I AM NOT a Seattle Mariners fan.

I grew up in Seattle and I like baseball but, frankly, I shed few tears when I first heard that the Mariners might be sold and moved to Florida. After hearing a rumor to this effect almost annually, my initial reaction was: So what, I'd rather watch a good farm team play in an outdoor park than a second-rate major league team play in a football stadium cum missile silo.

Seattle is a test case, however, both for a misguided policy on foreign investment as well as the future of Major League baseball in small markets. What happens to the Mariners should be of concern to baseball fans everywhere.

Amid rumors that he wanted an excuse to move the team to Florida, Seattle Mariners owner Jeff Smulyan announced in January that the team was for sale. His contract with the country mandates a two-month period during which local buyers have priority over outside interests.

Some Seattlites suggested that the Nordstrom family buy the Mariners or that Boeing subsidize the team in some way. Most serious baseball fans prayed that the patron saint of Seattle, Microsoft whiz kid Bill Gates, would turn out to have played Little League before turning to computers.

The Mariners have always had problems attracting local owners, however. Smulyan is from Indianapolis. The previous owner, George Argyros, was from California.

Then they found him: a respected local businessperson whose company employed 1400 area workers, whose children went to Seattle schools, and who, unlike Argyros or Smulyan, actually possesses a Washington State driver's license. A resident for 15 years, Minoru Arakawa seemed the perfect man to head a coalition of Seattle backers.

PERFECT, THAT IS, only for those interested in keeping baseball in Seattle. Despite lip service to the contrary, local ownership has never been a priority for Major League baseball, as was demonstrated again in the flap created by Minoru Arakawa's nationality. He and the potential investor--Nintendo, owned by his father-in-law--are Japanese.

Japanese purchase of the Mariners would violate an agreement made by Major League owners last year banning more than a certain percentage of foreign investment. If Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent's comments on the Nintendo bid are any indication, this misguided rule is likely to be upheld.

The policy banning foreign investment reflects and may even feed the kind of knee-jerk protectionist attitude increasingly prevalent in recessionary America.

In recent weeks, George F. Will and other columnists have portrayed the Nintendo bid as another Japanese threat to American society. In the current xenophobic climate, it should surprise no one that baseball is being brandished as a point of no return in some sort of domino theory of Japanese investment.

They already have our real estate, our car market, our electronic technology, the pundits seem to be saying. If they get our national pastime, can Mom and apple pie be far behind?

Major League baseball is no less a business than the automobile industry. "American" cars are assembled in Mexico; our national sport is full of stars from Central America. Japanese investment in the Mariners will not make the team less American, it will simply ensure that the team stays in Seattle. Arakawa's passport may be from Japan, but he offers the Mariners the first opportunity for genuine local ownership in almost a decade.

The issue of foreign investment aside, the Mariners' quandary has implications for the future of baseball in small markets.

Smulyan, like Argyros before him, has been widely quoted as saying that baseball in Seattle is a losing venture and that the community doesn't support the Mariners. Smulyan has claimed that as much as he would like to keep baseball in Seattle, he can't afford to. If local buyers don't come forward, Smulyan says he will sell the team to outside interests.