I did a quick poll of the top stories of Andre Dawson entering the Hall of Fame.  Of those articles with photos of him playing, the ratio of him in a Cub uniform as opposed to an Expo uni was about 2 to 1. 

But I’m not jealous.  Really.  I’m just happy he’s getting in.  And part of me is glad the Expos aren’t forgotten.  But Joe Jaffe from ESPN thinks Tim Raines should have been the first Expo, though.

and what’s this… more talk about Lou Piniella eventually getting into the Hall?  So says soon-to-be inductee Whitey Herzog.

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Is it me or do I get the sense that the Hall of Fame is choosing to place an Expo cap on Andre Dawson’s head because perhaps this might be might be the Expos’ last chance?  At this point, Gary Carter is the only player in the Hall who is remotely associated with the Expos franchise. 

Don’t get me wrong… there are certainly valid reasons, too.  If you glance at the stats, Dawson looks pretty good with the Expos.  He simply played more years, accumulated more stats. He was also arguably a better player.  Six Gold Gloves.  A “five-tool” player.  You know, before the knee operations.

But Andre doesn’t see it that way and is perhaps a slightly surprised that he wasn’t even asked his opinion.  He would prefer to wear a Cubs cap at the Cooperstown ceremonies. 

"It was to my understanding they would make the determination at the consent of sitting down and discussing it with you prior to making the determination and I just thought it would carry a little bit more weight than it did." .

Obviously, his time with the Cubs meant something to him. 

As well they should.  His career year was his first year with Chicago when he won the MVP and became the answer to a trivia question.

It’s a routine thing we go through every year when a player is voted in to the Hall who isn’t lucky enough to play for one team his whole career (see Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn.., what did the pundits quibble about THAT year?).  And maybe it would be nice if they didn’t wear a cap at all to avoid this partisan nonsense.  Or maybe a nice cowboy hat. 

that’ll fix ‘em. 

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A rather thought-provoking article comes from Dugout Central entitled Don’t Blame the Hall of Fame that simply wants us to be careful when we point fingers at selection time.

Whether you believe Andre Dawson should or shouldn’t be enshrined, or Ron Santo, or Dick Allen isn’t the fault of anyone living or working in Cooperstown, New York.

For that you have to blame the six hundred or so individuals spread throughout the country who seemingly hide behind a set of outdated rules and responsibilities and a BBWAA membership card.

Leave the Hall of Fame alone.

Especially if you’ve never been there.

As someone who has made the trek back east to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum four times (three times for induction ceremonies), I wholeheartedly agree. 

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I’m always interested in searching habits of people browsing the web so I found this little tool interesting.  And if I can make it pertain to baseball, all the better.

The graph above shows the number of hits that Andre Dawson’s page on Wikipedia took.  The results aren’t too surprising though I’m surprised that the spike was so dramatic.  Essentially on the day of the announcement and the day after.  Not so much before the fact.  I attribute it to idea that hard core baseball fans (the ones that would be researching Dawson beforehand) aren’t so likely to use a source like Wikipedia for their research. 

For the occasional baseball fan, Wikipedia might be their first stop.

For kicks, here is the Baseball Hall of Fame’s Wikipedia page spike graph.  Pretty much the same but less of a spike.  Obviously, the Hall of Fame was more on people’s mind as opposed to a particular player (since no one was announced yet). 

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The Hall of Fame balloting broken down Zealot-style…

New Hall of Famer Andre Dawson’s most compelling statistic:

He’s one of three major league players who has 400 homeruns and 300 stolen bases.  The other two?  Willie Mays and Barry Bonds.

Andre Dawson’s least compelling statistic (and the one you hear cited by his detractors ad nauseum):

His lifetime .323 OBP.  Enough said.

The 2010 HOF candidate most deserving to get into the Hall of Fame but didn’t:

My opinion?? Bert Blyleven.  I’ve been on his bandwagon for a few years now.  Come on, vote him in already!  He has two more years of eligibility left.  The good news is that since 1999, when he got 14.1% of the vote, his percentage has gone up every year with the exception of 2007.  I predict that we’ll see Bert in the Hall next summer.

