Japanese Get OK to Buy Mariners

Major league baseball owners on Thursday officially approved the sale of the Seattle Mariners to a group backed financially by the president of Nintendo Co., Ltd., of Japan.

On the final day of their summer meetings in New York, the owners also:

--Were admonished by Commissioner Fay Vincent, responding to an attempt by American League owners Bud Selig of the Milwaukee Brewers and Jerry Reinsdorf of the Chicago White Sox to move him out of labor negotiations, to stop their “discord and bickering and generally undistinguished behavior.”

--Heard owner Bob Lurie of the San Francisco Giants say that he is examining the possibility of selling the team or moving to another city. San Jose voters recently rejected a utility tax increase that would have helped fund a new stadium for the Giants, the fourth time a stadium measure has been defeated in the Bay Area.

The Mariners’ sale was approved by a 25-1 vote. Dick Jacobs, co-owner of the Cleveland Indians, voted against it.

Hiroshi Yamauchi, president of Nintendo, is providing $75 million of the $125-million purchase price but has less than 50% of the voting stock and has guaranteed baseball contractually that budget, personnel and baseball decisions will be made by the Seattle group headed by John Ellis, CEO of Puget Sound Power & Light.

Yamauchi, in a recent magazine interview in Japan, said he did not regard the Mariner investment as business but “a form of community service.”

“Japan has the United States to thank for its miraculous postwar recovery and economic growth, and Nintendo has also been allowed to do business in America,” he said. “I owe a great debt to the United States, and I want do do everything in my power to pay it back.”

In Tokyo today, Yamauchi said although it was “significant” that this transaction was the first involving Japanese ownership of an American team, “I never intended to seek merit arising from the purchase of the club” and said his investment “is in every respect passive.”

Nintendo’s U.S. operations are based in Redmond, Wash., near Seattle, but Vincent said Yamauchi’s involvement will be restricted to the sale or relocation of the team, and that the sale was approved only because Ellis will be in control.

“This is the strongest group ever assembled in Seattle and has the best chance yet of being successful there,” Vincent said.

But there are no guarantees. The Mariners have drawn more than 2 million only once in 15 years, have a current average of about 21,000, were forced to buy their own television time this season and expect to lose $12 million in 1992, a club official said Thursday.

Many believe that baseball would have preferred to let owner Jeff Smulyan, who bought the club for $76 million in 1989, move to the Tampa-St. Petersburg domed stadium or sell to Florida interests, but approved the sale to the Nintendo group only because of legal threats from King County and the city of Seattle, along with threats from Congress pertaining to baseball’s antitrust exemption.

Smulyan will receive $106 million of the $125 million, the rest going to club operations. The sale is expected to be completed in about 30 days.

Lurie said he told the owners what he had told San Francisco Mayor Frank Jordan in a recent letter. He said the team can’t remain in Candlestick Park, that he won’t face another ballot proposal and that time is of the essence as he considers his options.

Vincent said the Giants are free to consider those options and have met his criteria for moving, which include: consistent operating losses, attendance problems, sub-standard stadium and indications of lack of community interest.

Vincent cautioned, however, that the Giants do not have automatic approval to move.

“They are free to look at and consider their options, but that does not mean they are free to move,” he said.

Vincent delivered his lecture to the owners in a closed meeting but discussed it in an ensuing news conference, at which he also called for cohesion and unity and said the commissioner has to be part of the process.

Selig and Reinsdorf had attempted to strip the commissioner of his labor role during a meeting of the owners’ Player Relations Committee in Chicago last week but were rebuffed by Vincent and other committee members, including Fred Wilpon of the New York Mets and John McMullen of the Houston Astros.

Selig and Reinsdorf were among the more militant owners during the last collective bargaining negotiations and are believed to be interested in establishing a more militant tone for the next talks under the PRC’s new negotiator, Richard Ravitch, recently hired by Selig. They believed Vincent’s position during the last negotiations with the union was too conciliatory.

“I obviously made clear that I have no intention of changing my authority under the Major League Agreement,” Vincent said, referring to the rules governing his position.

“But I also made it clear that I understand baseball has a PRC, and Mr. Ravitch was hired to handle the negotiations. I’ve said many times, I know my role, but I also know under the Major League Agreement I have authority (to intervene), and I am not going to surrender that right during my tenure.”

Selig was made to explain his actions to the joint owners’ meeting and later said he would consider a public statement in a few days. The current bargaining agreement expires after the 1993 season, but either side can open negotiations in December.