Upon further review, Hawk belongs in Cooperstown
Andre Dawson finished with 438 home runs, 1,591 RBI and a .482 slugging percentage. He ranks 25th all time in total bases, 34th in RBI, 36th in home runs and 45th in hits. He even had 314 stolen bases.
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| Andre Dawson is one of three players with 400-plus homers and 300-plus steals. (US Presswire) |
Yet the baseball landscape has changed, which is no small part of why I'm voting for him for the first time this year.
Now I'm normally not a guy who changes his vote. I don't make a distinction between a first-ballot Hall of Famer and a poor soul who's on the ballot for the 14th time. To me, a Hall of Famer is sort of like what the late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart wrote of pornography: I know it when I see it.
I study statistics as much as the next guy or gal, but if it's numbers and nothing else, then why don't we just establish a set of parameters and be done with it. The computers can vote, just like in the BCS. A guy's automatically in with 3,000 hits, 400 homers, 300 wins whatever. Finito.
No, the beauty in the degree of difficulty for enshrinement into the best Hall of Fame in sports is in the complexity. Obviously, it's a numbers game and numbers make up the majority of a player's credentials. But so do other things: Fielding (which for years was nearly impossible to quantify, but John Dewan has given that a serious run with his plus/minus rankings), postseason performance, how feared a player was by opponents when he played. Dominance beyond the numbers.
Now, back to Dawson, and my different viewpoint of him. When his name first went on the ballot, in 2002, we were in the midst of cartoon numbers. Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds and others had changed the way we viewed the power game. And while we suspected the influence of performance-enhancing drugs, we didn't know then nearly as much as we do now.
In evaluating Dawson when he first came on the ballot, he was a near-miss guy for me -- in large part because, while he hit 20 or more homers 13 times, he only hit more than 30 three times and more than 40 once. I viewed some of his 438 homers as simply accumulation by a player -- albeit, a very, very good player -- who hung around for 21 seasons and currently ranks 33rd in career games played.
Now when you have the privilege of a Hall of Fame vote, there are certain near-miss guys who you wind up mulling over and over. Dave Concepcion was one of those guys for me. Dawson has been another.
Talk to many players who played with and against Dawson, and they speak of him in reverential tones. His fielding -- and, especially, his arm -- is legendary. His power totals are impressive despite playing much of his career in Montreal's Olympic Stadium -- not exactly a homer-friendly place -- and largely in an era just before magic potions became so prevalent.
As more information has emerged as to how and why certain players were able to do what they did statistically from, roughly, the late 1980s through the early 2000s, I believe Dawson's credentials look even better. Three players in history have collected 400 or more homers and 300 or more steals: Willie Mays, Bonds and Dawson.
So, after seven years of not voting for Dawson, I'm re-evaluating. I know the knock on this: A player's numbers doesn't change a bit after he retires, so if you don't vote for him one year, how the heck can you vote for him the next?
Well, all of this is why. The numbers might not change, but the context sometimes does. And in reviewing Dawson and the landscape, it has changed enough to sway me.
My 2009 Hall of Fame ballot
Dawson: See above.
Bert Blyleven: His 287 career wins are impressive enough, as is the fact that he helped pitch the 1979 Pirates and 1987 Twins to World Series titles. But the two numbers I keep going back to in support of Blyleven for Cooperstown are these: He ranks fifth in career strikeouts and ninth in career shutouts. And until Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson passed him within the past few years, Blyleven ranked third in strikeouts. Third!
Rickey Henderson: First year on the ballot, and it's an easy call. The greatest leadoff man in history. Besides, even if Rickey was a fringe candidate, which he isn't, it would be worth checking the box next to his name in sheer anticipation of his acceptance speech. "Rickey, speaking on behalf of Rickey, would like to thank everyone who made this day necessary for Rickey. ..."
Jack Morris: I know the arguments against, and they hinge on that 3.90 career ERA. Yes, it would be the highest of any pitcher in the Hall. But ERAs were on the rise after the AL instituted the designated hitter in 1973. And any way you view it, Morris was one of the most dominant pitchers of his era. He won more games than any other pitcher in the 1980s. He finished in the top five of Cy Young voting five times. He was the No. 1 starter on three different world championship teams -- the '84 Tigers, '91 Twins and '92 Blue Jays. His 10-inning complete-game win in Game 7 of the '91 series was one of the greatest pitching performances in World Series history. And one of the dominant pitchers of his era? He made 14 opening day starts -- tied with Steve Carlton, Johnson, Walter Johnson and Young for second, behind Tom Seaver's 16. You might recognize all but the Big Unit as Hall of Famers. And Johnson is headed to Cooperstown soon.
Jim Rice: Most drama on this year's ballot, because Rice is in his 15th -- and final -- year of eligibility. You need 75 percent of the vote to be elected, and last year Rice crept up to 72.2 percent. My guess is he finally gets in. He should. He won the AL MVP award in 1978 -- 406 total bases (he's still the only AL player since Joe DiMaggio in 1937 to amass 400 or more) -- and finished in the top five on five other occasions. Not only is Rice the only man in history with three consecutive seasons of 35 or more homers and 200 or more hits, but between 1963 and 2005, he was the only player to finish among the top five in AL MVP voting at least five times.
Tim Raines: Two changes to this year's ballot. Dawson is one, and Raines, in his second year, is the other. I didn't vote for Raines last December because, among other things, he never finished higher than fifth on a Most Valuable Player ballot. But the more I study Raines, the more he looks like a Hall of Famer. Along with Henderson, who will get in this year, Raines changed the leadoff position in the batting order. His on-base percentages were astronomical, and he reached base more times during his career than did Tony Gwynn, who finished with 3,000 hits. He was successful on an astounding 85 percent of his stolen-base attempts. Raines, who never had a 200-hit season, might not be an obvious choice for Cooperstown at first glance -- going against my aforementioned Supreme Court Justice Stewart way of determining Hall of Famers -- but he is definitely deserving.
Alan Trammell: The continued lack of support for this guy by voters is ludicrous. As I keep writing over and over, his offensive numbers across the board are far better than Ozzie Smith's. Defensively, he might not have been as acrobatic as the Wizard, but his fielding was above average. He won four Gold Glove awards. Yet Smith was voted into the Hall on his first try with 91.74 percent of the vote. Trammell, in his seventh time on the ballot last year, received only 18.2 percent of the vote. If you polled general managers in the 1980s as to whom they would take at shortstop between the two, it would have been much closer than that. And I bet many of them would have taken Trammell.
