The complicated legacy of Marge Schott

This is part of our Cincinnati Icon Series. The Enquirer's RetroCincinnati reporter, Joel Beall, will regularly highlight someone who played an important part in the shaping of our city's history. To submit a nomination, send your candidate to jbeall@cincinna.gannett.com.

You are remembered for your vices.

Such is the legacy of Marge Schott.

Broaching the topic of the former Reds owner, who died in 2004, is problematic. The name itself brings hefty baggage. Claims of racism, and anti-Semitism, at worst; insensitivity, at best.

But maybe it's been too easy to judge. Maybe when we speak of her, we should remember this: Her comments did not always reflect her behavior.

"She had a big heart to the city," says Thane Maynard, director of the Cincinnati Zoo. "Her charity efforts continue to resonate in the community."

Schott had riches, but she rarely spent on herself, funneling her fortune to charities. Schools and youth programs were particular favorites. Schott donated millions to the University of Cincinnati. St. Ursula, the Boys and Girls Club and St. Rita School for the Deaf were frequent benefactors. She was fond of animals, and a proponent of their rights.

"Marge always lent a hand to those in need," says Mari Lee Schwarzwalder, executive director Humane Association of Warren County Animal Shelter. "She especially loved anything with animals and children."

She made baseball with the Reds an inclusive event, making the ballpark a safe haven for families. Schott identified with the common man.

And despite her racist remarks, her teams were constantly some of the most ethnically diverse in baseball.

But her story is complicated.

That includes her relationship with the team. She was hands off in most dealings with the roster. So much so that The Enquirer's Paul Daugherty once wrote that, "She could tell you the names of the mechanics at Schott Buick more easily than she could the heroes of the 1990 Series."

Schott was fond of saying she saved baseball in Cincinnati when she purchased the team in December 1984, a claim that wasn't quite true.

"While Mrs. Schott's purchase of the Reds ensured the long-standing tradition of local ownership of the club, there is little evidence to suggest that the Reds were ever in danger of leaving Cincinnati," says Chris Eckes, chief curator and operations manager for the Cincinnati Reds. "Even though the team was in the midst of a down period at the time she took over, the franchise was still strong and it is extremely unlikely that the league would have ever approved the Reds moving to another city."

Savior or no, Schott was frugal with her players, and seemingly unsympathetic to their plights.

"I'm buying this guy $3 million to sit on his butt," Schott once proclaimed to a reporter for Sports Illustrated. She was alluding to World Series hero Jose Rijo, who was in the middle of his rehabilitation after a devastating elbow injury. When Eric Davis was stuck in an Oakland hospital following the 1990 World Series due to a lacerated kidney, Schott refused to pay for his plane ticket home. And she famously made outfielder Kal Daniels flip a coin on live television to settle a contract dispute.

She also didn't quite get the nuances of the game. SI's Rick Reilly claimed Schott told an employee to scout the circus for ballplayers because "there are some real athletes there."

That may sound like a minor-league promotional stunt, but that was standard procedure with Schott. If she operated in today's world, she would burn the Internet down. The list of infamy includes:

- Firing manager Davey Johnson because, according to the Washington Post, she didn't like that he was living with his fiancée before marriage.

- Giving the umpire crew flowers following the death of umpire John McSherry on Opening Day. One problem: the flowers were a regift, wrote The New York Times, as they had been presented to Schott the previous day.

- Sending the stadium cooks home to save on money for the celebration after the Reds won the World Series in 1990, compelling the players to go out and buy their own food.

- Letting her St. Bernard dogs "relieve" themselves on the playing field. The players had to scoop up the remains.

Then there was her mouth. As an owner in baseball's notoriously conservative landscape, political correctness mattered. Instead, she had the tongue of Joan Rivers, delivering cruel, biting remarks. But unlike Rivers, there was no cadence of a joke.

Schott used a racial epithet in referring to Eric Davis and Dave Parker. In an interview with Sports Illustrated, she expressed concern that Asians "outdo our kids" in American schools. And there was that time that Schott declared, "'I was raised to believe that men wearing earrings are fruity," in a meeting with the Ohio Country Treasurers Association.

A lawsuit by a former employee alleged Schott was overheard insulting Jewish people. She owned a Nazi armband. She even had nice things to say about Hitler: "He was OK at the beginning. He rebuilt all the roads, honey. You know that, right? He just went too far."

That quote, along with an investigation into the ethics at her car dealerships, ultimately led to her suspension and ouster from baseball.

Schott advocates say that her remarks were, perhaps, of a woman who had been born into and was living in a different era.

"I think some of the things she said weren't necessarily reflective of who she was," Schwarzwalder says. "Sometimes she wasn't thinking when she talked."

To her credit, Schott was unfazed by criticism. "As long as the little guy out there still thinks I'm doing a good job, that's all that matters," she once told SI's Reilly. "I don't give a damn what the stupid press thinks."

Near the end of her tenure, Schott's reign was an embarrassment for the city. Her popularity was so low that much-maligned Bengals owner Mike Brown was viewed more favorably than Schott in a Cincinnati Post poll in 1996.

Yet, in spite of these distractions, the team excelled during her ownership. When Schott was suspended in 1996, the Reds had enjoyed eight winning campaigns in their previous 12 years. The team won the World Series in 1990, and reached the National League Championship Series in 1995. The team was first in the division when a strike ended baseball's 1994 season.

"In franchise history, she is on the short list of four principal owners (Garry Herrmann, Powel Crosley, Louis Nippert and Schott) whose clubs brought a world title to the city," Eckes says.

She was also an outlier among owners regarding consumer pricing. Across the sports landscape, the cost for attending a game skyrocketed in the 1990s. The common man had been ousted in favor of premium seating for CEOs and company packages. Schott, however, kept the Riverfront Stadium experience affordable.

"Making the game affordable for fans was always a priority for Mrs. Schott," Eckes says. "She actively worked to keep ticket and concession prices down."

Unlike most baseball owners who watch the games from box suites, millionaire Marge Schott sat in the crowd, tirelessly signing autographs, and allowing children to come up and talk to her.

And then there was the zoo. Marge Schott loved the zoo.

"The Cincinnati Zoo would not be the place that people know today without the help of Schott," Maynard says. Maynard specifically points to the Elephant Reserve, an animal that Schott adored dearly, that could have not been built without her help.

"Even posthumously, the Marge & Charles J. Schott Foundation continues to be a great contributor to our needs and efforts." That includes a 2011 gift of $5 million, the largest single donation the zoo has ever received.

"With Marge, you could say her actions spoke louder than her words," Schwarzwalder says.

Think of her as uneducated, a blowhard. A person who should never have been given a platform to speak.

But give her credit where it's due. She deserves no less.