Congratulations Andre Dawson!

I spent a lot of summer afternoons in the 80′s watching Chicago Cubs baseball on WGN. It didn’t take long for Andre Dawson to become my favorite baseball player. During that same time period, I began to amass a sizable baseball card collection and focused heavily on collecting any and all Dawson cards and memorabilia. On the diamond, I chose to “honor” Dawson by wearing his number 8 (not that I was ever a great baseball player) and was one of the few kids who actually wanted to play right field. Needless to say, today is a special day for me. Andre “The Hawk” Dawson has FINALLY been voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.  Dawson won the National League Rookie of the Year in 1977 with the Montreal Expos and went on to become one of the best all-around players of the 1980′s. While I vaguely remember his Montreal playing days (his rookie season was the year before I was born), and became a temporary Red Sox and Marlins fans during his tenure with those two franchises, I will always think of Dawson as a Cub.

In 1987, Dawson became the first player in Major League Baseball to win the MVP while playing for a last place team. That season Dawson hit 49 home runs and drove in 137–pretty gaudy statistics in the pre-steroid era of baseball. Dawson finished second in the MVP voting two other times in his career. Dawson’s career stats may not seem like much when compared to some of today’s superstars, but no one ever questioned his work ethic or integrity. The numbers Dawson posted, he earned the old fashioned way and has the knees to prove it.

Indeed, it was his knees that cut his career short. After playing several seasons on the unforgiving turf of Montreal’s Olympic Stadium, Dawson suffered several knee injuries that plagued him until his retirement.

I wasn’t sure if Dawson would ever receive this honor or not. I knew a lot of people viewed Dawson as a “solid” player, but not among the elite of Cooperstown. When I heard the news this afternoon, I could not believe it. The guy I grew up idolizing had earned baseball’s highest honor.

Congratulations Hawk!