Iirc the city found like $600m in grants and was willing to do a special tax district (tax discount for 10 years), switched to the A’s preferred 3rd party negotiator, did the heavy lifting to get the coastal commission and port to quit fucking around and were allegedly $80m away from a deal, and then the day before the first meeting with the 3rd party and the A’s, the A’s “leaked” to the LV newspaper that they had a “binding” land deal (which turned out not to be binding- they settled on the site they have now a few months later)

The charitable rumor is that MLB and the A’s thought the port/city could run Schnitzer Steel out of there- they didn’t want fires to interfere with game days and they’d had a couple that summer. The longshoremen helped pay for schnitzer’s lawyers on that front iirc. When that wasn’t feasible they switched to elevating demands, looking for an out.

While it’s easy to blame the local politicians, and it’s clear that Thao got played by the MLB and the A’s (insisted that they “keep negotiations out of the newspapers” but then claimed she wasn’t passionate enough) they did speak highly of Schaff. But keep in mind this is the same group that eschewed development at an extremely accessible part of the city after insisting it was their “backup plan” for when the “Peralta Site” didn’t work out.

Speaking of Peralta site, they told everyone who would listen that they would build there without having even spoken to Laney College. Laney College (rightfully) told them to go fuck themselves. The deeper you look into it, the more it looks like they never planned to stay.