DEPEND ON THIS: the Oakland A's will mix fiscally responsible draft choices, good press, and a punk rock-underdog rep to put them in the same ballpark as the much-better-funded Giants, and bad hair-challenged Al Davis will tell a punchy Raider Nation that the team will throw the ball and throw it far. Go team.

Meanwhile Oakland's other club, the Team, are busy solidifying a few other truisms. For instance, never, ever swim, let alone wiggle an Adidas or whatev, in the gruesome goo of Toxic Beach at 24th and Third Streets, near San Francisco's Dogpatch. You know the spot, where the water tentatively fingers that muddy, murky zone resembling black death and riddled with shopping carts, tires, seagulls, and garbage. Some call it shoreline, for sho. But the Team's Kaz, a.k.a. Kyzah, isn't going anywhere near that gunk. " 'Toxic waste' is right," he mumbles as we lope around the edge of the tiny, rocky strip as a nearby Winnebago dweller whistles a crazy sonata. Beneath a phallic smokestack and bordered by a barbed wire-bedecked fence that has served as a graf sketch pad, dirty grass and creamy yellow wildflowers cling to the concrete like an afterthought.

Like so many athletically inclined players, the Team have a slicker ride (a Dodge Magnum) than me; a 2004 underground hip-hop album, The Negro League (Moe Doe), that's close to selling out its 7,500 run; infectious and commercial tracks like "It's Gettin Hot," so reminiscent of Dr. Dre's drive-by cool, that continue to get airplay and club time; and a deal with Universal to rerelease The Negro League with 10 new songs, which are still in the mixing process at Mike Denton's Infinite Studios as we speak and shoot pics for the cover of the Bay Guardian. Yeah, you go, Team, shuffling in the sun, playing with their Sidekicks (they write all their lyrics on them), and looking out over the bay at Oakland from this nasty little sliver of San Francisco – proudly gangsta yet so College Dropout athletic, rolling out rhymes about East Bay streets and malls (can I coin a genre called gangbanger bourgeois?). Despite Kaz's initial misgivings about the phrase "New Bay sound," Team-ster Clyde Carson knows where his loyalties lie.

"If it brings light to the Bay, we're with it," he says later from an Alameda barbecue house, taking a break from mixing. "I say, why not create something new? If you're coming out with something new and never been heard before, you'd call us New Bay.

"We don't want to disrespect 40 or Luniz or Too $hort. We young. We ain't coming out to offend anybody. But we don't give a damn about nothing but telling the truth. When Keak da Sneak is on TV, we get excited. Even when Green Day was on the Grammys and they shouted out 880 studios – just as long as it's the Bay."

The key was getting a tape with a song slid onto the desk of KMEL, 106 FM, music director "Big Von" Johnson a year or so ago, Carson says. "We was at the barbershop, and they said, 'Yo, we heard you on the radio last night.' And we said, 'Hell no!' "

So how did they make it on the air when others haven't? "There was some garbage coming out the Bay," he explains, bringing out the blunt stuff without missing a beat. "There was some crap coming out of it. I'm not saying that we're the messiahs – all I'm going to say is we're going to do our part to take it national, because if you're making hot music constantly, you can't be ignored."

And that means pleasing the people and providing the soundtrack for the sideshows with songs like "Moe Doe," which features Keak and refs to cruising the Coliseum. It's perfect for the white T's in the Corvettes, Corollas, and Chevelles who dip and do doughnuts through Foothill and East 14th, the group's East Oakland hood (though Team member Mayne Mannish is from Berkeley, and silent partner Jungle is from S.F.). "We're gonna give you what you appreciated most in the old songs. Really, we're giving you a taste of us, man," Carson explains. "We're giving you what we see. The Team is from Oakland, straight up."

Dax on the way back When 7 Year Rabbit Cycle and Warbler's vehicular disaster occurred a few months back – the front wheels spun off their van, and they ended up stranded in Arizona for a few days – I idly assumed it didn't get any worse, at least not as bad as the Exploding Hearts tragedy a few years ago, when, after playing a last-minute show at the Parkside, most of the band were killed in a crash on their way back to Portland, Ore.

So Subtle and Winfred E. Eye member (and longtime Amoeba Music buyer) Dax Pierson's recent misfortune was shocking – he is now paralyzed from the chest down after Subtle's van slid off the road in Iowa early in the morning on Feb. 24.

The accident was a blow to everyone in Subtle, member Adam Drucker, a.k.a. doseone of Anticon, told me on the phone from Vancouver, B.C., where he now lives. The six in the vehicle, on their first national tour, were wearing seat belts and hit their heads on the roof on impact, but Pierson was the only one who broke his neck. After surgery March 2 at Creighton University Hospital in Omaha, Neb., Drucker said Pierson could move his shoulders and head, adding, "He sounds strong and full of wit, breathing on his own."

Now the group are planning on raising funds for "all the equipment and lifestyle changes that medical insurance doesn't cover," like the wheelchair that costs $30,000, Drucker explained. Subtle and friends are organizing benefits with pals like Matmos, Atmosphere, Sage Francis, and Def Jux artists, and Blood Brothers have taken to passing a donation box on tour. Firming up is a large London benefit with Gruff from Super Furry Animals, Four-Tet, and Hood. The outpouring of support reflects Pierson's encompassing love of music and charismatic personality. "He knew all music inside and out, and he made tons of friends, a total people magnet. He's the reason Subtle is together," said Drucker.

Check www.daxpierson.com for health updates and benefit information. Send donations to the Institute for Rehabilitation and Research, 1333 Moursund, Unit 5, Houston, TX 77030, in care of Dax Pierson. Also check out Kaiser Chiefs, Tues/22, 8 p.m., Slim's, 333 11th St., S.F. $13. (415) 255-0333.

Rude as the news?

Contact Kimberly Chun at kimberly@sfbg.com.