Reporting from Philadelphia — Election Day is less than a week away, and Joe Biden isn't even the biggest name in his home state. Joe Maddon is in Delaware, and so are his Tampa Bay Rays.
The Rays woke up Monday in Pennsylvania, packed their bags for Florida, and went to sleep in Delaware.
This isn't a World Series. It's a concert tour: Rays Across America -- Fall Classic 2008!
If Monday was about the disgrace of disguising a mud fight as the World Series, then Tuesday was about the grace of laughing when your travel plans go awry.
Maybe the airline loses your luggage. Maybe the last train left the station an hour before you could get there. Or, in the case of Maddon and the Rays, maybe you're marooned in Wilmington, Del., with no game to play and nothing much to do.
"It's like getting snowed in," Maddon said.
It actually did snow in the Philadelphia suburbs Tuesday, when Commissioner Bud Selig again called off Game 5, or what was left of it. With rain in the city all day and wind, flurries and freezing temperatures facing fans at night, Selig postponed play until tonight.
The Philadelphia Phillies are nine outs from the World Series championship, or not. They lead the series, three games to one, and they'll be coming to bat in the bottom of the sixth inning, with the score tied, 2-2.
That is the point at which Selig finally suspended the game Monday, at 10:40 p.m. The Phillies dried off and went home.
The Rays had checked out of their hotel in Philadelphia, and they couldn't get back in. So Jeff Ziegler, the Rays' traveling secretary, hit speed dial, frantically looking for 100 rooms, in the kind of luxury hotel to which major leaguers are accustomed.
Then he hit the 302 area code, across the state line in Delaware, where he found the Hotel du Pont, about 30 minutes from the ballpark. At midnight, hotel public relations director Carolyn Grubb got a call at home, alerting her that the best team in the American League was on its way.
The resort often houses celebrities and their entourages, many times on short notice, but never this many people on this short a notice.
"Not in my best memory," Grubb said, "not that many rooms in an hour and a half."
The resort dates to 1913, with a history of welcoming such notables as Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, Jacques Cousteau, Katharine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman "and all the presidents from John F. Kennedy on," Grubb said.
