TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2002 — Who out there remembers Morgan Magic? For those who lived in Boston in the late ’80s and rooted for the Red Sox, Morgan Magic was the single most exciting time to be a Sox fan — other than the era of the 1986 pennant race. After the bitterness of the World Series loss to the Mets that year, Boston slogged its way to a 78-84 record, 20 games behind the division-winning Detroit Tigers. By the following July, the players had tuned out and stopped playing hard for manager John McNamara, and he was subsequently fired on Bastille Day, 1988. One of Mac’s bench coaches, Joe Morgan, was hired as interim manager, but no one could have foreseen what the pride of Walpole, Massachusetts, would bring to the team. The Sox, who were in fourth place, nine games behind the Tigers upon Morgan’s hiring, ripped off 12 straight wins, and 19 of their first 20 under their new skipper to coast to the AL East pennant. Yeah, they then proceeded to wilt in the post-season glare and got swept four straight by the Oakland A’s, but the memory of that second-half burst continues to warm a die-hard Sox fan’s heart even 14 years later. It was a time when every single night, you felt like the Red Sox were going to win. You just knew they would.

Well, sorry, folks, I don’t see any Morgan Magic re-blossoming for the local nine this season, but if you’re a baseball fan, you’ve got to love what’s happening with this year’s most heartwarming story — the Oakland A’s. Morgan Magic? And Howe! As of Tuesday, the A’s had tied the American League record with their 19th-straight victory, and the Art Howe–led club had leapfrogged to the top of the intensely competitive AL West standings. The Red Sox? They haven’t put together a string of even five straight wins since the first week of July, and all of those victories were at the expense of the woeful Blue Jays. The A’s’ streak also began with a couple of wins against Toronto, but since then, Oakland has swept series against the White Sox (three games), the Indians (four), the Tigers (three), the Royals (three), the Twins (three), and then there was Monday’s victory over the Royals.

Granted, those teams are not exactly the iron of the American League, but the A’s have overtaken the red-hot Angels and the defending division champion Mariners to take a four-game AL West lead. They’ve compiled an 87-51 record in a division where they play Seattle, Anaheim, and hard-hitting Texas 19 times each this season, while a team like the Red Sox struggles to a 77-58 mark in spite of the fact that they could feast on Baltimore, Toronto, and Tampa Bay 19 times apiece.

So who are these A’s, and how did they get here?

First of all, this story would not be complete unless we mentioned up-front that the A’s have one of the most storied histories in the league. After the franchise moved from Philadelphia to Kansas City, it settled in Oakland in 1968 under flamboyant owner Charlie Finley. The players hated their owner, but they couldn’t argue with the roster that he compiled, and the A’s were arguably the American League’s preeminent dynasty in the 1970s, as they collected five division titles, five pennants, and three consecutive World titles (1972, ’73, ’74). Those teams, oftentimes referred to as the " Mustache Gang " because of the team’s penchant for facial hair, were led by superstars Rollie Fingers, Reggie Jackson, Bert Campaneris, Joe Rudi, Vida Blue, and Catfish Hunter, and while they didn’t particularly like each other, they got it done on the field. While Finley had plenty of outlandish ideas that he believed could improve the game — bright orange-colored baseballs, a mechanical rabbit that delivered the baseballs to the home-plate umpire, and the team’s mule mascot " Charlie O. " — some of those suggestions weren’t half bad, and were even implemented (the World Series beginning on weekends, the DH, evening playoff games, colorful uniforms).

When Finley sold the team to Walter Haas in 1981, the team began to falter, both on the field and at the gate, particularly because of the tight purse strings kept by the organization. But in the late ’80s, the team began to improve again, as bright stars such as Mark McGwire, Dave Stewart, Jose Canseco, and Rickey Henderson flourished under manager Tony La Russa. While typically a strong club during that time, the team mystifyingly has won only one World Series since the early ’70s, and that was the 1989 Bay Bridge showdown with the cross-town Giants, which was interrupted prior to Game 3 by an earthquake.

The A’s of the late ’90s and early ’00s have continued to be run on a tight budget, and while the franchise continues to cultivate top-notch talent, it has a difficult time holding on to it once those players reach their free-agent years. As a result, Oakland lost two of its best players during the past off-season, Johnny Damon (to Boston) and Jason Giambi (to the Yankees). With those losses, Oakland was still picked for the hunt because of its starting pitching, but after a typically slow start this past spring, the A’s were written off as an also-ran when the Angels-Mariners race heated up in June. In fact, when the A’s dropped a game to the Devil Rays on May 28, Oakland’s record stood at 24-28, and they had fallen 10 games behind Seattle and 11 back in the wild-card race. Since then, they have been smokin’, winning 63 and losing just 23, and their 19-game streak is the biggest story of the summer (other than the labor dispute).

