MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred denies that a 60-game season was his plan all along

As it turns out, it wasn’t a smoking gun.

Or even a slip of the tongue.

While the Twitterverse thought MLB commissioner Rob Manfred accidentally confessed Wednesday on the ‘‘The Dan Patrick Show’’ that it was always MLB’s intention to play a 60-game season, Manfred clarified Thursday what he meant.

“My point was that no matter what happened with the union, the way things unfolded with the second spike,’’ Manfred told USA TODAY Sports, “we would have ended up with only time for 60 games, anyway. As time went on, it became clearer and clearer that the course of the virus was going to dictate how many games we could play.’’

Certainly, if it was really always the owners’ intention to play a 60-game season, they had a curious way of showing it.

They proposed an 82-game schedule in their initial negotiating proposal to the Major League Baseball Players Association.

They offered a 76-game proposal in their second official proposal.

Then, 72 games in a third proposal.

The two sides never could come to an agreement, with Manfred exercising his rights under the March 26 agreement, scheduling a 60-game season.

“As it turned out, the reality was there was only time to play 60 games,’’ Manfred said. “If we had started an 82-game season [beginning July 1], we would have had people in Arizona and Florida the time the second spike hit.’’

MLB, which had 40 players test positive in a week, including eight players and staff members of the Phillies, shut down all of their spring-training sites in Arizona and Florida on June 19. If teams were in spring-training camps at the time, all the players and coaches may have been sent home a second time.

“We just weren’t going to be able to play more than 60 games at that point,’’ Manfred said, “with everything being shut down. The reality is that we’re going to be lucky if we play 60 games now given the course of the virus.’’

The players’ union, which initially sought to play 114 games, is expected to file a grievance against MLB in the next two months, accusing the owners of intentionally delaying negotiations to limit the number of games. The union potentially could try to use Manfred’s comments in his interview with Patrick as part of their grievance.

“The reality is we weren’t going to play more than 60 games no matter how the negotiations with the players went, or any other factor,” Manfred told Patrick. “Sixty games is outside the envelope given the realities of the virus. I think this is the one thing that we come back to every single day, we’re trying to manage something that has proven to be unpredictable and unmanageable.

“I know it hasn’t looked particularly pretty in spots, but having said that, if we can pull off this 60-game season, I think it was the best we were going to do for our fans given the course of the virus.”

Patrick followed up by asking Manfred, “even if the players accepted everything you offered, there was no way you were going to go above 60 games?”

“It’s the calendar,” Manfred said. “We’re playing 60 games in 63 days right now. I don’t see, given the reality of the health situation over the past few weeks, how we were going to get going any faster than the calendar we’re on right now. No matter what the state of those negotiations were.”