Dawson, Andre Nolan

Source:

 African American National Biography

Dawson, Andre Nolan

(10 July 1954– ),

baseball player, was born in Miami, Florida, the eldest son of Mattie Brown, a homemaker and part-time baker, and Floyd Dawson. Born to his mother when she was fifteen years old and an absent father who went to college and then the army, Dawson and his seven siblings were primarily raised by his mother and maternal grandmother, Eunice Taylor.

Dawson became enamored of baseball early, using rocks and a mop handle to play as a young boy. When the city denied financial assistance for a Little League in a segregated part of Miami, his maternal uncles organized one for Dawson and his friends. As a nine year old sharing the field with older players, he received a nickname that would stay with him for his adult life—“The Hawk”—for his intense focus.

Dawson was a star athlete at Miami's Southwest High School, but while playing safety on his football team he incurred an injury to his left knee that would haunt him throughout his baseball career. Though the Kansas City Royals expressed interest in him at a summer tryout, Dawson ended up enrolling at Florida A&M, a black college popular with athletes, including his uncle Theodore Taylor, who had played minor league baseball.

In July 1975, Dawson was selected in the eleventh round of the Major League amateur draft by the Montreal Expos. Dawson received a $2000 signing bonus and was assigned to the Pioneer (Rookie) League in Lethbridge, Alberta. Dawson led the league in hits and home runs that summer and won the Player of the Year award.

Promoted quickly through the system, Dawson made his debut with the Expos in September 1976 and later recorded his first career hit off future Hall-of-Fame pitcher Steve Carlton. Dawson won the starting centerfield job for the Expos the following spring training and with nineteen home runs and twenty-one stolen bases was named Rookie of the Year.

Following the season, Dawson attended an opening night at a Miami theater and invited a friend of his sisters', Vanessa Turner; engaged two months later, they married following the 1978 season and would have two children: Darius DeAndre and Amber Chanelle.

By 1981, Dawson had established himself as a bonafide star: that season he was selected to his first of eight All-Star teams, finished second in the MVP voting, and was named The Sporting News' Player of the Year. Dawson also established himself with his teammates, forming a rapport with fellow Floridian outfielders Warren Cromartie and Tim Raines. As testament to his character, Dawson was credited with helping Raines seek counseling for cocaine addiction following the 1982 season.

In 1982, Dawson was the victim of racial profiling in Montreal, when he was frisked in a department store by police officers who mistook him for a suspected black shoplifter. Though Dawson sought a public apology through the Expos' front office, none came. However, it was a more physical malady that lessened Dawson's love affair with the franchise: the synthetic turf of Montreal's Olympic Stadium wrought havoc on Dawson's knees.

Following the 1986 season, Dawson turned down a contract with a sizable pay cut from the Expos. Eager for the opportunity to play on grass, Dawson gave the Chicago Cubs' general manager Dallas Green a literal blank check for his services at a private meeting. Green offered Dawson a one-year, $500,000 contract, less than half of what he earned with Montreal. As would be revealed, Dawson was a victim of collusion between Major League owners, who had agreed not to bid exorbitantly for other teams' free agents. Five years later, he was awarded over two million dollars from a grievance ruling.

Despite the paltry contract, Dawson had a career year in 1987, posting 49 home runs and 137 runs batted in, becoming the first MVP for a last-place team. Dawson reemerged as a National League force and was elected to the All-Star game for five years in a row with Chicago.

When his tenure with the Cubs ended in 1992, Dawson signed a two-year contract with the Red Sox and then a similar deal with the Marlins as a bench player before announcing his retirement halfway through the 1996 season.

Despite undergoing numerous knee surgeries throughout his twenty-one-year career, Dawson was primarily considered a threat on the basepaths. When he retired, he was one of just two Major League ballplayers to tally four hundred home runs and three hundred stolen bases, the other being Willie Mays. Mays himself, when asked about the young Dawson in 1983, acknowledged his blend of speed, power, and fielding prowess, calling him “the most complete player in the game today.”

Dawson joined the front office of the Florida Marlins in 2000 as a special assistant and received a World Series ring for the team's 2003 victory. After nine years on the ballot, Dawson was voted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in January 2010.

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