There are 39,195 lucky souls in the metropolitan area today. They're the ones holding tickets, through fair means or foul, to the home opener today at Fenway. They get to see the flag unfurled, the bling distributed, and hopefully the Red Sox get back on track against the winless Tigers.

And when we say foul means, it's not just our standard we-can't-get-tickets bitterness. Stories like the Sox auctioning off Green Monster seats, and police giving the heave-ho to overnight campers, make us wonder. At least we can still afford to think about the team. And so we will. Daisuke Matsuzaka goes against Kenny Rogers; should be a good one.

The MBTA is adding extra trains for Opening Day, even though every game has been a sellout for years, and the Opening Day crowd is even more limo-oriented and less Green-Line-oriented than usual. Dan Shaughnessy has a paint-by-numbers column, in which he asks about Dice-K, "when is the last time a pitcher started three of a team's first eight games?". Mike Mussina and Victor Zambrano, 2004. That took like a minute and a half to look up on the Internet, Dan.

The Bruins were encouraged to pummel Patrice Bergeron in practice; he's been medically cleared to return from his October concussion, and they wanted to see how he'd stand up to physical contact going into the playoffs. He won't be ready for Game One, but anything's possible after that.

Kansas won what we assume was a thrilling NCAA Championship game. Former Cambridge Rindge & Latin star Patrick Ewing headlined the list of new inductees to the Basketball Hall of Fame, along with Hakeem Olajuwon, a weepy Dick Vitale, and several others.

Jon Petitt, Jocelyn Celeste and Caroline Roberts contributed to this post. Pictures are from the Library of Congress, whose Flickr collection just might completely destroy the chances of getting any work done today.

Fenway Park, circa 1912 (From the George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress))

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