NEW YORK - Marge Schott owns the team. John Allen owns the power. Barry Larkin owns the heart and soul.
Yet the man holding the deed to the future of the Reds sits here in an office behind the refurbished desk of an old Cincinnatian and one of his predecessors, Warren Giles.
Except, Len Coleman is not your father's National League president.
Here's a guy who calls Bishop Desmond Tutu a friend, displays a mutli-frame photo of President Lyndon Johnson working over some poor senator for a vote, and has his state's Republican Party wondering whether he'll run for the U.S. Senate.
That's it. A pin-striped Renaissance Man who holds a master's degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government and knows John E. Kennedy was a utility infielder for his beloved Dodgers who was ''all field, no hit.''
Here's a trivia question. Name the only black leader who turned down a post (Under Secretary of Housing and Urban Development) in a Republican (Bush) administration and later went into baseball.
''He's cool, calm and collected,'' says Bill Giles, Warren's son and CEO of the Phillies. ''He has a level head. He doesn't make waves. He's handled some difficult situations with diplomacy. He kind of keeps things close to the vest.''
His velvet-glove handling of the Schott case since her two-year suspension last June shows the ingredients some baseball people think are sorely needed in the game's next commissioner:
- A dash of LBJ-style schmoozing that makes everyone from a prince to a peon feel like they are important.
- A pinch of boldness and fairness from a boyhood full of Jackie Robinson.
- A smattering of delicacy and discretion, diplomatic attributes earned during the late 1970s, when he caught the last plane out of Burundi before a coup. He was doing a four-year mission to provide health care to 17 African countries.
Coleman, 47, is the point man in what amounts to a political deal mirroring his days as a cabinet officer for former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean. After another litany of bizarre statements last spring, Schott agreed to keep control of the Reds but back out of the day-to-day decision making.
Schott isn't happy. Coleman jokingly says, ''I don't think she's talking to me now.''
But she hasn't sued, either.
It's an artful compromise worthy of Coleman's 1985 fence-mending
when he headed Kean's re-election bid in the black community, an effort that saw a Republican net 60 percent of the minority vote for the first time in New Jersey history.
''He can get his back up, but he's smooth. He's got that political background, and it's helped him in baseball,'' says Richie Phillips, head of the umpires' association who butted heads with Coleman before getting a new labor agreement. ''He knows how to get down to the personal level.''
How personal? At the recent owners' meeting in Scottsdale, Ariz., Coleman played golf with NL umpires Jim Quick and Gary Darling. He recently called another of his umpires, Randy Marsh of Edgewood, Ky., and told him, ''Pack your bags,'' for a goodwill trip to Japan.
He's still got the tall, lean look of a guy who used to play semipro ball as late as a few years ago, when his friends from the Kean cabinet would travel to North Jersey to watch him play.
''You can call him, and he'll always take the call or get back to you,'' Marsh says. ''It hasn't always been like that.''
That up-close-and-personal style has been the buffer between Schott and Allen, the beleaguered controller elevated to acting CEO June 12. Coleman says he is only in ''a monitoring role,'' but he has told Allen to go to him when there are problems.
And there have been a few. Sources say Schott and Allen were often in conflict during the first few months of the arrangement.
Allen hasn't hesitated going to Coleman, basically making the NL president the team's broker. With last month's bout of pneumonia coupled with the controversy surrounding her car dealership, Schott has spoken to Allen hardly at all in weeks, sources report.
Coleman has been the man quietly supporting Allen's recent spate of hires, including Doc Rodgers' return from Detroit as assistant general manager. They have been Allen's hires, but Coleman has approved all of them, even over Schott's protests, according to the sources.
A few weeks after the June 12 suspension, Schott openly mocked the agreement with her ''I-won't-go-away"
memo to employees, and Coleman kicked her out of the stadium for a month. He insisted she name a successor by Aug. 12.
Schott named Allen on Aug. 9. Coleman gave Schott her office back the same day.
