How the Seattle Mariners won and lost Japan

This afternoon, in Cooperstown, New York, the first Japanese player will be inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame. Ichiro Suzuki, the hitting savant whose slashing style recalled Dead Ball Era precision, will stride to a podium in baseball’s nirvana and address the game’s cognoscenti.

A bronze plaque will stand off to one side, detailing his legendary career, embossed by 4,367 hits and a lifetime .332 average between MLB and Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). 

On that plaque, Ichiro will don a Seattle Mariners cap, joining Ken Griffey Jr. and Edgar Martínez as the only M’s inductees in the vaunted museum. And the mounting of that plaque – its grand addition to the game’s sacred pantheon – will bookend an evocative era in franchise history and provide a fitting coda to the Mariners’ undulating eminence in Japan. 

Once upon a time, of course – in the halcyon days of Ichiro’s zenith – the Mariners were Japan’s Team. In the early-2000s, spurred by insatiable interest in Suzuki, Seattle honed powerful popularity in the land of the rising sun. Now, however, as Suzuki walks into the fading sun, that huge organisational advantage seems to have been squandered.

“I hate to say it, but the Mariners are an afterthought in Japan,” John Gibson, a longtime NPB expert who once lived in the country, told me recently. (1) I wanted to explore that fall from grace and analyse that loss of status. Ichiro’s enshrinement felt as good a time as any, and so I joined Mariners fans in mourning what might have been.

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The rise

Long before the Mariners existed, reaching back into the 1930s and 1940s, the New York Yankees enjoyed supreme popularity in Japan. Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and other larger-than-life heroes toured Japan, whose baseball-loving populace showered the pinstriped gods with boundless enthusiasm. By some estimates, up to half a million people welcomed Ruth in a 1934 parade through Tokyo, and to Japanese fans, the Yankees became a paragon of excellence. (2) 

Resentment and suspicion coloured the relationship between Japanese and American baseball, a residue of wartime propaganda, but following the Yankees’ lead, other MLB teams eyed Japan as a lucrative market with a captive audience of baseball-obsessed consumers. A few made concerted efforts to woo Japanese fans, perhaps most notably the Giants, who leveraged associations with yakyū ambassador Lefty O’Doul and signed Masanori Murakami as the first NPB export in 1964.

Formed in 1977, the Seattle Mariners were keen to earn a slice of that pie, too. Situated in the Pacific Northwest, and thus beneficiaries of shorter, non-stop flights to and from Japan, the Mariners possessed a natural geographical advantage while attempting to establish links. Seattle’s large Asian community also helped, with Japanese culture and cuisine woven into the city’s multicultural fabric.

A moribund expansion team that lost 924 games in its first 10 seasons while drawing less than 12,000 fans per contest to the colossal 59,000-capacity Kingdome, the Mariners needed all the support they could get, and looking west across the ocean seemed prudent.

Indeed, the Mariners’ focus on – and popularity in – Japan actually predates Ichiro by almost a decade. In 1992, for instance, Japanese video game powerhouse Nintendo – or at least its reclusive patriarch, Hiroshi Yamauchi – bought the Mariners. Washington senator Slade Gorton led new regulations that defended Nintendo and others from bootleg video games, and the Japanese conglomerate ‘thanked’ the state by purchasing the Mariners, whose continued existence in the city was questioned when incumbent owner Jeff Smulyan became disinterested. (3)

Gorton led a committee tasked with finding new local ownership, and when Bill Gates declined involvement, overtures were made to Nintendo, which headquartered its North American operation in Seattle. And with Minoru Arakawa, head of Nintendo’s American business, acting as a conduit, Yamauchi, chairman of Nintendo, agreed to buy the team as a ‘gift’ to the community. (3) (4)

Yamauchi was chastised for his apparent philanthropy, however. Baseball commissioner Fay Vincent was a vocal opponent of foreign investment in MLB franchises, while critics accused Yamauchi of attempting to buy social and political capital via a contrived quid pro quo. (5) (6) Only after extensive lobbying by George W. Bush, owner of the Texas Rangers, and House Speaker Thomas Foley, who pondered a probe into MLB’s antitrust exemption, was Yamauchi voted in as the Mariners’ principal owner. (7) (8)

A cerebral recluse, Yamauchi was supposedly indifferent to baseball, with insiders gossiping that the Nintendo czar had never heard of Griffey Jr., the swaggering slugger who finally gave Mariners fans hope in the early-1990s. As such, Yamauchi morphed into the ultimate hands-off owner, with Arakawa and Howard Lincoln, a Nintendo lawyer, serving as his de facto proxies on the Mariners’ board. Elsewhere, Paul Isaki, a Japanese-American expert in regional trade relations, was hired as the vice president of business development, while Chuck Armstrong, a longtime Mariners executive, returned as team president.

