Marge Schott Suspended from Operating Cincinnati Reds

by Joel McNally

July 29, 1996

From all accounts, Marge Schott is a surly old bat. The woman who owns the Cincinnati Reds baseball team is a racist and anti-Semite and not nearly bright enough to keep those views to herself.

Schott openly refers to the black players on her team as her million-dollar N-words. She declares Adolph Hitler was good at first, though the holocaust may have gone a bit too far. The woman even keeps a Nazi arm band at home.

Marge is outrageous, all right, and her opinions are despicable. But she's not our Outrage. The American Civil Liberties Union is committed to preserving the extraordinary social freedom provided by the US Constitution, especially the First Amendment that guarantees free expression, no matter how ignorant.

The Outrage of the Month is that Major League Baseball disciplines Schott for expressing her opinions, but does nothing about the widespread racism in baseball itself. A recent report confirmed little progress has been made in minority hiring in baseball's mostly white executive offices.

Schott's ugly views certainly weren't news to her fellow owners. The woman can't stop spewing the stuff. Baseball didn't take action until she got quoted in Sports Illustrated, allowing the public to see what baseball owners say in private.

Former Milwaukee Brewers coach Don Baylor doubled the number of black managers in baseball when he was named manager of the Colorado Rockies after getting only a token interview from the Brewers. He said he saw racism just as deep-seated as Schott's in the management of every team with which he was personally associated.

Now Schott has been suspended from operating the team she owns. She is being disciplined for expressing her racism out loud, instead of merely practicing it quietly the way other owners do.

It seems downright un-American to take away the rights of owners to control their own businesses because they have offensive political opinions. Heck, if every business did that, most of the nation's CEOs would be out on the street.

It's outrageous to pretend to combat racism by denying a mean-spirited old lady's freedom of speech while doing nothing positive to provide equal opportunity throughout America's pastime.