Only two ballplayers, so far as I could tell, were held in awe by their teammates: Mickey Mantle and Andre Dawson.
And it wasn’t only because they hit home runs and were superb in the field. The principal reason their teammates regarded them so highly was because they played in pain. And never complained.
Dawson, who had a glorious six-year career with the Cubs, last week announced his retirement at season’s end. He was at Wrigley Field Monday night in his last hurrah here. He has finished his career with the Florida Marlins after being used sparingly: 40 at-bats, a .300 average, with only one home run. As expected, he was engulfed by reporters.
The Cubs were in the midst of batting practice and manager Jim Riggleman, watching from a distance, offered the best summation:
“When you see how his teammates feel about him, the other team starts looking at this guy, and they’re thinking, `He must be something special to command so much respect.’ This feeling transcends into the other dugout. And the next thing you know both teams idolize the guy.’
Like Mantle, Dawson will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer: 21 major league seasons; 437 home runs; 1,587 runs batted in, and 314 stolen bases. The numbers are staggering. Few players have possessed this uncommon combination of speed and power.
Don Zimmer, the former Cubs manager, was among the first to express the Mantle and Dawson similarities. “We’ll never know how good Mickey Mantle would have been because he played on bad knees,” Zimmer said. “In my time, Andre Dawson was Mickey Mantle. If Andre hadn’t had all those knee operations he would have 600 home runs and 500 stolen bases.”
The Hawk underwent his 12th knee operation last May, seven on the right knee, five on the left. “I took them as far as they let me go,” Dawson said Monday. “With better knees I could have played three or four more years. But I was lucky to play as long as did.”
Rusty Kuntz, one of the Florida coaches, said, “I told Hawk the other day I would be glad to give him my knees. It’s a big loss.”
Dawson revealed he initially decided that if and when he was elected to the Hall of Fame his bronzed plaque would show him in the cap of the last team for which he played. He since has changed his mind. He will be enshrined as a Cub.
Dawson said the best of his baseball days were with the Cubs. He broke in with the Montreal Expos in 1976 and joined the Cubs in 1987. The circumstances of his signing bordered on the bizarre. A free agent, he stalked the Cubs, showing up at their Arizona spring training camp and signing for $500,000, half his previous salary.
“It was a like rebirth for me,” Dawson said. “I really enjoyed playing here.”
His career year was 1987, his first season with the Cubs, when he led the National League with 49 home runs and 137 runs batted in, a landslide winner of the NL’s Most Valuable Player, the first MVP selected from a last-place club.
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The fans in the right-field bleachers, in appreciation and devotion, salaamed before him every time he returned to his position. Dawson has not forgotten. “From the first day the reception was so warm,” he said. “I was always anxious to get to the ballpark.”
His most memorable Wrigley Field moment was his final 1987 at-bat: Home run No. 47, off Bill Dawley.
But Dawson was much more than a batting star. Quiet in manner, he was a comparatively silent hero who led by example, the first player at the ballpark and the last to leave. He arrived at 8:30 in the morning before a day game. When he departed he always stopped to sign autographs.
“I used to laugh at the Hawk because he spent so much time in the training room,” recalled Shawon Dunston, the former Cubs shortstop now with the San Francisco Giants. “And he’d say to me, `Wait until you’re 30.’ And now I’m in the training room every day.
“He never complained. He never wanted a day off. He’d be diving for flyballs when he shouldn’t have. They talk about Ernie Banks, but Andre and Ryne Sandberg were the greatest players in Cub history.”
Aware that Dunston was a frightened young player, Dawson made him his constant dinner companion.
“He never let me pay,” Dunston recalled.
When Dunston got his first million-dollar contract, Dawson still insisted on picking up the check. When Dunston got to $2 million, Dawson told him, “Now you can leave the tip.”
“I only have one father,” Dunston said. “But if I had to pick anybody else to be my father, it would be Andre.”
It will be Andre Dawson Day at Wrigley Field Wednesday. Be there!