Alan Goldfarb writes: Upon my return after being away from baseball for about a season-and-a-quarter in order to write about other subjects during My Midlife Crisis, I immediately realized the press box had become a very different place, while it remains the same — all at once. For instance, in the 18 months of my sojourn, the press box — the workplace and the inner sanctum of baseball writers and broadcasters — has become more crowded than ever. For a midweek, early-season game for example, the press box at the Giants’ sweet Pacific Bell Park, was stuffed computer-by-tape recorder with journalists, who were chronicling for the ages, not just every pitch, but seemingly every move every player made during the course of the game.

This is a startlingly new development, all brought about by the Internet. It seems there are half-a-dozen wire services now at each game, in every park, every day, represented by “stringers,” as they call them. Wire services which didn’t exist three and four years ago, now have stationed in the press box, their correspondents, who are either wired to a computer, hooked into a telephone headset, or patched into an office somewhere. In turn, these stringers relay to their home bases, the direction of each hit ball, the velocity of each pitch, and/or the type of pitch delivered to the plate to every batter, every inning. Even Major League Baseball has several writers at each game, who send out notes and stories, even as the game unfolds. Real-time streaming, I think they call it.

It’s all fairly unfathomable to a Luddite, who remembers fondly, the year the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants abandoned New York for the “Coast.” During that fallow New York baseball season of 1958, a lone announcer sat in a radio studio somewhere, perhaps in far-off Newark, who would “call” the games emanating now from strange-sounding places called Chavez Ravine and Candlestick Point. It was a veiled attempt to keep the fires burning as heartsick New Yorkers were being weaned off their beloved teams.

In actuality, the person in that New Jersey office would merely be recreating the games via a telegraph wire. Which meant the game report was delayed on the East Coast, an untold amount of time. But, as the descriptions of the game would cross the wire, the disembodied announcer would read the ticker as if the game was unfolding, live, before him. When the situation called for a hit, or whenever the ball would make contact with the bat, the play was recreated by a pencil being rapped onto a woodblock.

At the time, my 16-year-old ears truly wanted to believe that what I was listening to in the late-night secure darkness of my Brooklyn room, was the actual game being played across town in Flatbush. By the end of that season, however, skepticism prevailed, my invective at Walter O’Malley continued to spew, while a certain mixture of sadness and cynicism began to take hold.

Cut to: The press box of 2002.

Adding to the crowded conditions of the increasingly fascinating climate of the modern-day narrow journalists’ cocoon, which at Pac Bell sits only about 30 rows up from the field and stretches approximately from on-deck circle to on-deck circle, is the added flavors of myriad Japanese, Korean, and Latino media members. These press people — larded with the latest and greatest electronic gear — follow their countrymen from park to park in ever-increasing numbers. The fervor by which they conduct their business is as inspiring as is their presence.

As the numbers of international ballplayers entering the Major Leagues expands, so do the representatives of media from their corresponding countries, swell exponentially.

Noticeable, too, especially among the Japanese contingent, seems to be a profusion of women journalists. So much so, that the addition of Japanese women reporters, seems to outnumber their counterparts from the United States. It’s an interesting phenomenon, that while the inclusion of American women reporters who cover baseball, now has increased only slightly, it is the Japanese, who are unwittingly leading the fight for equality inside the press box.

But as one looks around the 21st century press box, the one thing that has remained status quo, is the presence of the game’s treasures. Crusty old ballplayers and old scribes, can still be spotted hanging around in the back row, usually before the start of the game.

One night last week before a Giants-Dodgers game, Orlando Cepeda — the Giants’ Hall-of-Famer, took up a seat on the back wall and was quickly descended upon by writers, broadcasters, and hangers-on, who wanted to shake Cha Cha’s huge right hand or interview him. Even a few of the Japanese reporters recognized the big first baseman, who also played for the Cardinals, Braves, A’s, Red Sox, and Royals, in a 19-year career which spanned 1958-74.

But the most delicious few moments occurred, when as a fly-on-the-wall, I listened in with glee as Hall of Fame baseball writer Leonard Koppett and catcher Charlie Silvera, who played for the Yankees and briefly for the Cubs from ’48 through ’57, were engaged, simply talkin’ baseball.

The repartee may have seemed simple to the untuned ear, but the discourse and debate was rich with humor and knowledge mined only through the experiences of these two men.

Koppett, the longtime writer for the New York Post and New York Times, has lived in the Bay Area for the last 30 years. At more than 70 years of age, he’s semi-retired, but he still gets joy from hanging out at the ballpark.

Silvera, now a scout for the Cincinnati Reds, was a marginal Major Leaguer, never having played in more than 58 games in any one season — mostly as a backup to the great Yogi Berra. But he did get to sit on the bench with those great Yankee teams of the ’50s. And he observed.

Just listen what Silvera had to say about former teammate, and outstanding pitcher Eddie Lopat, whom he caught several times:

“He was good, but his fastball was slow,” Silvera began, warming to the moment. “When he threw his fastball and it hit you in the nose, he couldn’t even make you tear up.”

Or when asked what he thought about managers as fall guys for inept teams, Silvera began to gesticulate while the baseball-sized diamond-studded ring on his right hand, gleamed in the press box fluorescents. He had earned the hardware as a scout for the 1997 World Series champs Florida Marlins.

“When the whorehouse gets raided,” he responded, “even the piano player must go.”

Those lucky enough to be eavesdropping, laughed a satisfying laugh.

The press box: A sanctuary where new is still old.