On Christmas Eve, it was difficult to maneuver through the section of the locker room where the Atlanta Falcons’ offensive linemen hang their helmets. The players’ ankle tape was peeled off, and one had to step around it so it would not stick to one’s shoe. There were clumps of mud and grass to dodge while cleats were strewn here and there.

What made it an especially tight path were all those boxes holding 42-inch plasma televisions. Next to the cubicles of the starting offensive linemen, tight ends and fullback Ovie Mughelli was the merchandise of success: big-screen gifts from quarterback Matt Ryan and running back Michael Turner.

“You take care of me, I take care of you,” Turner said.

Turner and Ryan, two of the biggest offensive surprises of the 2008 N.F.L. season, have been well taken care of by the Falcons’ line, which has made a startling redemption from a dismal 2007 season.

It is basically the same players who gave up 47 sacks in 2007, but have allowed just 16 this season.

The same line that could not plow for its running backs last season (its 95 rushing yards a game was 26th in the N.F.L.), leads a ground game that averages 145 yards, fifth best in the league.

The Falcons are 10-5 and have reached the playoffs behind Ryan, who could be the N.F.L. rookie of the year, and Turner, who is starting for the first time in his career after backing up LaDainian Tomlinson in San Diego.

Their custodians on the line are led by center Todd McClure, a 10-year veteran, and left tackle Todd Weiner, an 11-year veteran. The cast also includes left guard Justin Blalock, who has been in the N.F.L. two seasons, and right tackle Tyson Clabo and right guard Harvey Dahl, who were undrafted free agents when they came into the league in 2004 and 2005. Tight ends Ben Hartsock and Justin Peelle also received TVs.

“We went through a lot last year, and the one thing we never did was turn on each other,” Clabo said. “We knew we had the talent, and then here comes this assistant coach, Paul Boudreau, with all this experience, and the game is fun again. Last year, they tried to kill all the fun with Petrino.”

The line called its offensive meeting room the No Fun Zone under the former head coach Bobby Petrino, who quit before the end of a 4-12 season. It became a morose team, especially during team meals, when silence was ordered and the only noise was forks spearing food on plates.

“This year, we’re clowns again,” Clabo said.

Other teams, however, prefer harsher labels for the Atlanta line. Denver linebacker Jamie Winborn insists the Falcons are part-time thugs with hits just after the last tweet of the whistle. Other opponents have been incensed by a physical style they claim is borderline dirty.

Weiner listened to the description of the Falcons’ play and smiled at McClure, who smiled back.

“We are going to come out and play to the whistle, and it makes guys mad,” Weiner said. “You go to the whistle, and there are guys who think it’s a cheap shot. When has playing to the whistle been a cheap shot? Don’t stop blocking. Guys in this league aren’t used to that, and all of a sudden it’s cheap.”

McClure said Boudreau barked at the linemen the first few days of training camp when he did not think play was physical enough. The coach wanted an extra shove, or two.

The acerbic identity of the line bloomed in a preseason game against Tennessee. There were moments, McClure said, when the officials lost control as players shoved one another after the whistle in what was supposed to be an inconsequential game.

“That game sent a message,” McClure said. “That Tennessee bunch is a physical bunch, and they are always trying to jump on a pile and hit your backs late. So we wanted to step up to the challenge, and it kind of got a little out of hand. It took off after that game for us. There was extra shoving and pushing, and they didn’t like it. We realized it would be a lot of fun to do that the whole season.”

The chief agitator, Weiner said, is Dahl, a 6-foot-5, 305-pound guard who came off the line so hard on one touchdown run by Turner against Carolina this season that he almost knocked himself out hitting a defender.

“I have received a lot of comments across the line; they are always talking about Harvey,” Weiner said. “They say: ‘What’s wrong with that guy? Does he have some screws loose?’ He just plays hard.”

The passion of the line explains some success on run plays. On pass plays, Clabo said, Ryan has a lot to do with the low number of sacks because of his pocket presence and his ability to get rid of the ball quickly.

“It changes the way people rush us,” Clabo said. “A lot of teams work line games in their pass rush, but now they don’t think they can get to the quarterback, so we’re getting a lot of bull rush. They are trying to collapse the pocket because they don’t think, if they work moves, they can get to Matt before the ball is gone.”

