All-Star Game is another feather in J.D. Drew's career rally cap

But one thing he had never done until this year was make the All-Star team.

"I had a chance in 2001 [with the Cardinals] but I broke my wrist 3 weeks before the game," he said, sitting on a raised platform at a midtown Manhattan hotel ballroom yesterday afternoon. "In 2004 I thought I had a chance [with the Braves] but it didn't work out.

"It's something that I didn't know if it would ever take place or not. But you play the game hard and it's just one of those things that I finally achieved it thanks to the player's vote."

He turns 33 in November. But he just may be having the best sustained run of his career.

By his own admission, he had an "up-and-down" season in 2007, his first in Boston. But he got hot in September, batting .342, and hit a pivotal grand slam in the first inning of Game 6 of the ALCS against Cleveland. Overall, he batted .314 and drove in 11 runs in 14 postseason games.

"It's just one of those things where I kind of fell into a transition late in the season," he said. "I was able to have a good playoff and have some big hits. I finally found a rhythm and carried it through. I went into spring training with a positive outlook and an idea of what I wanted to do at the plate. And it's really paid off."

Drew was named the American League's Player of the Month for June after batting .337 with 12 homers and 27 RBI in the month.

No matter how well he plays, no matter how much more he accomplishes in his career, he understands that his name will always be mud in Philadelphia, that whenever he comes to the plate he will be reminded that his last name rhymes with boo.

"They definitely won't forget everything that went down," he said. "That will carry on there until I'm done playing, I'm sure."

And he appeared amused that his brother Stephen, who plays for the Diamondbacks, also gets the same reaction at Citizens Bank Park.

"We were in the tunnel [Sunday] watching some video and Mike Lowell was checking some scores. And I said, 'Hey, see what's going on with Arizona.' And he scrolled down to see what my brother was doing and he had flown out and he had grounded out. But then the two previous at-bats he had an infield single and a single up the middle or something like that.

"And I said, 'At least he got a couple hits against those guys in Philly.' And we both kind of laughed about it. And I said, 'I guarantee he's getting booed as bad as I do just because he's carrying the same last name on his jersey.' "

Before signing, Stephen played for the Camden Riversharks of the independent Atlantic League. "[Agent Scott Boras' associate] Bob Brower set it all up for him to go to the Independent League team there and didn't even put two and two together," J.D. said, laughing again.

"And Stephen called me and he said he had to do a press conference and all the people said, 'You're coming here just trying to get back at us for J.D.' "

Still, J.D. insists he doesn't wish he had done anything differently.

"No," he said, sounding almost surprised by the question. "I was very upfront, very open and honest with the front office and the Phillies. I never had anything against the city or the fans there. It was just a business situation and it didn't work out."

Well, he and superagent Boras were upfront and honest in letting the Phillies know that they would be seeking a package worth at least $10 million and that they shouldn't waste a draft choice if they didn't ante up.

Some of the other shenanigans - like playing a cat-and-mouse game with the team about his whereabouts in an attempt to claim that an offer hadn't been made by the specified deadline; hoping to become a loophole free agent; and trying to cloak what was never anything more than a disagreement over money as a matter of religion - weren't quite as noble.

No matter. Drew has put all that behind him and moved on. Even if Phillies fans haven't. *