National League to Consider GM-Schott Dispute

01/06/97

The Associated Press reports that National League president Len Coleman says he will review General Motors charges of fraud against Marge Schott, owner of the Cincinatti Reds.

GM filed a complaint with the Ohio Motor Vehicle Dealers Board on Dec. 4, alleging that Schott falsified 57 sales at her Chevrolet-Geo dealership in suburban Cincinnati. Schott did not respond to the allegations publicly, but Chip Baker, one of her aides with the Reds has said he questions the allegations.

Although GM did not contact the National League about the complaint, Len Coleman told The Cincinnati Enquirer, "we will look at the complaint and an appropriate response will be taken as warranted." Coleman also said he had not seen GM's complaint.

On December 24 Cincinatti's Enquirer reported that several Reds employees received notice of vehicle leases or sales with which they had never been involved.

For their part, GM has pursued its charges against Schott as an administrative issue, and says it has no plan to press criminal charges in the case. GM spokesman Kyle Johnson said, "we won't pursue fraud. We don't think that's in the customer's best interest, and that's our primary interest. We want to get the dealership operating appropriately to serve the customers."

In addition to her majority ownership of the Reds, which she bought in December 1984, and her Chevrolet-Geo dealership, Schott also owns a Buick dealership. Schott has been at the center of huge controversies in major league baseball, and last June, she was forced to surrender day-to-day control of the Reds, because she made comments that baseball deemed insensitive to working women and Asians. Schott's punishment continues through the end of the 1998 season.

How baseball might respond to the current Schott-GM tussle remains unclear. In 1953, baseball commissioner Ford Frick ordered Fred Saigh to sell the St. Louis Cardinals after he was convicted of tax evasion.

Paul Dever -- The Auto Channel