Owner of 51s rumored to be in talks to buy A’s

Steve Guiremand

Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2001 | 10:48 a.m.

Las Vegas 51s president Don Logan this morning would neither confirm nor deny several published reports that Mandalay Sports Entertainment, the principle owner of the 51s, had struck a deal to purchase the Oakland Athletics major league baseball team.

"At this point, I have no comment on that," Logan said.

However, one prominent local baseball official said that Los Angeles-based Mandalay Sports Entertainment, which explored buying the A's back in 1999, had been in discussions with Oakland team owner Steve Schott since spring training about buying the team.

An Oakland city councilman who oversees the city's relationships with its sports franchises, Ignacio De La Fuente, told Bay Area television station KTVU on Tuesday night that the A's had been sold "to an investor group from Las Vegas. We believe it's a done deal. That it's a sale, unfortunately."

But A's officials immediately refuted De La Fuente's claims.

"The A's have not been sold and are not planning to be moved to Las Vegas," Oakland general manager Billy Beane told the San Francisco Chronicle.

"The team has not been sold, and it certainly has not been sold to a group that is planning on moving it to Las Vegas," A's president Mike Crowley said.

The A's lease at Network Associates Coliseum expires after this season when the team has an option to extend it on a year-to-year basis through 2004. The team has an Aug. 15 deadline to decide on whether to extend it through the 2002 season.

In recent years, there have been rumors about the A's moving to several different locations, including Sacramento and Santa Clara, where Schott has a business and grew up. ESPN.com's respected baseball writer Peter Gammons has also floated the possibility that Disney will fold the Anaheim Angels, which would allow the Athletics to move south to Edison International Field.

Most recently, Schott and his son, Stephen, have engaged in conversations with Santa Clara officials about possibly moving the team there and building a new baseball stadium in the parking lot of the Great America amusement park.

If the team is sold, it would have to be approved by at least 11 of the 14 owners in the American League and a minimum of nine of the 16 national League owners.