CBS Sports: Miller: Gillick’s name popping up in Mariners’ rumored future

Pat rumors, thinly sliced.

One fascinating rumor making the industry rounds has an investment group led by Microsoft executive and current Mariners minority owner Chris Larson and former Seattle GM Pat Gillick taking control of the Mariners sometime in the near future, with Gillick running the baseball operation and naming the new GM.

As the story goes, Hiroshi Yamauchi, retired head of the game company Nintendo, is looking to get out of the baseball business and is intent on selling his controlling share of the Mariners. Larson, it is said, wants to become the controlling owner. [...]

One source close to the Mariners says that the club’s decision to award catcher Kenji Johjima a three-year, $24 million contract in April was based solely on the Japanese ownership group’s desire to take care of him before getting out, and that the baseball operations people wanted no part of extending Johjima.