The reason Roberto Alomar didn’t get in his first year:

Three-fold.  1) the spitting incident didn’t help especially among the old guard of the BBWAA  2) the fact that some don’t want to vote anyone but the cream of the crop in their first of eligibility especially with reason #1 hanging around their necks and 3) I’ve heard this factoid bandied about… that Alomar was pretty much done by the time he was 35 or 36.  Yes, I know… he started out (full time) in the bigs when he was 20 and subsequently put in a good 17 years of service in the majors but that kind of thing sticks with writers, I guess.

Craziest Hall of Fame vote:

  Pat Hentgen 1 vote.  To be fair, Hentgen won a Cy Young and won one World Series game but with 131 wins and a 4.32 ERA that can take you only so far.

The “It’s not crazy if there are two of us” award:

Eric Karros 2 votes. 

and finally,

The 2010 candidate I thought was dissed this year: 

Harold Baines.  Should he have gotten in?  I don’t know.  But I was surprised that he barely hung on for next year’s ballot.  Yes, I’m a Cub fan but Baines deserved more.  An interesting stat:  Baines had more career hits and more career rbis than any other HOF candidate.

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If you haven’t already, take the time to read the transcript of the BBWAA conference call interview with Andre Dawson after the announcement of his selection to the Hall of Fame.  It’s a good read. 

During the interview, he spoke at length about his family especially his mother and his grandmother, Eunice Taylor, who he considered a “mentor”. 

Dawson seemed to have a high opinion of playing in Chicago and of the Chicago fans:

I just went out and said I was going to have fun. The fans embraced me from day one of spring training. And I think even though I pressed a little bit at the outset, I hit a grand slam home run that kind of got me going.

And from there, you know, things just started to happen on a daily basis. But for the most part of the six years that I was there, I really enjoyed the reception, the fact that I had an opportunity to play amongst fans who really didn’t put any pressure on you, you know.

Plus he had great comment about one of my favorite baseball people:

Don Zimmer always would make the comment, get here early and don’t really go out and do something that would embarrass the fans.

Something else about the interview struck me too. Something that some people might appreciate more than others:

Andre Dawson: Okay, thank you.

…

Andre Dawson: You’re welcome.

…

Andre Dawson: Thank you.

…

Andre Dawson: Thank you, sir.

…

Andre Dawson: Thank you.

…

Andre Dawson: Thank you.

…

Andre Dawson: Thank you, (Ian).

…

Andre Dawson: Hi Toni. Thank you.

etc, etc..

you get the idea.  Grandmother raised him right.

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The Hall of Fame musings of MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann make for an interesting read whether or not you agree with his politics. 

I can agree for the most part with his conclusions though I think he comes off a little sanctimonious when it comes to McGwire:

Hall of Fame? For what? For pretending to Congress that nothing happened before that steroid hearing? Fine. You got your wish. Nothing happened. Your lifetime numbers are 0-0-.000. And by the way, why is it ok for him to just waltz back in as batting coach of the Cardinals? Would we let Bonds come back in? This is unacceptable, and it gives credence to the very disturbing claim that race is at play when it comes to the punishment of steroid cheats. Mark McGwire is a steroid cheater.

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The baseball bloggers of the SB Nation affiliates held their own Hall of Fame balloting and the results are in.  If they were in charge, only one player would get in and that player was a bit of a surprise… Bert Blyleven. 

Don’t get me wrong… I’ve been a Blyleven supporter for years.  I just would have expected more support for Alomar or Larkin.  My guess is that there was a bit of the “not getting in the first year” element factoring in.

There’s a shared document which has a list of 50 or so (and growing) BBWAA writers and their publicly announced Hall of Fame ballots. 

It’s a small sample size of course but I’m heartened to see a good portion of votes going to Andre Dawson (at this moment out of 53 listed, 41 are supporting his induction). 

Maybe it’s me but it seems like there’s a bigger push for Edgar Martinez among a few for the Hall. 

More support for Dawson from Hal Bodley, senior correspondent for mlb.com who goes on to say that he thinks that this will be (or maybe more accurately “should be”) the year for Dawson and Blyleven.  His ballot:   Dawson, Blyleven, Alomar and Jack Morris.

and it wouldn’t be Hall of Fame ballot time unless a writer wasn’t defending his ballot, right.  Only it seems now they’re doing earlier and earlier before the official announcement.

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The Chicago Tribune has announced who their seven major sports writers support for the 2010 baseball Hall of Fame ballot.  Aggregately, the seven of them would vote in Roberto Alomar and Andre Dawson.

