As a scrawny youngster playing in the streets of South Miami, Andre Dawson would use cookies to bribe his younger brothers to pitch rocks his way so he could practice hitting with a broomstick he used for a bat.
Those humble days of sticks and stones are long gone.
After a distinguished 10-year tenure as an All-Star outfielder with the Montreal Expos, however, Dawson still has some unresolved feelings toward that team`s front office–feelings that resulted in the Cubs` landing him as a free agent last spring, at half the salary offered by the Expos.
In Dawson`s mind, the adulation, the respect and the uncompromising feeling of fan support were missing in Montreal, but it appears those feelings can be traced back to 1982, when teammate Gary Carter received a new contract that paid him $2 million a year–twice as much as Dawson was making.
”I don`t think Andre ever got over the fact that Gary Carter got that much of a contract,” Expos Chief Executive Officer John McHale said. ”All great players have what I call inner conceit, and Andre has some of that. It doesn`t show, but inside it burns. He wants to be the best. He wants to be treated the best. He wants to be No. 1. All great players have it. It goes back to my day–of (Hal) Newhouser and (Bob) Feller and (Joe) DiMaggio. All those guys wanted to be the best.
”This whole thing involved two people that I have considerable admiration for: Andre and Dick Moss, his agent. We`re poles apart
philosophically, but Dick does a great job for his clients. Dick and I met several times last year on Andre, and I`ll say one thing, Dick was consistent right from Day 1. He said Andre was going to leave, that he wanted to play somewhere on grass and he wanted to go to the Cubs. He finally found a way to make it happen. I think Andre got caught up in Dick`s strategy. The things he said were mostly Dick`s feelings, not Andre`s. They were both taking a big chance, and it looks like they won.”
Moss submitted the now-famous blank contract to Cubs President Dallas Green, who filled in the figure $500,000.
The Expos had offered about $2 million over two years. Dawson made slightly more than $1 million in 1986.
”All the things that were said about being offered less money in Montreal aren`t really so,” McHale said. ”The tax program we set up probably would have netted Andre $150,000 more than he made last year.”
Carter, now with the New York Mets, knows all about pride and money.
”I don`t know if the contract really did create the animosities that everybody talked about,” said Carter, who was in Montreal last week for a three-game series against the Expos. ”Most athletes can appreciate what other athletes receive. Basically, salary scales are set by certain players and their standards and their achievements. I went by what Dave Winfield had signed for with the New York Yankees. We just placed a value on what Dave Winfield meant to the New York Yankees and what Gary Carter meant to the Montreal Expos.
”It really had nothing to do with the kind of contract that Andre signed. But he seemed to be very, very happy for the time being. And then after my contract, it seemed as though there wasn`t the same type of feeling, the same type of happiness. Unfortunately, those things happen. It`s the same thing that Steve Garvey went through with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
”I certainly think that Andre will be credited and given a nice contract after this year. Andre has made some good money in his time as well. I was fortunate to be there at the right place and at the right time. We were just coming off a successful season in 1981, and I just feel the Expos were going to try to sign the key players who were going to be a part of their team. It just happened to work out that way. I will always count my lucky stars for having that chance and that opportunity. That era of five years when the big contracts came out is just about gone.”
Players have only so much control over the money they make, but endearing themselves to the fans is another matter. Carter believes he made the effort to do just that and thinks Dawson–and other members of the Expos–may have missed, or ignored, similar opportunities.
”I think the adulation was there for Andre, as well as the other players,” Carter said. ”With a first name like Andre, he could have had it made if he`d wanted to.
”The opportunity was certainly there for everybody, but most of them, as soon as the season was over, left and did not return until the following season. I stayed there during the winters. We made it our home. And we got involved in the community. I mean, I even took a Berlitz course to learn how to speak French. That kind of thing means a lot to these people. It doesn`t hurt to promote yourself a little bit, you know.”
But while Dawson heaps praise on Cub fans, he continues to criticize the fans in Montreal.
”Just like in any other sport, the fans are that extra ingredient,” he said. ”They don`t really put pressure on the opposition, but they create situations. It`s good to know that when you`re at home, and at the plate in a key situation, you have fans that applaud you and really get behind you. I don`t think it puts fear into the opposition, but they hear it and they know they have to bear down a little bit more.
”Without a doubt, the fans in Montreal were a little bit more subdued, a little bit more laidback. They would wait until something was flashed on the scoreboard–`Make Noise` or something like that–before they would really start to get into the ballgame. But these (Chicago) fans create situations. It`s something like I`ve never experienced.”
Expos General Manager Murray Cook believes Dawson`s feelings about the Montreal fans virtually ended his chances of staying with the Expos.
