Major League Baseball and Oakland are talking, and it’s not good

With the Athletics’ proposed move to Las Vegas looming ever closer, the finger-pointing and animosity is only intensifying between Oakland officials and Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred.

In a story published Friday by the San Francisco Chronicle, Manfred said the account of events being put forth by Oakland mayor Sheng Thao is “all about covering your ass at this point.”

Thao’s chief of staff, Leigh Hanson, replied: “We will leave it to the fans to decide who’s telling the truth, Mayor Thao or Manfred. At this point, their reputations speak for themselves.”

The back and forth came in a series of interviews conducted by John Shea, the Chronicle’s national baseball writer.

“I know everyone wants to pile on the A’s and pile on MLB,” Manfred told Shea. “But I do think, in fairness, people have to look at what Mayor Thao has done and not done. She’s great on ‘MLB ‘did this wrong’ and ‘John Fisher ‘did that wrong.’ Did she really handle this well? Don’t think so.”

He took another shot: “I understand that this is a rough time for Mayor Thao,” Manfred said. “It looks like she’s going to lose yet another franchise from the Bay Area. That’s unfortunate. That’s a tough spot to be in. But I think we’ve kind of gotten to the point where we need to point out that she’s not telling people the truth.”

One issue between the sides centers around what was discussed when Thao and Manfred met in Seattle before the All-Star Game in July.

Thao said the meeting included a discussion of the things Oakland would want in exchange for letting the A’s play in the Coliseum beyond their current lease, which expires at the end of next season. Those conditions included Oakland retaining the Athetics name and getting an expansion team from MLB.

Manfred said those things were never discussed.

“The entire meeting was about a proposal they wanted presented to keep the A’s in Oakland,” Manfred told Shea. “So why would they be talking about an extension and making demands about what was going to happen if they went to Las Vegas? The whole purpose of the meeting was to convince us that they had a proposal to stay in Oakland. It makes no sense. It also is not true.

“We never talked about expansion,” Manfred said. “We never talked about her keeping the A’s name. There was never a conversation about these alleged demands before executing a lease.”

Hanson, the chief of staff for Thao, said “the topic of an extension of the Coliseum lease definitely came up. I was in the room.”

Manfred chided Thao about her response to team president Dave Kaval’s bombshell revelation to her in April that the A’s had agreed to buy land in Las Vegas, as Thao made clear at the time that negotiations for a new waterfront ballpark and housing at Howard Terminal were dead, feeling they were no longer being carried out in good faith. Thao’s belief was leveraging Oakland to extract a better deal in Vegas.

Still, Manfred told Shea regarding Thao’s initial reaction, “Do you think that was a productive step?”

Shortly after, though, Thao said that if the A’s called her back, she would answer.

“OK,” Manfred said when that was raised, “my only point is, if she was all engaged in keeping Oakland, why do you tell the other side, ‘I’m cutting off negotiations?’ ”

Hanson told the Chronicle, “Just because we removed ourselves as a bargaining chip in Nevada doesn’t mean the mayor is not interested in keeping the team in Oakland.”

The disagreements don’t end there.

Thao and Manfred also offered conflicting accounts about whether the mayor should have contacted the commissioner after she was elected in Nov. 2022, replacing outgoing two-term mayor Libby Schaaf.

“I did not hear from (Thao). Not once,” Manfred said. “She’s big on everybody should be talking, all the stakeholders should be talking. She wasn’t talking to anybody, and she sure as hell wasn’t talking to me.”

Thao said the A’s, specifically Fisher, asked her to refrain from contacting Manfred while Howard Terminal negotiations continued.

Hanson said Thao had asked “if it was appropriate to reach out to the commissioner, and John said it wouldn’t be appropriate until a deal was completed. We proceeded in good faith.”

Manfred disputed that account, citing a source he would not identify. He added: “The fact of the matter is, if you’re trying to keep a baseball team in Oakland, why would you agree not to talk to the commissioner of baseball?”

The A’s submitted their relocation application last month for a review by a three-member committee. A vote on the Athletics’ plan for relocation will take place in November and to be approved, the franchise needs 75% of MLB’s 30 owners to vote yes.

Regarding the 31 copies of a book that Thao gave to him two months ago in Seattle, Manfred said he has reviewed it and that the relocation committee can request those materials. He did not say whether each owner has read or asked for the book, which does not mention the possibility of keeping the A’s name in Oakland or being granted an expansion team in exchange for a Coliseum lease extension.

Thao said the books mentioned that before talks ended, there was only a $90 million gap at that time, a small fraction of the project’s overall cost.

“Honestly, if they were that close to a deal,” Manfred said, “why didn’t she throw the hundred million on the table?”

In response, Hanson told the Chronicle, “The city of Oakland was facing a historical deficit of $360 million and simply does not have $100 million sitting in couch cushions, like Mr. Fisher.”