Andre Dawson Will Enter Hall Of Fame As Expo, Not Cub

Andre Dawson had great years with the Expos, Cubs, and to a lesser extent, the Boston Red Sox. But in the eyes of the Baseball Hall of Fame, the glory years happened in Montreal. That’s why he’ll be inducted into the Hall of Fame next July wearing a Montreal Expos hat, whether he likes it or not.

From the Associated Press:

Following the announcement that Andre Dawson was voted into the Hall Of Fame earlier this month, there has been some debate about which hat he’ll wear: Expos or Cubs. Now we know the answer:

From the Chicago Tribune:

Andre Dawson spent just two years in the Boston Red Sox organization, but according to a much-younger Dawson in 1993, he said he’s “probably” wear a Red Sox cap into Cooperstown.

The Boston Globe’s Nick Cafardo dug up an old article he wrote about Dawson to find the quote:

In today’s baseball world, the stat on-base percentage is highly coveted because it indicates which players minimize outs the best. But apparently back in the 1980s minimizing outs wasn’t very important, because despite that, Dawson and his scary-low OBP can still sneak in, as ESPN’s Rob Neyer points out.

Dawson was the league’s MVP in 1987. He hit 49 home runs and knocked in 137 runs -- both league bests. But his OBP was a measly .328. To put that into perspective, Joe Mauer, the American League’s 2009 MVP, had a batting average of .365, a full .37 points higher than Dawson’s on-base percentage. Mauer’s OBP was .444 -- .116 points higher than Dawson’s in 1987.

Wednesday’s biggest loser in the Baseball Hall of Fame voting was Roberto Alomar, who received the most votes ever for a first-year candidate without actually getting inducted to Cooperstown, earning 73.7%, and finishing just eight votes shy. Sure, he’ll probably get in next year, or at least sometime soon thereafter, but the guy had over 2700 hits, over 200 home runs, won the Gold Glove playing second base 10 times and took home four Silver Slugger awards (to go along with a pair of World Series titles) -- that’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer resume there.

So how is Alomar handling being snubbed? Is he spittin’ mad? No, at least not yet. Newsday’s Ken Davidoff went to Alomar’s house shortly after today’s announcement, and found him to be more surprised than anything (collected from a series of Daivdoff tweets).

The robots are coming, surely, and maybe not a moment too soon, because between college football and the Baseball Hall of Fame, the human voters can’t seem to get things right. On Wednesday, the Baseball Writers Association of America elected Andre Dawson into Cooperstown. And that was it. No Roberto Alomar (career OPS+ of 116, over 2700 hits, over 200 home runs, 10-time Gold Glove award winner and one spitting incident). No Barry Larkin (116 OPS+, over 2300 hits, career .815 OPS, three Gold Gloves and nine Silver Sluggers). And no David Segui (yes, he really got one vote).

Amazin’ Avenue has the breakdown of the voting, and offers their reaction (note: if you’re a member of the BBWAA, you may want to avert your eyes).

Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar were the players closest to election, both missing election by a mere 10 votes. We’ll have plenty of reaction from around SB Nation and Major League Baseball as it happens.