Though largely removed from day-to-day operations, Yamauchi did influence the Mariners’ overall strategy. As early as 1993, in fact, mere months into his ownership, a piece in the Far Eastern Economic Review by Susumu Awanohara focused on the team’s attempts to interest Japan. “The Seattle Mariners hope to be Japan’s baseball team,’ read an enticing headline, while the article explored novel attempts by the ballclub to stimulate Japanese attention. (9)  

One initiative was a series of Griffey Jr.-fronted Nintendo video games. (10) Another was an ambitious play centred around the nascent internet. In November 1994, indeed, the Mariners became the first MLB team to launch a website. When a professor in Denmark emailed asking to buy a cap, the Mariners also made the first ecommerce sale in baseball history. The first internet ticket sale and online game broadcast also belonged to Seattle, which saw an opportunity to reach new fans across borders – especially in Japan. (11) (12)

“By gliding into cyberspace, the Mariners now offer schedule, ticket, merchandise, spring training and other information to anyone around the world with a computer and internet connection,” reported the Seattle Times. “Whether in Moscow, Idaho, or Moscow, Russia, a Mariner fan can call up player biographies and statistics, press releases and game updates, and send electronic mail to club executives…The club may add a section for minor league pitcher Makoto ‘Mac’ Suzuki, who comes from Japan, where the Mariner home page has received significant interest.” (12)

In retrospect, the launching of a global website and the signing of Mac Suzuki can be viewed as a microcosm of the Mariners’ early efforts to endear Japanese fans. An erratic amateur who failed to impress in three hapless seasons as a Mariners reliever, Suzuki nevertheless served as a useful prototype of the team’s international strategy: player recruitment meshing with innovative marketing to produce interest, eminence and power in untapped domains. 

That gameplan seemed progressive, but one team was already ahead of the curve: the Los Angeles Dodgers, who signed budding ace Hideo Nomo – just the second Japanese-born player to enter MLB – in February 1995. Nomo exploited a loophole by effectively retiring from Japanese baseball to terminate his contract with the Kintetsu Buffaloes and head stateside aged 26. A phenomenon, Nomo won National League Rookie of the Year honours in 1995, and intrigued Japanese fans took ‘Nomo vacations’ to see him pitch in the US. (13) (14)

Contrary to misperceptions of aloof indifference, Yamauchi expressed discontent that the Mariners failed to land Nomo. Worried his baseball men had missed a trick, and naturally interested in seeing Japanese stars represent the Mariners, the enigmatic owner urged an increased seriousness regarding scouting in the region. More, Yamauchi sought greater structure and science to those efforts, with the Mariners hiring Jim Colborn as their first Pacific Rim Scouting Director in 1997. (15)

A former big league pitcher who twirled a no-hitter with the Royals in 1977, Colborn was poached by Seattle from the Oakland Athletics, where he served as a minor league manager. (16) Already eyeing the next great Japanese export – Orix Blue Wave star Ichiro Suzuki – the Mariners liked Colborn’s links to the Osaka team, for which he served as a pitching coach from 1990 through 1993. Ichiro debuted with the Blue Wave in 1992, and he developed a respectful rapport with Colborn, often quizzing the American about a hypothetical future in MLB. Fluent in Japanese, and fondly remembering his precocious mentee, Colborn made Ichiro a priority upon taking control of the Mariners’ Pacific Rim operation. (15) 

Recruiting Japanese players became increasingly difficult, however, thanks in large part to Nomo’s acrimonious exit from NPB, and the similarly controversial defection of Hideki Irabu, who forced his way to the Yankees. Rankled by technicalities that allowed stars to fall from their grasp, Japanese team owners pushed for a structured ‘posting’ system in which NPB players were made available to MLB bidders in an approved manner at a sustainable cadence.

