All 30 owners of Major League Baseball voted Thursday morning in favor of approving the Oakland A’s relocation to Las Vegas.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is scheduled to meet with reporters later this morning after the vote’s completion at the owners’ meetings in Arlington, Texas.

The owners’ approval — it required 23 votes to pass — was the final step for A’s owner John Fisher as he looks to move his club 550 miles southeast, leaving the Bay Area behind after the team’s nearly-60-year run in Oakland.

If completed, it will mark the second relocation for an MLB team in the last 52 years, and the first since the Montreal Expos moved to Washington, D.C. to become the Nationals in 2005.

Las Vegas would become the fourth home for the A’s since the franchise began playing in Philadelphia in 1901. The A’s moved to Kansas City in 1955, then to Oakland to begin play in 1968. No other MLB franchise has had four different cities to call home.

“We are disappointed by the outcome of this vote,” Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao said in a statement. “But we do not see this as the end of the road. We all know there’s a long way to go before shovels in the ground and that there are a number of unresolved issues surrounding this move.

“I have also made it clear to the commissioner that the A’s branding and name should stay in Oakland and we will continue to work to pursue expansion opportunities. Baseball has a home in Oakland even if the A’s ownership relocates.”

It remains undetermined when the A’s will leave Oakland, however.

The A’s proposed ballpark in Las Vegas wouldn’t open until 2028. The club secured $380 million in public funding from the Nevada legislature in June, and it is believed the A’s were finally able to provide their own private financing plan to reach the estimated $1.5 billion cost for a new retractable-roof stadium. But the A’s have not yet explained where they will play until the stadium is ready.

Club president Dave Kaval has publicly stated that the three most likely options would be to extend their lease in the Coliseum, share Oracle Park with the San Francisco Giants or borrow the A’s Triple-A stadium in Vegas, where the 10,000-seat ballpark would require renovations before it could earn the approval of the MLB Players Association.

If the A’s complete the move, it will put an end to the club’s years-long effort to get a new stadium built in the Bay Area.

It was back in 2001 that city officials began publicly discussing efforts for a new ballpark for the A’s. Over the next decade, ideas were tossed around about new ballparks in Oakland, Fremont and San Jose, but none came to fruition. When the A’s turned their attention inwards and thought about rebuilding on the Coliseum site, those efforts failed, too. They missed again when trying to build on land owned by Laney College.

Then there was the Howard Terminal project, a $12-billion plan to build a ballpark as well as both commercial and residential real estate on the waterfront.

Renderings were released and last September, an 82-page preliminary document plan was shared between the A’s and the city, according to the document released by Thao this summer.

Thao has said that the city raised more money than the A’s asked for to help fund the new stadium and off-site infrastructure. It didn’t matter. In April, the A’s announced that they were done negotiating with Oakland and had agreed on a deal to move the team to Las Vegas.

Kaval later explained to The Nevada Independent that the A’s didn’t think the Howard Terminal project would be complete for another 15 years. Thao responded by saying a stadium could’ve been fast-tracked with construction beginning in 18 months, while “a whole grand scheme” could’ve begun construction in two years.

The disconnection was crystal clear in July, when Thao flew to Seattle to have a secret meeting with Manfred, hoping she could convince him that the city did its part to get a stadium deal done. But over and over, Manfred and the other owners have contended that Oakland hasn’t been a realistic possibility.

Without a lease extension, the A’s will have one more season in 2024 to finish their relationship with the Coliseum, their home since 1968.

Thao has said she won’t extend the agreement without some guarantee from MLB that Oakland would receive an expansion franchise. It’s not unusual for a city to get a replacement team after losing its original club to relocation. MLB is hoping to add two expansion teams as soon as the A’s and the Tampa Bay Rays get new stadiums.

Manfred has not yet made any public remarks about the viability of Oakland as an expansion site.

An ownership group led by former A’s pitcher Dave Stewart is seen as a favorite to land an expansion team in Nashville, while Portland, Salt Lake City, Charlotte and Montreal are other cities said to be in contention.

There is no known ownership group trying to lead expansion efforts in Oakland, but Warriors owner Joe Lacob told the San Francisco Chronicle last year that he has had a standing offer to buy the A’s for a decade. Fisher has shown no desire to sell the team.

Stewart thinks time is running out if Oakland is going to be a viable expansion city.

“Expansion is moving,” he told the Bay Area News Group in September. “It’s not going to wait for a group out of Oakland to show themselves in 2025. It’s my belief by 2025, expansion will be down the road and Oakland will have missed out.”

For A’s fans hoping the team is forced to rethink its departure, the only hope remaining should rest in the hands of a Nevada teachers’ union.

