There is a reason why Andre Dawson paces about his winter home when he should be performing the rites of spring elsewhere, and the reason has much to do with Andre Dawson himself.
Officially, the major league baseball season is being held hostage because management and labor cannot agree on earthshaking matters such as salary arbitration, pension payments and clearing out another locker in every clubhouse for a 25th player, up from the fiscally responsible limit of 24.
But in reality, as Commissioner Fay Vincent bravely confessed last week, what pollutes the current environment as much as anything is the fallout from the acrimonious `80s, when fans were introduced to another nuance of this most perfect sport on the globe.
”Collusion,” says Dawson. ”I can speak about that on a personal basis.”
Recall the spring of 1987, when Dawson was an All-Star without a team. He had exercised his rights of free agency with the Montreal Expos, for whom he toiled superbly since 1976, and was seeking employment with the Cubs. Seeking, bordering on begging. The sight of Dawson draped over the fence at the Cubs`
Cactus League headquarters in Mesa, Ariz., asking for a contract and a chance to play in Chicago, was stuff from the twilight zone.
One of the National League`s best players for a decade, wanting to be wanted by one of the National League`s most pathetic franchises for the previous four decades, and getting precious little response.
”They kept saying they had a lot of young outfielders they wanted to look at and things like that,” Dawson continues. ”But, meanwhile, I wasn`t getting any offers. From the Cubs, from anywhere. And Jack Morris, maybe the best pitcher in the American League, had gone through the same thing. And my teammate in Montreal, Timmy Raines. Seven teams needed a leadoff batter, and he`s one of the best, but he wasn`t getting any calls, either. You knew something was going on.”
What was going on was collusion, a concerted and usually together effort by owners essentially to eliminate the open market for free agents in an attempt to drive salaries down. It reeked of a violation of Article XVIII (h) of the 1985-86 Basic Agreement, the clause stating in part that ”players shall not act in concert with other players and clubs shall not act in concert with other clubs.”
Dick Moss, Dawson`s agent, called the whole thing shameful. The Cubs, in the person of General Manager Dallas Green, told Dawson, we`ll call you later.
”I don`t know if it`s true, but I`ve since heard a story about what happened in Montreal,” Dawson says. ”I was earning $1.2 million a season my last year there, and the Expos` owner, Charles Bronfman, apparently was prepared to offer me a raise to $1.5 million to keep me.
”But Murray Cook, who was the general manager there at the time, told Bronfman that it wouldn`t be necessary. In other words, he wouldn`t have to go that high to re-sign me because nobody else was going to be bidding on me. I heard about that story later, but it wasn`t a big surprise, because you knew something was going on. It was so obvious.”
As it turned out, Dawson`s desire to play for the Cubs was so intense that he tendered them one of the most novel offers ever, for lack of anything substantive on their part. He told the Cubs to fill in the blank salary line, and even then they had to ponder the situation before rewarding Dawson with the gaudy sum of $500,000, or less than half what he had earned in Montreal.
Dawson was such a bad investment that collected 49 home runs, 137 runs batted in and a Most Valuable Player trophy for a last-place squad. Moreover, he never once complained about being humiliated or underpaid. He was, and is, a class act who doesn`t regret for a minute what he did. Nor does he forget.
”Collusion,” Dawson says. ”I know it well.”
Dawson is one of 32 players who will be paid regardless of what befalls the baseball season. In his case, that`s $2.1 million for sitting around, which is not his style, either. He gimped through the last weeks of the 1989 season, struggled mightily during the National League playoffs, and had a cyst removed from his right knee shortly after the Cubs were eliminated. Rehabilitation since late November finds him 65 percent ready.
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”If I won`t be set to play regularly on Opening Day, if there is an Opening Day, I`ll be close,” Dawson says. ”I want to get going now, though. Fans see us making all this money and they don`t always remember what came before. The owners, they were guilty of collusion. They got caught. So if you`re us, looking to sign a new deal with the owners, it`s a matter of trust.”