A true sports fan lives by dates, which will probably have no meaning to ordinary (read: dull) people not of the sports persuasion.

For example, Oct. 8 is a High Holyday Of Sport for me. Why? Oct. 8, 1956 is the day Don Larsen pitched the one and only perfect game (and no-hitter) in the history of all major league postseason baseball. I was in sixth grade, and all of us at St. Joseph's School in Trenton, N.J. were aware that there was a perfect game going on because Game 5 of the 1956 the World Series between the Yankees and Dodgers was like any other World Series game; that is to say, we had the game on the radio. In class.

So as my friends and I were riding home on the bus, the agreement was that if Larsen still had the perfect game going when we got home (the game had started at 1 and this was approximately 2:50), we'd stay in to see it. If not, we'd start playing touch football. That's the way life was in those days.

As you undoubtedly know, our touch football game was a bit delayed that day.

July 3 is a day with personal meaning for me. That's July 3, not July 4, although I do recall both July 4, 1977 (the Red Sox hit eight home runs off the Blue Jays) and July 4, 1983 (Dave Righetti's no-hitter against the Sawx, the last out being Wade Boggs' pathetic "swinging" -- i.e. flailing -- third strike).

But July 3, 1966 was something else. My friend John Benson and I had gone to Shea Stadium to see a Mets-Pirates doubleheader (he was a huge Pirates fan). I remember two things about that day:

1. Manny Mota of the Pirates led off one of the games with a triple and was thrown out trying to stretch it into an inside-the-parker. That's the only time I've ever seen a game start like that, at any level.

2. The scoreboard announcement that Braves pitcher Tony Cloninger had become the first player in the history of baseball to hit two grand slams in one game. So no July 3 comes along without me thinking about that.

And no May 28 comes along without me thinking of what was known as the "Vida Blue Game," or, perhaps, the "Blue-Siebert Game."

What took place at Fenway Park on the night of Friday, May 28, 1971 was merely one of the most electrifying regular season spectacles in the last 50 years of Red Sox baseball. Nothing fires up the juices of a legit baseball fan more than the prospect of a classic pitcher's duel, and what we had on offer that evening was a confrontation between young Vida Blue, who came here with a 10-1 record, and veteran Sonny Siebert, who was off to a career-best 8-0 start, and who had already thrown three shutouts.

It was also a battle of first place teams, the Red Sox owning a three-game lead over the Orioles in the AL East and the Oakland A's holding first by five games over Minnesota.

Baseball fever gripped The Hub on that May evening 36 years ago. A crowd of 35,714 packed the park, and that would stand up as the biggest Fenway crowd of a season in which they would only go over the 30,000 mark five times. And did they get themselves a game.

With Rico Petrocelli utilizing that legendary short stroke to hit a pair of homers, the Sawx took a 4-2 lead into the ninth. Blue had departed in the eighth. But Siebert was still on the mound in the ninth, and remained there even after Sal Bando hit a solo one-out homer to make it 4-3. Rick Monday fouled out to George Scott at first for out number two, at which point manager Eddie Kasko elected to replace Siebert with big right hander Bob Bolin, the pride of Hickory Grove, South Carolina.

Bolin had been a Giants stalwart throughout the sixties, mainly as a starter. But with the Red Sox he was a short reliever (the term "closer" was far off in the future). Facing him was Oakland catcher Dave Duncan, the very same Dave Duncan who has become Tony La Russa's pitching guru. Duncan had hit a homer off Siebert in the sixth, and Kasko did not like the matchup.

Duncan made things interesting. He hit not just one, but two drives with plenty of home run distance just to the left of the left field foul pole. You want to talk tension...but Bolin fanned him to end the game and preserve the 4-3 Red Sox victory.

Want to weep? Time of game: 2:15.

Said Petrocelli of the young A's southpaw, who would go on to win both the Cy Young and MVP awards: "I'll tell you this. I never batted against Koufax, but I don't see how he could have been any better than this kid. He's really something."

But Rico got him twice, and 35,714 people had a lifetime thrill. It wouldn't surprise me if someone in your family was there. Or says they were.

When you think about it, they make a phenomenal fuss over a boring TV show.

I don't know how it came across for those of you at home, but being there and watching NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver open envelopes and drone, "The 14th pick goes to the Los Angeles Clippers," and so on, is not exactly up there with "The Sopranos" or "24" in excitement value. But it has to be done, I guess.

I'd love to know what the NBA spends for this thing. They invite a whole lot of people, and once you get beyond the club reps and the media I have no idea who the others are, but I'm going to take a wild guess and assume they have something to do with sponsors. In sports nowadays, everything has to do with sponsors.

Anyway, the spread was at least high lottery level, and that's before we even get to the open bar. The NBA does know how to throw a party, and given that the party was in Secaucus, it was doubly impressive. Yes, that's a cheap shot at Secaucus, but they're used to it. Their original fame was a proliferation of pig farms, in case you didn't know.

I plopped myself down next to Tom Heinsohn. To me, he was as good a choice as anyone to help bring the Celtics some good luck. After all, he was a home boy who grew up at 15th and Kerrigan Avenue in Union City, approximately two miles from where we were sitting.

"You nervous?" I asked.

"Bobby," he said (with mother passed on he is one of maybe three people left who call me "Bobby"), "they're asking me how I'm gonna feel. My guys at Fox Sports are asking me how I'm gonna feel. I don't know how I'm going to feel. It's like taking a shot at the end of the game. If it goes in -- good. If not, head to the locker room and have a
beer."

"Bring a good luck charm?" I inquired.

"My wife, Helen, that's my good luck charm," he replied.

