This Sale Isn’t Such a Big Deal

Try as I might, I find it hard to get worked up over the notion of the Japanese buying an American baseball team. Particularly the Seattle Mariners.

The prospect has the old boys network who own the grand old game needing smelling salts. But I don’t know why. It isn’t as if Fidel Castro were buying into their crap game--or John Gotti. The Japanese already own Pebble Beach golf club, the most famous links land in America and maybe the second-most famous in the world. They own Riviera Country Club in L.A., La Costa in Carlsbad and Turnberry in Scotland.

The United States Open, America’s most prestigious tournament, will be held at Pebble this year. The British Open is regularly contested at Turnberry, which is in the rotation of courses that venerable tournament uses.

I don’t think the Japanese will be buying into the World Series with the Mariners.

Anyway, didn’t the Japanese recently buy Radio City?

If they can own Radio City, why get excited about the little old Seattle Mariners? I mean, the Seattle Mariners are not exactly America’s heirloom. Baseball keeps having a terrible time trying to decide whether to put a franchise there anyway. They first put one in--doing business as the Seattle Pilots--in 1969 but, when they drew only 677,944 people, or about what the Dodgers draw for preseason batting practices, the league moved them to Milwaukee.

They put another cast in Seattle in 1977 but warned the town this time would be its last chance.

Now, they’re acting as if the Japanese were trying to buy Grant’s Tomb.

Shucks, the Japanese aren’t even buying the New York Yankees, which I kind of wish they would. The Yankees are in such a chaotic state, the stability of any ownership would be welcome. Some years ago, John Lardner, commenting on the sale of the St. Louis Browns, wrote that he was surprised the Browns could be sold since he didn’t think they were owned. The Yankees give off somewhat that same aura. Did you know, for example, that Seattle outdrew the Yankees, 2,147,905 to 1,863,733 last year?

It isn’t as if the Japanese were buying our oil or gold or coal. I would have to reckon the Seattle Mariners as a national treasure or resource somewhere below owning a used-car lot in Pacoima. Last year, for instance, was the first winning season in Mariner history. Usually they lost 100 or more games a year and finished last in their division and drew about the crowd a sidewalk vegetable peeler would get. Nobody went to their games except to get in out of the rain. There is nothing here to suggest a dynasty in the making. They are a long way from the Ruth Yankees.

The facts of the deal seem simple enough: The Seattle team owner, Jeff Smulyan--who by the way is a carpetbagger from Indianapolis--is strapped for cash. One of his options is to sell to a group that would move the franchise to St. Petersburg, Fla., where a domed stadium awaits.

A Seattle group is trying to keep the team in the Northwest. Included in the group is Minoru Arakawa, who is the president of Nintendo of America, the video conglomerate and the son-in-law of the man who is the worldwide head of Nintendo Inc., Hiroshi Yamauchi.

They have pledged 60% of the $100 million needed to buy the team and keep it in Seattle.

Son-in-law Arakawa is, as it happens, a longtime Seattle resident, a fan of the Mariners.

But, the question is, would his commanding stock position put him in charge of the team? Would we have (horrors!) foreign ownership of one of our sacred institutions?

Hey! Col. Jacob Ruppert, whose name was as synonymous with the New York Yankees as Ruth, was an American citizen but spoke all his life with a music hall Baron von Munchausen accent. To him, Babe Ruth was always “Bub Root.” And immigrant German owners were common in the early days of baseball.

I suppose there is the fear the Japanese will move the franchise to Tokyo.

Well, that sounds like kind of fun to me. At least, then we can really call it a “World Series.” Baseball is, after all, Japan’s national pastime, too.

Cecil Fielder, who hit 38 home runs in one season in Japan (Hanshin) and drove in 85 runs, returned to the United States (Detroit) where he promptly hit 51 home runs and drove in 132 runs. Then, last year, he hit 44 home runs and drove in 133. The American League should find out the Japanese secret to getting him out.

On balance, I find Japanese interest in our national pastime salutary. It even has evidence of trying to save the Mariners from St. Petersburg (and vice versa). At $100 million for Ken Griffey Jr. and a bunch of .217 hitters, I don’t make the Mariners much of a threat to cause a major cash outflow. Maybe, the Japanese simply like baseball. Maybe we can get them to buy the Cleveland Indians, too. Somebody should. If they’re owned.