which major league baseball team did nintendo become majority owner of in 1992
Seattle Mariners The Mariners played their first game on April 6, 1977, to a sold-out crowd of 57,762 at the Kingdome, losing 7–0 to the California Angels.[8] The first home run in team history was hit on April 10, 1977, by designated hitter Juan Bernhardt.[9] That year, star pitcher Diego Seguí, in his last major league season, became the only player to play for both the Pilots and the Mariners. The Mariners finished with a 64–98 record, echoing the record the 1969 Pilots once held. In 1979, Seattle hosted the 50th Major League Baseball All-Star Game. After the 1981 season, the Mariners were sold to California businessman George Argyros, who in turn sold the team to Jeff Smulyan in 1989, and then to Nintendo of America in 1992.
Major League Baseball relocation of 1950s–60s The expansion of Major League Baseball out west mirrors the story of the expansion of the population in the United States. As the economy in the country grew, Americans headed out west. Baseball soon followed, likely because of the ease of travel by commercial jet. The American economy flourished in the 1960s, and baseball was able to expand and evolve at an unprecedented rate. Economic push and pull factors caused many teams to relocate, and the emergence of cities in the new frontier allowed baseball teams to pop up across the country. The moves of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants to California in 1958 broke the ice and opened the West Coast to the market of baseball. Starting in the 1960s, both the National and American Leagues expanded to add teams in new and existing cities, adding 14 teams as of 2017.[1]