”It seemed as the winter went along, people here were more concerned about us keeping Tim Raines,” Cook said. ”The comments that were attributed to Andre–being critical of Montreal, the city, the front office, the fans–it didn`t sit well with the people. They are pretty provincial about that sort of thing. Timmy never made much of that. I felt that Andre`s representatives were trying to create a distance and create a schism that wouldn`t allow him to come back here anyway.”
Cook tried to trade Dawson last season and had serious talks with the White Sox late in the year after Dawson became a 5-and-10 player–able to veto a trade because he had been in the majors 10 years and had spent at least the last five with the same team.
”We did have substantive discussions with other teams, but close only counts in horseshoes,” Cook said. ”The longer the season went along last year, the less confident I felt that we could get Andre back. I was more confident that we would have Timmy Raines back. That`s because money wasn`t going to be an issue with Andre Dawson, as it turned out.”
Cook tried to put aside the tense professional relationship with Dawson.
”Everything Andre is there (in Chicago), he was here,” said Cook. ”You can`t think anything badly of Andre Dawson. I told him that it was a privilege for me to have been here a couple of years while he was here because he`s truly a great guy. Just forget about the baseball. I just think it`s sad that the mechanism of baseball makes it so those kind of people go somewhere else. I`m traditional enough to think that those kind of people should stay in one organization their whole career. But it`s not realistic.”
Then there was the matter of knees and artificial turf. Former Expos manager and front-office executive Jim Fanning, now a broadcaster, feels the turf issue was overplayed by Dawson and Moss.
”Have you ever walked out there on the turf in right field?” Fanning said. ”It`s the softest, best-cushioned part of the whole ballpark.”
”We feel that way, too,” Cook said. ”Our doctors and trainer Ronnie McClain did a super job with him. Not that Andre didn`t do a great job for himself. We felt very strongly that Andre could have played here just as well as anywhere else.”
But McHale would not dispute Dawson`s claim that the hard turf hampered his knees.
”That`s a very personal thing,” McHale said. ”If Andre says it hurts him, I believe him. Because I saw Andre Dawson play when he was hurt, play when most men wouldn`t even come to the ballpark. And I would never, ever question his word on it. He`s an ideal employee. Showed up always on time, practiced as hard as he could, ran as hard as he could.
”When Andre was our first $1 million ballplayer, I don`t think he ever accepted that as a great tribute to him. I made the deal with him for $1 million a year for six years. A lot of people thought I was kind of goofy to make that commitment to a guy who had only been here for about three years. Andre was very happy with it.
”Carter was playing for about $250,000 a year then. And we had to sign Carter the next year and give him as big a contract as he got. That was orchestrated by Mr. Moss, by the way. He (Moss) created a very difficult situation for Andre.
”So when it came time for Andre`s new contract, he was thinking Carter. And the market changed. Nobody is going to get (those kind of) contracts now. They`re gone. It was hard for Andre and a lot of players to take that step intellectually backwards.”
Still, McHale held out hopes of Dawson`s returning to the Expos.
”I thought Andre was going to come back all the way up to a week before spring training,” McHale said. ”I talked to him a couple of times. He came to West Palm Beach (the Expos` spring training site), and it just seemed there had to be an adjustment we had to make, and we didn`t make it. And I think when he went out to the Cubs in spring training, it was a frantic move.”
Frantic or fortuitous, it was a move Dawson obviously thought he had to make and one he apparently has no regrets about.
”I know I`m way below my market value,” he said. ”I knew that even before I agreed to sign the contract. I didn`t think even before I signed that I had anything to prove. I thought my track record was good enough. It speaks for itself.
”I just wanted to convince those people in Montreal that they were making a mistake after having been there for 10 years and having the owner actually tell me that my left knee was a liability when they signed me to a five-year contract. That`s what hurt me the most and that`s what convinced me to change.
”The only emotional ties I have with Montreal now are those with my
(former) teammates. It`s a business and I look at it from that aspect. I won`t ever have any bitterness, because they gave me a start 11 years ago. And I went out and tried to give them all I could. Things just started to sour a little bit, and I just thought it would be best for both parties to part.
”It wasn`t only Murray (Cook). I had the meeting with (owner) Charles Bronfman and John McHale. John was one of the classiest guys I`ve ever met in the game. He talked to me about where free agency was headed and why I should accept the Expos` offer. I think Murray was just one of the guys in the middle.
”Murray talked to a lot of teams about the possibility of making a deal involving me. Then he would approach me the following day and say there was no truth to it. It got to a point, over a month`s period, that there was something different in the paper every day. You try to block those things out and play the ballgame. But again they are in the back of your mind. Those were just some of the things that started the relationship to sour.”
Montreal manager Buck Rodgers tried to stay out of the off-the-field negotiations involving Dawson.
”The No. 1 thing that I`ll always think of when I think of `Hawk` is the fact that the guy plays hurt,” Rodgers said. ”He never makes excuses. He`ll go out there with a bad knee or a pulled hamstring and you`ll never know it. For two years, I know the guy was in pain. He set an example just by being a professional.
