Mariners Needed a Save, So Seattle Drafted Nintendo : Baseball: Japanese are not trying to raid the national pastime, say buyout backers, who just want to keep team.

It’s seen here as a straightforward and desperate matter of maintaining regional pride. But by beseeching the Japanese to save baseball in the Northwest, Seattle found itself Friday playing with matches atop a leaking powder keg of American economic apprehensions.

Virtually the entire political and civic Establishment of Seattle and environs swung behind the $125-million buyout of the Mariners ball club as the best--and only--chance to keep the team here for the local good.

After all, they argued, the financial angel of the deal, Nintendo of America, is a locally based company. It employs 1,400 workers in suburban Redmond. Its president, Minoru Arakawa, is a 15-year resident. In Northwest terms, that makes him practically a native.

“This isn’t a Japanese raid into the U.S. or anything,” said U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.) in a nationally televised interview.

But the idea of Japanese entry into the All-American pastime was not going down, here or anywhere in the United States, without some argument and soul-searching.

Promoters of the proposal, which made headlines from New York to Tokyo and dominated Northwest newspapers and talk shows, were decidedly on the defensive. Discussion began with the assumption that with trade frictions glowing red hot and the Japanese seemingly stepping up their criticism of American society and values, now was a perfectly awkward time for soliciting Japanese investment in something that so embodies America’s self-image as baseball.

Major League Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent had said it was unlikely that such a deal would be approved. He softened his tone Friday.

“I think we ought to view this as a great compliment to baseball. And we are in fact flattered by their attention and their willingness to invest,” Vincent said.

“I think we have, however, a strong preference in favor of local ownership, and our owners will have to confront this issue with some care,” Vincent said.

Baseball’s ownership committee, made up of eight team officials and the two league presidents, discussed the offer during a one-hour conference call Friday. Members didn’t feel they needed to decide on the issue unless current owner Jeff Smulyan and the Japanese-led group present an agreement, said Rich Levin, a spokesman for Vincent.

Trade and cultural differences aside, there was speculation that American and Canadian owners might most fear the huge cash resources a Japanese competitor could bring to the sport, particularly in regard to bidding for star talent.

If baseball rejects the proposal, Washington state officials said they were considering a legal challenge.

As proposed Thursday, Nintendo would buy a controlling 60% interest, with most of the remainder held by two young investors from other local companies: Christopher Larson of the booming Microsoft computer software giant and John E. McCaw Jr. of McCaw Cellular Communications.

Two of the city’s leading businessmen, Boeing Co. Chairman Frank Shrontz and John W. Ellis, chairman of Puget Power, lent their prestige to the undertaking for the price of what was described as small personal investments.

The deal involves $100 million in cash for the purchase of the team and $25 million to run it. Smulyan, an Indiana radio station magnate, put the $100-million price tag on the team.

Gorton argued that a Japanese-led ownership with deep pockets and a commitment to Seattle would be better than the financially strapped Indianapolis businessman who wants to move the team to the Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla., area.

A baseball fan, Gorton was chiefly responsible for courting Nintendo, and said the Japanese had offered to buy all the team or any part of it. Nintendo’s chairman in Japan, Hiroshi Yamauchi, is said to be one of the world’s richest men, thanks in no small part to the popularity of his electronic games in the American market.

In Tokyo, Japan’s new Foreign Ministry spokesman, Misamichi Hanabusa, was described as puzzled by the hubbub over the Mariners deal. He called it a “great idea.”

But there is plenty of evidence of anti-Japanese sentiment running at super-heated levels here in the Northwest, as well as elsewhere. In Anchorage, where the Mariners are the closest thing to a hometown baseball team, the Anchorage Chrysler Dodge dealer took out a red, white and blue three-quarter page newspaper ad last week reminding readers of World War II with pictures of Pearl Harbor and the Japanese submitting to peace.

“Dateline: 1992 U.S.--unconditional surrender???” the ad reads. “Your choice of product can make or break our economy. . . . Maybe we should start taking care of ourselves. . . . “

Against that and lesser-wrought expressions of the same sentiment, boosters of the Seattle baseball deal noted that Japan was Washington state’s No. 1 trading partner, importing the state’s forest products, airplanes, fish and agricultural products.

Gov. Booth Gardner, a Democrat, said the purchase of the Mariners “represents the latest in a long and productive relationship with Japan.”

Curiously, local leaders in the past had been critical of Nintendo of America for making few contributions to Puget Sound charities and civic activities.

The local media strongly promoted the sale. In an editorial cartoon in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, caricatures of the Seattle businessmen held a pennant for the Seattle Mariners. They were captioned: Local Ownership. Next to them was a group of fat, old and garishly attired people who held a pennant for the Tampa Mariners. They were captioned: Foreign ownership.

Said the Seattle Times in its lead editorial: “The Mariners will stay if baseball isn’t racist.”

“We’re not so xenophobic as in some industrialized areas,” said KING radio talk show host Jim Althoff. His callers were five to one behind the sale.

Seattle’s most frequent friction with outsiders is focused on Californians. A heavily favored November ballot initiative to limit terms of Washington state’s congressional delegation was defeated by a campaign suggesting that Californians wanted to strip the Northwest of its seniority in Congress in order to exploit natural resources here.

Could one assume, then, that residents of Washington state are more comfortable dealing with the Japanese than Californians, Althoff was asked.

“Well. . . yes,” he replied.

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