“Schools over Stadiums,” a political arm of the teachers’ union, is pursuing two separate paths to restrict public funding from reaching the A’s. Tuesday, the union announced it was pursuing litigation against the Nevada legislature. The teachers argue that any bill increasing taxes must be passed with a two-thirds supermajority vote, but this bill did not reach that threshold. The teachers believe the bill is unconstitutional.

The union is also pursuing a petition that could create a referendum on the ballot next November, giving taxpayers a say in whether or not they’d like to fund Fisher’s stadium. If the teachers can find a way to stop the funding, it could delay the move to Las Vegas long enough to put the A’s in a bind.

A long shot, it might be. But at this point, it’s all that’s left for local baseball fans who aren’t ready to say goodbye.

Multiple A’s fan groups spent the summer calling attention to the plight of their team, which Fisher intends to move to Las Vegas. A vote on the proposal is expected Thursday at a meeting of Major League Baseball owners in Arlington, Texas.

Jorge Leon, Jared Isham and Gabriel Cullen, leaders of a fan group called the Oakland 68s, decided to go the extra 1,700 miles. They crashed the scene, booking a hotel room at the site of the meetings to avoid being chased off by security.

And it was there, in the hotel bar, that they encountered Fisher, the reclusive A’s owner, on Tuesday night.

Interestingly, it was Greg Johnson, the Giants’ chairman of the board of directors, who the 68s credit with helping set up their unexpected confab with Fisher.

“He first went over and warned him about us,” Cullen said. “The first thing we see Greg go over and kind of like stop him. And then we see Fisher turn his head around this big pillar, look at us and then pull back. Then he kind of walked away, so we were like, ‘Ok, he’s probably not going to come over.’

“Then he came back, shook our hands and talked to us for 10-15 minutes.”

During that 15-minute conversation, Fisher told the group he’d been trying for 18 years to get a new ballpark for the A’s in the Bay Area. And even if the team and Oakland had a deal, he said, a new ballpark wouldn’t be completed until 2031.

Fisher,  who bought the team in 2005, thanked the 68s for their passion. He also told them: “It’s been a lot worse for me than you.”

The exchange, first reported by USA Today and confirmed Wednesday morning by Leon, Isham and Cullen, became another viral moment in the A’s saga on the level of this summer’s Reverse Boycott and “Sell The Team” chants.

Efforts to reach Fisher for comment were unsuccessful, as they have been for the entirety of his 18 years of ownership.

The group had a second encounter with Fisher on Tuesday night, when they saw him having dinner at the hotel restaurant.

“I yelled out, ‘Do the right thing!’ I was telling him the whole night, do the right thing,” said Leon, the president of the 68s.

Fisher didn’t respond directly to Leon, but according to the San Francisco Chronicle, Fisher told someone in his dinner party: “I am doing the right thing.”

The 68s learned of Fisher’s comment later in the night. They said they appreciated meeting with Fisher, but were not surprised by his stance.

“I feel like he lives in his own little world, and so he thinks that he’s coming off as genuine. But he’s not. He’s tone deaf,” Leon said.

The trio gained social media traction in the morning when a plane they chartered buzzed the site of the meetings with a banner that read: “A’s belong in Oakland – #VoteNo.”

They rubbed shoulders and pitched the “STAY” in Oakland message they wore on their green t-shirts with multiple team owners — and whoever would listen — for more than 12 hours.

The 68s said their message was mostly well received in the lobbies, bars and restaurants they patrolled most of Tuesday. They also distributed Oakland A’s “gift” boxes to owners with a DVD and other items explaining why the A’s belong in Oakland.

Leon said the owners weren’t surprised to see them.

“When I spoke with John Fisher and said I was with the 68s, he said, ‘Yeah, I’m well aware,'” Leon said. “We know we are in their heads.

“Even if he didn’t talk to us, the trip still would have been worth it. The point was being visible and that we’re not going to go away easy.”

According to the USA Today, three A’s fans dressed in green T-shirts with “STAY” written across it camped out at the hotel lobby of the MLB owners’ meetings in Arlington, Texas, for 12 hours until they finally saw Fisher enter the building.

Before the fans could make their move, Fisher approached them at the hotel bar and shook their hands.

When they pleaded for him to find a way to keep the team in Oakland, Fisher explained he’d been trying for 18 years and he didn’t expect the A’s would get a new ballpark until 2031.

“It’s been a lot worse for me than you,’’ Fisher told them, according to the report. “Anyway, I just want to let you know I appreciate you guys being here, I appreciate the passion you have shown.’’

One of the fans requested that Fisher answer just one question.

