Hiroshi Yamauchi, the Japanese industrialist financing a bid to purchase the Seattle Mariners, has never been to a baseball game and says, ”I don`t really like baseball.”
Yamauchi, the 64-year-old president of Nintendo Co. Ltd. of Kyoto, also says he doesn`t like to play video games, the source of his company`s wealth. ”Let me put it this way,” Yamauchi was quoted as saying in an interview published in Saturday`s editions of The New York Times. ”Baseball, well, baseball has never really interested me.”
Yamauchi has proposed to pay $75 million of a $125 million bid to purchase the Mariners from Jeff Smulyan and keep the team in Seattle. Commissioner Fay Vincent has called the deal unlikely because of baseball`s preference for local and North American owners.
”I imagine there are a lot of opinions on this matter in the United States, but that is not a concern to me,” Yamauchi was quoted as saying. ”I thought about whether I could do a service to Seattle, and what others think about it, that is their business.”
He said he doesn`t intend to be involved in running the team.
”What do I know about running a baseball team?” he said.
Video games?
”I really don`t understand them,” he was quoted as saying.
