SPORTS WATCH : Nintendo’s New Game

Many who follow major league baseball were alarmed about how the country’s psyche might be affected if the Japanese were allowed to “buy American,” i.e., the Seattle Mariners baseball franchise. Was there nothing left, even a game that has worn the moniker “the national pastime,” that was beyond the reach of foreign ownership?

But in an acknowledgment of financial realities, an owners’ committee agreed to a politically sensible structuring worked out with Commissioner Fay Vincent whereby local control was emphasized--even though the majority investor is, in fact, Nintendo Co. Ltd., a Japanese corporation.

If this seems like a curve ball, the presence of Japanese ownership with local connections did provide the economic margin needed to keep the club from leaving Seattle. The American chairman of a local electric company is to become the Mariners’ chief executive officer. And the Japanese group assumed minority shareholder status and renounced any operating control over the franchise.

Major league baseball, in fact, has been thinking globally for some time; the late Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti dreamed of international expansion well beyond the current two Canadian teams. But allowing foreign ownership of something as intrinsically American as a home-turf baseball team understandably required sensitive negotiations, and care in how the packaging might seem to the public and other owners.

At least the new owner is unlikely ever to be accused of meddling on the field. What manager possibly could complain about that arrangement?