Published: August 20, 2008 10:54 pm            

MIKE RELIFORD: Schottless Reds have treaded water for decade 082108

I never thought I would ever say this, aloud or in print, but I think I’m starting to miss Marge Schott.

Oh, not the crazy-as-a-loon Nazi Schott, or the one who called her black employees “trained monkeys,” or the one who ended up suspended much of the final three years of her ownership. Not that one.

But the one who would open the purse strings down the stretch, the one who was a “hometown gal” who loved the Reds when she was young and wanted more than anything to see them continue the tradition of the Big Red Machine.

That’s the Marge Schott I miss.

Schott was always a little ditzy. We all knew that before she owned the Reds. We knew that just from her television commercials for the auto dealership she inherited when her husband died.

But she was cagey enough to use her money wisely. She might have heaped insults on gays, Japanese (”what’s wrong with the word Jap” she said), blacks and Jews, but she also spearheaded charity drives to help the needy, especially the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. And she was driven enough to become the first woman to “buy” a major league team, not inherit it.

She was a little batty, there’s no denying that, and when she said that Hitler was good in the beginning, during an ESPN interview no less, that was it. Finding out that she had a swastika as a keepsake just threw a little more fuel on the fire.

Baseball disowned her.

She sold her majority ownership in the Reds in April, 1999, but had been suspended for most of the previous three years.

Two years later this woman, this heavy-smoking tyrant of the Rhineland, was hospitalized with a cold and died from lung complications.

Schott was finished.

So were the Reds.

We didn’t know it at the time, but tyrant or not, she was a winner the likes of George Steinbrenner.

From 1985 through the 1995 season, before all the suspensions started, the Reds finished first or second eight times. Eight times in 11 seasons.

They won it all in 1990, going wire-to-wire and sweeping the defending champion Oakland A’s in the World Series. They won the division in 1995 and in 1994 were all dressed up with nowhere to go. That first-place team watched it all go up in smoke when the players’ strike shut down the game.

Marge Schott was a piece of work, no question about that. But she was an owner who loved her team, her city and wanted to win.

Since Schott, the Cincinnati Reds have had only two winning seasons. Two!

Jack McKeon guided them to second-place finishes in 1999-2000, and that was with players who came aboard in the Schott era.

Little did we think that Schott’s departure would lead to an era of such mediocrity.

Why think of all this now? Well, I honestly thought the Reds had a shot at competing this year. I wasn’t real hot on Dusty Baker as manager, but overall on paper they looked competitive in the NL Central.

Think about it. If somebody had told you a kid named Edinson Volquez would have 15 wins now, I guarantee you we’d all have bet the farm the Reds were in the race ... not dead last.

Schott was something else, of that there’s no doubt. But, also of no doubt, since she left the Reds have been a rudderless ship. And that’s a hard way to reach land.

MIKE RELIFORD can be reached at (606) 326-2647 or mreliford@dailyindependent.com.

        

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