EDITOR’S NOTE: The following article first appeared in The Post-Journal on Aug. 26, 1989, just days after Pete Rose was banned from baseball. Jamestown native Dan Lunetta, then Cincinnati’s traveling secretary, had a front-row seat to it all and offered his memories of that fateful day/season. With news of Rose’s passing on Monday, it was deemed appropriate to run the story again.
Even as Riverfront Stadium was transformed into a media circus Thursday morning in the wake of Pete Rose’s lifetime ban from baseball, it was, strangely enough, “empty,” according to a Jamestown native who was there.
“As contradictory as it seems, most of the people who work for the Reds are born and raised Cincinnatians,” said Dan Lunetta, the team’s traveling secretary, from his Riverfront Stadium office Friday morning. “These people live and die with the Reds.”…