The new protocol was introduced in 1998, and MLB teams rushed to establish partnership agreements with their NPB counterparts, eager to gain the inside track on their progeny. Again prizing Ichiro, Seattle signed a formal collaboration agreement with the Blue Wave, and even hired Hide Sueyoshi, a rising star of the Orix front office, to assist Colborn with scouting and the PR department with translation and website copy. (17) (18)

In those nascent days, though, the Mariners’ approach to Japan still relied more on serendipity than strategy – as shown by the way Seattle stumbled upon its first Japan-focused scout. Stuck in traffic one day while travelling to meet a visiting Blue Wave contingent at a Mariners training complex, Colborn rang Ted Heid, an associate scout who lived nearby. Presuming Heid had a key to the facility, Colborn asked the part-timer to welcome the guests and stall until his delayed arrival. Heid agreed, and met the Japanese visitors at the allotted time. When Colborn arrived, he was shocked to hear Heid speaking impeccable Japanese with the Blue Wave officials – a legacy from Heid’s time as a Mormon missionary in Japan. (19) (20)

Stunned – and no doubt relieved – Colborn asked Heid to help out that week, then put in a good word with Roger Jongewaard, the Mariners’ scouting director, who gave Heid an expanded part-time scouting position. Initially focused on Arizona, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico with a sideline in Japan, Heid was soon promoted to a full-time role specialising in Japan. The Mariners also shunted him to the front of their efforts to recruit Ichiro. (19)

Soon thereafter, Ichiro visited the Kingdome and appeared as a visitor at Seattle’s spring training camp. (15) Colborn hosted Ichiro at his home in Ventura, California, and the pair worked out at nearby UCLA. Tampering rules were notoriously ambiguous as the new posting system found its feet, and no direct inducements were made to Suzuki, but Colborn and Heid planted a seed for whenever the generational talent decided to leave Orix. (21) 

The Blue Wave agreement did not preclude Seattle from signing players from other NPB teams, however, and in December 1999, they did just that, inking Yokohama BayStars closer Kazuhiro Sasaki, owner of the NPB career saves record, to a two-year deal. Yamauchi made a rare appearance at a press conference to unveil Sasaki as a Mariner, and even presented the relief ace with a stuffed Pikachu Pokémon toy – complete with Mariners cap – in further bid to stimulate synergy. (22)

In 2000, Sasaki logged 37 saves en route to winning the American League Rookie of the Year award, and his fun-loving visage created a buzz among engaged fans. “We acted like the Japanese,” wrote Florangela Davila of The Seattle Times. “We started calling him Kazu, sporting headbands, eating edamame, talking forkball vs split-fingered fastball, yowling words like sanshin!” (23)

Sasaki’s jovial integration set the stage for Ichiro, who was posted by the Blue Wave on 2 November 2000 – by then a 27-year-old superstar with 1,278 career NPB hits, a lifetime .353 batting average, and a prized Japan Series ring. At that point, from the shadows, Yamauchi issued another of his occasional edicts: sign Suzuki, or else. The Mariners’ owner set that objective for Armstrong, his day-to-day point man, who cascaded it to Pat Gillick, the team’s new GM; Colborn, the key conduit to Ichiro; and Heid, who had also developed a relationship with the star. (15) (24)

First, the Ichiro sweepstakes required sealed bids from interested teams, which is where Heid’s groundwork paid huge dividends. For years, Heid met regularly with Yutaka Okazoe, the Orix team president, as part of the Mariners-Blue Wave collaboration. And while direct communications regarding the closed auction were forbidden, Heid had developed a keen understanding of Ichiro’s value through his high-level discussions. As such, the Mariners lodged a $13 million bid for Suzuki and won exclusive negotiating rights with their white whale, who swiftly agreed a three-year, $14 million deal to join Seattle. (15) (25) 

Remarkably, just three days after landing Ichiro – the object of his professional fascination and desire for almost a decade – Colborn left the Mariners to become the Dodgers’ pitching coach. Heid succeeded him as the Mariners’ Pacific Rim Scouting Director, inheriting the motherlode of regional momentum. (26)

The zenith

In Japan, Ichiro was the most beloved baseball player since Sadaharu Oh. However, at the confluence of mass media and exploding pop culture, Suzuki was by far the most scrutinised ballplayer the country had ever seen. Mail addressed to ‘Ichiro, Japan’ found its way to Suzuki. Endorsements rolled in by the dozen. Billboards beamed his face from Nagasaki to Sapporo. Reporters rummaged through Suzuki’s trash, and his wedding was held overseas with travel under pseudonyms. Japan was obsessed with Ichiro, and his every move made headlines. (27)

Naturally, then, there was great excitement for Suzuki’s stateside sojourn. And while some yakyū traditionalists mourned the loss of a homegrown legend to the bolder, brasher American game, Ichiro’s deal with the Mariners turbocharged an unprecedented phenomenon. Though barely possible, interest in his exploits ratcheted up, and onlookers on both sides of the divide worried about his transition, which bore great symbolic consequences for future generations. 

