If the baseball players say sayonara on Friday, they'll all miss playing the games.

But one of them is actually going to miss batting practice, too.

Andruw Jones of the Atlanta Braves treats BP like it's a world tour. One day, he's a shortstop, one day he's a third baseman, one day he's a first baseman, and, someday, if Bobby Cox decides he needs a BP catcher, Andruw's in.

As you'll see in my feature for ESPN The Magazine, Andruw's father, Henry, was a centerfielder, and he inspired Andruw to become a centerfielder. But, the fact is, Andruw Jones is a closet infielder who considers batting practice his chance to live out his dream.

	Only Andruw could get bored in center.

"He'll say to me, 'I already know I can catch a fly ball -- let me take some grounders,' " says Braves shortstop Rafael Furcal.

In other words, Andruw Jones plays the best centerfield in baseball -- and doesn't even show up there until game time. He has won four consecutive Gold Gloves there basically by rote. The truth is, he'd rather be Ozzie Smith.

"Andruw really wants to play shortstop,'' says his fiance, Nicole Derick. "He'd beg Bobby for years to play shortstop, and Bobby let him do it once in spring training."

That spring training game went so well that Andruw got greedy.

"He went to Bobby Cox and said, 'How about catcher?' " says Henry Jones. "This was last year after Javy Lopez and another catcher were hurt. Andruw said, 'If you have a problem, I can catch.' He can do it!"

So, I asked Andruw Jones what had to be asked -- what's wrong with centerfield?

"I get bored out there," he says.

Bored?

"Well, I go out there every day, I play every day in the outfield," he says. "And when I'm out there, I'll probably be by myself, and just run around. And I don't want to be by myself. I'm by myself during the game already. So that's why I stay in the infield -- so I can catch ground balls and joke around with the guys."

Is another Brooks Robinson waiting to be discovered here?

"I just like to get ground balls," he says. "Hopefully one day I'll get to play the infield. I'll play short, third, don't matter. I don't think about second base, though. Second base is pretty hard. But I'll play short, third."

That's strange -- second basemen will tell you that centerfield is pretty hard. And, the truth is, Andruw Jones knows it. That's why, once in a blue moon, he does sneak out to centerfield during BP.

"Oh, I've seen him out there," says Braves pitcher Greg Maddux. "I remember going to the outfield and standing about 20 yards behind him, and playing centerfield with him during BP. And just the jumps he gets on balls are incredible. I mean, I wanted to go out there and see what it's like. If I could see how he sees ..."

But, eventually, boredom always sets in, and Andruw Jones is back to where he shouldn't be. Back to the infield. Back to tugging on Bobby Cox's sleeve and asking to be a utility guy.

"Don't worry, don't worry," says Andruw Jones, "I will never ask to pitch."

Tom Friend is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at tom.friend@espnmag.com.