"Keep your eye on the ball."

From T-ball through the big leagues...ballplayers from around the globe hear that mantra over and over again: "Keep your eye on the ball".

Major league baseball players seldom take their eye off the ball...not even for a second.

Another baseball truism?

"You can always run hard to first base."

Most, but not all, major leaguers, follow that dictum as well.

Which is why a pair of late-season situations that involved Cardinals rookie center fielder J. D. Drew were so surprising.

After all, Drew possesses all of the tools...and "looks like a ballplayer" as well.

Rewind to late-August.

Here's what happened.

With a runner on second base, Cardinals pitcher Darren Oliver induced a batter to hit a can-of-corn fly ball to just to the right field side of straightaway center field. J. D. Drew, playing center field, moved smartly to his left, and in a bit, to easily make the catch.

The runner on second base played it half-way, and then raced back to the bag as Drew caught the ball.

Drew, after turning his body toward the infield in time to see that the runner was not trying to advance to third base, took a couple of steps toward second base before aiming a lollipop in the general direction of cut-off man 2B Adam Kennedy. Kennedy was stationed between Drew and second base, near where the infield meets the outfield grass.

But Kennedy was not able to corral the baseball.

Nor was SS Edgar Renteria, who left the second-base bag in his futile effort to collect the ball, which was bouncing oddly toward third base.

The entire sequence proceeded in slow motion, and the alert Oliver scampered from the pitcher's mound area toward the normal SS position...just in time to glove the baseball.

No harm was done...since the runner on second base did not advance.

But J. D. Drew's reaction to the latter portion of the play was, to say the least...interesting.

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That's because there was no reaction...at least one that could be seen by any of his teammates...or anyone in the press box high behind home plate.

You see, at the instant that the ball got past Adam Kennedy, J. D. Drew turned his back to the infield, and began walking back toward his CF position.

Drew never saw who finally tracked down his errant throw.

In other words, J. D. Drew took his eye off of the baseball.

At the conclusion of the inning, Cardinals bench coach Jose Oquendo had a short, and from all appearances, low-key conversation with Drew in the home dugout.

After the game, Cardinals manager Tony La Russa was asked about the play...and whether or not the above account was an accurate description of what transpired.

In his answer, La Russa chose not to address Drew's apparent lack of observation of the play's outcome, saying "no, that's not what happened. The cover guys weren't where they were supposed to be".

Kind of like the old Watergate-era non-denial denial.

But there's an old saying--"The rich are different from the rest of us."

Applied to baseball, that statement might read--"The rules don't apply to those who possess extraordinary talent and tools."

And virtually everyone agrees that J. D. Drew has substantial, perhaps even extraordinary, talent.

Drew's raw talent has been compared to the likes of Ken Griffey, Andy Van Slyke, and Mickey Mantle.

That's a heavy burden to place on any player, especially one in just his second professional season.

And maybe, just maybe, J. D. Drew knew, before the "completion" of the play, that Darren Oliver would flag down his errant throw.

Maybe Drew's baseball skills are similar to the skills of Wayne Gretzky, who, at the height of his hockey career, seemed to know not only where all nine skaters were on the ice at any given time...but also seemed to know the future direction that those same nine skaters would take...two seconds before they themselves did.

So perhaps J. D. Drew 's mistake of taking his eye off the ball wasn't, for him, a mistake.

Perhaps, then, the whole point of this story is nothing but a molehill turned into a mountain.

Perhaps not.

Several facets of J. D. Drew's play during the '99 season have, to say the least, have raised eyebrows in and around the Cardinals organization.

At the plate, on the bases, fielding his position, and throwing from his position...Drew's lack of experience has, at times, been painfully obvious.

It is no exaggeration to state that Drew appears, at times, not to be learning from his mistakes...since, in addition to repeating some of his errors, he seems to play the game with a certain detachment/nonchalance/arrogance that makes it seem as if he doesn't care.

Now that can't be true...can it?

But the mistakes themselves have been obvious enough to cause some within the Cardinals' organization to believe that Drew would benefit from a post-season stint at the Cardinals' Jupiter, FL, instructional facility.

And what was once unthinkable (trading Drew), just might now be considered, as the Redbirds attempt to rebound from their third successive disappointing season.

But what isn't so obvious is whether Drew's obvious shortcomings in this, his rookie season, are due solely to his lack of experience...or to some other shortcoming in his make-up.

Some observers have even privately questioned whether Drew knows how to play the game.

But that's not all.

St. Louis Cardinals baseball players have no greater friend than long-time Cards broadcaster Mike Shannon.

Shannon, an ex-Cardinal, knows what it's like to be a ballplayer, and shares his considerable enthusiasm and passion for the game with players and fans alike.

A Cardinal ballplayer has to go a long way to get on the wrong side of Mike Shannon's on-air personna.

Like not running to first base on a ground ball...another situation involving young Drew as the '99 season draws to a close.

After grounding to Mark Grace in a late-September Wrigley Field night game, Drew's lack of hustle down the first base line elicited the following comment from an on-the-air Shannon: "I don't know what's wrong with Drew. He's certainly not acting like he wants to play."

Those are strong words from a lifetime Cardinal, words that at some level appear to question Drew's intangibles.

But later in that same game, Drew homered to left-center field.

So as the wrapping paper that enclosed the 1999 edition of J. D. Drew is just about gone, we know more about the present inside, young Drew, than we did prior to the start of the year.

But there's another layer or two of the stuff that's covering the young man...and in 2000, more of J. D. Drew will be exposed to the outside world.

At the very least, it will be fun to see what's inside.

What will we find?