In Seattle, Suzuki took the number 51 jersey, writing a letter to Randy Johnson, its former inhabitant, promising not to shame the digits. (28) A media circus quickly engulfed the Mariners, who had captured the imagination of fans en route to a six-game ALCS defeat to the Yankees in 2000. Álex Rodríguez was lost to free agency, following a path previously forged by Griffey Jr., while Johnson starred in Arizona via Houston, but Suzuki filled a void and captured fans’ hearts. Safeco Field, Seattle’s sparkling new ballpark, became a destination in 2001, and Ichiro was the main attraction.

From day one, in fact, Ichiro-mania strained credulity. “Every morning, sometimes as early as eight o’clock, they begin lining up outside the players’ parking lot,” reported Michael Martinez of the San Jose Mercury News. “At first, there are just a few of them, but then more and more show up, and before you know it, there are 20 or 30 waiting, maybe more. All they want is to document the daily arrival of Japan’s Ichiro Suzuki, the first non-pitcher from his country to sign a major league contract.

“It’s a big deal in Japan. So big that the media throng at the Seattle Mariners’ training complex this week has become overwhelming – a phenomenon all by itself. There are still cameras and video cameras, boom microphones and tape recorders, long lenses, short lenses, tripods, cellular phones, binoculars and notebooks – and one person attached to each piece of equipment. They scribble, shoot and record every moment of everything Ichiro does, from running to stretching to hitting to walking to talking. Nothing goes unnoticed.” (29)

Media conglomerates and marquee sponsors clamoured after Ichiro, too. Starbucks introduced a line of Ichiro gift cards. (30) Nissan sponsored an Ichiro bobblehead. (31) NHK, a Japanese TV network, secured a permanent booth at Safeco, from which it beamed 182 Mariners games – including spring exhibitions – live across Japan. (14)

Throughout a historic season, Seattle airline and hotel reservations rose 20% due to a Japanese influx. More than 160 different Japanese journalists were given credentials by the Mariners. And $9 ‘Ichi-rolls’ became a sushi sensation at the stadium. Overall, analysts predicted a $100 million injection into Seattle’s economy over five years, attributable to The Ichiro Factor. Baseball had rarely seen anything like it. (14)

The Mariners offered Japanese simulcasts via internet streams, though ‘for a great many Japanese fans, watching MLB games via satellite TV in the morning became a new passion,’ Robert Whiting observed. “Kimonoed grandmothers and preschool children in short pants became familiar with the starting lineups of teams like the Seattle Mariners, the New York Yankees, and the Chicago Cubs.” (32)

When Suzuki faced Nomo in May, 20 million people watched live, at midday, in Japan. (33) Mariners merchandise sales skyrocketed 60%, from thirteenth to first in the MLB rankings. (34) (35) Even Amazon, another Seattle institution, got in on the act, creating a Mariners store on its Japanese-language website and luring no less than Jeff Bezos to a carefully choreographed press conference. (36) No other MLB team had a ‘second language’ website – another ‘first’ in the Mariners’ pioneering legacy. (37)

Those kimonoed grandmothers, preschool children in short pants, and baseball fiends surfing Bezos’ opportunistic website witnessed a phenomenal force. The 2001 Mariners tied the all-time record with 116 regular season wins as more than 3.5 million fans flocked to Safeco Field. Ichiro was a major catalyst, hitting .350, collecting 242 hits, and joining Sasaki to give Seattle back-to-back Rookie of the Year winners – both from Japan. Ichiro was also named American League MVP, a poetic contrast to the brute force of Barry Bonds in the National League.

“Almost overnight, solely because of him, Japan had gone from a country that sporadically watched American baseball to one that watched Seattle Mariners games with something approaching religious fervour, even though the 16-hour time difference meant that games were televised in the morning,” wrote Whiting. “Tokyo taxi drivers plied the streets with their radios tuned to the Mariners’ play-by-play in Japanese, while the numerous sports dailies – 14 in all with circulations of up to several hundred thousand each – carried detailed reports on every move Ichiro made. His success in the big leagues was the story of the year in Japan, the story of the decade, perhaps. He got more attention than the Emperor and the Prime Minister combined.” (14)

The fade 

Alas, the 2001 Mariners once again came unstuck in the playoffs. The Yankees beat them handily, once again, in the ALCS, ripping the heart out of a lovable team, managed by the affable Lou Piniella, that won new fans around the world. That penchant for self-sabotage – that ‘close but no cigar’ credo – somehow enhanced affection for the Mariners, who raised befuddling failure to a morose art form. 

Between 1995 and 2001, indeed, Seattle made four playoff appearances in seven seasons. They fell short each time, though, despite hoarding an embarrassment of riches – from the early days of Tino, Edgar, Randy and Griffey Jr., through the rise of A-Rod, and onto the epoch of Ichiro. Throw in second-tier stars like Jay Buhner, Raúl Ibañez, John Olerud and Mike Cameron, and 15 playoff wins over seven years represented scant return on enormous potential. 

