‘Hawk’ Dawson receives inaugural Curt Flood Award
It was the spring of
1987, and free agent Andre Dawson arrived at the Chicago Cubs’ spring training site in Mesa, Arizona, with a blank contract and the desire to keep playing baseball. He had a Rookie of the Year Award, three All-Star nominations, six Gold Glove Awards and three Silver Slugger
Awards under his belt from his 11 years with the Montreal Expos to begin his career.
At that point in his career, as knee injuries started to pop up for the star outfielder, he desired to play for a team whose field had natural grass. Collusion among league owners made it difficult for him to attract offers. The Cubs were his top choice, but there was resistance.
And then came the signed blank contract, which Dawson and agent Dick Moss gave to the Cubs and told them to pay Dawson whatever they felt he was worth. They offered him $500,000 — half of what the Expos had offered him — and eventually another $200,000 in bonuses.
Dawson won the National League MVP that year after slugging a careerhigh 49 home runs with
137 RBI. He played another nine seasons after that year, his final two with the Florida Marlins, and was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2010.
“I knew I had a lot of baseball left in me and
perhaps some of my better years,” Dawson said. “So I said the monetary issues would have a chance to take care of itself. It’s just a matter of getting my feet underneath me, enjoying the new beginning where I am at that point in my career, and then looking forward to the second half of my career.”
It was a pivotal moment both in Dawson’s career and in the continuation of players stepping up for their rights. The MLB Players Association is honoring his efforts.
Dawson, 66 and a Miami native, on Thursday was named the winner of the MLBPA’s inaugural Curt Flood Award, which will be given annually to
“a former player, living or deceased, who in the image of Flood demonstrated a selfless, longtime devotion to the Players Association and advancement of Players’ rights.” A panel of seven former and current MLBPA executives nominated four former players for the award. Active players selected the winner. Don Baylor, Mark Belanger and Jim Bunning were the other three nominees.
The inaugural Curt
Flood award comes on the 50-year anniversary of Flood’s historic judicial fight against the reserve system that paved the way for free agency.
“When it was mentioned to me that I was going to be the very first recipient of the award, it was very exciting because usually awards in the game are in honor of iconic figures, and for me that’s significantly what Curt Flood was. He was an icon in the game he changed the game, pretty much. With the instruction of challenging the reserve clause and as a result eventually making free agency as a part of the game. So I look at it in that regard because of how significant that was. For me, I’m very appreciative.”
“Curt was one of the most influential athletes of the 20th century,” MLBPA executive director Tony Clark said in a press release. “His principled stand helped fundamentally change the way business is done in all professional team sports — not just baseball.”
Dawson finished his playing career with 2,774 hits on a .279 batting average and recorded 438 home runs, 314 stolen bases, and 1,591 RBI. He is one of only five players to hit at least 400 home runs and steal at least 300 bases in his MLB career, joining Barry Bonds, Willie Mays, Alex Rodriguez, and Carlos Beltran.
Dawson, who received his only World Series ring as a member of the Marlins front office in 2003, now owns and runs the Paradise Memorial Funeral Home in Richmond Heights, a small city in southwest Miami-Dade County. He has been in the business for 12 years, when Dawson and his wife took it over from relatives.