Dawson talks namesake HBCU baseball tourney and more
I can still hear Harry Caray’s call of an Andre Dawson home run in the late 1980s.
“There’s a drive. Way back. It might be. It could be. It is! A home run!!”
Nobody could call ‘em like Harry. And no one could hit ‘em like Andre.
I began watching the Chicago Cubs in 1987 and I immediately fell in love with Andre Dawson.
He had a unique batting stance, bat speed unlike anyone else, and when he got a hold of one, there was rarely any doubt.
In my humble opinion, it took way too long to get Andre into the Hall of Fame. He was inducted in 2010 in his ninth year of eligibility.
Nowadays, Andre has a lot going on. He owns a restaurant and a funeral home — you read that correctly — and he hosts a college baseball tournament named for him.
That tournament is coming up this week, starting Friday, Feb. 23, and running through Feb. 25 at Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Florida.
The Andre Dawson Classic is an annual, round-robin collegiate baseball tournament designed by Major League Baseball to highlight Historically Black Colleges and Universities and their baseball programs.
Dawson, a Miami native, played at an HBCU in his home state — Florida A&M in Tallahassee.
After that, he made it to the Major Leagues in 1977 with the Montreal Expos, and further skyrocketed to stardom with the Chicago Cubs, where he hit 49 home runs with 137 RBIs in 1987, earning him MVP honors despite the Cubs being in last place.
He went on to hit 438 home runs at a time when players were not hitting that many home runs.
Andre is the latest guest on “The *State* of Florida Sports Podcast,” powered by the USA Today Network.
He’ll tell us about the upcoming Andre Dawson Classic, how many teams are involved, which teams are involved, and why it’s important for him to be a part of it.
“This is going on Year 6 now, so I’ll drive from my home in Miami up to Vero Beach,” Andre says during the podcast. “I’m excited about this year in that my (alma mater) Florida A&M University will be a participant in this tournament. I’m glad I’ll have the opportunity to see these athletes.”
In addition, he’ll talk about his storied career, which was taken to another level when he went to Chicago to play for the Cubs.
“Just to get off of the Astroturf, which was proven to be damaging to my knees and apparently appeared that it would cut short my playing career, I knew I had to get on a natural playing surface,” he said. “The fans really, really embraced me and allowed me to to get my feet underneath me, not feel my way around, but feel like I was a part of that.
“I look back at those six years that I spent with the Cubs and, you know, they were some of the best years of my career.”
He’ll update us on former teammate and fellow Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg, who is battling prostate cancer.
“We’re communicating on a weekly basis. I’m trying to keep him positive and update because I experienced myself prostate cancer back around 2012, and it wasn’t as serious as his condition is at the moment, but he’s pretty upbeat and, you know, he started his treatments and I’m just trying to be there for him and be able to do whatever I can to to keep him positive, keep him strong.”
And he’ll tell us what he’ll be up to to as spring training gets under way around Florida and Arizona.
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Walters can be reached at twalters@gannett.com