To wit, between 1995 and 2003, the Mariners led MLB with 274.2 wins above replacement. The next-best team fell almost 20 wins shy of Seattle. Still, the Mariners barely put a dent in the postseason, leading fans to question the kismet of their snake-bitten team. The Mariners were fatally lopsided, ranking first in offensive WAR during that stretch yet languishing 15th overall in starting pitchers’ ERA. The lineup was a potent force, but the rotation was a hot mess. They could never put it all together. (38) 

Ichiro-mania stretched through 2004, when the slap-hitting metronome broke George Sisler’s 84-year-old record for hits in a single season with 262. Behind the scenes, however, dysfunction plagued the Mariners, who lost Piniella to the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Gillick to the Philadelphia Phillies. Seattle also lost 99 games in 2004, Suzuki’s heroics the only saving grace, before tumbling back to mediocrity.

In November 2004, Yamauchi stepped aside, selling his controlling stake in the Mariners to Nintendo of America for $67 million. Ichiro received 5,000 shares, a nod to his influence and impact, but a cogent vision for the future often appeared muddled. (39) (40) Indeed, Nintendo seemed more preoccupied with sideline gimmicks – such as The Nintendo Fan Network, which allowed fans to order hot dogs and beer via a Nintendo DS during games at Safeco – than with fielding a serious contender. (41)

A further 93 losses in 2005, and 84 in 2006, lessened fan interest in a diminished product. Once a roaring fortress of enthusiasm, Safeco became a fulcrum of frustration – attendances plummeting almost 30% from the Ichiro high to the 2006 abyss.

Even more worryingly, from a strategic perspective, were early fissures in the Mariners’ eminence across Japan. All-Star reliever Shigetoshi Hasegawa gave Ichiro a likeable Japanese teammate, but he was procured as an MLB free agent, while Seattle’s NPB pipeline ran dry. In fact, some insiders pondered whether it ever really existed at all, or whether the courting of Ichiro was a standalone mirage.

Other teams took a leaf out of the Mariners’ playbook, too, signing Japanese superstars as marketing assets as much as ballplayers. When the Yankees landed Hideki Matsui in 2003, the Mariners professed little interest. Likewise, Daisuke Matsuzaka passed them by en route to Boston in 2006. Then, a year later, Hiroki Kuroda spurned Seattle and took less money to play for the Dodgers. (42) (43)

Gradually, any notion of a formidable NPB-Seattle nexus seemed to lean more on mythology than logic. Hisashi Iwakuma and Kenji Johjima were neat under-the-radar finds, but with coveted star NPB players – Matsui, Matsuzaka, Akinori Iwamura, Kei Igawa – the Mariners seemed to lack any discernible advantage.

That, perhaps, can be attributed to a conscious de-prioritisation of the Japanese market – or, at least, a subconscious failure to fully capitalise on Ichiro-mania. In 2007, Heid, the Mariners’ Pacific Rim Scouting Director, saw his job title change to Coordinator of International Projects. Arguably semantic in nature, or perhaps part of a proprietary restructure, the move raised eyebrows optically, hinting at a shift in organisational ethos. Moreover, the Mariners never hired another executive in the same position, suggesting a tweaked approach. 

Overwhelmingly, though, Seattle struggled to lure further NPB talent because – well – it was not very good, quite frankly. According to Gibson, there is more nuance to the recruitment of NPB players than is often acknowledged, with the ‘cash-title hope quotient’ a useful barometer of success. (1) Yes, Japanese players want to be paid well, but they also want to compete – and win – on the biggest stages. Despite a fine ballpark, an evocative fan culture, and a rich Japanese heritage, the Mariners rarely competed on that big stage. To this day, in fact, they remain the only MLB team to never appear in – much less win – the World Series. That hurts their sales pitch.

Heading into the 2010s, Seattle continued to dedicate resources to Japan, but came to treat it less as a distinct carveout underpinned by rich franchise heritage. Sure, Seattle still monitored NPB prospects, but in a manner commensurate with other regions in the wider purview of ‘international operations.’ Heid became more of a conventional scout, reporting to vice president of international operations Bob Engle, and the Mariners continued to whiff on marquee Japanese talent, most notably Yu Darvish, who signed with the division rival Texas Rangers.

Such a location-agnostic ethos is understandable, and perhaps even optimal, given the overall aim of winning games and championships. Teams would sing a Martian from Pluto if it could throw 100-mph, hence a lack of bias towards any one market. However, for the romantics among us – for those who grew up finding the Mariners’ Japanese niche cool – such an analytically-driven paradigm shift felt a little cold. Where was the desire to hone a unique identity?

