Weekend Buzz: Dawson provides stark contrast to A-Rod's quest

The Weekend Buzz while you were watching John Fogerty sing Centerfield at the Baseball Hall of Fame Inductions on Sunday with Willie Mays seated on the stage right behind him, and how cool was that? ...

1. Hawk call: The juxtaposition between Andre Dawson at Sunday's Hall of Fame induction ceremony and Alex Rodriguez sitting on deck to join the 600-homer club is striking.

Following his nearly interminable wait at the Cooperstown gates, Dawson, who was finally elected in his ninth year of eligibility, never stood taller while delivering an exceptionally dignified and graceful speech.

As A-Rod waited through a nearly interminable two-hour-plus rain delay against Kansas City holding steady at 599 before taking a fastball off of his hands that could sideline him for several days, never has the 600 club looked smaller.

When the Hawk talked, the meat was in what he didn't say. He never once used the word "steroids." He mentioned no names. He was not specific.

And yet. ... As the game continues to clean itself off on the other side of the Steroid Era, as was the case with so many of his 438 career home runs, the sweet part of the Hawk's bat connected beautifully.

"Mistakes people make have hurt the game and taken a toll on all of us," Dawson said. "Individuals have chosen a wrong road. Others still have a chance. Do not be lured by the dark side. It's a stain on the game, a stain gradually being removed.

"But that's the people, not the game."

Dawson wasn't Rodriguez-specific, and I would venture to say that his point was not to single out the latest historical home run quest that was playing out in another part of New York.

But as A-Rod takes aim, one of the remarkable things about it is how little buzz has surrounded his chase at 600.

Sunday, it was completely eclipsed by a Hall of Fame class that included umpire Doug Harvey, legendary manager Whitey Herzog, and Dawson.

The Hawk was shut out of the Hall during his first eight years of eligibility partly because his Hall judgment days fell smack in the midst of the era when behemoths were posting cartoon power numbers ... which made Dawson's excellent numbers shrink by comparison.

As the game recalibrated, I think some voters rebooted their thinking as well. And with a little distance now from the Crazy Home Run Era, how fitting it is that as pitching has returned and the game has gone back to its roots in 2010, this is the year Dawson, a five-tool player who could have been even greater but for 12 knee surgeries, finally made it to Cooperstown.

Former umpire Doug Harvey, known as 'God' by the players, joins Andre Dawson and Whitey Herzog in the Hall of Fame. (AP)

"You can't get here by skipping school or disrespecting your teachers or your coach," said Dawson, whose message today is as strong as his defense (eight Gold Gloves) over his 21-year career. "You can't get here by dropping out of society. You can't get here if you believe you have nothing to lose on the streets. You have everything to lose. But in this game, you have everything to win."

And: "Feeling sorry for yourself isn't going to save you. Baseball can. Baseball can be your salvation."

It isn't every Hall of Famer who gives shout-outs to doctors, surgeons and physical therapists during his induction speech, but then few Hall of Famers have endured the sheer agony and beaten it with the will power Dawson possessed. During one touching moment, he thanked his wife, "who would get out of bed at 11 and would get me ice bags, pain medicine, more ice bags. ..."

Dawson's arm from right field was lethal, and before Montreal's Olympic Stadium carpet ate away at his knees, so were his legs. Today, Dawson, Willie Mays and Barry Bonds are the only three players in baseball history with 400 or more homers and 300 or more steals.

Fellow inductee Whitey Herzog referenced Dawson's bad knees during his speech, but added, "I never saw him not run out a ground ball."

Thing is, if you're not taking short cuts, you always have to run hard. As Dawson spoke, I thought back to two springs ago, when A-Rod was under the tent at the Yankees' spring complex, admitting to steroids, discussing how he and the cousin who allegedly procured them were "young and stupid."

The stain on the game is gradually being removed, Dawson said from center stage Sunday.

Meanwhile, in Yankee Stadium, A-Rod went 2 for 4 with three RBI.

As the game's priorities change, do 600 homers mean what they once did?

2. "God" inducted, too: Well, that's what they called umpire Doug Harvey when he was working, and fitting, too. He goes back to the stone tablet days: Harvey is so old school that he was no school. He was one of the last of the big-league umpires to never attend umpiring school.

So it was pretty funny when Harvey, stricken with throat cancer, came to the stage following his previously filmed induction speech and took credit for the rain having stopped in Cooperstown.