Sources close to the club say Coleman adroitly has shifted Schott's heat from Allen to Coleman. They say Coleman keeps Schott informed of the club's moves via memos to ensure no misunderstandings. Colemanhas no comment on such matters.
Late last year, Schott delayed signing off on Allen's final '97 budget. Coleman had to step in, yet sources say the stalemate was not over the $30 million player payroll, about a $10 million reduction over the previous year.
Schott apparently objected to Allen's raise for employees, the total of which probably was less than the salary of the 25th man. Certainly less than $500,000.
Again, Coleman has no comment.
He has yet to be called in on the Reds' stadium negotiations with Hamilton County. He refuses to answer questions about a site and how the Bengals' first-strike into the corporate community will hamper the Reds when their time comes to raise funds, deferring all ''internal'' questions to Allen.
But Coleman made sure the club has a seasoned stadium consultant. And he has a record of getting involved in stadium talks, last year becoming involved in a successful bid to keep the Astros in Houston. The league must approve the lease.
''Cincinnati is a flagship franchise for the National League, and it's absolutely key for us as a league that franchise thrives,'' Coleman says. ''There is the historical significance, and it's been one of the more competitive teams year in and year out ... We've shown our commitment by putting a control person in place during a tough time.''
Coleman is pleased with Allen. When they dined at the owners' meetings, the Reds were barely mentioned. It was a social visit.
''I can't diminish John Allen's role,'' Coleman says. ''If I have to, I'll take some action. But I've really had no need.''
Coleman flinches when asked about Schott's latest problems. He is concerned about The Enquirer's revelations of General Motors' allegations she used the names of seven Reds' employees to help falsify car sales at her Montgomery Chevrolet Dealership.
Coleman has vowed an investigation. But he refuses to discuss the allegations. The matter of fairness hits too close to home.
''After what I've gone through in my life,'' Coleman says, ''I want to make sure I don't pre-judge anything. Any process I'm involved in is going to be fair to all parties. Let's remember. She hasn't even responded to GM's complaint.''
Coleman's agenda against unfairness began before he was born.
When his father attended an alumni baseball game at Princeton University in the late 1920s, an alumnus yelled, ''If that nigger isn't out of here in five minutes, I'm leaving.''
Coleman's father didn't tell Lenny about it until about 40 years later, after his son, a High School All-American running back from Montclair, N.J., told him he was bypassing Ohio State, Michigan, and Syracuse for Princeton.
Len Sr., a construction worker and later a deputy police chief, then told him the story, and how proud he was. He had always hoped one of his children would go to Princeton because of that one awful day.
How good was Coleman?
When Buckeyes' coach Woody Hayes brought Coleman to Columbus for a visit, he took Coleman to the legendary Jai Lai restaurant. When Hayes visited him at the Coleman's two-family home, Lenny called his neighborhood buddy, Joe Miscia, and whispered into the phone, ''Woody Hayes is sitting in my living room. Got to go.''
It was more subtle and yet more spectacular, but the son encountered the same prejudice his father did.
At the end of his sophomore year in thefall of 1968, Coleman felt the tug of a generation through the ivy. Shocked that he wasn't playing ahead of obviously inferior players and stung by what he felt was racism, Coleman went into the office of Dr. Carl A. Fields, Princeton's assistant dean and one of the school's highest-ranking blacks.
''He wanted to leave school, but I talked to him out of it,'' Fields says three decades later. ''We decided that he would let me handle it. I knew him as a student. I didn't want him to leave school. I didn't want to lose someone like that. You knew he was going to be more in life than a football player.''
They sent a letter to the president and the coach, charging ''persistent racial tendencies,'' in the program. The school appointed a committee to look into the charges, and when Coleman agreed to testify, Fields remembers four other players stepping up.
''I think Len knew it might be the end of his career,'' Fields says. ''What I remember is when he testified, he was calm and under control and told just what happened.''
The committee's report, issued Jan. 29, 1969, found ''no evidence of any conscious or deliberate racial discrimination in any actions ... of the coaching staff.''