In that regard, Jack Zduriencik tried to make the Mariners more competitive, but his methods felt somewhat generic. Hired as general manager before the 2009 season, Zduriencik embraced a hard rebuild, with minor league prospects prized over major league results in the short-term. Focused on recouping high draft picks, Seattle lost 77 games in 2009, 101 games in 2010 and 95 games in 2011. Home attendance dipped below 2 million for the first time since 1995, and the momentum that defined the early-2000s – cajoled by Ichiro and Japan – became a forlorn relic of a bygone age.

A momentary revival came in March 2012, when the Mariners and Athletics played two games in Tokyo to open the regular season, but nostalgia did little to alter Seattle’s international outlook. The Mariners had long strived to play in Japan, with serious attempts dating back to 1995, but unforeseen hurdles – including a players strike and the Iraq war – kiboshed logistics. (44) And while the sight of Ichiro going 4-for-5 on Opening Day, before 44,227 at the Tokyo Dome, stirred sentimental yearning, the Mariners traded their talisman – by then 38-years-old – to the Yankees a few months later, resigned to the fact they could not offer him one last shot at the playoffs.

Ironically, and painfully for Mariners fans, Ichiro’s presence in pinstripes helped lure the next great Japanese star – pitching phenom Masahiro Tanaka – to the Bronx in January 2014. Suzuki was still a Yankee at that time, and the coveted Tanaka cherished the chance to play alongside his childhood idol. (45) Matsui joined the Yankees’ recruitment effort, too, while Kuroda, another Japanese legend, re-upped with the team, as well. When Tanaka signed a seven-year, $155 million with the Yankees, the Mariners’ Japanese impetus was all but lost. 

The fall

There were still infrequent flickers of the Mariners’ old resonance in Japan. Robinson Canó, the team’s next definitive star, stood out in the 2014 MLB Japan All-Star Series, an offseason exhibition tour. And a year later, Iwakuma threw a no-hitter for the Mariners, receiving some acclaim in domestic media. Ultimately, though, the failure of Zduriencik to deliver a winning team affirmed the Mariners’ status as chronic underachievers – not exactly the kind of reputation that appeals to the more casual, success-hungry international fan.

Zduriencik was fired midway through the 2015 season, and Nintendo sold its majority stake in the Mariners for $661 million a year later. John Stanton, a communications entrepreneur, became principal owner, with Nintendo retaining a 10% stake. (46) But as the Canó-led Mariners flailed predictably, prolonging the longest playoff drought in sports, talk of a fresh approach drew eye rolls from jaded fans.

Further proof of the Mariners’ perceived mediocrity came in December 2017, when their spirited attempts to land Shohei Ohtani – the greatest of all NPB exports – came up short. Driven by Jerry Dipoto, the replacement for Zduriencik, the Mariners tried everything to sign Ohtani, the two-way unicorn posted by the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. And it did not work.

Seattle said it would allow Ohtani to pitch and hit in MLB, a key factor in his decision-making process. Seattle frantically dumped players to max out its international bonus pool money, and offered it all to Ohtani. Seattle even delivered an elaborate presentation to Ohtani. And then…he signed with the division rival Los Angeles Angels, a death knell to any residual Mariner claims of Japanese hegemony. (47)

More broadly, however, Ohtani’s decision to join the Angels – a tired franchise with no recent history of success – reiterated a long-overlooked truism: that NPB talents could not be plucked whimsically from a tree, willy nilly, by the most illustrious MLB franchises whenever they bothered to look. Indeed, gone were the days of considering the NPB a glorified feeder league, subservient to the mighty Yankees and a few other titans. Such a simplistic, patronising view put MLB teams behind the eight ball when recruiting Japanese players. More commitment, sincerity and preparation – hell, more respect, investment and effort – were required to woo and land NPB exports. They could no longer be swooped up in a blasé, nonchalant fashion.

Ichiro, the original poster child for that long-lost approach, returned to play 15 games for Seattle in 2018, aged 44, and again missed the postseason. A neat moment welcomed the 2019 season, as Suzuki played two final Mariner games in Japan, once more against the Athletics. But the fact that he went hitless in six plate appearances seemed sadly fitting. In some ways, it bookended the Mariners’ Japanese odyssey – almost three decades in the making, opened in a blaze of bold determination and closed in a wistful whimper of regret.