“There’s never one question,” he reportedly told them. “I’ve got to go.”

The fans also approached other executives and handed them gift boxes pleading with them to keep the A’s in Oakland.

Of course, their efforts won’t change what is likely to happen on Thursday, when the owners are expected to approve the A’s relocation to Las Vegas and signal the end of an A’s run in Oakland that began in 1968.

The union plans to file a lawsuit that could call into question the viability of A’s owner John Fisher’s plan to move the club into a ballpark on the Las Vegas Strip, but it is not expected to stop MLB owners from voting to approve the Oakland A’s relocation. The owners are meeting in Arlington, Texas and expect to approve the relocation in a unanimous vote Thursday, according to The Athletic.

Without public funding, or with a delay in public funding, Fisher may be forced to find an alternative location.

The teachers’ lawsuit will challenge the language of the bill signed into law by Gov. Joe Lombardo in June, when the state legislature approved the public spending package.

Dawn Etcheverry, an elementary music teacher and the president of the union’s “Schools Over Stadiums” political arm, said in a statement that the bill “violates at least five sections of the state constitution, which should lead to the bill’s partial or total invalidation.”

Alex Marks, a spokesperson for Schools over Stadiums, said the organization believes there needs to be a two-thirds supermajority in both the State Assembly and the State Senate for a bill that creates new taxes in Nevada.

In June, neither the Assembly nor the Senate passed the bill, SB-1, with such a vote supermajority: The Assembly passed it 25-15, and the Senate passed it 13-8.

“There’s some other flat-out unconstitutional language we’re looking into,” Marks said.

If the teachers were able to put a hold on the funding for a new ballpark, it would call into question more than 25% of the overall $1.5 billion cost expected for the A’s to build a domed or retractable-roof stadium on the Vegas strip. There have been no known construction plans yet to be filed for the stadium, expected to open in 2028.

It is still uncertain where the A’s would play until then. According to The Athletic, the A’s and MLB’s relocation committee finalized a proposal for the A’s move and handed the proposal to every owner, but it does not answer the question of where they would play for the final three seasons before the Las Vegas ballpark opens.

The A’s lease at the Coliseum ends after the 2024 season, and Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao has said she won’t extend the lease without some guarantee from MLB that Oakland would receive an expansion franchise.

An MLB-driven report about relocation was not confident about Las Vegas’ viability for a team, but the questions are not expected to stop the owners from approving the move, The Athletic reported.

There’s incentive for the owners to move this along; once the A’s and Tampa Bay Rays finalize new stadium deals, MLB plans to expand from 30 to 32 teams, earning the league at least $2.2 billion in fees per expansion team.

The Nevada teachers union is seen as the biggest obstacle remaining for the A’s. The union expects to file its litigation in Nevada District Court “in the coming weeks.”

In a separate effort, the union has also filed a petition for a referendum that would put $120 million of the $380 million package on the ballot next November, giving voters a say in the matter. A’s lobbyists challenged the language of the petition in court last week, when a judge ruled that the petition was not worded correctly and would need to be amended.

The teachers are appealing that ruling and can refile their petition at any time once the language is changed. The petition would require just more than 100,000 verified signatures to get the issue to a ballot.

The A’s, who have played at the Oakland Coliseum since arriving from Kansas City in 1968, are seeking to relocate their franchise to Las Vegas, where they plan to build a stadium on The Strip after failing to strike a deal to build a new stadium in the East Bay.

Oakland officials have been adamant that they did their part to raise money for a stadium, and they are preaching positivity to a fanbase poised to lose its second team (third counting the Warriors’ move to San Francisco) in five years.

The league’s owners are set to put the A’s relocation plan to a vote sometime during the meetings, which begin Tuesday and end Thursday.

Here are five things to know about the situation:

1. The owners are likely to vote yes

A’s owner John Fisher needs 75% approval (23 total ‘yes’ votes) from his fellow team governors for the relocation bid to pass.

Fisher has likely frustrated some of his fellow owners with the negative publicity generated by the proposed move, as well as the A’s cynical management of their payroll and moves to receive payments via MLB’s revenue sharing model.

Still, most MLB owners would be very careful not to establish precedent of voting against a team governor making changes as he pleases.

2. There are plenty more steps to come

The vote is a major hurdle, but it’s hardly the last one before relocation is official.

Fisher and the A’s franchise does have $380 million in funding in place from the state of Nevada, but that may be in some jeopardy as a Nevada teachers union is working to gather signatures to put some of those funds on the 2024 ballot.

Beyond that, the team must sort out how to privately finance the remaining estimated $1.2 billion in construction cost, finalize renderings and put into place agreements to build and operate the stadium.