The Falcons’ line can now watch the highlights of Ryan’s success, and their handiwork on the big screens provided by their quarterback and running back.

When she first uttered the phrase that would help Louisiana State win last season’s BCS championship, Kathy Miles was just trying to get her husband to look at the bright side.

Les Miles’ Tigers had just blown the inside track to the BCS title game, losing on the day after Thanksgiving in triple overtime to Arkansas. LSU’s only other loss had also come in triple overtime, at Kentucky back in October.

“You know, Les,” she said that night, “you’re undefeated in regulation.”

Miles’ ears perked up. To a coach a win is a win and a loss is a loss, but this was a different way of looking at it.

He knew that with the confounding way college football crowns its champion, nothing is as it appears. The Bowl Championship Series, with its heavy reliance on opinion polls, has turned the sport into a game of perception and publicity as much as tackles and touchdowns.

The BCS is a farce. To win it, you need to treat it as a farce. So LSU immediately began using athletic department brains, not simply student-athlete brawn, to figure out how to become the first two-loss team to ever reach the title game.

Because the BCS sets no criteria for voter consideration in either of the polls that make up two-thirds of the rankings, the Tigers simply needed to redefine the parameters of the debate.

“We had to argue to people, ‘Yeah, we’ve got two losses, but look how they came,’ ” said Michael Bonnette, LSU’s associate athletic director in charge of media relations.

He had to make a loss (or two) not seem like a loss.

Miles had shared his wife’s line to Bonnette, who was immediately impressed by the simplicity of the argument.

LSU knew it was about to drop from No. 1 in the BCS standings to No. 7, but both coach and publicity man understood anything could happen in the final weekend of the season.

While apologists often hype the BCS as a weekly playoff, LSU knew that isn’t the case. Every week is, however, a chance to spread a political message.

Despite the losses, LSU (10-2 at the time) had the best team in the country. But unless it could convince voters of that, it wouldn’t matter. With a game against Tennessee in the SEC title game upcoming, the Tigers decided to set up their argument just in case the dominoes fell right.

Kathy Miles’ marketing line began getting pitched to the media. Les himself mentioned it at his weekly media conference.

“[LSU] hasn’t lost a game in regulation,” he said. “There has not been a team that has beaten us in 60 minutes.”

Later LSU tried to get the argument used by CBS, a sympathetic broadcast partner, which would telecast the SEC title game.

(Just a year before the network repeatedly made the case for Florida being more deserving of a BCS title berth than Michigan. One of the broadcasters, Gary Danielson, later said in an interview with a Detroit radio station that CBS only campaigned for the SEC because ESPN/ABC does the same for the Big Ten.)

When LSU won the SEC title and then the top two teams in the BCS rankings, Missouri and West Virginia, both lost, LSU tried to saturate the debate with Kathy Miles’ slogan.

On the team’s charter flight home Bonnette worked the phones to key media and got Miles a live interview on that night’s SportsCenter.

Once back in Baton Rouge, Bonnette and his staff put together a brief fact sheet for the coaches who vote. While LSU had a mountain of statistical information and comparative charts, they saved most of that for the media.

Bonnette felt the busy coaches wouldn’t read all of that and suspected other schools had already drowned them in numbers. “We didn’t want to overload them,” he said.

Instead he put together a simple email with four bullet points, the key being a central, emotional plea based on the now oft-repeated campaign slogan – “LSU is undefeated in regulation.”

“We sold it,” Bonnette said. “We did the best we could to get it out there.”

Sunday, on the strength of jumping a stunning five spots in the coaches’ vote and finishing No. 2 in each poll, the Tigers were given a berth in the BCS title game. A month later they handily beat Ohio State for the championship.

It was a masterful PR campaign.

“I know this,” Bonnette said, “I wish I could take credit for the line.”

Just last week Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops used circular logic to claim his team should be ranked higher than Texas even though Texas beat OU last month by 10 points.

He essentially claimed that if everyone has a loss, then the loss no longer matters. Or, as LSU had once essentially proven, a loss isn’t a loss.

“If it’s logical for one, then it’s logical for the other,” Stoops said.