Yusei Kikuchi, the Mariners’ game two starter in Tokyo, proved to be a decent – if ultimately underwhelming – addition, but in The Age of Ohtani, the exploits of other Japanese players struggled to gain traction. In six seasons with the Angels, Ohtani evoked comparisons to Babe Ruth as a game-changing force who could pitch and hit at elite levels, and a slew of awards – Rookie of the Year, MVP, three All-Star selections – seasoned his ascent to superstardom.

With time, Ohtani’s fame and adulation in Japan rivalled – and perhaps surpassed – that of Ichiro. By leading Japan to World Baseball Classic glory in 2023, and famously striking out Angels teammate Mike Trout to clinch the championship game, Ohtani solidified his standing as the game’s greatest star while enriching a legendary reputation back home.

Therefore, when Ohtani hit the open market again, as a 29-year-old free agent in the winter of 2023, his future dominated the baseball news cycle. In theory, every team wanted the game’s most transcendent star, but only a handful had a realistic shot at convincing him of their worthiness. Internally, the Mariners doubted their ability to afford Ohtani, let alone appeal to him, and when the Dodgers inevitably signed Shohei to a 10-year, $700 million deal, it was not difficult to see why. (48)

In fairness, expecting the Mariners – a franchise with annual revenues of $379 million (49) – to allocate a vast swathe of that income to one player is unreasonable. Seattle is, after all, a midsized market, and Dipoto is forced to cut his cloth accordingly. Similarly, the Mariners cannot be expected to sign every Japanese star who becomes available. Sports are a competitive business, and other teams are striving for the same goals. Moreover, in that competitive environment, wealthier teams have shown an increased willingness to spend exorbitantly to find advantages, to a point where poorer teams struggle to offer like-for-like financial propositions – even if their desire to do so remains strong.

There is more to the Dodgers’ dominance than money, though, and that is often overlooked. Los Angeles created a culture, and a winning momentum, that elite players want to be part of. Fiscal resources undoubtedly help towards that objective, but there are ‘softer’ dynamics – the compassion of coaches; the meticulousness of executives; the self-policing of clubhouse chemistry – that can be massaged without cash. The Dodgers mastered those things, en route to attractive perennial contention, while the Mariners are still trying to figure them out.

Landing Ohtani was the first domino in a Dodgers masterplan to conquer Japan, and watching that bloom to fruition reiterated the Mariners’ squandering of a true advantage in the market. Two weeks after signing Ohtani, the Dodgers inked Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the next ace off the NBP conveyor belt, to a 12-year, $325 million contract. By dropping $1.025 billion on the two greatest Japanese players in the world, Los Angeles quit messing around and pushed its chips into the middle of the table. And when Rōki Sasaki, another prodigious NPB talent, joined the newly-minted world champion Dodgers in January 2025, any lingering doubts were erased. The Dodgers dominated Japan, and everybody else gawped enviously. 

Quadrupling-down on their Japanese commitment, the Dodgers opened the 2025 regular season in Tokyo with two games against the Cubs. Ohtani, Yamamoto, Sasaki and Japanese-born manager Dave Roberts were treated like The Beatles in their homeland, and the Tokyo Series generated $40 million in merchandise sales – more than the most recent Super Bowl and World Series. Meanwhile, apparel manufacturer Fanatics reported that 57% of its Japanese MLB sales pertained to Ohtani – reiterating the Dodgers’ goldmine and the Mariners’ folly in not substantiating their Ichiro deal with further marquee imports. (50)

Unlike Seattle, whose Japanese operation rarely grew beyond a handful of people at any one time, the Dodgers also invested heavily in non-playing resources – leveraged through a cogent infrastructure – that actualised their hunger for domination. Los Angeles featured a director of Asia-Pacific scouting, a director of Asia-Pacific operations, and a director of Japanese player operations and strategy, in addition to scores of scouts, executives, interpreters and marketing personnel. The Dodgers vowed to ‘paint Japan blue,’ and they succeeded – with merciless intent. (51) (52)

The present

That clinical desire can likely be traced to Ichiro, too. When Colborn joined the Dodgers a quarter-century earlier, in 2000, mere hours after landing Suzuki for Seattle, many new colleagues ribbed him. (53) The Dodgers loved Ichiro and finished second in the bidding – a fact that rankled then-chairman Bob Daly, who told Armstrong that Los Angeles would never again be outbid on a posted NPB star it really wanted. (15) Such was the Dodgers’ existential paranoia, in fact, then-GM Kevin Malone tried to trade for Suzuki before he even played a game for the Mariners. Gary Sheffield was offered in return, but Seattle nixed the idea as preposterous. (54)

In many respects, then, that entire episode – the frustration of losing out on Ichiro –stoked the Dodgers’ ruthless quest for Japanese domination. Yes, they already had fine pedigree in the area, embodied by the mercurial Nomo, but Ichiro escaped their grasp. And while the chaotic ownership of Frank McCourt complicated the Dodgers’ overarching vision, their eventual procurement of Ohtani, Yamamoto and Sasaki satiated an organisational desire – for supremacy in Japan – that had percolated for decades.