3. The A’s will play at least next season in Oakland

The team’s lease at the Coliseum runs through 2024, so there will be at least one lame-duck season in Oakland if relocation is approved.

Dave Kaval has floated three locations for the team to play home games between 2025 and 2028, when the proposed Vegas stadium is expected to open: Oracle Park, the Giants’ stadium in San Francisco; Las Vegas Ballpark, the home of the A’s Triple-A team in Summerlin, Nevada; and the Coliseum itself.

Oakland mayor Sheng Thao has said that before agreeing to an extension of the team’s lease, she wants to discuss with Major League Baseball the possibility of an expansion team coming to Oakland, as well as the Athletics team name and colors remaining here to pair with a potential new team, though the odds of expansion to Oakland soon seem quite slim.

4. Moving to Vegas would downgrade the A’s ballpark capacity and market size

The A’s are looking to build a 33,000-seat ballpark on the Vegas strip with a retractable roof for especially hot summer days, plus a casino development on 9 acres of adjacent land that the franchise would lease from the current landowners.

City officials are quick to point out that this is a much smaller haul than what the team had sought at Oakland’s harbor: a 35,000-seat waterfront ballpark with a surrounding village of 3,000 new homes, plus massive commercial developments and office space.

If the A’s were to scale down their dream development at the Oakland port to something closer to the Vegas proposal, then the team could still end up owning far more land than it would in Vegas, with major regulatory hurdles in the Bay Area already cleared.

Another note: The Coliseum is the MLB’s largest ballpark, whereas the Vegas stadium would be the league’s smallest.

And by ditching Oakland, the A’s would give up a share of the country’s 10th largest media market to occupy the 40th-ranked city on the list, according to Nielsen data.

5. The A’s need a binding stadium deal by January or risk losing important revenue

The A’s posted the league’s worst win-loss record this season on the way to finishing dead last in attendance, though a couple “reverse boycott” games over the summer led fans to pack the stands.

The MLB’s revenue-sharing model guarantees the struggling franchise a critical stream of millions of dollars annually. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, meanwhile, has waived the team’s relocation fee.

But the shared revenue available in 2024 and 2025 comes with a condition: The A’s must have a binding agreement for a new stadium by Jan. 15.

If Fisher’s fellow owners surprise observers by siding against him, it’s possible he would scramble to secure a ballpark deal within the next couple months — and Mayor Sheng Thao said last week the door in Oakland would be wide open.

“This is not over, not by a long shot,” Thao told A’s fans last week at a public rally. “We are urging the MLB owners: It’s very simple — vote no.”

Tuesday, all 30 owners will gather in Arlington, Texas, for the winter owner’s meetings. At the top of the agenda is the A’s pending move, with a vote expected to come at the end of the week.

If 75 percent of the owners (23 of them) approve the vote, owner John Fisher will have cleared a major hurdle in his efforts to move the A’s after 55 years in Oakland. The vote is expected to pass.

“It’s the next step,” said David Samson, the former president of the Montreal Expos and Florida Marlins who was involved with relocation efforts for both teams. “It’s a step. It’s not the final step. Even with a relocation approval vote, that doesn’t mean Oakland is losing its team.

“What they will approve is for the A’s to relocate to Las Vegas. But that’s not baseball approving the finished documents.”

The relocation process clearly is a long one. Even with a “yes” vote there are still plenty of obstacles the A’s must clear. Here is a look at what’s happened and what’s ahead.

What has already happened

After enduring a decades-long pursuit of a new stadium to replace the dilapidated Coliseum, the A’s in August filed a formal application to relocate. The application was submitted to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred. It required the A’s to present the efforts they made to stay in Oakland and why moving to Las Vegas is a better option.

Opponents of the move have pointed out that the A’s would be leaving the sixth-largest media market in the country for the 44th. They would move into the smallest television market in the big leagues, according to Nielsen DMA ranking.

The application was reviewed by a three-person relocation committee that was hand-selected by Manfred. That committee included Kansas City Royals CEO John Sherman, Philadelphia Phillies CEO John Middleton and Milwaukee Brewers Chairman Mark Attanasio. (For what it’s worth, Sherman is seeking a new stadium in Kansas City and Attanasio recently received $545 million in public funding to upgrade the Brewers’ current ballpark.)

During the process, the committee makes a presentation to Manfred and an executive council of eight unknown owners who serve terms and get replaced when their term has been served. The presentation must include recommendations on operating territory and television territory, among other details.

The A’s must also present a viable option on a temporary home before the vote can take place, ESPN reported last month.

