BASEBALL: As the eminent baseball philosopher Lawrence Peter (Yogi) Berra once observed in another connection, "it was like déjà vu all over again." As hard-bitten followers of the National Football League are painfully aware, the New England Patriots' unlikely march to victory in Super Bowl XXXVI last season was made possible in no small part by an even more improbable sequence of officiating decisions in the waning moments of their snow-blown January play-off game against the Oakland Raiders.

Citing an obscure "tuck rule", referee Walt Coleman and his seven-man crew of zebras overturned what appeared to have been a certain interception of a Tom Brady pass in the closing moments of the contest. Taking advantage of this reprieve, the Patriots went on to deadlock the game on a last-second Adam Vinatieri field goal, and then win it in overtime, paving the way for their AFC Championship win in Pittsburgh a week later, which set the stage for their eventual heroics against the St Louis Rams in New Orleans.

Oakland players and fans alike have bitterly complained of the perceived injustice ever since. In late August, following its usual practice, the NFL dispatched a team of game officials to the Raiders' pre-season training camp for an orientation session, ostensibly to familiarise players with updated rules.

When the zebras arrived, the Oakland players, by pre-arrangement, got up and stormed out of the room in protest. Ironically, included in this mass exodus was Terrance Shaw, who had played for the Patriots in the snow game back in January.

"You can't blame the official for a lousy rule that was called correctly," former Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann noted this week. "The (tuck) rule needs to be changed and the responsibility belongs with the competition committee, which still didn't change it."

With the Patriots and Raiders scheduled to face one another for the first time since this Sunday night in Oakland, Raiders coach Bill Callahan has imposed a gag rule on his squad, forbidding them to even mention the play-off game, the tuck rule, or allow the name Walt Coleman to escape their lips.

The dramatic aspects of the New England-Oakland rematch were enhanced considerably last weekend. A day before the Raiders halted a four-game skid with a near-flawless performance to win their Monday night contest against the Denver Broncos 34-10, the Patriots staged a last-minute comeback to defeat the Chicago Bears 33-30 in Champaign, Illinois, in a bizarre game more than slightly redolent of last January's play-off win.

Trailing by 21 points midway through the third period, the Patriots had narrowed the gap to five. Then, having consumed all of their allotted time-outs with a minute and fifty seconds left to play, the defending champions managed to get off nine plays in the space of 82 seconds, a process enhanced considerably by two favourable instant replay rulings and two critical clock-stoppages, one by the zebras themselves and another even more preposterously by the Bears, who invoked a time-out just as quarterback Tom Brady was in the process of "spiking" the ball to kill the clock. When the final gun sounded, referee Bob McElwee and his officiating crew ran for their lives.

The entire sequence of events was sufficiently controversial that a day later the NFL undertook the extraordinary step of issuing a statement in which McElwee explained his rulings.

With 1:21 left, Chicago defensive lineman Bryan Robinson intercepted a Brady pass, only to fumble the ball. When the Bears' Rosevelt Colvin recovered, New England's doom appeared to have been sealed, but after consulting with the televised replay, McElwee awarded the ball to the Patriots.

"The replay assistant asked for a review to determine if the intercepting player had possession of the ball," explained McElwee. "By viewing the replay, it was clear that he never had control of the ball, so the proper call was to reverse the on-field ruling to an incomplete pass." Even granted this reprieve, the Patriots still faced fourth down and needed to pick up three yards for a first down. Brady called a quarterback sneak and ploughed into the line. While he appeared to have picked up the necessary yardage, the Bears weren't so sure.

Brady, in any case, tried to spike the ball, wasting a down to stop the clock. Instead the officials did it for him. "Inside one minute with a running clock, we are told not to stop the clock too quickly," went McElwee's official explanation, "but as I was blowing the play dead to check if it was a first down, the Patriots . . . were able to snap the ball very quickly. Since I was blowing the whistle, there was no snap and no subsequent play. But because the ball had been moved, I could no longer call for a measurement. I conferred with my crew and they strongly felt that the quarterback had advanced the ball past the first-down marker."

Two plays later, the Patriots once again found themselves three yards short and facing third down. Brady tried to spike the ball again, but was beaten to the punch when the Bears called time-out.

Not only that, but the officials restored eight seconds to the game clock. "The receiver was down and Chicago signalled for a time out," said McElwee. "The head linesman then killed the clock, but the clock operator upstairs did not see his signal. We had a crew conference to make sure the clock was correct. The head linesman told me he killed the clock and the line judge who is responsible for the game clock confirmed it was at 28 seconds, so we had to re-set it."

The Patriots scored the game-winning touchdown on the next play when Brady hit Patten with a 20-yard pass, but the receiver appeared close enough to being out of the end zone on the play that once again the replay official was consulted. And once again it went against the Bears.

McElsee: "By viewing the replay, it was clear that he did have possession with one foot in bounds while dragging his second foot, so the on-field ruling of touchdown was correct."

"It's one thing to get those breaks," said Theismann, "and another to keep capitalising on them as the Patriots are doing."

"That's how it is when you lose," said the Bears' All-World middle linebacker Brian Urlacher. "I don't know how crazy it was. All I know is we were on the short end of the stick."