Classic Doc: Marge Schott did as she pleased while owning the Cincinnati Reds
Editor’s note: With columnist Paul Daugherty retiring this month, we are revisiting some of his classic columns from his time at The Enquirer. This story on controversial Reds owner Marge Schott giving up ownership of the team appeared in print on Oct. 13, 1998.
She wouldn’t change, so ownership will
Schott did as she pleased
Midnight is striking for Marge Schott, a woman of means who has never been told no. She can keep ignoring the registered letters sent to her by Major League Baseball, wadding them up and tossing them unopened into the trash, but her time as Reds majority owner is done.
Will she sell her 40 percent of the team? Will she fight? Who knows? You could have higher sources than Woodward and Bernstein, and you still wouldn’t know. This is a woman who changes her mind the way men change channels on the TV.
What’s apparent is that Schott will never again have control of the Reds. She did herself in. By the syllable. No matter how poorly she treated her employees, no matter how cheap she could be, she'd still be running things if she’d kept her mouth shut.
Schott’s problem is not that she remains stuck in about 1956. It’s that she’s vocal about it.
Accountants are still “bookkeepers” to her. Women shouldn’t work. A $17,000 salary is just fine and minorities are, well, “those people.”
Schott never changed. Not when friends offered subtle suggestions. Not when she embarrassed herself and her city. Not when baseball suspended her once, then twice. Not now, when it’s too late.
Marge has spent most of her life thinking she could do what she pleased. No one ever told her otherwise. Those who tried were ignored or fired.
A former Reds employee remembered one of the first sensitivity sessions Schott and the front office staff were required to attend. Schott was just coming off her first suspension. She arrived late, sat down and lit a cigarette.
“Mrs. Schott,” the moderator said, “I’ll remind you this is a smoke-free session.”
To which Schott replied, “Honey, I own this place. Just keep going.” Schott smoked throughout the training.
This is what happens when nobody ever tells you no. It’s what happens when you lead a life of privilege, and are insulated from the need to listen to anyone or anything but your own selfish whims.
I’ll smoke in my stadium seat if I want.
I’ll have my new stadium west of the suspension bridge.
I’ll say what I want, about whom I want, when I want.
I’ll ask decent men (Eric Davis, Lou Piniella, Mark McGwire, a legion of others) to play the fool for me, rubbing dog hair on their chests, because I am Marge and I own the place. Honey.
Baseball never wanted to get rid of Schott. Baseball just wanted her to go away and stop embarrassing the game. Baseball had bigger problems than Marge. Marge forced baseball’s hand.
Little left other than club
It’s too bad, because Schott could have been what she thinks she is: The savior of the Cincinnati Reds, the salty woman in the men’s club. Lots of people here loved her from afar. Some still do.
But she blew it, because she thought she was above it all. She’s not. She is a sad, lonely woman living in a huge, empty house, much of which is closed off to save on the utilities. Schott’s manse has no air conditioning, save in a shed where Schottzie the dog sleeps.
She has two things in her life, the dog and the team, and now she’s losing the latter. Acquaintances say she’d like to stay on in some sort of honorary role, sort of a human mascot, but that can’t happen. If Schott is allowed on the field, she will be perceived as still owning the team.
The goodbyes need to be complete. Thank her for the 1990 championship and the ’95 division title. It was her money. Thank her for the autographs to the kids and for her donations to the zoo. Thank her for leaving. On her way out, suggest to Schott it could have been different, if only she had been different.
But Schott wasn’t. Isn’t. Never will be. It’s time for her to go, whether on the toe of baseball’s boot or not. Her time is up. She could have made better use of it. More’s the pity.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati Reds' former owner Marge Schott did as she pleased