They have just one year left on their lease at the Coliseum, and it’s uncertain where they’ll play from 2025 until their new ballpark is completed — likely not until at least the 2028 season.

Team president Dave Kaval told the Nevada Independent in August that the three possible locations were at the Coliseum, at Oracle Park while sharing the stadium with the San Francisco Giants, or at Las Vegas Ballpark, the home of the A’s Triple-A affiliate which seats only 10,000 people and where current accommodations are unlikely to pass muster with the players union.

Tony Clark, who leads the MLBPA, told the L.A. Times this summer, “We are going to be a part of that conversation in one fashion or another, to ensure that the quality of play and the standard to which players are accustomed and the safety that is required for players to play on any surface is adhered to.”

The A’s temporary home is “something that Major League Baseball will ultimately decide,” Kaval told the Independent.

What will happen this week?

The last time the owners voted on relocation was in 2004 when they voted, 29-1, to approve relocation of the Montreal Expos to Washington D.C. The only dissenting vote was cast by the Baltimore Orioles, who were concerned that the nearby Nationals would cut into the Orioles’ revenue stream. The Expos became the Nationals the following year. They played their first three seasons at RFK Stadium until Nationals Park opened in 2008.

The 30 owners have surely reviewed the details of the A’s move and the vote could be quick and procedural.

MLB is hoping to resolve the stadium situations in both Oakland and Tampa Bay, the final step before the league can move forward with two additional expansion teams. Each of those teams would pay a fee estimated to be at least $2.2 billion, to be shared among the 30 owners.

Manfred has said the owners would not be looking for a relocation fee, estimated to be at least $300 million, because a retractable-roof stadium would cost at least $500 million and Fisher is already making a “billion-dollar private commitment.”

What happens after the vote?

The owners’ vote will simply approve the relocation. But there is still much for the A’s to do.

They still need a stadium operating agreement and a non-relocation agreement with Las Vegas, a construction agreement, a private financing plan and renderings for a new stadium.

“These are not all five-page agreements; these are hundreds of pages,” Samson said. “There has to be another stage where baseball will approve all these documents. … John Fisher can’t just stand up and say, ‘We’re playing here.’”

There’s also the potential of a referendum in Nevada, where a teachers union is trying to gather signatures for a petition that would give voters a say in whether or not the A’s receive nearly one-third of the $380 million in public funding that was approved by the state legislature.

They’ll need to find a temporary home after next season. Extending their lease at the Coliseum would be difficult. Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao said this week that an extension would only happen if Oakland was guaranteed a future expansion team and retention of the A’s branding.

As we head into the biggest week in Oakland A’s history, the only thing that is known for certain is that the team has one more year on its lease and plenty of good seats remain.

OAKLAND — Boston Red Sox owner John Henry will soon receive a special “Stay In Oakland” box from Bay Area fans packed with a green Athletics cap, a baseball card featuring his likeness and a note telling him all the reasons he should vote no on the team’s planned relocation to Las Vegas.

They will try to sway Hal Steinbrenner of the New York Yankees, too — another owner identified as someone who could be convinced to vote against Vegas.

They hope Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno might be an ally. Or perhaps Ray Davis of the World Series champion Texas Rangers. Maybe the Seattle Mariners’ John Stanton.

The devoted fan group chose 15 owners to receive the box, selected because maybe — just maybe — there’s one more chance to keep the A’s in Oakland.

This last-ditch effort includes a big assist by clothing company Last Dive Bar, a loyal A’s supporter. It made the boxes and a snazzy, colorful “Keep the Athletics in … OAKLAND” postcard.

“This project has been a culmination of our collective works and we hope it shows the owners what we all know to be true: The fans are not the problem,” Paul Bailey, one of the three owners of Last Dive Bar, said in a message to The AP.

Oakland clothing company Oaklandish provided the hats, while the box also features a DVD created by “The Summer of Sell” group, a USB flash drive and a personal letter from Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao along with a photo of her in an A’s jersey. The boxes will arrive from her office address.

“The box is everything that’s been done before in Oakland and why they should vote no,” explained lifelong A’s fan Stephen Lucero, an artist and firefighter in nearby Alameda who made the custom cards for each owner.

Some 200 people crammed the Oakland City Council chambers for a standing-room-only meeting Tuesday and chanted “Stay in Oakland!” in yet another unified effort to keep the team from moving. The City Council unanimously passed a resolution that reaffirmed its support of the A’s staying in Oakland.

MLB owners are expected to vote on the proposed relocation next Wednesday or Thursday during their annual meeting, to be held in Arlington, Texas.