Harvey is only the ninth umpire inducted into the Hall -- as a point of comparison, there are only 11 third basemen -- and in 1999, a survey conducted by the Society for American Baseball Research named him the second greatest umpire of all time, behind Bill Klem.

Among other things SABR cited Harvey for his "air of dignity", "calming presence" and "strong sense of honor." Too many of today's confrontational and arrogant umpires -- not all, not even close to all, but too many -- could learn from that.

"I'm not taking anything away from the other umpires," Hall of Famer Gary Carter told me in 2007 during a conversation for this column. "I imagine most of them say they always give it their best. But some are gruff. And some wear their emotions on their sleeve. Some have a quick thumb. Some, when they miss a call, instead of trying to get it right they go with it and create controversy, create arguments and kick guys out.

"Doug Harvey was never like that. He listened. He would argue back, but in all the years I played, I can't remember if he even kicked a guy out of a game I was in. He was a calming factor."

Baseball

Hall of Fame

Dawson, Herzog, Harvey inducted into Hall of Fame Year-by-year inductees | 2010 vote results Dawson's career stats | Herzog's managerial career

As umpires are supposed to be.

3. Dan Haren, from Snake to Angel: When the Angels lost free agent John Lackey to Boston over the winter but went into 2010 with a rotation that included Jered Weaver, Joe Saunders, Ervin Santana, Scott Kazmir and Joel Pineiro, a raging debate began.

Critics looked at the rotation and saw a lack of dominance. Angels manager Mike Scioscia saw as much rotation depth as any club in the game.

Score one for the critics. The Angels are fading in the West, they trailed Texas by six games at the time of the Haren trade and Kazmir has been dreadful. So they packaged Saunders, two minor-leaguers and a player to be named later to Arizona for Haren on Sunday, plucking one of the few attractive starters from this year's trade market and answering Texas' acquisition of Cliff Lee earlier this month. Will it be enough? The way Haren has been pitching, he does not appear to be the difference-maker Lee is, especially when he arrives in the lumber-heavy AL. But it sure adds juice to the AL West race, doesn't it?

4. Trade deadline: It's Saturday at 4 p.m. EDT, so you know what this week means. Sorting truth from loads and loads and loads of fiction. We'll trade you three bad rumors for a player to be named later. Texas acquiring Cliff Lee? Wasn't he going to the Yankees? The Angels acquiring Dan Haren? Wasn't he going to the Yankees? The Yankees acquiring Roy Oswalt? Whoops, getting ahead of ourselves. ...

5. Sheets in the wind: Scratch Oakland's Ben Sheets from the trade market. It never did make sense when they signed Sheets to that one-year, $10 million deal last winter. Oakland had a hard-throwing, incredibly fragile right-hander with tremendous potential for several years before Sheets. Name was Rich Harden.

6. Roy Oswalt: With Lee and Haren already dealt and Sheets done, the Astros' ace, who had his ears boxed by Philadelphia on Saturday, becomes the last potential difference-maker out there (no, we're not counting Ted Lilly or Jake Westbrook). But sources say he is not interested in pitching in a big market like New York, and good luck to Detroit, Minnesota or the divorce-ravaged Dodgers in picking up that $25 million or so Oswalt is owed. Philadelphia, on the other hand, still has deep pockets.

7. David DeJesus done for the season: And Kansas City becomes Exhibit A in the art of timing at the trade deadline. By not dealing him already, they lost their window when he suffered a season-ending thumb injury the other day. So now, who wants Gil Meche? The Royals need better players and there are only so many ways to get them.

8. Seattle sounders: A dreadful season gets worse for the Mariners as manager Don Wakamatsu and infielder Chone Figgins have to be separated after the skipper yanked Figgins from a game last week for failing to back up a throw from the outfield. The glass-half-full side of things: Anger management counseling appears to be working for Milton Bradley. Had you been told of a dustup in the Mariners dugout and asked to guess who was involved, what would the odds have been that you wouldn't have named Bradley? Yeah, us, too.

9. Sweet Lou's swan song: With Lou Piniella's announcement last week that he's retiring after the season, the line to replace him already stretches from Wrigley Field down the street past the Cubby Bear. Ryne Sandberg, Alan Trammell, Bob Brenly ... speculation even has Joe Torre as a potential fit if he leaves the Dodgers. But beware, because with Piniella finishing his fourth season, the remarkable trend continues: Nobody since Leo Durocher (1966-1972) has lasted more than four years as Cubs manager. And as Reds manager Dusty Baker points out, he and Nationals skipper Jim Riggleman are the only two men who were still standing to manage elsewhere after leaving the Cubs.