NEWSLETTER
For most players who are voted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the decision of which team’s cap to wear on their official plaque is pretty obvious. Either they spent the vast majority of their years with that team, or clearly made their “fame” with that team.
But in some cases, with a career more spread out or more evenly split among locations, the subject can be a little thornier, especially if the player and the Hall disagree.
Such was the case with legendary outfielder Andre Dawson back in 2010, when the Hall of Fame determined he should be enshrined in a Montreal Expos cap, the team for which he’d made his big league debut, and played the first 11 seasons of his 21-season career. Dawson, who’d chosen to sign with the Chicago Cubs in free agency before his MVP 1987 season – the famous blank check moment – arguably grew to much, much greater fame in his six seasons with the Cubs. His preference, then, was to be enshrined wearing a Cubs cap. But he didn’t get his wish, and the Hall made the decision without his input: he’d forever be an Expo as far as the Hall of Fame was concerned.
Over a decade later, that hasn’t sat right with him:
As Paul Sullivan reports, Dawson has sent a letter to the chairman of the board of directors for the Hall of Fame, asking for a meeting to discuss changing the cap. Dawson sees it as something of a late-in-life mission to get the cap changed to the Cubs.
The main reason Andre Dawson sees getting this fixed is because of how he felt when he became a Chicago Cub.
“It was an eye-opening experience for me,” Dawson told Sullivan. “The adoration of the fan base, the welcoming from the city itself and the joy of being able to experience that feeling in the second half of my career. … I was one of the more popular players in Montreal, but I wouldn’t consider myself an organizational icon or the most popular.
“That didn’t affect me because I was there to do a job, and I tried to do it to the best of my ability. When push came to shove and I became a free agent, I think it was handled poorly and in a sense I was really forced out. The change of scenery in Chicago rejuvenated me because of how warmly I was received.”
It’s hard for me to separate my own biases in a situation like this, and I understand my perspective is completely skewed by my own fandom. But it has always felt like Dawson was more associated with the Cubs than any other organization. In some of his best years. In his post-playing days. In the way he stands out in the minds of baseball fans. He’s there in the outfield at Wrigley Field, wearing a Cubs cap.
That’s how it should be in the Hall of Fame, too.
Much more from Dawson here in Paul Sullivan’s piece at the Tribune.