The A’s reached a tentative agreement for a new stadium in Las Vegas in May, spurring outrage and frustration during what may have been a lame-duck season in Oakland.

On June 13, furious fans showed up at the Coliseum and implored owner John Fisher to sell the team with what they called a reverse boycott. Thousands wore green “SELL” T-shirts and chanted “Sell the team!” throughout a 2-1 victory against Tampa Bay. A season-best crowd of 27,759 was the largest for an A’s game on a Tuesday since they drew 33,654 against the Dodgers on Aug. 7, 2018.

After the season, A’s pitcher Trevor May ripped Fisher during a video message announcing his retirement. May implored Fisher to “Sell the team, dude. … Let someone who actually, like, takes pride in the things they own, own something.”

Lucero and wife Chrissy, also his business partner at Steevow Custom Cards, spent hours at City Hall on Tuesday as A’s fans rallied once more to try to save their team.

“Extremely proud,” said Stephen Lucero, 41. “Everybody came together and they continue to, and it’s not going to stop.”

Thirteen All-Star Games, seven Gold Gloves, more than 400 wins and 255 saves.

All from three guys who grew up within 20 minutes of one another.

“I was always proud to say, ‘Yeah, we’re from San Jose,'” Dave Righetti said recently. “Nobody knew where that was. There was no Sharks. There was no Silicon Valley.”

Righetti is the most San Jose of them all. Born here, still lives here.

Mark Langston was born in San Diego, came here at age 5.

Dave Stieb, born in Santa Ana, arrived as a high school freshman.

Their story is more than 60 years in the making, This story, almost 30. Righetti pitched it to me in 1994. You’re seeing it now because tonight Stieb, the pride of Oak Grove High School, will be inducted into the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame where plaques of Righetti (Pioneer High) and Langston (Buchser High) already hang in the concourse of SAP Center.

Back in their day, there was no social media, no Max Preps, no travel ball teams. But Langston knew of Stieb and Righetti.

“Those guys were legends,” said Langston, 63. “I didn’t know them, but I knew all about them. They were guys I always looked up to.”

Because of the age difference — Stieb is 66, Righetti 65 this month — Langston never played against them. In fact, there is only one known meeting between any of them. It was in a CCS playoff game between Righetti’s Pioneer team and Stieb’s Oak Grove team.

Stieb’s team won 2-1.

“Stieb threw out my brother at the plate from centerfield,” Righetti said. “He threw a  rocket.”

Stieb remembers. “I threw a bullet.”

The next year Righetti and Stieb were teammates at San Jose City College. Langston was headed there too until San Jose State offered him a scholarship. Imagine those three on the same pitching staff. It never would have happened, because Stieb and Righetti had moved on after one year. Langston was still in high school.

And, besides, one of them wasn’t a pitcher. Funny, but Stieb, the second-winningest pitcher of the 1980s — only Jack Morris won more games in the decade — didn’t throw a pitch in high school. Or in college until his third year.

Stieb was an outfielder. He was a college All-American his junior year, hitting .394 with 12 home runs and 48 RBI in 51 games for Southern Illinois University,

He still wonders what might have been had he not become a pitcher. He might have been like Shohei Ohtani, in the lineup every day, on the mound every fifth day. It’s a notion that Langston, who follows Ohtani closely as an Angels broadcaster, does not rush to dispel.

“I’ll always wonder,” Stieb said, wistfully. “But the way things turned out, I don’t really have any regrets. I can’t say I would have hit as I advanced up through the minors.”

Pitching found Stieb, not the other way around. Injuries had put the Southern Illinois staff in crisis. Stieb agreed to help out of the bullpen. He was pitching in relief one day against Eastern Illinois. Two Toronto Blue Jays scouts were in attendance, checking out the shortstop from the other team. They liked what they saw from Stieb the pitcher.

Stieb was drafted by the Blue Jays in 1978 and was in the majors within a year.

Righetti followed a month later, a September 1979 callup by the Yankees.

Langston arrived in 1984 and went 17-10 for a Seattle Mariners team that finished 14 games under .500. He also led the league in strikeouts, the first of three times. In a rookie class that included Roger Clemens and Kirby Puckett, Langston finished second. His teammate and roommate Alvin Davis won it with 27 homers and 116 RBI. (Oh, the aforementioned seven Gold Gloves; those all belong to Langston.)

Righetti won Rookie of the Year in 1981, led the league in saves once, and would have made many more All-Star teams under today’s rules. (Back then, there were no honorary selections. If you weren’t available to play in the game because of injury or otherwise, then you weren’t selected as an All-Star.)

Stieb won an ERA title, led the league in complete games and shutouts and twice led the league in innings pitched. (Fiery Dave also led the league in hit batsmen five times.)

