Andre Dawson's Hall of Fame plaque to be changed from Expos to blank cap after request
Dawson asked several years ago to have a Cubs hat on his plaque
Andre Dawson is getting a costume change. The eight-time All-Star, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2010 with a Montreal Expos hat on his plaque, will now be featured with a blank cap, he announced Wednesday.
Dawson spent the first 11 years of his MLB career with the Expos before six with the Chicago Cubs, two with the Boston Red Sox and two with the then-Florida Marlins. Upon his election, Cooperstown decided to engrave a Montreal hat along with his accolades; at the time, blank caps were not used as an option. But Dawson was never comfortable with that and three years ago publicly requested that his plaque be changed to a Cubs hat.
He won't get that, but he will get a blank cap.
"I always felt that I was a Cub in the Hall of Fame. I just had the 'M' on the cap," Dawson said on Wednesday (via MLB.com). "That's what I always related to. That's where my heart was, even though I was six years a Cub. It means everything. It means I finally had the opportunity to provide my input."
Dawson won the 1977 Rookie of the Year award with Montreal and received MVP votes in five of his seasons there. In Chicago, he won the 1987 MVP award, leading the league in home runs and RBI, and went to five All-Star Games.
While inductees get input on their plaque, the Hall of Fame gets the final say.
"The Hall of Fame Board of Directors voted unanimously to provide Andre Dawson with the option of having no logo on his Hall of Fame plaque, which will be recast to reflect his wishes," Jane Forbes Clark, chairman of the Board of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, said in a statement Wednesday. "This decision gives Andre a choice that he would have taken if it had been available when he was elected in 2010, just four years prior to the formal implementation of that alternative."
