Pollyanna I am not. Awestruck fan … not since I was 12 and wanted to grow up to be the Phillies’ right fielder.

But Sunday in Beijing, if you didn’t appreciate what was unfolding on the various playing surfaces, you were not a lover of sports. You weren’t even an appreciator of profound pop culture.

No wonder NBC made this a really loooong day for me.

I was able to take in two key events and they’re already on my short list of top Olympic events ever.

One began at 10 a.m. Sunday. One began at 10:15 p.m. Sunday.

Sunday morning, Beijing time, Michael Phelps did the expected in winning his first gold medal. Therein lies his power and his charm. Everyone expects him to win. Everyone expects him to break world records. He goes out and does it.

Bob Dylan sang that, “Money doesn’t talk, it screams.” Phelps doesn’t break records, he explodes them. Afterward, he offers a genuine goofy smile.

More than 12 hours later, and about a half hour away on one of Beijing’s ubiquitous freeways from the Phelps Water Cube, I sat in a spellbound arena and watched the NBA All-Stars of the U.S. play against Chinese national hero Yao Ming and his supporting Gang of Four.

Again, this game was blessed with tremendous anticipation. What could be better but the world’s best team playing against the home team?

Someone said this game should have been held in the 90,000-seat “Bird’s Nest” National Stadium, site of the opening ceremony. Now that would have been a marketing coup.

What a world we live in when this cream of the crop comes together to showcase such skills. This was the essence of the Olympics: top competition, high-grade entertainment, passion for the game and not the paycheck, with a solid pinch of nationalism tossed in to give it meaning.

(By the way, I wasn’t there, but two American women, Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin, were ranked 1-2 in the first day of gymnastics, too.)

We talk a lot about money and endorsements and selling products on the sweat of these superstars. That, fundamentally, is what the spectacle of sports has become: a platform to market and sell things.

In that conversation we sometimes lose sight of something: We are witnessing our own Golden Age of Sports. Sunday in Beijing the world’s most important sporting events were there for our very eyes to see and ears to hear.

Dare I say, it was loads of fun.