By our unofficial calculations, 18.5 million people have gone to games at Fenway since the last time you could actually show up, cash in hand, and get a seat. That's more than the population of Chile or Greece. The Sox notched their 500th sellout in a row last night. And the fans, who came to celebrate that nice round number, got two for one, as Brad Penny got his 100th career win, beating Florida 6-1.

Penny was lucky to get the win; he's lucky to be alive. A Jeremy Hermida line drive in the first inning hit Penny in the chest. Youk picked up the ball and made the out, and Francona was right out there with some comforting words: "If you collapse, we'll get Masterson in the game." Penny, a big tough Oklahoman, was able to stay in the game, and gave up only an unearned run in five innings before going to take an ice bath. The unearned run came on Jacoby Ellsbury's first error ever.

Jacoby redeemed himself with a solo home run in the seventh. Most of the rest of the offense came from Dustin Pedroia, who knocked in 3 runs on 3 singles. David Ortiz scored three times, and his average has slowly climbed to .215. Seven more points and he's tied 2008 Jason Varitek.

One guy who didn't get a hit, but still had one of the great moments of his life, was Jason Bay. There aren't really any bigger thrills for a Canadian kid than to meet a hockey legend, so Bay got a big thrill when Bobby Orr popped out from the left-field scoreboard to greet him before the seventh inning. "Someone had given me a little heads up that he was out there. I was under the impression that he was going to heckle me or something for an inning." Oh, those wacky Canadians.

There was a possibility that John Smoltz could have made his Sox debut against Atlanta, the team he pitched for since 1963 (or roughly half of Bobby Cox's tenure). He won't; he'll pitch against Washington next week, and the Braves are relieved. So's Smoltz, probably.

Kevin McHale is done being in charge of the Minnesota Timberwolves. The longtime Celtic legend, and essentially the architect of the current Celtics powerhouse, apparently just wore out his welcome with a team that hadn't done anything since 2004, and didn't do much before that. Though with Al Jefferson and Ryan Gomes, they're still our second favorite team.

Filed in Sports and tagged Bobby Orr, Brad Penny, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jason Bay, John Smoltz, Kevin McHale, Marlins, Red Sox, sports redux, sportsredux

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