The last time I sat in a stadium with Pete Rose was in Atlanta Fulton County Stadium on August 1, 1978, when his 44 game hitting streak came to an abrupt conclusion. I recall that he unsuccessfully attempted a surprise drag bunt to maintain the streak, a cheap but perfectly understandable attempt. However, this event was far in the recesses of my mind when I accepted the invitation of Redback Networks to watch a minor league game between the Las Vegas 51‘s and the Salt Lake Bees. Pete Rose was to be in attendance and would be signing autographs.

Living in Atlanta for 22 years, and blessed with friends and acquaintances with ticket connections, I saw my share of major league baseball games, including the night in 1992 where Sid Bream scored on a hit by Francisco Cabrera to clinch the National League Pennant (Braves Win! Braves Win! Braves Win!), surely the most exciting game ever. Four years later, I was there when Tom Glavine pitched the game of his life, and David Justice homered to win the Braves their only World Series title.

That said, once utility infielders started making 7 figure salaries, and stars the gross national product of third world countries, I found it hard to root with the same abandon. That‘s why I‘ve always looked at minor league baseball as the last bastion of athletic and baseball purity. Interesting juxtaposition when it occurs in Las Vegas and Pete Rose is in the house.

All jobs have their pluses and minuses, and one of the best pluses of being a press person is some of the events you attend at trade shows, especially in Vegas. Highlights include two Cirque De Soleil shows, the incomparable Siegfried and Roy, disco Donna Summer from about 25 feet, and Jay Leno, complaining about seat space and meals in coach (yeah, right Jay) at another. Donna won a permanent space in my heart, and Jay had kept me up past 11:30 more times than I care to think about.

But I never had the chance to meet and chat with either, an opportunity afforded this night. Despite his faults, and arguably deficient latter stage career stats, Pete accumulated more hits than any other player before or since. Bad guy, good guy, surly man, sweet, that‘s without question a touch of greatness that you don‘t brush against every day.

I‘ve never lost the giddy feeling of entering a baseball stadium, minor league or major, and felt the same way when entering Cashman Field. On Sunday, when I left Virginia, it was snowing, tomorrow in Las Vegas is supposed to peak at a humid 85. But tonight it was 70 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, the field a perfect patchwork of sparkling green and dark brown. The beer was cold, the food hot and both free in unlimited quantities, and for the next few hours I could forget about deadlines, pension plans, appointments and the other unfortunate detritus of adult life.

Pete was Pete, a touch gruff and aloof as he watched the game, chatting with the minor league players who gathered around him like acolytes. Yet he made it known that he wanted folks to approach him with questions and comments, gamely signed jackets, baseballs and hats, smiled for pictures and talked to the steady array of goofy grinned grey hairs who approached. Donna would say he worked hard for his money.

And for me, it was a thrill, as well. Just before I walked over to him, that night in Atlanta bounced back into memory. Normally, in those years, a crowd of 5,000 was the norm, but that night the stadium was filled to capacity, 44 thousand strong, cheering against Pete, then with the Cincinnati Big Red Machine, with wild abandon.

We couldn‘t make the playoffs, but we could stop the streak, and later Pete remarked that Gene Garber, the Atlanta relief pitcher who faced him last, pitched like it was the seventh game of the World Series. So I told Pete that I was there that night, and asked about his bunt attempt on his last at bat. “No way,” he countered, “we were behind 17-3, I never would have bunted. I struck out on a change up, plain and simple.”

After the game, I Googled the event, and found that Pete‘s recollection was correct. Nothing about attempting a bunt to maintain the streak, just a strike out on a change up, to the mass applause and tumult of the crowd.

Sure, we differed on a minor detail, but it was intensely interesting, and strangely gratifying that two totally unrelated individuals could have such strong and precise memories of an event that occurred on a hot August night over 25 years before. It was an experience that will stay with me long after this NAB. So thanks, Redback, and thanks Pete.