Now, then, the Dodgers are reaping their rewards. In a May 2025 survey of 5,255 Japanese baseball fans, 30% said the Dodgers were the most popular baseball team in Japan – ahead of the vaunted Yomiuri Giants, Fighters and Yankees. (55) A further independent report substantiated that claim, while failing to list the Mariners within the top 50 favourite sports teams among Japanese fans. (56) 

“The Mariners have lost the Japan market,” concluded team expert Brady Farkas in a recent episode of the Refuse to Lose podcast. “The Mariners used to have the market cornered, or they had an opportunity to have the market cornered, and they’ve blown it, and they’re never going to get it back. That is really, really frustrating. The Dodgers have everything the Mariners could and should have on the Pacific Rim.” (57)

The future

Like all teams, Seattle does still scout in Japan, led by Manabu Noto with occasional support from Iwakuma, the former pitcher. Frankie Thon Jr. oversees international scouting, while Dipoto is still in situ as president of baseball operations. The Mariners made the playoffs in 2022, snapping a 20-year drought, but they remain without a trip to the World Series – a difficult sell to far-flung fans.

Nintendo still retains a 10% stake in the Mariners, and even pitched in further support as the team’s jersey patch sponsor for this season and the foreseeable future. However, any delusions of grandeur should be curbed. After all, if Nintendo oversaw the Mariners’ fading Japanese eminence as majority franchise owners, they are unlikely to have a significant impact as mere sponsors. (58)

The pipeline of NPB talent continues to churn, with slugger Munetaka Murakami likely the next star to be posted. Whether the Mariners get involved, and if they have the wherewithal to rekindle their popularity in Japan, remains to be seen. In many ways, Seattle is in a holding pattern, quite unsure what it wants to be and where it wants to go under the Stanton aegis. Fans can only hope for an unlikely revival.

***

Tens of thousands will flock to Cooperstown this weekend, keen to honour their heroes, including a strong contingent from Japan. There will be myriad Mariners jerseys among that cohort, emblazoned with the fabled 51. But whether they are Mariners fans or Ichiro fans – whether this was ever a Mariners thing, or rather an Ichiro thing – is still unclear, and that conundrum strikes at the heart of this entire debate.

Japanese baseball is fiercely independent and notoriously insular – a legacy of World War II, no matter how many goodwill tours dream of détente. There is still a surfeit of scepticism towards the American game, symbolised by MLB, which is considered flashy, loose and sloppy compared to the fundamentally-sound NPB. 

As such, many Japanese baseball fans cherish their domestic league, and its unique culture, rather than fawning over the US game. Only when transcendent Japanese stars venture to the US does MLB enthusiasm cross into the mainstream. And even then, there is an individualism to that interest, a prioritisation of the singular star over the collective team.

“It becomes all about the player, not the team,” Gibson concludes. “Japan embraces whatever team those heroes play for. The country will embrace that figure and that team, and you’ll see more paraphernalia and merchandise featuring those teams. But it’s frivolous. It’s not a deep, intense relationship with the team. They hope the team wins, but if the player leaves and goes to another team, they’ll lustily and happily adopt that new team.” (1)

Yes, there will always be residual Japanese fans of certain MLB teams. Diehards who fell in love with the Red Sox because of Dice-K, say, or Cubs fans attributable to Seiya Suzuki. You will still find faded Mariners caps floating around Tokyo, like relics of a concluded age, just as you will still find the odd David Beckham LA Galaxy shirt in London or the occasional Freddy Adu Benfica jersey in Washington, D.C.

More generally, though, there is a transience to Japanese interest in MLB that fluctuates with the export of homegrown stars. The relationship is more akin to that of a cinephile who lauds certain actors rather than the films in which they appear. It is the captain, not the vessel, that captivates Japanese baseball fans, and that is understandable given the lack of natural ties to MLB teams located an ocean away.

Still, renaissance can never be ruled out. “Your future has possibilities you cannot imagine,” Ichiro said in 2022, when he was indicted into the Mariners’ Hall of Fame. “If a skinny, undersized guy from Japan can compete in this uniform, and then stand before you tonight to accept this honour, there’s no reason you cannot do it, either.” (59)

Amen to that, and amen to Ichiro.

May Seattle see his like again.

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