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	Cameron Indoor Stadium  Bob Donnan

My day begins where basketball did, in Springfield, Mass., at the corner of Sherman and State Streets. James Naismith invented the game 110 years ago right here, in the old YMCA International Training School gym. A McDonald's and its parking lot occupy the site now, but over an Egg McMuffin I'll ponder the moment that made the first half of my fantasy day possible.

Then it's off to New York City, to Greenwich Village and a mid-morning run at the storied West Fourth Street playground, a court short enough to accommodate even an out-of-shape geezer like me. I'll towel off and hop the train to Philly, grab a cheesesteak at Jim's Steaks, then catch Princeton and Penn at the Palestra, before winging my way to North Carolina versus Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium. (Sorry, you wine-and-cheese denizens of the Dean Dome, this game's always better in Cameron.)

Here you'll have to indulge me: A private jet, idling at RDU, whisks me across the pond to the ski station of L'Alpe d'Huez in the French Alps for the mountain-top finish of the most dramatic stage of the Tour de France. Those julep-oiled dandies at the Kentucky Derby don't know from the greatest few minutes in sports; here the world's best cyclists end a brutal day of climbing, willing themselves up and around that hillside's 21st of 21 switchback turns.

Is there still daylight? Of course, in the springtime it stays light 'til 10 p.m. in Paris. So I catch Venus and Martina at Roland Garros (the guys just don't fascinate the way the gals do), as the Eiffel Tower winks from above the rim of the grandstand of Court Central. Yousef, the maitre d' at Le Souk in the Marais, holds my 11 p.m. dinner reservation.

Good thing you pick up time as you fly west. That allows me to stride through the portals of Rio's Maracana Stadium just in time to see Brazil play Argentina in a World Cup qualifier. If the sambistas win -- in the 90th minute, on a bicycle kick -- my day is truly complete.