The Cubs have more former players on this year’s Hall of Fame ballot than any other team.
“I don’t know if that’s good,” Andre Dawson said Monday with a nervous laugh.
Dawson, on the ballot for the third time, joins Ryne Sandberg, Bruce Sutter, Dennis Eckersley, Lee Smith, Randy Myers, Joe Carter, Bob Tewksbury and Goose Gossage as Hall of Fame candidates who spent time with the Cubs.
“It would be good to get in with a couple of the guys, but that is a far-fetched scenario, I think,” Dawson said.
A Cub from 1987-1992, Dawson won the National League MVP award in 1987 after signing a blank contract with the team as a free agent, so strong was his desire to escape the AstroTurf that ravaged his knees in Montreal. He led the league with 49 home runs and 137 RBIs that year.
The Hall of Fame will announce its Class of 2004 on Tuesday. Dawson was named on 50 percent of the ballots last year, well short of the 75 percent needed for induction. Sandberg, in his first year on the ballot, was named on 49.2 percent. Smith, baseball’s career saves leader who was also a first-timer last year, was named on 42.3 percent of the ballots. Sutter, in his 11th year on the ballot, was named on 53.6 percent, finishing third behind Eddie Murray (85.3 percent) and Gary Carter (78 percent), who made up the Class of 2003.
Dawson, who works in the Florida Marlins’ front office in his native Miami, wound up with 2,774 hits, 438 home runs and 1,591 RBIs in his 21 seasons. His hit and RBI totals are the highest of any player not in the Hall of Fame.
“I have taken the attitude now that you can’t really control it,” Dawson said. “I’ll just sit back and see what happens, hope for the best.
“I will be pulling for Sandberg, likewise. Of anybody, I think he has a real good shot to get in.”
Dawson, the NL Rookie of the Year with Montreal in 1977, played for the Expos, Cubs, Red Sox and Marlins. He was Pete Rose’s teammate on the Expos in 1984, and he’s hopeful that Rose’s recent admission that he bet on baseball will end his banishment and clear the way for his being voted into Cooperstown.
“I think he definitely belongs in the Hall of Fame,” Dawson said. “Whether he is in a position to return to baseball in some capacity or another, that should be judged a little bit differently. What he did on the field merits him being in the Hall of Fame. That has always been my stance. Pete Rose undoubtedly is a Hall of Famer.”
Dawson said he wasn’t aware of Rose’s betting activities when they played together.
“I never knew he was a big-time gambler,” he said. “I can only recall one incident when we went to the dog tracks in [Florida]. I went with Pete and a couple of other players. I am not a gambler, not a risk-taker at all. I think I may have bet $50, and that was a portion of my meal money. I went for the entertainment part of it.
“I think Pete got a form of satisfaction out of it and didn’t look at it as a gambling problem. Maybe for him it was a form of recreation. He had so much money and he didn’t know what to do with it. It was wrong if he did bet on baseball. But that should be judged separately from what he did on the field.
“When he put that uniform on, he was a different individual, and one of the better people you would ever want to meet on the playing field.”