Dawson has always been on the bubble when it came to the Hall.  It didn’t help that he had 438 homeruns short of the (what used to be) the magical number to get in, (whether or not you like that litmus test. I don’t)  It also doesn’t help that he played for a team that doesn’t exist anymore and another that for the most part was mediocre (Dawson did his part winning the MVP for the last place 1987 Cubs). 

Hopefully, this is his year.  If you really want to see him in the Hall, you can help push for his election by joining Cubcast’s Twitter blitz aptly named #Dawson4theHall.  More info on their website.

Dawson may have an uphill battle, though.  Seems to me that the BBWAA is becoming more selective in recent years, with the possible exception of Bruce Sutter (sorry Sutter fans, I liked him too). 

But mostly in the ‘00s, they’ve only voted in the creme de la creme, something the Veterans Committee should perhaps look into.  In 2009, it was Rice (long time comin’) and Henderson (shoo-in).  In 2008, Gossage.  In 2007, two obvious choices in Ripken and Gwynn.  Others in this decade:  Boggs, Sandberg, Eckersley, G. Carter, Eddie Murray, Ozzie Smith. Kirby Puckett. 

Ok, there WAS Mazeroski. *snicker*

As far as his legacy is concerned, Dawson can be thankful he was picked up by the Chicago Cubs in 1987 after playing eleven years with the now defunct Montreal Expos .  He was 32 years old and played only six years for Chicago but recently the Cub faithful have really taken up his cause for the Hall with a vengeance.  See the above Twitter effort as an example.

Point is, as much as I like Dawson (and I do, being a Cub fan.  Besides being a good player, he had a pretty cool WGN theme song based around him), it might be a tough row to hoe. 

PS I couldn’t think of it at the time but the song was “Andre’s Army”.

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Here is another fact off my tear-off White Sox trivia calendar.  Who holds the record for most years as a Major League manager?  Connie Mack (53 years)

He is the longest-serving manager in MLB history, holds records for wins (3,731), losses (3,948), & games managed (7,755), with his victory is almost 1,000 wins more than any other manager.  Mack was the manager of the Philadelphia Athletics for the club’s first fifty years before retiring at the age of 87 in 1950.

Connie played eleven years (10 in the NL & one in the Players League) in the major leagues, as a light hitting catcher, .245 career average.  He hit five home runs in 2,931 at bats, three in 1888, when he sacrificed average for power, batting only .187 (his only season below .200).   His best season as a player was in the Players League in1891 when he batted .266 with12 triples, he was HBP 20 times.  His last three seasons as a player, were also his first three as a manager, as he was the Pittsburgh Pirates player/manager (even back then they were trying to save money).

Mack wanted men who were self-directed, self-disciplined, and self-motivated; his ideal player was Eddie Collins.  As a manager, he won nine pennants and appeared in eight World Series, winning five.

Over the course of his career he had three pennant-winning teams.  His original team, with players like Rube Waddell, Ossee Schreckengost, and Eddie Plank, won the pennant in 1902 and 1905, losing the 1905 World Series to the New York Giants.  During that season, New York’s manager John McGraw said that Mack had “a big white elephant on his hands” with the Athletics.  Mack adopted a white elephant as the team’s logo, which the Athletics still use today.

As his first team aged, Mack acquired a core of young players to form his second great team, which featured Mack’s famous “$100,000 infield” of Eddie Collins, Home Run Baker, Jack Barry, and Stuffy McInnis.  These Athletics, captained by catcher Ira Thomas, won the pennant in 1910, 1911, 1913, and 1914, beating the Cubs in the World Series in 1910 and beating the Giants in 1911 and 1913, and losing to the Boston Braves in 1914.

That team was dispersed due to financial problems, from which Mack did not recover until the twenties, when he built his third great team.  The 1927 Athletics may have been the best second-place team in history, featuring several future Hall of Fame players including veterans Ty Cobb, Zack Wheat, and Eddie Collins as well as players in their prime such as Mickey Cochrane, Lefty Grove, Al Simmons, and rookie Jimmie Foxx.  That team won the pennant in 1929, 1930, and 1931, beating the Chicago Cubs in the World Series in 1929 and beating the St. Louis Cardinals in 1930, and losing to the Cardinals in 1931.

The Veterans Committee voted Connie Mack into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937.

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Posted in: Baseball History, Hall of Fame, Managers, history by Teddy Ballgame
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