday but did not attend the meeting because her husband, Gene Autry, was having a pacemaker replaced.

The three previously suspended owners were:

* William Cox of the Philadelphia Phillies, in 1943 for betting on his team;

* Ted Turner of the Atlanta Braves, in 1977 for tampering with soon-to-be free agent Gary Matthews while he was still under contract to the San Francisco Giants;

* George Steinbrenner of the New York Yankees, in 1974 after he pleaded guilty to making illegal contributions to the presidential campaign of Richard M. Nixon, and again in 1990 for paying gambler Howard Spira $40,000 to collect damaging evidence against Dave Winfield, then a Yankee outfielder.

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