Andre Dawson’s Number Still Isn’t Retired and That’s A Damn Travesty
How the HELL isn’t Andre Dawson’s number retired yet!?
How in the actual hell!
I hope the younger generation of Cubs fans can appreciate exactly who Andre Dawson was. While some of my earliest memories of him were from him saying, “when I hit one over the fence, I hit it over a chain-link fence” but the most fond memories include Awesome-Dawson being one of the most intimidating hitters to ever play this game.
Dawson not only was alone of the most feared hitters in the league, no one and I mean no one ran on his arm in right field.
He did it all. But was most impressive, he worked at it harder
The Chicago Cubs have had a pretty consistent policy of retiring numbers when the player is inducted into the hall of fame, an example is Ryne Sandberg’s number 23 was retired the summer of 2005. While the hall has never been the deciding factor – Ron Santo’s number 10 was retired before he was elected, Greg Maddux’s number was retired along with Fergie Jenkins in 2009 – it has been the standard the team has decided to follow.
The travesty is, Dawson was elected into the hall in 2010, but yet we still do not have his number “8” on a flagpole.
This is a man that has a lifetime .279 avg .809 OPS 438 HR 314 SB 64.5 WAR, and has only struck out more than 100 times three times in his career. He won a flippin MVP while playing for a last place Cubs team!
All the while playing on knees worse off than this guy!
Seriously speaking, Dawson was one of the best players in baseball’s as well as the Cubs’s history. While only playing for the Cubs in six of his 20 year career, Dawson always thought of himself as a Cub and even asked the Hall of Fame to induct him as one.
Adding insult to injury, his number had been previously retired by the Montreal Expos, his original franchise. Once the team officially moved to Washington, and had become the Nationals, they completely wiped away their previously retired numbers.
So now here’s Andre freaking Dawson, one of baseball’s best ever, and no team has honored him by retiring his number.
So, while I this weekends Cubs Convention I will make sure to ask and demand that the Cubs retire Andre Dawson’s number, and I ask that all the fans flood the Chicago Cubs Facebook page, Twitter account, and email addresses with this article demanding the same!
To make it easier, the Miami Marlins (who Andre currently works for) are in Chicago August 1st through the 3rd. Get it done already.
The previous person nailed it. I watched Andre Dawson in R field for the Cubs and not only was he a great ballplayer he was off the field one of the finest gentleman there was. Please retire #8 he deserves it.
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