TV's Northern Exposure cast

Ever since the Seattle Mariners took the field in 1977, they were never owned locally. The original owners - James Stillwell, Walter Schoenfeld, James Walsh, Danny Kaye, Lester Smith, and Stanley Golub - soon brought on George Argyros as an investor. In 1981 George bought the team outright for $13 million. His ownership faired no better. During this time the city would be faced to bail out the team a number of times by purchasing unsold tickets. The year 1985 brought the first threat of movement. Argyros threatened to move the team unless the county re--negotiated the team's lease on theKingdome. Where the Mariners had been paying $3.5 million per year for the Kingdome, the new lease called for free rent through 1987, and $1.2 million per year thereafter. Also, in his lease with King County, the team would have to draw a certain number of fans per year or he could break the lease and leave town. With a non-competitive team always on the field, it wasn't hard to keep fans away from the gates. In 1989 the city was rocked by the news that Argyros was going to sell the team. This was the first time Seattle was faced with the possibility of losing the Mariners.

Kingdome's Diamond Vision

In 1989 there were just a few  "Microsoft millionaires" and the East side had just started to become the Silicon Valley of the North. As Seattle scrambled to find a local buyer, fans wondered if this was it. There was not much hope in finding someone who would want to own a team that never had a winning season and could hardly drawn a million fans in a season. In walks Jeff Smulyan and buys the team for $77.5 million plus assuming over $12 million in club liabilities($10 million in payment of the Mariners' share of an antitrust settlement over owner collusion). A young (42 years old) aggressive radio station  mogul from Indianapolis who promised to keep the team in Seattle. Of course the famous Kingdome clauses still are in effect. 

Olympians Steve and Phil Mahre

On October 5, 1989, Jeff took control of the Mariners. The honeymoon lasted about one season when rumors began to go around that he bought the team in order to move it to Tampa. In 1991, under manager Jim Lefebvre, the Seattle Mariners did the impossible - they had a winning season. The team ended that season with a record of 83-79. Lefebvre was an old school manager that brought discipline to a young team. Although this isn't something they always wanted. Word from the dugout had players upset at his approach to the game. What ever the players wanted to say about him, he improved the team each year he was manager. That same year Jeff told local businessmen that he needed an additional $16 million to keep the team in town.

Senator Slade Gordon

After the 1991 season, Jim Lefebvre was fired as the manager of the team. Even though he had just had the best season of an former manager, the M's stated that there were conflicts between the owner and manager. Part of that was true. Jim Lefebvre was one of the only managers to demand from the owner better players to field and a commitment to winning. This action by Smulyan fueled rumors that he was going to sabotage the team in order to move the team out of Seattle. If the Mariners were too successful, more fans would come to the games. He needed to trigger the escape clause to find riches in another city. That city was Tampa.

Dr Bobby Brown and Fay Vincent

Reports began to surface that he was already in talks about a lease agreement to play in their baseball stadium. Then the bomb went off. U.S. Bank called Smulyan's loan on the team. Now he had to come up with the money to pay back the bank. At the same time his 59% interest in radio stations was also on shaky ground. Local officials he was using the M's to blackmail the city and using the money to help support his other investments. The rich person Seattle thought came to town was actually cash poor and had no way to continue as the Mariners owner.  It was also a time that the old claims of Seattle not being a baseball town were chanted. Jeff Smulyan even told the press that he felt Seattle could not support a Major League team. Baseball officials in New York also began to wonder of this was true. Commissioner Fay Vincent, in 1990, had publicly taken a stand against the movement of franchises, except in the most dire of circumstances. By 1991 Vincent was making statements that appeared he would not hold the Mariners to these stringent standards. This would be either a new beginning or the end of ML baseball in the Northwest. Just a few short years before the city had to search for an owner, now the process had to start all over again.

the National Anthem

First Jeff Smulyan made claims that he would move the team. A clause in his lease said that if attendance dropped below 90% of the average for American League teams. The city interpreted this to mean 90% of the prior year, but Smulyan claimed it referred to 90% average of all years beginning in 1990. However, there was a also clause that Smulyan first had to offer the club to a local owners. In December of 1991, rich owners and groups of owners began to spring up but none were from the Puget Sound area. Most were also ready to transport the Mariners to other cities. By January of 1992 Washington State politicians had talked with John Ellis about putting together a local group of owners to save baseball for Seattle. That month The Baseball Club of Seattle was formed and  announced its $125 million cash offer for the team, which included the purchase price of the club and operation cost. It appeared that the Seattle would once again see baseball that spring.

John Ellis

The principal investor would be Hiroshi Yamauchi, chairman of Nintendo Ltd. in Kyoto, Japan. His investment of $75 million was an expression of thanks to the region for the success of Nintendo of America, headquartered in Redmond. However, during negotiations with Major League baseball, his interest was dropped to 49 percent (all of which is controlled by his son-in-law Minoru Arakawa, president of Nintendo of America) so the majority of the team was controlled by local owners. The other 51 percent of the money was invested by: Microsoft Corp headed by Chris Larson, a group from McCaw Cellular headed by John McCaw, as well as Nintendo of America executive Howard Lincoln, Boeing's Shrontz and Ellis. The board of directors was made up of Ellis, Shrontz, Arakawa, Larson, McCaw, Lincoln, and Craig Watjen of Microsoft.

The first pitch

One of the first decisions the soon-to-be owners made was to bring back Chuck Armstrong as the club president, a position he help under former owner George Argyros. Since leaving the Mariners in 1989, Armstrong had been the University of Washington's interim athletic director. The current core of the M's, players such as Griffey and Edgar, were developed under his administration in the 1980's. His goal would be to keep the current stars here in Seattle while also developing a crop of young players to get the Mariners back to a winning club and challenge for a division title.

Collectable button

On July 1, 1992 the Baseball Club of Seattle became the official new owners of the Seattle Mariners. For the first time the team could say they were owned by a local core of people. A new opening night called Opening Night II was set for July 16th, the first game after the All-Star break. Ceremonies usually reserved for the beginning of the season were planned in celebration of a new start for the M's. Among the list of celebrities were the cast of Northern Exposure(filmed in Roslyn, Washington), local Olympians Steve and Phil Mahre, Senator Slade Gordon, and baseball officials Commissioner Fay Vincent and American League president Dr. Bobby Brown. Against the Toronto Blue Jays, the M's went on to lose the game 7-2 with Randy Johnson on the mound. That season the team would end up with one of its worst records, 64-98, and finish 32 games out of first. Needless to say they held the last position in the division, seventh. After the season ended the new owners would begin their rebuilding process by firing manager Bill Plummer and hiring a no-nonsense manger from the Reds, Lou Piniella. This would not be his first taste of being on a Seattle ball team. Back in 1969 he was drafted by the newly formed Seattle Pilots, only to be traded to the KC Royals before the season started. In Lou, the owners hoped to have a manager take control of the young talent on the team roster and turn them into something they had only done once, become a winning team.