It worked. Oklahoma moved ahead of Texas in both human polls and, should it defeat Oklahoma State on Saturday, the Sooners are expected to make up enough ground in the computers to beat out the Longhorns for a berth in the Big 12 title game.

Stoops, with his argument already paying dividends, said this week he would now take the high road and no longer lobby voters – which itself might be a shrewd campaign tactic.

One thing was for certain: Texas might be able to beat Oklahoma in football, but in a marketing contest the Sooners routed them.

The silly Longhorns thought the BCS actually cared about football.

Right now there are seven programs that can make a legitimate claim to play in the BCS title game – Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma, Penn State, Southern California, Texas and Utah.

Whoever sets the terms of the debate will make it.

Consider long-shot Utah, 12-0. If it could somehow convince voters that it shouldn’t be considered the undefeated champion of a non-“Big Six” conference but rather the undefeated champion of the fourth-best conference (superior to the Pac-10, Big East and ACC) who also defeated the probable Pac-10 champ (Oregon State), then it’s quite possible even the Utes could be playing for the title.

It’s the same for the others; each has an advantage if it can get a voter to consider the right question before voting.

Is this about whom you beat or who you lost to or whether you didn’t lose at all? Is it how you’re playing now or is your body of work for the season the key? What’s a conference’s overall strength worth? Do you even have to win your conference, let alone your division?

Is non-conference play important or margin of victory or margin of defeat or statistical rankings or anything else you can dream up?

Does it matter if you never lost in regulation?

Naturally the BCS offers no guidelines on the single most important thing it is supposed to do. Thus the voters are open to being swayed.

That means seven publicity departments are trying to reach 114 Harris Poll voters of various levels of commitment (two weeks ago one guy forgot to even cast a ballot) and 61 college coaches who are often unapologetically biased.

History shows just about anything can work. A year ago, after appearing dead in the water in the season finale, Kathy Miles struck marketing gold, her husband won the title and LSU proved that in college football, the game isn’t really about the game.

At 2.31pm, on a hot Mohali Friday, Sachin Tendulkar steered Peter Siddle towards the third-man boundary for three runs to break Brian Lara’s record for most Test runs. The record stood for nearly two years after Lara played his final Test and it was inevitable that Tendulkar would eventually break it.

Tendulkar

The disappointingly small crowd, built largely of school kids, immediately got on its feet to salute the feat, and fireworks, which continued for three minutes, went off at the PCA Stadium. Tendulkar raised his bat in the air, took his helmet off, and looked up at the sky, as is his routine when he gets to a hundred. The Australian fielders rushed immediately towards him to congratulate him. Ricky Ponting, the man most likely to challenge his status of being the top run-getter, was the first man to shake his hand.

This also brought an end to the soap-opera-type frenzied anticipation for the record. Tendulkar was expected to overtake Lara in Sri Lanka recently, but he endured a poor series with the bat, scoring just 95 runs in three Tests. Then in the series-opener in Bangalore, during a fine match-saving effort in the second innings, it seemed he would get to the record, but he gifted his wicket when 15 short.

Even today the anxiety around was palpable. During the time he got to 15, India lost two wickets in moving from 146 to 179 in 10.2 overs. While he scored at a fair rate, he didn’t get nearly as much strike during the period as he would have wanted. While he played 23 balls, VVS Laxman and Sourav Ganguly faced 19 each. It was fitting, in a way, that he achieved the record against Australia, a team he has tormented several times in the past.

Coincidentally, Lara too achieved the world record against Australia, when he went past Allan Border’s tally of 11,174 runs during the Adelaide Test in 2005. They remain the only three players to cross the 11,000-run mark in Tests. Though it is uncertain how long Tendulkar will prolong his Test career – which has lasted 19 years – the two players who stand the best chance of beating his eventual tally are Rahul Dravid (10,302) and Ponting (10,239).

India-Australia matches are becoming increasingly tight contests – and the first Test in Bangalore wasn’t any different.

Winning the toss in the sub-continent has always been very important but on tracks like the one at the M._Chinnaswamy_Stadium, it’s almost a must.

Australia did the expected by choosing to bat first and piled on the runs. One could argue that with the scoring rate, which hovered around three runs an over instead of the four we’re so used to seeing when Ricky Ponting’s side are batting, that they weren’t really finding it easy going.