Oakland fans can be fickle, no doubt, and they have hardly packed Network Associates Coliseum (capacity: 50,000-plus) over the years. In fact, on Sunday, when the streak reached 18 by virtue of a thrilling 7-5 victory over Minnesota, only 37,676 were on hand to see Miguel Tejada’s walk-off three-run homer in the ninth. For whatever reason, Oakland fans for the most part choose not to support the team in person, and the team this season has averaged just over 25,000 fans per game — and that figure has only increased by about 3000 per game since the streak began on August 13.

Nonetheless, that’s their problem. What A’s fans are missing is a young, exciting, talented squad that has given the region hope of winning its first Fall Classic in 13 years. The A’s in recent years are very much accustomed to being second-best: second in the AL West last year despite the second-best record in baseball, second in the 2001 MVP race (Giambi finished second to Seattle’s Ichiro Suzuki), second in the 2001 Cy Young balloting (Mark Mulder behind Roger Clemens), and second in the Manager of the Year voting (Howe was runner-up for the third consecutive year). This year, though, they have a bona fide opportunity to finish first in all of those categories, as their four-game lead in the division has been boosted by the efforts of MVP candidate Tejada, Cy candidate Barry Zito (19-5, 2.84 ERA), and, of course, Howe, who steered the team from a 10-17 May to a squad that now boasts the most wins in the majors.

What is most remarkable about the A’s is that they are competing at such a high level — and flourishing — with a payroll of just under $40 million (I hear ya, Yankee fans, and we’re not going to talk about this here! Not now!). Their highest-paid player is outfielder Jermaine Dye, and he’s making " only " $7.2 million annually. After that, former Yank David Justice is collecting $7 million, and then comes a huge drop-off before you’ll find Tejada, an amazing bargain at $3.625 million. Everyone else on the roster is making $2.55 million or less.

Not surprisingly, it’s the pitching staff that’s provided the foundation for Oakland’s success. As of Memorial Day weekend, here were the A’s starters’ stats: Zito (5-2, 3.51 ERA), Mulder (3-4, 6.10), Tim Hudson (3-6, 4.37), and Cory Lidle (1-5, 5.25). Three months later, those same guys can now brag about the following numbers: Zito (19-5, 2.83), Mulder (16-7, 3.77), Hudson (12-9, 3.22), and Lidle (8-9, 3.86). Lidle, in the fourth slot, posted a 0.20 ERA in six starts last month and had a string of 43 innings without letting in an earned run. In closing, reliever Billy Koch, acquired from Toronto in an off-season deal, had a team-record 11 saves in August when the team went 24-4.

The offense has done a nice job, and it’s mind-boggling to think of what this team could have done with Giambi and Damon still in the line-up. Nevertheless, the team scored a league-high 164 runs in August and belted 39 home runs in 27 games. Third baseman Eric Chavez had nine home runs in the month and has 31 for the year (along with 97 RBIs), and in tandem with Tejada the A’s have provided the most potent one-two punch in the league in recent months. Tejada’s .311 average is seventh in the league, he’s second in RBIs (116), and sixth in runs scored (97). Ray Durham, acquired from the White Sox prior to the trading deadline, is hitting nearly .300, Boston cast-off Scott Hatteberg is batting a solid .269 in his first full season as a starter, and Justice has quietly contributed a .283 average and a .390 on-base percentage in his bid to snag his fourth championship ring in five years.

Admittedly, there are plenty of no-names on this team, but when viewing the A’s from across the country, that’s not surprising. NFL fans from outside of New England probably had no idea who half the Patriots were last season, but that team did okay for itself too.

The way the A’s have played, and the character they’ve shown throughout this summer, it is unimaginable to surmise that if this team were faced with a critical two-game series at home against a division leader, that all they could muster would be eight hits and two shutout losses.

Yep, as opposed to what’s going on in our town, what we have unfolding in Oakland is a heartwarming tale of a team jelling, playing hard, and getting clutch performances across the board when it really matters. They have steadily improved throughout the course of the season, and despite the specter of a player strike, the A’s played their best baseball of the season during the days leading up to, and immediately after, the resolution of the labor stand-off. Their roster consists of underpaid, overachieving guys who are familiar with the concept of late-inning comebacks, sparkling defense (just 14 errors committed during the 19-game win streak, and I’m sure you’ve seen highlights of outfielder Terrence Long robbing Manny Ramirez of a potential game-winning homer at Fenway on August 7), and consistent, quality pitching.

All on a payroll that’s just a third of you-know-who’s. The A’s have a very difficult September schedule — after one more with the Royals, it’s three at Minnesota, four at Anaheim, a homestand against Seattle, Anaheim, and Texas, followed by a season-ending trip to Seattle and Texas — but they’ve shown already that this is a team worth rooting for, and a team that’s richly deserving of the success they continually strive for.

Anyone deserving of those kind of plaudits around here?

You wish.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays on BostonPhoenix.com, and Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com