For baseball players and fans, ‘Amtrak Series’ recalls era when being on the road meant riding on the rails
Red Sox fans may be disheartened by the team’s too-early exit from the playoffs this year, but rail fans surely have something to root for during this World Series, which many have dubbed the “Amtrak Series.’’
In a sports world full of chartered planes and tricked out Madden Cruiser buses, it turns out trains are the most convenient way to travel the 91 miles between New York and Philadelphia, even for millionaire athletes. Planes make no sense for such a short trip, given the time and hassle getting in and out of airports. And would you risk driving between New York and Philly? That trip once took me six hours, thanks to some choice traffic incidents in New Jersey.
Something feels right about trains and baseball. Trains are grounded and steeped in American history, just as baseball is, especially compared with our other big-time sports. I prefer football, but could a Super Bowl train ever conjure the same set of emotions as a rail trip to the World Series? Hardly.
Amtrak has been lapping up the publicity. Last week, the company polled passengers on two Acela trains for their pick in the series, handing out team T-shirts to the respondents based on their preferred team. The Yankees won, 334 shirts to 197 for the Phillies.
The players themselves are not mixing with the regular passengers, however. They ride team-chartered trains.
The Yankees and Phillies have gone this route before, in 1950, when all the teams traveled by train. But back then, it wasn’t called an Amtrak series - Amtrak did not exist until 1971.
Cliff Cole, Amtrak spokesman, said his staff did not come up with the Amtrak Series moniker this year, but immediately embraced it after it emerged in newspapers and on television. Photos and video of Phillies players arriving at Penn Station on Monday were broadcast extensively.
The last time World Series teams used a train was more than a quarter century ago, in 1983, when the Baltimore Orioles defeated the Phillies four games to one. A 1985 series between Kansas City and St. Louis was close enough for train travel, but it didn’t catch on, being named instead for a highway connecting the cities, I-70. And of course, the Mets and Yankees played in a “Subway Series’’ in 2000, but that’s not the same as a train and it is unclear whether the players actually used the subway in their travels.
Cole said teams from all four major sports have been known to charter trains for regular season games, even in recent years, and almost always in the Northeast, where Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York are all bunched together. Teams based in the West that come for extended road trips are good candidates for the rails.
Local teams usually fly to New York. But occasionally, because of weather or other circumstances, they take trains. The Red Sox last used a train to get to New York two years ago, spokeswoman Pam Ganley said. The team last traveled regularly by train back in 1953, according to the team.
“There is a throwback quality that many fans associate with taking the train,’’ Matt Bourne, Major League Baseball spokesman, noted in an e-mail Friday. Alas, he said, he plans to drive to Philly for games 3, 4, and 5.
The Celtics and Knicks held a throwback basketball series back in 1997, and Bill Russell and Willis Reed were among the basketball legends who took the train. But despite all the pomp associated with the trip, the players couldn’t enjoy the ride. They traveled in team airplanes.
