Discarded Athletics employee memo emphasizes just how much ownership hates Oakland

Fans across baseball have had reasons to pity the Oakland Athletics and their fan base for years now, but things just keep going from bad to worse as ownership (and, in a lot of instances, Major League Baseball itself) continues to actively shun its fans and the city it's called home for nearly 60 years. With a basically imminent move to Las Vegas in the cards, but also a lot of indecision and doubt as to where the A's will play while they wait for their new stadium to be built, A's fans have been all but begging John Fisher to sell the team to anyone who will keep them in Oakland.

The odds of that happening are, unfortunately, incredibly slim. The storied Oakland Coliseum has fallen into disrepair, and the massive reverse boycotts carried out by fans last season (which MLB got into hot water for editing out of game highlights) have fallen on deaf ears.

On Tuesday, it went bad to worse to even worse when a fan picked up a discarded piece of paper at the Coliseum, which turned out to be a memo to sales employees at the stadium. It explicitly instructed salespeople to take down anything that said "Rooted in Oakland," and to deemphasize any product with the name "Oakland" on it, while also recognizing that "the fan base may be upset with the team."

Found Athletics employee memo explicitly instructs salespeople "not to highlight product that focuses on the name 'Oakland'"

This really is a new low for A's, but it's hardly surprising anymore. The team's move to Vegas has been overwhelmingly supported by other owners and commissioner Rob Manfred, who said of the attendance at one of the reverse boycotts last year, flippantly, "It was great. It's great to see what is, this year, almost an average Major League Baseball crowd in the facility for one night. That's a great thing." That should be enough to make any baseball fan, of the A's or not, want to go into an expletive-filled rage.

Some very dedicated A's fans are still at it, wearing their "Sell" t-shirts and flying "Sell" banners even at lightly-attended home games to start the year. In a perfect world, Fisher would sell the team to someone who's willing to keep the team in Oakland and actually cultivate the base they've been neglecting. But alas, we live in a world where A's employees are actively instructed not to acknowledge the city they're currently in.