By the end, they all had pitched no-hitters. That’s a sentence Langston does dispute.

“They had no-hitters,” he said, referring to Stieb and Righetti. “Mine was combined. You can’t put me in there with them. Those two were legit.”

In 1990, in his first game with the Angels — against his old team, the Seattle Mariners — Langston pitched seven hitless innings. Because spring training had been reduced to three weeks as a result of a labor lockout,  Langston hadn’t gone more than four innings in a game. The decision to come out after seven innings was left to him.

“I had nothing left,” he said. “I couldn’t have gone another two innings.”

Righetti got his no-hitter on July 4, 1983, a Yankee doodle dandy on a 94-degree day in the Bronx against the hated Red Sox, no less. He struck out Wade Boggs to end it. Boggs struck out 36 times that year in 685 trips to the plate.

Stieb got his in 1990, finally. Four times he had gone into the ninth inning with a no-hitter. The fourth time was the charm.

Of the 13 All-Star Game appearances among the three of them, Stieb had seven. Langston four. Righetti’s two came back to back, 1986 and 1987. The latter was in Oakland, so close to home, and Righetti wanted all three of them to make it. Stieb, an All-Star in three of the four previous seasons, was the one who didn’t.

“I was coming off my worst season,” he said.

None of them remember pitching against the other in the majors, which makes sense in one case. Righetti became a reliever in 1984, the year Langston reached the majors.

Langston pitched 16 years, almost exclusively in the American League. Ten of those seasons overlapped with Stieb’s career, but never a day that either can recall.

There was a night, though. After a game in Seattle, Langston invited Stieb to his home.

“He was a guitar guy,” Langston said. “We played guitars.”

“He had a nice little studio, lots of guitars,” Stieb recalled.

Langston remembers a night out with Righetti in the Bay Area. Righetti remembers a night out with Stieb in college; they went to see Andre the Giant at the Cow Palace.

But the three of them together? Never happened.

It won’t happen tonight either. Langston spends his offseasons in Tennessee. Righetti has a previous commitment.

But it’s OK. The three boys who grew up here, grew up to dominate major league pitching in the 1980s, will be hanging together on the concourse walls at SAP Center for the rest of time.

“Anything that happens in your hometown is so special,” Langston said, who was enshrined in 2018. “That night was very, very special for me. I’m sure it will be for Dave too.”

EVENT IS SOLD OUT

No tickets remain for the induction of the greatest class in the Hall’s 26-year history. In addition to Stieb, Patrick Marleau, Chris Wondolowski and Lorrie Fair are being inducted. The selection committee waived its five-year waiting period for Wondolowski and Marleau following their retirement as players in 2021 and 2022, respectively, because of their deep roots in the area.

“This is more than just a game,” Thao, at a City Hall event, said of the A’s, who will need 75% approval from the owners next week to secure the right to relocate. “These are intergenerational memories, tradition, culture.”

It’s unclear if the public showing by Thao and the City Council — which later on Tuesday approved a resolution affirming that the “A’s belong in Oakland” — will move the needle among MLB owners. While some retired A’s players and many fans have called for the team to stay, none of the MLB owners have indicated that they will get in A’s owner John Fisher’s way.

The A’s are focused on clearing legal hurdles in Nevada to build a 33,000-seat ballpark on the Las Vegas strip, plus a casino development on nine additional acres of adjacent land leased from owners of the Tropicana Hotel there.

Thao was quick to point out Tuesday that the Vegas ballpark — which would be the MLB’s smallest — is a far less ambitious proposal than the new digs the A’s had originally sought in Oakland.

The city raised over $400 million in grants and other outside money to support the waterfront stadium, thousands of homes and millions of square feet in commercial and retail space at Howard Terminal, in the city’s harbor.

Thao and other officials made clear that if the A’s are willing to scale down their development dreams closer to the realities of their Vegas proposal, they’re ready to reopen talks for a Howard Terminal ballpark, if not a new stadium at the Oakland Coliseum.

In the six months since the A’s first announced a land deal in Las Vegas, prompting Thao to end negotiations over a Howard Terminal ballpark, the mayor’s office has traded barbs with the MLB over whether Oakland had done enough to support the A’s.

“I want to address some of these shenanigans around how ‘No one’s helping the A’s get to a stadium’ – I think that’s utter bulls—t,” said Thao.

She noted that the city had outlasted a legal challenge by shipping companies and cleared a decisive hurdle with a Bay Area coastal regulatory body.

A’s fans filled the council chamber for Tuesday’s event, chanting “Stay in Oakland” and “Sell the team.”

