'just Your Average Budding Superstar'

On this turquoise blue Arizona afternoon, Shawon Dunston tapped his bat on the plate in the batting cage and once again planted his feet in the box. Behind the cage, bending forward as if over a lectern, Chicago Cub manager Jim Frey barked out game situations before every pitch.

"Man on third, one out," said Frey. "Get a ball you can hit straight away."

Thwack! A line drive sliced up the middle. "Perfect!" said Frey. "Attaboy!"

Dunston reset. "Man on second, no out."

Thwack! A low bouncer scurried between third and short. "Base hit," said Frey. "Don't try to hit it hard. Base-hit strokes. No overkill. Hands back. Drive through the ball."

Dunston nodded. "Man on first, one out," said Frey, pointing to the right side. "Can you hit it in that hole over there?"

Thwack! The ball jumped to the mound, an easy out to the pitcher. "Try again," said Frey. "Wait a little longer."

It was March 20, the first day of spring and the day before his 22nd birthday, and Shawon Donnell Dunston appeared to be carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. On closer inspection, it turned out merely to be his head, but that can be no small thing when you are a phenom, the phenom of spring training 1985. Dunston runs like a thoroughbred, swings live wood, has a cannon for an arm, and just about everyone figures he will be the Cubs' star shortstop into the 21st century.

"He's just your average budding 22-year-old superstar," says his minor league roommate, third baseman Tony Woods.

But now, three weeks into spring training, the bloom was off the bud. Dunston had just gone 0 for 5 against the Milwaukee Brewers, killing rallies in the seventh and eighth innings. Stopping dead behind first base, he bent forward 90 degrees at the waist and stared straight at the ground, for some 20 seconds, like a man studying his image in a reflecting pool, which in a way he was. He was thinking: "It's over. Now relax. Be patient. Concentrate."