But if one looks closely, there were two reasons for that:

1. The track didn’t offer substantial bounce and even the pace kept decreasing with every passing hour. A slow-and-low wicket is never conducive to exciting strokeplay and it showed here.

2. The most aggressive Australian batsman (Matthew Hayden) didn’t fire and the absence of a Gilchrist-type player lower down the order showed up when they could’ve forced the issue.

Australia, though, managed not only to post a huge first innings total but also negated the Indian spin bowlers very efficiently. Ricky Ponting managed to fight the ghosts from his past (of not doing well in India) and Michael Hussey, yet again, proved his worth.

The more I see of Hussey, the more I appreciate him. His footwork is very decisive and he always plays with a lot of intent. The good thing is that even after crossing the three-figure mark, he doesn’t drop his guard. It just shows his hunger to score as many runs as possible and make up for lost time (he made his Test debut at 29).

Nine wickets were shared between the quicker bowlers, Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma, and that might be of a little concern in the Indian dressing room. Not that there’s anything wrong with fast bowlers taking most of the wickets, but to win a Test match at home, the Indian spin department must fire and do most of the damage, which it didn’t in this match.

The Indian batting never got going and at one point looked like conceding a big first innings lead or even failing to save the follow-on. That’s when Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer got together and pulled India out of the woods. This Indian team has always shown a lot of grit and fighting spirit and this was on display once again.

When Australia were struggling to dislodge the tail, they must’ve missed Shane Warne. Both Cameron White and Michael Clarke are nowhere near the quality of spin one would want to see at this level.

Australia did eventually manage to get a slender first innings lead but the moment had passed and Australia had lost their stronghold on the match. The time consumed and the runs scored by the lower Indian batsmen were vital in the context of the game.

In a Test match, time is of the essence in forcing a result and by batting a tad slower than their normal scoring rate and then taking a lot of overs to dismiss the opposition, it left Australia with very little time to score enough runs, put India in again, and then bowl them out in the last innings. Australia are surely missing Warne, McGrath and Gilchrist.

India did manage to hold on to their own in the last innings – but only just. The track was definitely not the best to bat on and it didn’t suit the strokeplayers at all. And most Indians are precisely that and their inability to adapt to a different role, the role of a grinder, showed up.

Australia won more sessions than India and walked away with more positives. The key to start the tour strongly is to do well in conditions favouring the home side. Australia did it effectively (negated the spin, used reverse swing to counter the lack of bounce and played a lot off the front foot because of the lack of bounce and pace) and that has put the pressure back on the Indians to come up with new ideas for the remaining games.

But while India have a few things to ponder in the days prior to the second Test in Mohail, Australia have only one major worry – the lack of a quality spinner. But they can’t do anything about that anymore.

Aakash Chopra opened the batting for India in 10 Tests, forming an all-Delhi combination with Virender Sehwag during India’s tour of Australia in 2003-04. He also made his mark as an exceptional bat-pad fielder. He writes columns for the Hindustan Times and Cricinfo. He recently wrote Beyond the Blues, his season diary for Delhi’s 2007-08 championship season.

With more than one hundred outstanding golf courses and golf resorts in the region, it’s no wonder that Palm Springs has grown into such a sought-after golf destination. The great California weather makes it a premier, year-round vacation destination for golfers.

Palm Springs is located on the Northwestern boundary of the Coachella pga, which also includes several other rapidly growing communities including Cathedral City, Palm Desert, Desert Hot Springs, Rancho Mirage, La Quinta, Indian Wells and Indio.

Discovered in the early 1920s by some of Hollywood’s elite, it is no longer the group of sleepy little villages it once was. While the area has changed over the years, the one thing that has not is the magnificent clear blue sky and the mild climate. It’s a great feeling to be soaking your body in a warm outdoor pool or playing a round of golf on a manicured course while the rest of the country is slipping and sliding behind a snow plow.

The Palm Springs region, with its world-class golf courses and destination golf resorts, while not as large, is rapidly becoming the West Coast version of the Myrtle Beach golf scene

BOSTON – The World Series champion Boston Red Sox are back in the playoffs, thanks to a 5-4 victory over the Cleveland Indians on Tuesday night that clinched at least a wild-card berth.

