We know, we know: It's Barry Bonds Week in Bay Area baseball. That's very exciting, but there's also a pennant race going on just across the bay from 24 Willie Mays Plaza. After Monday night's 2-0 victory in Cleveland, the A's are a game behind Los Los Angeles Angeles de Anaheim Anaheim in the AL West and 1 1/2 games behind Cleveland in the AL Wild Card race. There are only so many ways to write that it's all going to come down to 4 games against Los Los Angeles Angeles at the Coliseum at the end of September, though, and to exhort our readers to get over there and get behind the green and gold, so we'll be back with that message in a week or so. Today, we've got bigger problems. Bigger problems, even, than Harden's oblique or Crosby's ankle. Media problems.

For the last couple years, A's games have been broadcast on 610 AM, which until this season, was the AM affiliate of 99.7 FM, KFRC--the oldies station. That was cool. Now, though, 610 AM is KEAR, Family Radio: A Worldwide Christian Ministry. In practical terms, that means A's fans all over the Bay Area who have listened to the ballgame in the car on Tuesday night now get up Wednesday morning, turn the ignition, and hear, instead of "How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You" or "Twist and Shout," scripture, gospel, fire and brimstone.

Image is from www.catholicsports.com. Really.

We intend no disrespect to actual people of actual faith, here, and we wouldn't necessarily rather the A's were on a sports-talk format the rest of the time. We certainly wouldn't want to turn on the radio to Tom Tolbert, Jim Rome, or radio highlights of yesterday's PGA Tour action. It's just that when your most formidable division rival is called the Angels and your team's philosophy is famously hyperrational and mumbo-jumbo-averse, it can be a little jarring to get prayer instead of pregame analysis.

Of course, baseball fans everywhere have prayed for clutch hits and outs, for the timely returns of starting pitchers, home-run king leftfielders and reigning Rookie of the Year shortstops, and this space has made unironic references to the baseball gods, but we do not intend to go quietly as organized sport lapses into evangelism. The intersection of the civic religion that is American sports, on the one hand, and monotheistic proselytizing, on the other, is a long-running pet peeve of A's Brand Baseball, and this is a pretty convenient way to bring it up. Plus, all that prayer doesn't seem to be doing the team much good: Monday, they lost the coin toss that determined home-field advantage for pennant race tiebreakers again, running their losing streak to an improbable 0-9 over the last 3 years.

That's cool, though; it just means the A's should finish with a better record than Cleveland, New York, and/or Anaheim because no off-field higher power has their back. At A's Brand Baseball, we trust in Billy. We believe in OBP, OPS, K/9, and ERA+. We look to Huston Street for salvation. And we can't think for you; you'll have to decide whether Jason Giambi has God on his side.

Tuesday's game against Cleveland is at 4:05, on FSN and (you know it) KEAR-610. Captain Saarloos (9-7, 4.06) vs. Whatever Happened to Kevin Milwood (7-11. 3.11). Go A's.