Helen Heinsohn has survived major health scares in the past few years. It was a reasonable presumption.

The Commissioner was working the room after having presided over an informal press conference. At that conference he had addressed the lottery in general, and, for the zillionth time, declared that he was sleeping very well in the aftermath of the Phoenix suspensions many of us think unfairly impacted the Suns-Spurs series.

"There were 19 players on the respective benches," he pointed out. "Two people went on the floor. There is no question those two (Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw) came off the bench," he said. "That is precisely what the rule calls for. And the reason the rule is in effect is because we zealously guard the court."

Wyc Grousbeck paid a visit to the table, and I had to ask him just how he was approaching this thing. "We've been talking about this for weeks, and the thing Danny keeps saying is, 'In five or six years, five or six of these guys will be regarded as great players, but the focus is on the one and two.’ So I'll go with that flow."

(I think that means he was kinda hoping to win).

I asked about a good luck charm. "This suit is it, I guess," he said. The suit in question is a charcoal grey suit with green pinstripes. I read elsewhere he had it made in Florence, and I assume that was the one with all the museums in Italy and not the town in Alabama. Let me say it takes courage to wear that suit in public.

We moved into the studio itself around 7:50 p.m. I looked down from my perch at one point and there, 25 feet away, was some powerful NBA history chatting away. I'm talking about a trio of Jerry West (Memphis), Lenny Wilkens (Seattle) and Heinsohn. (Boston).

I mean, Holy Bleep. Think about it: There stood 2,984 NBA games and 62,704 points (regular season and playoffs combined). There stood 17 NBA championships as players, coaches and GMs. There stood three members of the Hall of Fame. There stood a combined total, give or take a year, of 145 years of combined NBA experience.

Standing a few feet away were Larry Bird and Mike Dunleavy. When I look at Mike Dunleavy, the Clippers' coach, three things come to mind: 1. He played in the Boston Shootout. 2. He had 31 points when Rockets coach Del Harris, desperate to win the game, used six men, and six men only, as the Rockets beat the Celtics in Game 4 of the 1981 Finals. 3. The older he gets, the more he looks like J. Edgar Hoover.

By the way, how's this for a starting five comprised of NBA retired greats present in that studio?

C- Patrick Ewing
F- Larry Bird
F - Dominique Wilkins
G - Jerry West
G - Lenny Wilkens

I think they'd give the Spurs and Pistons a go.

You all know what happened.

Portland won it, despite arriving with a five percent chance. As luck would have it, I had breakfast on Monday morning at my Manhattan hotel with none other than Kevin Pritchard, the general manager of the Trail Blazers.

I think I can say with certainty he did not come East expecting to win. He was in the company of his girlfriend, and the only thing on his mind was getting out and enjoying the sun. They were having a nice weekend in New York; nothing more, nothing less. I hope that doesn't make you too sick.

Heinsohn referred to the idea that Memphis, Boston and Milwaukee would come into the lottery 1, 2, and 3 and would wind up finishing at 4, 5, and 6 as "unbelievable."

But many of you have called it something else. Incidentally, the first angry e-mail arrived at 9:02 p.m. on the night of the lottery. It seems that many fans think there is some kind of anti-Celtic conspiracy afoot, and they think David Stern is behind it. I cannot stress strongly enough how preposterous and erroneous that is. Believe me, if Stern could have manipulated the lottery, Greg Oden would be here. David fully recognizes the historic importance of this franchise, and he further recognizes how amazing their run of bad fortune is.

Now, is there some good for the league by having either Oden or Kevin Durant in the Northwest? Well, sure. The Trail Blazers have gone through some rough times. "Jail Blazers," anybody? And Seattle is fighting for its very existence. Oden is surely going to Portland despite Pritchard's refusal to commit on the spot, citing the "process", and now Durant is going to Seattle. Will his name help get them the new arena they rather desperately need? Perhaps.

But Stern's idol was Red Auerbach. He is no Boston hater. It pains him to see the Celtics in their current state. If he could have helped them, he would have. But he can't.

I guess not enough of the angry fans realize that the NBA allowed four members of the media into the actual room where the Ping-Pong balls fell. They saw it all happen. The thing is on the up-and-up. Period. Sorry, all you conspiracy theorists.

Should they again re-jigger the formula? I say yes. Give the team with the worst record at least a 50 percent chance of getting the number one pick. Right now the number is 25 percent.

But we're going to keep having a lottery of some sort. "Everything can be put up for discussion by the owners,” Stern said. "But it's in keeping with the tradition to have something that will help improve the weakest teams."

No matter what the league does, there will always be teams that are willing to maneuver their way downward when the occasion arises. Stern says that the league monitors the situation, but there is a limit to what they can, or will, do.

"We don't tell teams who to play," he declared. "We're not going to coach 14 teams."

OK, David, we hear you. Just don't lose that caterer's number. I'd say they were at least a 3 pick.

I'm here. I'm in the Blogosphere.

It's the times, right? I'm starting a new NESN show called "Boston Globe 10.0" on June 26. It will run Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 5:30 p.m. (yes, up against PTI). We'll be discussing timely topics, with an emphasis on our rich local situation while not ignoring national issues (Yes, there will be plenty of opportunities to trash Barry). I'll be joined daily by a rotating group of familiar Globe names, as well as entertaining people from outside the Globe. There will also be a daily chance for the viewers to submit questions to us. And, yes, there will be interviews with all sorts of sports people.

As a result, I'll be cutting back from three columns a week to a pair. So in an attempt to maintain my self-image as a writer, and not be regarded as being a TV foof, I'm becoming a blogger. About time, I guess.