Oakland, Calif. ? Before, these Oakland Athletics were all about their stars – the Big Three aces and slugging MVPs Jason Giambi and Miguel Tejada.

Those players generated the headlines while Gold Glove third baseman Eric Chavez and others waited for their turn.

Still, the A’s failed to make it past the first round of the playoffs with a pitching staff featuring Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito.

It’s the 2006 roster, with only Chavez and Zito left and fewer standouts than all of those other talented teams, that finally did it. Oakland is in the AL championship series for the first time in 14 years after a first-round sweep of the Minnesota Twins.

Oakland will open the best-of-seven ALCS at home Tuesday against the Detroit Tigers, who eliminated the New York Yankees on Saturday.

General manager Billy Beane has watched many All-Stars leave for big paychecks in larger markets. And Beane even traded away Hudson and Mulder in a three-day span in December 2004, two shocking moves that eventually turned out to be just right.

Zito is no longer the dominant pitcher he was during his 2002 AL Cy Young Award season, though he’s still expected to depart as a free agent after this year. Frank Thomas was considered washed up when Oakland got him on the cheap last winter. And Chavez played much of this season with a variety of injuries that kept him from reaching his potential.

Somehow, through setback after setback, the A’s put together another one of their trademark second-half surges to win the AL West and end a two-year playoff drought – and did so with much less fanfare than the other playoff teams.

“We don’t get a lot of attention, and we’re the underdogs,” Zito said. “But I’ve had that my whole career. We don’t worry about it.”