BASEBALL DAILY REPORT : AROUND THE MAJOR LEAGUES : Schott’s Remarks Offensive to Gays

Cincinnati Red owner Marge Schott, suspended from baseball last year for using racial and ethnic slurs, reportedly said she doesn’t want her ballplayers to wear earrings because “only fruits wear earrings.”

Schott’s remark, reported in today’s editions of The Cincinnati Enquirer, was made to about 115 people at a meeting of the Ohio County Treasurers Assn. on Wednesday. She was talking about the appearance of ballplayers with scruffy beards or who wear earrings.

“It’s come to the point that the city has become used to being embarrassed by Marge Schott’s mouth,” Tomm Kamm, spokesman for Cincinnati’s Gay & Lesbian March Activists-ACT UP, told the Enquirer. “I’m sure people will respond to it, and I’m offended. But she knows what she’s saying. I think it’s mostly a behavioral problem and people should just ignore it. Unfortunately, that’s just Marge.”

Baseball’s ruling executive council, chaired by Milwaukee Brewer owner Bud Selig, will investigate Schott’s comment.

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Representatives for baseball owners and players gathered in New York for 3 1/2 hours to negotiate for the first time in 1 1/2 months, appearing closer to a work stoppage than an agreement.

Union head Donald Fehr said the talks were “not productive in any significant way,” but management negotiator Richard Ravitch termed the talks “productive and useful.”

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Philadelphia Phillie pitcher Curt Schilling will have surgery Friday to remove bone spurs from his right elbow.