AND HER LITTLE DOG TOO: In what’s likely to be the least-mourned celebrity death by Americans this year, at least in the non-al Qaeda division, former Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott finally kicked the bucket today at the age of 75. Probably the most all-around loathsome owner in baseball history, Schott achieved the rare trifecta of being incompetent, greedy, and virulently racist, and her persona added up to a chain-smoking amalgamation of Leona Helmsley, Donald Sterling, and Mel Gibson’s father.
An auto dealer who later became a baseball owner- because that career path worked SO well for Bud Selig- Schott owned the Reds from 1984 until she was drummed out of the game by her fellow owners in 1999, something that, despite all of the dozens of incompetent fools who run franchises all over the sports landscape, has never happened to anyone else.
Schott’s many fine moments included: being suspended from the game on two different occasions –three years apart- for using racial slurs/praising Hitler; calling star players Eric Davis and Dave Parker “my million-dollar niggers,” allowing her ever-present dogs to defecate on the field at Riverfront Stadium, removing both the out-of-town scoreboard and ‘70s-era championship banners from the park in order to save money; driving elite manager Lou Piniella out of town following the 1990 championship, even though she exhibited little-to-no baseball knowledge and didn’t know most of the players’ names; presiding over the Pete Rose betting-on-baseball debacle; complaining about the game being canceled after umpire John McSherry died on the field in 1996; and finally, letting the infrastructure of this once-great organization, in a great baseball town, slowly whittle down to nothing. There’s a reason the Reds have consistantly been a non-factor in the standings in the five seasons since her departure.
Ms. Schott was preceded in death by her husband Charlie and her dogs Schottzie and Schottzie 02; a biopic of Schott, called “Out of Her League,” is said to be in the works, to be produced by Roger Corman’s brother Gene Corman. Corman previously produced the TV film “A Woman Called Golda,” in which Ingrid Bergman was cast as Golda Meir; in that vein, expect Schott to be played in the movie by Salma Hayek.
NOTE: I apologize in advance to those of you thought this post was good at the beginning, but then went too far.
Posted by Stephen Silver at March 2, 2004 05:02 PM