Excel 2007: Can “remove Duplicates” Be Made To Remove Data As You Want It To Be Removed?

My situation:
Baseball database of 179,632 games held from Sat, Oct 16, 1909 to Fri, Oct 28, 2011.
Dates are duplicated next to every game played on any particular date.
My intent:
To remove all duplicate dates in such a way that doesn’t result in the removal of data in adjacent cells of the same row. I just want to remove duplicate dates while leaving only one to represent all the games of any particular date.
If MLB had 15 games on say Fri, Oct 28, 2011, my database would have Fri, Oct 28, 2011 listed in the column next to each game. I want to remove the repeats without altering any other data.
There are 20,015 individual dates, so “Find and Replace” is an option that I’ve already tried.
Before I get into my work-around, I want to say I realize that explaining a procedure makes the procedure sound more complicated than it really is. I’ve done the following several hundred times while realizing that other folks may have a simpler method.
I’ve resorted to insert a new column (A) where each row is then numbered consecutively. Column (B) contains the dates of every game ever played while column C and others beyond D contain specific data that we don’t need to address). The column titles are here just for the sake of clarity.
Then, I inserted another column (D) where I enter the “=” function and the cell coordinates next to the first cell in the (A) column while entering the same function in D2 to display the data in D1. In summary, D1 has “=A1″ entered into it with a yellow cell color while D2 has “=D1″ and left without any cell color.
I then copy the function in D2 and paste it in cells D3 to D179632.
Then I copy the function in D1 and one-by-one, paste it over the previously pasted functions in column D where any new date is listed in column B.
When that is done, I intend to copy column D and paste it over itself as values and then sort column D by cell color. I’ll then remove any date that is adjacent to column D where column D has no cell color and re-sort by column A.
Tedious?
Certainly. That’s why I need help with this one. I’m willing to elaborate if need be.
Thanks