Posted By Jeff Fletcher on October 26, 2009 8:49 pm

I’m here, in New York, which is pretty exciting. I haven’t been here since 2001. Although I hate feeding into all that New York arrogance about the city being so much better than every other place on Earth, I will grant you that it’s different, and that makes it kind of cool to visit. I can walk around and pretend I’m in an episode of Seinfeld or Friends! More later on how I plan to spend my three days in New York.

First, getting here. I had been sort of planning for this for a few days, looking online for the flights from the Bay Area, but I couldn’t book anything until I was sure the Yankees were going to win. So last night while I was watching the Yankees game, two of the flights I wanted to book both sold out. One of them was available in the eighth inning, and gone by the ninth. Still, I lucked out. I got a USAir flight out of Oakland, through Phoenix, into JFK. It left at 9 am PT and arrived in NY at 8 pm ET. That’s not bad at either end.

Also, my iPhone performed magnificently on the journey. I conserved the battery as much as possible before getting on the plane, so I was able to watch an episode of FlashForward, three episodes of The Office, the last episode of The Bronx is Burning (which I figured was appropriate to watch before going to New York for the World Series) and The Shawshank Redemption. (Believe it or not, I had never seen that movie. I searched on IMBD for an all-time ranking of movies, and it was No. 1, so I figured I should see it. It was pretty good.)

Got my bag at JFK. Grabbed a cab. Almost died only once, which I think is pretty good for a NY cab. Checked into my hotel on the East Side (Movin on up…). It was 9 in NY when I got in, but that was still 6 to me, so I was ready for dinner. I decided to see how far I’d have walk out of the hotel to find some pizza. I figured it wouldn’t be far, and it was about 200 yards. Turned out to not really be “New York pizza,” though. Tasted pretty much like regular pizza. Oh well.

And now, I’m back in my room, watching Monday Night Football and surfing the web to get some ideas for tomorrow’s World Series workout day. Apparently this works a little differently than in the earlier rounds of the playoffs, when the clubhouses were open. This time they  bring the players to a neutral interview area, sort of like the All-Star Game.

Oh, and this is cool. Amtrak is offering free service between NY and Philly for baseball writers! How ’bout that? I guess they are figuring they can get a lot of pub out of this Amtrak Series, maybe convincing people to call it the Amtrak Series. Personally, I’m excited about riding the Amtrak during this Amtrak Series, especially because it’s been so long since I’ve ridden the Amtrak. (Hmm, that’s six mentions. I think that’s enough.)

Anyway, between now and the time I board the Amtrak (seven!), I want to see some of New York. The good thing about the World Series games starting so late and the limited access to players before the game is that you don’t have to be at the ballpark that early. I’ll probably be getting there around 3:30 each day, which leaves plenty of time in the morning to see some stuff.

If you think the Travelogue has been boring up till now — and it sort of has — it figures to get much more interesting now. Stay tuned.