So you think Marge Schott was a public relations disaster? Next to Mike Brown, she's beginning to look positively angelic.

Brown, the owner of the Cincinnati Bengals, begins the week faced with PR disasters on two fronts: His team, after a 27-3 loss to the Carolina Panthers Sunday in Charlotte, N.C., is off to an 0-3 start, the fifth time this decade that the Bengals are 0-for-September. While hopes weren't exactly soaring after an 0-4 preseason, few expected the Bengals to have a winless September against soft competition. And while coach Bruce Coslet is inevitably on the hot seat, many callers to local radio talk shows put the blame squarely on Brown's shoulders.

More significantly for the long term, Brown has emerged as the bad guy in yet another dispute with the Reds, who share Cinergy Field with the Bengals until the Bengals move into Paul Brown Stadium in 2000.

Brown says he won't approve the Reds' offer to pay for grass to replace artificial turf in Cinergy Field unless the Reds agree not to play home games on the same days the Bengals have home games at their new stadium. And until the Bengals move to their new stadium next season, they have veto power over major changes at Cinergy Field.

On-the-field ineptitude is almost a given for the Bengals, but the off-the-field clumsiness has reached a level that is raising the ire of several local officials.

"Somebody should say, 'Come on, Mike, get with it,' " Hamilton County Commissioner John Dowlin said Sunday.

"Baltimore Bengals sounds better every day," said Cincinnati City Council Member Jim Tarbell, referring to Brown's flirtation with the idea of moving to Baltimore before voters passed a sales tax increase that will help pay for new stadiums for the Bengals and Reds.

"I'm very disappointed in Mr. Brown and obviously a lot of other people are as well," Dowlin said. "A dozen people came up to me in church and said, 'What is it with this guy? We're never going to another Bengals game.' " The latest wave of criticism as many fans are suffering a case of buyers' remorse, judging from the growing number of angry letters to newspapers and disgruntled calls to radio talk shows. The critics are upset that taxpayers will dish out more than $400 million to build the stadium for a football franchise that hasn't had a winning season this decade. Among the concessions the Bengals won from the county: A guarantee that if the Bengals can't find 50,000 ticket buyers for each home game in the first two seasons, taxpayers would pay the difference.

Commissioner Bob Bedinghaus, who has taken the lead for the county on stadium issues, today called Brown's position on grass at Cinergy unreasonable. "What we're faced with here is an example of where the football team is unfortunately using what little leverage they have to force another issue," Bedinghaus said.

Despite the criticism, the Bengals so far have not changed their position.

"The club continues to have legitimate concerns about the quality of a grass field, as well as scheduling conflicts that will impact on the fans," Jeff Berding, Bengals' spokesman, said today. Tarbell, noting that Brown is using a Cinergy Field lease as leverage against the Reds while taxpayers are building the new $400 million stadium for the Bengals, said, "How ungrateful. "I'm stunned. If that isn't the straw that breaks the camel's back, I don't know what is. It's being too selfish, and it's got to stop...you wonder if it's not time to call it quits." Commissioner Tom Neyer said it is foolish for the Bengals to make an issue out of the Reds' desire for a grass field. "There are fights worth picking and fights that are not," he said. "This fight clearly is not worth the community, political and economic angst it has the potential to cause. "The Bengals clearly have the legal right to take the position they have, but legal right and community right are not necessarily the same thing." Tarbell is especially unhappy that a losing Bengals team could hurt a contending like the Reds, who want a grass field to keep Barry Larkin from leaving and to help lure other players who prefer grass over artificial turf. "Is Mike Brown going to be responsible for Barry Larkin leaving and, to carry it a step further, our not getting Ken Griffey Jr.?" asked Tarbell.

Copyright 1999 The Cincinnati Post