Thao entertained the latter phrase, noting that the city would be willing to work with another sports franchise owner across the Bay — alluding to Warriors owner Joe Lacob — who has offered to buy the team.

An A’s worker in attendance, who declined to give his name because he is still employed by the team at the Coliseum, said he hasn’t been told anything by the franchise about his job’s future. The A’s lease at the Coliseum ends after 2024.

Keith Brown of the Alameda Labor Council, meanwhile, said the A’s promise to create thousands of new jobs at the Vegas ballpark was facetious — given that those weren’t new jobs, but jobs taken from Oakland.

“If (A’s owner) John Fisher turns his back on our jobs, on the hard-working folks of the Oakland Coliseum, on our Black and Brown workers, that’s his misguided choice,” Brown said. “But MLB should not follow.”

But the Mets ultimately hired Carlos Mendoza, the former New York Yankees bench coach, on Monday. And on Tuesday, the A’s announced that they picked up an option on Kotsay for 2025, ensuring he would be the A’s manager for at least two more seasons.

On a conference call on Tuesday afternoon, Forst was asked if the A’s move to pick up the option would limit Kotsay from interviewing for any other managerial jobs. There are still four openings: the Los Angeles Angels, Houston Astros, San Diego Padres and Milwaukee Brewers are still looking for a manager.

“He will be here going forward,” Forst responded, indicating that Kotsay would not be interviewing for other jobs.

Forst said he almost always grants permission to his employees who want to interview for jobs with other teams.

“As long as I’ve been here it’s always been our policy that we leave that up to the employee,” he said. “I think it’s important that employees know there is loyalty, but also I want everybody to feel they’re in the best position for themselves.”

Kotsay was asked after the season ended if he’d be open to other jobs, particularly when the San Francisco Giants had a managerial opening before they hired Bob Melvin. Kotsay said in October he was “cemented in this organization,” but noted, “obviously, there may be opportunities that arise in the future.”

Forst gave Kotsay time to interview with the Mets before asking the manager if picking up his option for 2025 would be a decision he’d be happy with.

“We’ve been talking about it since the end of the season, even during the season,” Forst said. “Going back and forth with Mark, we wanted to make sure it was right for both sides to do that. It was an obvious decision from our side.”

It sounds like Kotsay will be staying put from this point on.

“Mark will be here,” Forst said again.

There was a managerial game of musical chairs on Monday, when the Chicago Cubs let go of manager David Ross, then hired Milwaukee Brewers manager Craig Counsell and made him the highest paid skipper in MLB history. The Cubs gave him a contract reportedly worth $40 million over five years. According to MLB Network’s Jon Heyman, former San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy, who just won the World Series managing the Texas Rangers, is making about half of that.

The details of Kotsay’s contract are unclear, but first-time managers typically make a bit less than $1 million per season.

“Whether or not the Mets came along, I don’t think that impacted our interest in or desire to pick up the option,” Forst said. “Mark was as committed and working as much with us here while he was going through the Mets process. Opportunities come and I think it’s important that employees are committed to where they are and make sure they explore things. But it did not change Mark’s commitment to the A’s in the process.”

Forst has been pleased with Kotsay’s leadership, an obvious recognition of the manager’s attitude despite the team having an MLB-low payroll while winning an MLB-low 50 games in 2023. They’re 110-214 (.340) during Kotsay’s two seasons as skipper, but the finger isn’t going to be pointed towards the dugout.

“The job Mark has done leading this group, managing the clubhouse, establishing himself as the leader, becoming the face of the franchise on the field — I couldn’t be happier with the work he’s done there,” Forst said. “It was an easy decision from our end.”

A’s claim Andujar

Also on Tuesday, the A’s claimed former Yankees third baseman Miguel Andujar, who hit 46 doubles and 27 homers with the Yankees in 2018 but has struggled to find big league playing time since then.

Andujar, 28, spent most of last season in Triple-A for the Pittsburgh Pirates, hitting .338 with 16 home runs and a .941 OPS in 103 games. He’s arbitration eligible next season and is expected to make about $2 million.

Forst said the A’s could use him at a variety of positions in 2024.

“He was highly regarded when he came up with the Yankees,” Forst said. “It’s a hard place to come up in NY. There’s a lot of attention paid to his defense at the time, whether he could play third base. We believe he is a major league hitter. He’s done a nice job transitioning to the outfield. Played left and right field last year. Played some first base as well, which is a nice option to have. We’re very left-handed heavy, between Ryan Noda, Seth Brown and Tyler Soderstrom. It remains to be seen how he fits on the roster but there’s a lot of people here who believe he’s a major league hitter.”