Tim Wakefield outpitched Cliff Lee (22-3), and midseason acquisition Jason Bay hit the go-ahead single as Boston scored three times in the fifth inning to rally from a two-run deficit.

The Red Sox lead the New York Yankees by six games in the wild-card race with five games left. Boston still has a chance to catch Tampa Bay in the AL East.

“It’s different, but it doesn’t get any less exciting or less satisfying,” manager Terry Francona said. “We know we have more baseball to play.”

Cleveland loaded the bases with two outs in the eighth before Jonathan Papelbon came on and, with his first pitch, got Jamey Carroll to ground out. Papelbon earned his 41st save by retiring the Indians in order in the ninth to finish it off, just as he did in Game 4 of the Series against Colorado last fall.

Papelbon got Victor Martinez to pop up to shortstop Alex Cora to end the game, and the Red Sox poured out of their dugout and bullpen, hugging and slapping hands in the infield. They then retreating to the plasticized clubhouse for the traditional spraying of champagne.

“A lot of guys went down and we found a way to get into the playoffs to defend our title,” second baseman Dustin Pedroia said in an on-field interview that was broadcast on the scoreboard to chants of “M-V-P!” “We have a chance to do what we did last year, and that’s all we were looking for — an opportunity.”

Wakefield (10-11) allowed four runs on six hits and a walk in six innings, striking out six. It’s his 10th season in Boston with 10 or more wins, tying Roger Clemens for the most in franchise history.

Lee, the favorite to win the AL Cy Young award, had won 11 straight decisions in 13 starts since picking up his second loss on July 6.

Once the much-maligned owners of an 86-year championship drought, the Red Sox have won two titles in the last four seasons and made the playoffs in five of the past six years. They have not won back-to-back World Series since 1915 and ‘16, but they’ll have a chance to repeat when the playoffs start next week.

“We still have a chance to win the division and win it all,” center fielder Coco Crisp said. “I think we have a better shot this year than we did last year.”

The Indians lost to Boston in last year’s playoffs after leading 3-1 in the best-of-seven AL championship series, but they stumbled into third place in the AL Central this season and have long-since been eliminated from playoff contention. They beat Boston on Monday night to keep the Red Sox from clinching, but they could delay the celebration no longer.

Injured third baseman Mike Lowell, last year’s World Series MVP, joined his teammates on the field, spraying champagne into the crowd. Papelbon lifted the bases out of the infield and handed them into the stands. Jason Varitek made the rounds along the fence, shaking hands with fans recording the moment on their cellphones.

Back in the clubhouse, David Ortiz danced in the center, wearing goggles to protect his eyes from the bubbly, a veteran move that he’s learned from nearly a dozen celebrations since joining the Red Sox.

“We’re dangerous in the playoffs,” he said. “Everybody knows that.”

But for Bay, who was picked up when the Red Sox ditched 2004 Series MVP Manny Ramirez at the trading deadline, it’s his first trip to the postseason.

“I feel like a kid, jumping around spraying champagne with all these guys,” he said. “It’s been a different journey for me.”

Lee allowed five runs on nine hits and three walks in seven innings, striking out eight. It was his third consecutive start allowing four or more total runs.

Both Lee and Wakefield were working on shutouts until Ortiz doubled high off the center-field wall to lead off the fourth inning and Kevin Youkilis followed with a home run over the Green Monster. The Indians took a 4-2 lead in the top of the fifth when Grady Sizemore singled in a run, Carroll followed with an RBI groundout and Shin-Soo Choo and Jhonny Peralta hit back-to-back RBI doubles.

Cleveland’s lead didn’t last long.

The Red Sox took a 5-4 lead when Pedroia hit a two-run double and Bay singled.

Notes:@ Cleveland 3B Andy Marte left the game in the third inning with a left calf strain. … Pedroia’s 53rd double of the year tied Tris Speaker (1912) for third-most in Boston history. … Lee’s unbeaten streak is the longest since Chris Carpenter won 13 straight decisions for the Cardinals in 2005. It’s the longest for an Indians pitcher since Hall of Famer Gaylord Perry won 15 straight in 1974.

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