138 sLAde goRton: A hALf centuRy in poLitics
“We got a wonderful deal,” Gorton says. “The new owners only had to
pay the same franchise fee the Pilots’ owners paid—$5,250,000. There
were several minority owners from the Seattle area, but Danny Kaye, the
entertainer, was the principal owner of the new Seattle Mariners. He was
the first of a series of successive owners whose eyes were bigger than
their stomachs. Danny loved the idea of owning a big-league baseball
team but they didn’t have enough money to build a really competitive
team. And they were playing in the Kingdome, which turned out to be an
awful place to play baseball and an awful place to play football, for that
matter.”
It took the franchise another 14 years to post a winning season and
eight more after that to acquire a real ball park. But they were safe at
home, at least for the time being.