Baseball Figure Dewey Soriano Dies At Age 78

Dewey Soriano, a nostalgic link with Seattle's baseball history, died today in a South Seattle nursing home. He was 78.

Mr. Soriano was instrumental in bringing Seattle its first - though brief - taste of major-league baseball in 1969. The Seattle Pilots, owned in part by Mr. Soriano, played but a single season here before departing for Milwaukee, where the team was renamed the Brewers.

The Pilots were an underfinanced franchise. For the opening game in April 1969, the city of Seattle had promised to expand Sick's Stadium from 14,933 to 25,000 seats. But expansion fell behind, and the seats were not in place until June.

"When the season opened, we had season tickets printed for all 25,000 but couldn't sell them because they didn't exist," Mr. Soriano said in recalling the event years later.

Mr. Soriano's ties with baseball went well beyond the Pilots. After his playing career ended in 1951, he became general manager of the Seattle Rainiers, a Pacific Coast League team that played in Sick's Stadium at Rainier Avenue South and South McClellan Street.

He helped rebuild the franchise, bringing in Fred Hutchinson as manager in 1955. The team drew 341,000 fans that year, doubling the number of the previous year. For that, Mr. Soriano was named Executive of the Year for the higher minor leagues by Sporting News magazine.

He became president of the Pacific Coast League in 1960 and held that job until 1968.

Baseball was his early love. As a youngster, he sold peanuts at Seattle Rainier games, and he pitched for Franklin High School, where he and Hutchinson were teammates.

Mr. Soriano pitched for the Rainiers in the early 1940s and also for the San Francisco Seals and the Oakland Oaks, all Pacific Coast League teams.

In 1948, Mr. Soriano borrowed $15,000 from his brothers to buy the Yakima Bears baseball team in the Western International League. He was a pitcher for the team as well as its president and general manager.

After his playing career ended in 1951, Mr. Soriano joined the Merchant Marine, eventually becoming president of the Puget Sound Pilots, who are responsible for maneuvering freighters and other large vessels entering and departing Puget Sound.

In 1982, a freighter carrying automobiles crashed into Blair Bridge in Tacoma while being piloted by Mr. Soriano.

And in 1967, a ship he was piloting hit a rock off Smith Island, north of Everett. The Coast Guard suspended his license for that incident, but it was reinstated when the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the agency had overstepped its authority.

For the past several years, Mr. Soriano had suffered a form of dementia and was in a nursing home, his daughter, Cathi Soriano, said today.

Mr. Soriano is also survived by another daughter, Kay Soriano of Seattle, and a son, Gary Soriano of Bellevue; brothers Amigo, Milton and Max Soriano, all of Seattle, and Rupert Soriano of Bellevue; and sisters Charlotte Paulson of Renton and Gloria Soriano of Seattle.

Dave Birkland's phone message number is 206-515-5682. His e-mail address is: dbir-new@seatimes.com