By Mike Martinez
published May 20, 1996
UCSD Guardian Sports Commentary
Baseball is the perfect metaphor for America - it’s almost as though the two are in a parallel universe. We love a country with arguably too much crime, mediocre education, and a gargantuan national debt. We love a nation that cuts funding to the arts and may soon follow suit on affirmative action.
We love a country full of contradictions. One moment you see police officers stomping on a Rodney King or a street mob stoning a helpless trucker until he’s on the brink of death. Then, you turn around and a group of total strangers spends three days trying to pull some kid out of a well.
Indeed, we Americans take the good with the bad. Baseball is a good - or should I say accurate - example. The sport has given us the grace of DiMaggio, the opportunism of Reggie, the virtue of Ripken.
It has also provided the disrepute of McLain, the arrogance of Stenibrenner, and the hostility of Belle.
And now, the stupidity of Marge Schott, the owner of the Cincinnatti Reds.
If she was a ballplayer, it could be said she has really “been in the zone” this season. But Marge Schott’s zone is not a rarified atmosphere of uncanny athletic skill or good fortune. Her zone is based on brain lock, which makes each new public statement she produces more ridiculous than the previous one.
For example, her season started when a respected umpire John McSherry dropped dead on the field at Riverfront Stadium on opening day. Marge’s sympathetic reaction? To paraphrase…”Great! This is all I need.”
If indeed there has been a decline in American intelligence over the last generation, then the sports world provides the prototype. On a stupidity scale Marge Schott is Bo Derek: a perfect “10.” Stupid is usually an adjective more suited to the playground - the last riposte of the unimaginative. As “trash talk” the word is to generic to truly zing.
Schott may be a multi-millionaire, a shrewd businesswoman and owner of a World Series ring...but stupid is as stupid does. Stupid fits.
Starting with Rick Reilly’s profile in this week’s issue of Sports Illustrated, it’s now open season on Frau Schott. Reilly searched hard for redeeming qualities and...well, found her to be “frugal.” She recycles broken game bats as souvenirs. Not surprisingly, her employees are the most underpaid administrative assistants in any major professional sport. Compared to Marge, Ebenezer Scrooge is a sailor on shore leave.
Reilly also presents a Schott retrospective (all on the record) on the subject of race relations. A decade ago she kidded free agent Dave Parker, calling him her “million dollar n****r.” Schott has made dozens of statements like that over the years, and had the monumental gall to defend each one.
Oh, and she’s not crazy about Jews or Asians either. On the subject of lifestyles, she gives a thumbs down to gays, fornicators, and couples living in sin (see ex-Reds manager Davey Johnson.)
By far her most surreal gaffe has been her pep rally for the misunderstood ‘Dolf Hitler (pros: great roads; cons: genocide). But hey, she was sincere. This third generation German-American has family who fought against the American forces in World War II. As a child, she played with little toy Nazis and swastikas. If you grew up with that mindset, you’d think nothing of popping off about people of color. Hell, they’re not like us, anyway.
For those of us able to keep the games in perspective, Marge Schott provides great comic relief. Were appalled, but also amused. After all, her narrow, lonely world has no bearing on our mortgage payments or Saturday night dates. Is she dangerous? There’s no law against stupidity or being cheap.
Is Marge Schott bad for baseball? Of course. She’s an insult, a disgrace, and a mockery of a sham. Unfortunately, part of her idiocy is pure, uncut racism.
Not just that little underlying vein of racism you see in old guard conservatives, or when Nana let’s one slip after getting cut off in traffic by a black kid. It’s the deep-rooted kind that may dictate business decisions, tilt the playing field and lead to hurtful remarks that offend baseball fans and decent folks everywhere.
If baseball had a real commissioner, like the late Bart Giamatti, then the Schott Reich would probably be gutted just to set a great example and...nah, she’d just get another one-year suspension and fine. Only players like Pete Rose are banned for life.
In the end, the Marge Schott fiasco only proves, more than ever, that baseball mirrors American life. We take the good and - in the case of Schott and others - the horrendously bad.