Other than the 1964 Phillies, there is no ongoing Phillie story I remember better than the JD Drew story, I literally lived it vicariously through the Phillies that entire 1997-June 1998 period. Both were so painful, probably along with Black Friday, the 3 most disappointing and painful memories I have as a long time Phillie phan.
The story is a good one but leaves out some things that happened along the way, probably because to print everything that went on would simply take up too much space. I recall a Baseball America column written by Tom Verducci that said that if the Phils wanted to sign Drew they should let Mike Arbuckle handle the negotiations because he was the one Phillie executive that Boras respected [sadly, this never happened.]
I remember that the Drew situation was likely the final straw that caused Giles to step down in the summer/fall of 1997 and said that "maybe its time to let Montgomery handle things". I remember Giles foolishly calling Drew a"kid" and disdainfully saying that "the kid is not a free agent." I remember Monty, Francona and Rolen planning a late night flight to visit Drew when he was playing in Minnesota before canceling it at the last minute because they realized it probably would be a waste of time.
I remember knowing that the Phils had the #1 pick in the June 1998 draft and envisioned a dream scenario where they signed Drew, then drafted and signed Pat Burrell and almost instantly became a representative young club [they already had Rolen, Abreu, Glanville, Lieberthal and a young and promising power hitting catcher named Bobby Estalella on the roster.]
I remember another foolish move...the Phils actually sent Lenny Dykstra to meet with Drew and apparently one of the first sentences to come out of Dykstra's mouth was "so dude, when are you going to sign already."
Mostly I remember every Sunday going to a bookstore that carried out of town newspapers and reading Jayson Stark's incredible baseball column and how he discussed the Drew situation quite often. Stark was actually quite optimistic and even had an article in the spring training period of 1998 where he suggested that baseball people he was talking to believed Drew was close to signing because he was ready to play.
In the end, it was bitterly disappointing and probably set the Phillies back 5 years. My take was then and remains so today that Boras was absolutely determined to keep Drew from the Phillies and that Drew, a quiet, religious guy, was going to let Boras handle everything. History shows that Drew a very good but not great player who suffered from injuries and an inability to stay in one city for too long [St. Louis, LA, Atlanta, Boston.]