”When you talk about a duck in water, Andre Dawson is a duck in water over in Chicago. He`s got grass. He`s got daytime. It`s a place where he`s always wanted to play. And it`s a park that he`s always hit well in. He probably won`t have near the injuries he had on AstroTurf. He made a good match.
”I think Tim Raines always looked up to Andre as a role model. And Andre was a guy who said, `Hey, don`t do that.` For the most part, Tim took his advice because he had his respect and friendship. I think one big reason Tim came back from the (drug) problem he had was because of Andre.”
Pressed for an opinion on Dawson`s negotiations with the Expos, Rodgers replied: ”I think the situation was handled very poorly and I would blame Hawk`s agent, Dick Moss, for a lot of that. I think Moss tried to alienate the fans against Dawson up here and had him say things or said things himself and attributed them to Dawson. And I think the fans were hurt.
”These are proud people up here. They are a little bit different than the fans down in the States. They are very sensitive. You say something bad about their city, their ballpark, them as individuals–they don`t like it. When they booed him, it was frustration coming out.
”The year that he`s having in Chicago couldn`t happen to a more deserving person. From a career that was starting to take a decline here in Montreal, it looks like he`s rejuvenated that career and hopefully he`ll be the top-notch player that he`s been for a number of years because the national pastime needs it, Chicago needs it and the National League needs it.”
Dawson`s mother, Mattie Brown, has noticed the difference in her son`s disposition since he joined the Cubs.
”There`s just a different sound in his voice,” she said. ”He wasn`t smiling in Montreal. I had been there three times, and he just didn`t seem to be happy there. He said: `I gave them 10 years of my life, and they pushed me around. I`ll play for nothing if I have to, just to prove myself to people. I`ll just leave it in the hands of the Lord.` ”
Dawson is hardly playing for nothing with the Cubs this year. His pride and his chronically painful left knee are intact in Chicago, where he is off to the best start of his career.
”Andre was very quiet and he was the nicest kid you could know,” said his mother, who still lives in South Miami. ”I never had any problems with him and he grew up to be like a father for all my kids. I have eight children, four girls and four boys.
”I had two jobs. I worked during the day and I worked at night cleaning offices. That`s how I made it, raising my kids with my mother`s (the late Eunice Taylor) help. We didn`t have no hard times and we didn`t suffer for nothing. We lived a comfortable life. And we were happy.
”When he was in high school, he started playing football and I told him, `Baby, I don`t want you to play football because so many people get hurt playing football.` And he said: `Well, Mom, it`s something I want to do. I wanted to be a baseball player, but I`m going to try football. I might be good in that.` So I said okay.
”I was sitting on the porch one night–I didn`t go to the game because I was afraid to go out; I didn`t want to see him playing because my baby might get hurt–when someone came and told me `Pudgy` got hurt. That`s what we called him then. We went to the hospital, and they had him back in the room, and they told me he had his knee hurt.
”They decided to operate on him and I told him to go along with what the doctors say. When he came home, we pampered him like a baby. When he got straightened out with his knee, he said he wasn`t playing football anymore, he was going to play baseball.
”He used to have his brothers pitching him rocks. And Andre broke my mopstick, my broomstick . . . I had to buy a mopstick and broomstick every week.
”He said, `One day, I`m going to be a baseball player. I said, `Let me tell you one thing: You better stop breaking up my brooms. I can`t afford all these brooms every week.` ”
Dawson was overlooked for a college scholarship because of his bad left knee. He was rejected by the Kansas City Royals baseball academy. He walked on at Florida A&M, a predominantly black school that attracted few major-league scouts at that time.
”Andre wanted to go to college and I said, `Baby, I can`t afford to send you to college.` ” said his mother. ”He said, `Well, I`m going.` He could have gone on his father`s GI bill, but his father wouldn`t fix up the papers and stuff for him to go. So Andre borrowed the money. He had loans and grants and all that stuff and went to college at Florida A&M.
”What I don`t understand is that Andre had this knee problem before he went into baseball. And he`s had 10 years in baseball. And he`s only been on the DL list but once. I pray so hard and I ask the Lord to help him and give him strength. I think the Lord did.
”And he said in Montreal: `All I want is out. I`m not happy.` I said:
`Well, baby, if you`re not happy, you can`t do a good job. No one can do a good job if they are not happy.`
”He said he was going to go for free agency, and if nobody picked him up, he wasn`t going to worry about it. He was just going to retire. I said,
`You`re not ready to retire.` And he said: `I know. I`ve got some more years I can go.`
”When Andre presented that blank contract to the Cubs, he said he knew what he was doing. He said: `Money is not everything. All I want to be is just happy.` I told him that if he`s happy, then I`m happy for him and the Lord will make a way for you.”
