Word: arakawa
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Then they found him: a respected local businessperson whose company employed 1400 area workers, whose children went to Seattle schools, and who, unlike Argyros or Smulyan, actually possesses a Washington State driver's license. A resident for 15 years, Minoru Arakawa seemed the perfect man to head a coalition of Seattle backers...
PERFECT, THAT IS, only for those interested in keeping baseball in Seattle. Despite lip service to the contrary, local ownership has never been a priority for Major League baseball, as was demonstrated again in the flap created by Minoru Arakawa's nationality. He and the potential investor--Nintendo, owned by his father-in-law--are Japanese...
...League baseball is no less a business than the automobile industry. "American" cars are assembled in Mexico; our national sport is full of stars from Central America. Japanese investment in the Mariners will not make the team less American, it will simply ensure that the team stays in Seattle. Arakawa's passport may be from Japan, but he offers the Mariners the first opportunity for genuine local ownership in almost a decade...
THIS IS NOT to say that Smulyan and other owners owe all their financial difficulties to the outrageous demands of players. Among the expenses that Smulyan has attributed to the Mariners when calculating his "losses" are a chartered plane to take him from Indianapolis to "home" games (Arakawa could take the bus) and payments he is still making on the loan that financed his purchase of the team in the first place. Smulyan is not losing money--he is just not making as much as he wants as quickly as he had hoped...
...group of investors led by Minoru Arakawa, president of Nintendo of America, made an offer last week to buy the Seattle Mariners baseball team. Cars and baseball are items located near the center of the American psyche and folklore. To see them symbolically under threat from the Japanese caused unusual resentment and distress to some Americans, especially after they have watched the Japanese buy heavily into Hollywood and Rockefeller Center. The distress was illogical sometimes: Arakawa has lived in the Seattle area for 15 years and has promised to keep the team there, while the competing bidder, a group...