JIM ROGASH / Getty Images Red Sox players celebrate at Fenway Park after Jason Bay scored in the bottom of the ninth to beat the Angels and move on to the ALCS.

BOSTON – The Boston Red Sox brushed aside the 100-win Angels in four games, dismissing their best-in-baseball regular season as last month's news. When it turns to October, no one dominates like Boston. Jason Bay scored with a headfirst slide on Jed Lowrie's two-out single in the ninth inning and the defending World Series champions took advantage of a botched suicide squeeze, beating the Angels 3-2 last night to win their first-round playoff series in four games.

Their nemesis, the team that embarrassed them last September and then ended their season in January, is coming to town. Sadly, in a way, this Sunday night's prime-time matchup between the Chargers and Patriots has diminished in intrigue. It was to have been a meeting of AFC leaders, possible unbeatens, a postseason prequel.

• Banged-up players determined to soldier on

The football conceit is that injuries are irrelevant, and that to cite them is to signify weakness, to indulge in alibis, to compromise the code, to ask for directions. Two questions: 1) Why does an explanation have to be an excuse? 2) Why do football players wear helmets when their heads are already so hard?

Standing beyond the back line of the volleyball court at Cerritos College, Aida Esquer drew a deep breath. Esquer, then a senior for Bonita Vista High, had served eight straight points, putting the Barons in position to win the biggest match of their season.

• California Challenge