The Seattle Mariners hired Don Wakamatsu as their new manager on Wednesday making the 45-year-old the first Asian-American manager in Major League Baseball history.

Wakamatsu will be managing in a city with a large Asian population.

`If I can set some type of stepping stone for future Japanese-Americans, I`m glad to bear the burden of that torch,` he said Wednesday.

Wakamatsu was one of seven finalists interviewed by Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik in the past four days.

`This is something I`ve looked forward to for a long time,` Wakamatsu said. `It is a tremendous opportunity and I can`t wait to get going with Jack and his group as we start working on the 2009 season.`

However, he will have his work cut out as the Mariners are coming off a 101-loss season. Seattle (61-101) became the first team with a 100 million dollars payroll to lose 100 games.

Wakamatsu is the Mariners` fourth manager in the last two seasons.

A former catcher, Wakamatsu was with the Texas Rangers as a bench coach and third base coach from 2003-2007 before serving as the A`s bench coach this past season.

Wakamatsu is the son of a third generation Japanese-American father who was born in a Japanese internment camp during the World War II.

Wakamatsu, who was born in the state of Oregon, recently reached out to his grandparents to hear their story.

`I asked them about the camps and living in the barracks,` he told The San Francisco Chronicle. `They said, `This house is made of barracks.` I said, `What?` When they were let out of the camp, former inmates were allowed to buy the buildings, so my grandparents bought two, put them together and added windows.

`How ironic. They had 48 hours to relocate and they were imprisoned for years and then they chose to live the rest of their lives in the same buildings.

`And they`d never talked about it before. I`ve only heard my grandparents speak a couple of sentences in Japanese in my life because they didn`t want to speak it when they got out of camp.`

Wakamatsu spent 12 seasons in the minor leagues with seven organizations from 1985-1996 and had a brief stint with the Chicago White Sox in 1991. He ended his playing career as a player-coach with Seattle`s Class AA Port City affiliate in 1996.