More Than One Loud Schott : Baseball’s race problems haven’t vanished with Reds owner’s suspension

For months it has been obvious that Marge Schott should be severely reprimanded for her deplorable racist and anti-Semitic slurs. Finally, on Wednesday, baseball’s Executive Council gave her what she deserved. In a powerful and symbolic rejection of Schott’s behavior, the council unanimously concluded that her remarks reflected “the most base and demeaning type of racial and ethnic stereotyping.”

The council fined Schott $25,000 and suspended her until at least Nov. 1; it stipulated that she refrain from making additional racial comments, attend a multicultural training program and remove herself from the day-to-day operations of the Reds.

Now that the Cincinnati Reds owner has been punished for her transgressions, baseball’s ability to recover from this embarrassing episode depends in large part on whether team owners realize that this controversy was about more than just a single owner with an offensive mouth. Forty-six years after the Dodgers’ Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, basic issues of fairness and equality off the field have yet to be resolved.

Minority players now compose about 30% of team rosters. Recent efforts by baseball commissioners such as Peter V. Ueberroth, A. Bartlett Giamatti and Fay Vincent helped boost the number of minorities in front-office positions to nearly 20% from about 2% in the mid-1980s.

But almost all of the most powerful positions in all 28 major league clubs--such as those of team presidents, general managers, personnel directors, chief scouts, chief financial officers--still are held only by whites. Baseball’s real challenge--opening top management opportunities to all--is bigger and more important than the Marge Schott controversy.