My First Cards

Fierce looking photo of The Hawk here, in his first All-Star card.

In 1981, Andre was 26 and just made his 1st All-Star game after posting a .325/.380/.598 batting line leading up to the strike. Once in the game, he smacks a 1st inning single off Jack Morris and then steals 2nd base.

So when we collected cards in ‘82, Andre was one of the big stars we were all excited about. His Expos were a top notch team, and he was a big reason why. For much of his career we thought he’d be a Hall of Famer. Every time he’d come to the plate against your team, you’d worry a little inside.

Lots of people these days think Dawson shouldn’t have been voted into Cooperstown because his career OBP is so low, and for a while, I was swayed to agree with that view. After all, if you got out more than most other stars, how could you possibly be a Hall of Famer?

That’s a legitimate question, but it really created more questions in my head than it answered.

So after taking a closer look at his stats, I realized that my memory of Andre being one of the most clutch hitters around was pretty accurate. This part seems to be lost on most of the sabermetrics fans. Check out some of how Andre Dawson got on base—

1. .409 OBP (Men on 2nd & 3rd)
2. .373 OBP (Man on 3rd)
3. .366 OBP (Man on 3rd w/ 2 out)
4. .363 OBP (Man on 2nd)
5. .349 (Overall RISP)
6. .315 OBP (Man on 1st)
7. .312 OBP (bases empty)

This makes it clear he didn’t get on base much when there was a runner on 1st base, and that dragged his overall OBP down, making him look worse when you don’t take into account his situational split stats. His RISP OBP would be even higher, if there weren’t a runner on 1st some of the times he had RISP too.

The point is, he didn’t often waste outs when there were runners in scoring position. That’s very important. If you’re going to get out, do it at less crucial points in the game.

Related to this, Andre ranks 48th all-time in Isolated Bases Earned (TB+BB+SB) with 5,690. That’s more than most of the guys in Cooperstown, including Willie McCovey, Ernie Banks, Willie Stargell, Jim Rice, and Richie Ashburn. If Andre did more for his team’s offense when he got on base than those guys, how can you leave him out?