After Copernicus suggested that the earth revolved around the sun — contrary to the then-contemporary vice versa option that passed as absolute fact — he was indubitably the subject of cruel astronomer jokes down in the observatory involving mothers, moons and certain Milky Ways. His theory was rejected out of hand, naturally, and he died a doubted man, his 16th-century mailbox likely full of circumstantial evidence demonstrating his folly.

As Mets outfield Mike Cameron’s own 15th-century Roman Catholic Church-enlightened view of astronomy suggests (“The sun has been there for 500, 600 years,” he recently told the New York Daily News), yore’s burn-’em-at-the-stake anti-science zealots would make quite fashionable Major League Baseball players and pundits, their minds irrecoverably mired in “how it is,” unwilling to hear theories to the contrary. And when faced with evidence that shines doubt on their dearly held assumptions, these same hard-heads will contort and spin like octopi playing Twister in order to not be wrong.

This brings us to the 2005 Oakland Athletics, a team marked for roadkill even before the Spring Training engines began to rev. The A’s were romanticized (perhaps overly so) in a 2003 book by Michael Lewis called Moneyball, in which Lewis expounded on Oakland General Manager Billy Beane’s faith in spreadsheets rather than the traditional “gut feelings” of baseball scouts. (More often than not, a simple Rolaid would cure those stomach pangs.) To the vast majority of baseball, this was anathema; theirs was a game of purity and history, not geeks with laptops — not you press boys, of course; ya’ll is awwwwright.

And so it was with great glee that sportswriters and television pundits pounced when payroll inflexibility forced Beane to trade two of his so-called “Big Three” pitchers (the oft-injured southpaw Mark Mulder to St. Louis, diminutive righty Tim Hudson to Atlanta) for prospects who might have been the notorious “players to be named later” for all we knew. “He’s finally lost it,” shouted the chorus, and a slow start to the season supported their cause. By May, the A’s were dead in the water, a “Do Not Resuscitate” placard hanging around their scruffy necks.

But then, while we pondered the demise of the Yankees, the Ruthian emergence of a sleek hitter in Chicago named Derrek Lee and the inexplicable rise of that other Chicago team, the White Sox, the Athletics suddenly began winning. On May 29 they were 17-32 after an ugly loss to the Cleveland Indians; by June 21 they had risen to 31-39 after another impressive performance by young hurler Rich Harden, who looks like the departed Hudson’s elder brother despite being many years younger; and on July 5, the day after the All Star break, they reached .500 for the first time in two months, thumping the Toronto Blue Jays.

Since that Blue Jays series (incidentally, like the Mets, the Jays are either the best bad team in baseball or the worst good team — take your pick), the A’s have decimated their opposition, sweeping those red-hot White Sox, the not-bad Texas Rangers and, this past weekend, the moribund Kansas City Royals, who have served as a MLB farm team over the past several seasons (Johnny Damon, Carlos Beltran and Jermaine Dye played in KC). Oakland defeated the Royals in three games by a combined score of 32-5, the sort of defeat that even the Bad News Bears would find discouraging.

Leading the A’s charge have been a resurgent Eric Chavez, a third baseman who is incapable of even mediocre play in any season’s first four months, but is godly thereafter; the surprising Jay Payton, a ho-hum outfielder acquired from the Red Sox in exchange for Moneyball hero Chad Bradford (no one can call Beane sentimental); and a young pitching staff led by the meditating Cy Young contender (and former winner) Barry Zito, nubile ace Harden, the tubby Joe Blanton (another Moneyballer) and Danny Haren, one of those anonymous schlubs acquired for Mulder. And let us not forget another name in the Moneyball index: the young slugger Dan Johnson, a Bunyon-esque Minnesotan who homered in five straight games and has made Oaklanders forget Jason Giambi once and for all.

Considering the invaluable contributions from Moneyball names and the Athletics’ success without the Big Two, it would stand to reason that Billy Beane’s approach to baseball has been vindicated. Yet it would appear that those Twister-playing octopi in the press booths have not eight legs, but nine! In response to Oakland’s NASA-like rise to the top of the AL West division, the pundits have dutifully praised the team, but have gone to extraordinarily convoluted lengths to explain the success.

According to ESPN’s Joe Morgan, John Kruk and Steve Philips, all of whom have either written or talked about this subject, Oakland owes its success to two factors: 1) playing the game the right way and 2) the leadership of manager Ken Macha. In pundit lingo, “playing the game the right way” means bunting, stealing and tagging up or, at worst, playing with a workman’s like efficiency that these same men mysteriously see only in white players. Since the A’s do not bunt or steal but are an overwhelmingly Caucasian squad, we’ll leave the first explanation alone before we rouse the natives.

As for the second, the sudden lionizing of Macha is a classic bait-and-switch, like goading a pick-off throw to first so that your lead runner can steal home (a remarkable feat that Toronto’s Shea Hillenbrand accomplished against the Yankees on Saturday). While Macha is, by all accounts, a good man who respects the game, he is by no means Tony Larussa or Sparky Anderson, and placing the laurels around his shoulders is like thanking the chauffer for creating the internal combustion engine — a courteous gesture, but one, like so many Yankee runs, unearned.

It’s doubtful that the A’s, anonymous as they are, will become America’s Team or even press darlings as we wind our way toward the postseason. It’s no certainty that they’ll even make it there, as they are mired in a dogfight for the AL West with the Los Angeles Angels and for the Wild Card with the Yankees and Indians. But should they succeed — and I, for one, would not bet against them — be prepared for even Copernicus to be put on his ear: the baseball world, in fact, will revolve around Billy Beane.