But Fields was pleased with the report because it also found minorities were hurt more than the rest by certain insensitive and impersonal aspects of the program caused by unawareness: ''It is equally clear to the Committee that the black athletes involved have important and legitimate concerns ... ''
Coleman wasn't invited out for the team in 1969, a not unexpected but still crushing blow to a kid who harbored NFL dreams. He pondered transferring, but he wanted the degree. The coach left two years later. A new athletic director came in. Coleman never played again.
With Len Coleman III nearing 9 years old, Len Jr., now feels like Len Sr. did. It was a price, but it was a down payment for the future.
''It was a big psychological setback,'' Coleman says. ''I was angry at the time. Very angry. But in the long term, it helped me. I like to feel we helped make Princeton a better place. And it's a place I would help recruit for today.''
There is no doubt in Coleman's mind. If he could have played for Woody Hayes, he could have played for Princeton.
''Check the stats,'' he says.
But he has made up with the school. A decade after the incident, Coleman got married on campus and he says now, ''If you call (his son) right now and ask him where he wants to go, he'll tell you Princeton.''
Which is why Leonard S. Coleman Jr., of Middletown, N.J., will take his time when it comes to help deciding the case of Marge Schott.
Reds' fans can take heart that the man who has such a big say in their team's affairs was an
11-year-old who danced around Joe Miscia's living room on Park Street in 1960 Montclair when Bill Mazeroski homered for the Pirates to beat Miscia's Yankees in Game 7 of the World Series.
''I still remember it because he was so happy the National League won,'' Miscia says. ''I've known the guy since kindergarten and let me tell you, this guy never forgets. He's been in the Oval Office, but when he comes back to the neighborhood, he still goes over to my house and sits on the porch talking to my 85-year-old mother for 45 minutes.''
Joey Miscia, now an optician in Millburn, N.J., goes all the way back to Game 7 of the 1955 Series with Lenny Coleman. They were 6 years old, and the school was right next to Joey's house and the black kid and the white kid ran to Joey's living room together, just in time to see the Dodgers finally win it all.
''You've got to understand, Len's living a dream,'' Miscia says. ''He loves the game. Truly loves it. He played it. To this day, we still call each other if we see a great game or play on TV, and invariably we're watching the same thing.''
Coleman lived in a house divided. He loved the Dodgers, his father rooted for the Giants and his uncle upstairs was for the Yankees.
But they all rooted for Jackie Roosevelt Robinson.
''Everybody talked about Jackie doing this, and Jackie doing that,'' Coleman says. ''Jackie was my inspiration. He was everything I strived to be. The older I got, the more he became an adult hero.
''Look at the time line in the civil rights movement. Jackie was 17 years before Civil Rights legislation, seven years before Brown vs. the Board of Education, eight years before the Montgomery bus boycott. He's proof there is a social thrust in the national pastime. That there is more to baseball than entertainment.''
That's why Coleman thinks he can do as much good in baseball as he can in government and politics. His boyhood with Jackie Robinson fuels his desire to help open the game. With this Robinson's 50th anniversary, people can't help but see the symbols.
''Len always works in subtle ways,'' Dr. Fields says. ''Subtle. But effective.''
That's a good description with what is happening to the Reds as Allen diversifies and expands the game's smallest front office.
During his watch, Allen has hired a black controller, a black minor-league manager, a black assistant general manager, a black scout and two part-time black scouts. African-Americans with can't-argue resumes. He and Coleman agree the game must be ''inclusive.''
''Hey, I heard it in his house. His mother and father told him, 'No one is ever going to give you anything, you have to earn it.' '' Miscia says. ''Don't ever let anyone tell you Len Coleman got where he was because he was black. He's got a resume you can't refuse.''
But will he hand that resume to baseball owners when they look for a new commissioner? At the moment, he sounds like he wants no part of the job.
''I've got enough to concentrate on right now,'' Coleman says. ''There's a lot of challenges facing me at the moment.''
But Joey Miscia, the white Yankee fan who ran home from school with the black Dodger fan in the black-and-white days of 1955, knows: ''He'd make a hell of a commissioner.''
