Mariners Owners Make Their Pitch -- New Stadium Is Only Way To Go, They Say

Some of the Seattle Mariners' biggest stars have hesitated to campaign for a new, retractable-roof stadium.

But some of the most reluctant campaigners of all - members of the 16-member ownership group - were the draw last night for about 500 people at a meeting to convince voters that a new baseball stadium is the only way to keep the team in town.

Since buying the Mariners in 1992, most of the owners, who rarely make public appearances, have purposely remained obscure. They include the Japanese owner of Nintendo, the chairman of Boeing, a trio who made fortunes with McCaw Cellular, and several Microsoft millionaires, some of whom played in a company fantasy baseball league together.

In all, eight owners showed up at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center session, portraying themselves as fans who bought the team to save baseball for Seattle. They told stories from their childhoods about sneaking into Boston's Fenway Park, getting a ball from Roy Campanella at a minor-league park in Rhode Island or growing up in Seattle deprived of major-league baseball.

Once the nostalgia was out of the way, the owners went right to what they insist is the bottom line.

Wayne Perry, vice chairman of AT&T Wireless Services, formerly McCaw Cellular Communications, called the Sept. 19 election a "light switch" vote:

-- Approve the one-tenth of a cent sales-tax increase - about 10 cents for every $100 purchase - to raise $240 million. The money would go for the new ballpark and upgrading the Kingdome - and the Mariners stay.

-- Reject the measure and the Seattle Mariners are history.

Perry noted that the group will have invested nearly $250 million, with heavy losses, by the time a new stadium would open in 1999 - a civic commitment, he insists, that goes beyond that made by owners in any other city.

The team lost $15 million in last year's strike-shortened season, and predicts a loss of $30 million for this season.

If the stadium vote goes down, Perry said, the team will be sold.

"There isn't anybody dumb enough to buy the team and keep it in Seattle," Perry said. "You've already got all the dumb people in Seattle sitting right here tonight."

Nintendo of America Chairman Howard Lincoln, who represents the team's majority owner, Hiroshi Yamauchi, the president of Nintendo's Japanese parent company, echoed Perry's words.

"As we've indicated to you this evening," Lincoln said, "we will have no other choice than to stop this bleeding" if the stadium measure fails.

He predicted that if a second major-league team flees Seattle - the Seattle Pilots left for Milwaukee after one season in 1969 - the city would never get another franchise.

Baseball fans outnumbered stadium critics in last night's convention-center crowd, greeting the owners with a boisterous standing ovation.

Despite the warm reception, polling shows that even ardent fans are split on the stadium vote because of disenchantment with owners, players and the state of the game following the bitter strike last year, said Seattle public-affairs consultant Bob Gogerty, whose firm is helping run the campaign.

To woo them, stadium backers plan to spend up to $800,000 on the race. They may need it.

One man in the audience accused the owners of being more interested in breaking unions than playing baseball.

A Kirkland man opposed to more tax increases wondered what was so bad about baseball at the Kingdome.

That, said owner Christopher Larson, who has been with Microsoft since the software giant's infancy, was precisely the wrong question. And the answer is a reflection of baseball's new economic realities, he said.

To compete with bigger-market teams or those teams with new stadiums, he said, the Mariners need a park that is a draw in itself.

"I came to realize," said Larson, that the question is not, `Is the Kingdome an OK place to watch baseball games?' The question is, `Can the business of the Seattle Mariners make any reasonable profit . . . in that facility?' And the answer to that is a resounding no."

Seattle Times staff reporter Terry McDermott contributed to this report.

------------- ON TELEVISION -------------

TVW, the state version of C-SPAN, will show the entire Seattle Mariners town meeting tonight at 7 and 11 o'clock on Summit Cable's Channel 52. It can also be seen on Seattle Municipal Channel 28 at 11 o'clock tonight.

---------------------- WHO OWNS THE MARINERS? ----------------------

Members of the ownership group in attendance at last night's town meeting:

John Ellis, chairman and chief executive officer of the Mariners; retired chairman of Puget Sound Power & Light Co.

Howard Lincoln, chairman of Nintendo of America, based in Redmond.

Christopher Larson, Microsoft Corp. executive.

Wayne Perry, vice chairman of AT&T Wireless, formerly McCaw Cellular Communications.

Judith Bigelow, partner in the law firm of Preston Gates & Ellis.

Carl Stork, director of the Windows hardware program at Microsoft and husband of Judith Bigelow.

Craig Watjen, former treasurer of Microsoft and currently involved in several small-business ventures.

Bill Marklyn, former project manager at Microsoft. He now works on software development and children's books.

Owners not present:

Hiroshi Yamauchi, president of Nintendo Co. He is the majority owner of the Seattle Mariners, investing $75 million into the team. He lives in Japan.

Minoru Arakawa, president of Nintendo of America.

John McCaw Jr., co-founder and director of McCaw Cellular. He is the majority owner of the Vancouver Canucks hockey team and Vancouver Grizzlies basketball franchise.

Jeff Raikes, senior vice president of Microsoft North America.

Rob Glaser, a former Microsoft vice president who is founder of Progressive Networks, which develops multimedia and online communications technology.

Frank Shrontz, chairman and chief executive officer of The Boeing Co.

Rufus Lumry, one of the original founders of McCaw Cellular.

Raymond "Buck" Ferguson, former Microsoft executive who is a business consultant.