Slade Gorton: Fish Stick Heir Who Sued Baseball and Won the Mariners

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Thomas Slade Gorton III was born in Chicago in 1928 and grew up in Evanston, heir to the seafood family behind Gorton's of Gloucester, but chose law and public life instead. After Dartmouth and Columbia Law, he served in the Army and the Air Force and stayed in the Air Force Reserve until 1980, retiring as a colonel. He entered the Washington State House of Representatives in 1958 and became attorney general in 1969, personally arguing the state's cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. When the Seattle Pilots left for Milwaukee after one season, he filed an antitrust suit against Major League Baseball, with trial lawyer William Lee Dwyer handling day to day litigation, and dropped it only after the league granted Seattle the expansion team that became the Mariners in 1977.

Gorton unseated Warren Magnuson for the U.S. Senate in 1980 with 54 percent, lost in 1986 to Brock Adams, and returned in 1988 to the seat Dan Evans vacated, becoming the last Republican to hold a Washington Senate seat. His campaigns relied on a doughnut strategy that conceded King County. In 1999 he voted against the perjury article in Bill Clinton's impeachment but for obstruction of justice. His push to limit tribal sovereignty drew organized opposition from Washington's tribes, and he lost to Maria Cantwell in 2000 by 2,229 votes. He later served on the 9/11 Commission and died in 2020 at 92.

• When the Mariners threatened to move to Tampa, he helped persuade Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi to buy a majority stake.
• He helped broker the deal with King County for the stadium now called T-Mobile Park.
• His lawsuit over the SuperSonics' move to Oklahoma City won Seattle a $45 million settlement.
• He was the only Armed Services Committee member of his time to have reached senior command rank in uniform.
• In 2016 he wrote in Evan McMullin for president and later urged Republicans to support Donald Trump's first impeachment.