(KRON) — Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao isn’t taking no for an answer. Despite the A’s decision to move to Las Vegas and the Nevada State Legislature approving a financing plan, Thao flew to Seattle over the weekend to meet personally with Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred.
“I want the Oakland Athletics to stay Oakland, and this is me doing everything I can to make that happen,” Thao said.
Thao is revealing she went to Seattle two days before the MLB All-Star game for a face-to-face meeting she requested with Manfred.
“It was important for me to meet him in person to ensure that the commissioner was working off of the real facts and because we all know that recent statements he made to the press led me to believe that there were some misperceptions about the status of the A’s proposed project at Howard Terminal,” Thao said.
Manfred hasn’t been shy about laying all the blame at the city of Oakland’s doorstep for owner John Fisher’s decision to move to Las Vegas. Thao came to the hour-long meeting armed with three suitcases of documents correcting the record.
“And (Manfred) has stated that we have never the city has never had a proposal. That’s not true. We had a specific concrete proposal and we had a specific and mutually agreed upon path for negotiations,” Thao said. “And we were, I believe, extremely close to finalizing those deal points with the current ownership of the Oakland A’s. You know, I also wanted to make him know that allow for him to know that there is a site for a stadium in Oakland and detailed plans for that site.”
Reports suggest the meeting and the documents have not changed Manfred’s blame game and his false narrative continues.
I think it’s frustrating, but it’s very transparent. And I see that. The whole world now can see it right,” Thao said.
Specifically, Oakland’s mayor is hoping MLB’s relocation committee and its full slate of owners see the facts before making a knee-jerk decision.
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“I don’t think that it’s fair to uproot a team who’s been here for over 50 years,” Thao said. “And just you know, in these I’m talking about these are working families who come out to watch these games. They don’t have the money to travel to go out and try to run after their team, and so this is very personal. This is a very personal fight for me to make sure that we do everything we can to keep the Oakland A’s here.”
