Posted By Jeff Fletcher on October 31, 2009 7:55 am

It’s been a couple days since I posted, which I’m sure is disappointing to both of you who are following along with me. Friday was one of those travel/workout days, so it was much busier than a normal game day, in which there’s nothing to do till game time. Plus, after the train and the workout in Philadelphia, there was the big World Series gala, which was a pretty good party. More on that later.

Back to the train. I am ready to never fly again. Soon as they have that high-speed train that gets from coast-to-coast in five hours, I’m on it. The train was really cool. About 50 members of the media showed up at Penn Station in New York, where the Amtrak folks checked us in and took pictures of us. The whole point of them offering the free service to the media was to get a little publicity. They even have a logo.

One of my colleagues, noting how excited the Amtrak people were to have newspaper writers aboard, quipped: “One dying industry relying on another.” (It was a good line, but as an internet guy, I had to say: “Speak for yourself.”)

The train was cool. There was much more leg room than a plane, plus electrical outlets. Because I have a broadband card, I was able to get onto the internet while the train was going.

As part of the PR thing, MLB Network brought former big leaguers Mitch Williams and Al Leiter aboard the train to talk to the writers, while the Amtrak guy took pictures. If the Series goes back to New York, I’ll be taking the train back on Tuesday morning. Not sure if Amtrak will be giving us a free ride again. I heard that since so few people took advantage of the offer this time, they may not do it. It’s not a big deal. The regular one-way fare is only about $45.

Anyway, the whole trip took about an hour 40 minutes. Got off and was in a cab in about five minutes. Was at the hotel 10 minutes after that. And was eating a cheesesteak 20 minutes after that. I was a little disappointed in the cheesesteak. Wasn’t as good as I expected.

After that me and a few other writers piled into a cab to go to the ballpark for the workout/interview day. The big news for the day is that we have two seats in the main press box here in Philadelphia, so Ed and I will both be able to actually watch the game. The workout day went pretty well. They let us into the clubhouses this time instead of doing the media table thing like they did in New York, and that worked OK. There were no electronic media types in the clubhouse, so it was easier to actually move around.

I wrote a story on Cole Hamels (Game 3 starter) and  the Phillies choice of Joe Blanton as the Game 4 starter. (By the way, I’ve talked to Blanton a few times this postseason and gotten the distinct feeling that he has no idea who I am, even though I covered him with the A’s for three and a half years. Thanks, Joe.)

OK, on to what you really want to hear about: the gala. It was a pretty good party. I’d say 95 percent of the people at the party were not at all involved in baseball operations or the media, although I did run into Giants scouting director John Barr. It was mostly sponsors and business partners and friends of sponsors and friends of friends of sponsors. You could pick out the few writers because we were the ones not wearing ties. Here are a few pictures, including the obligatory pile of shrimp, a personal favorite of mine. (That’s the blurry one at the bottom.) Did I mention the open bar?

It was a fun bash. So now it’s Saturday morning, and I’m back in my hotel room. I did a little workout this morning in the hotel fitness room, and now I’m just hanging out trying to figure out when I should eat.

Speaking of eating, I wanted to show you a photo that illustrates one of the funny things that happens during the playoffs.

As I mentioned before, they mostly just serve box lunches at postseason games. By the end of the night (around 1 am), when people start getting hungry again, they go rifling through the left-over boxes to pull out the cookies. That’s why all these are opened.