Andre Nolan Dawson (born July 10, 1954), nicknamed "The Hawk" and "Awesome Dawson", is a former American professional baseball player. During a 21-year baseball career, he played for four different teams as a center and right fielder, spending most of his career with the Montreal Expos (1976-1986) and Chicago Cubs (1987-1992). An 8-time National League (NL) All-Star, he was named the league's Rookie of the Year in 1977 after batting .282 with 19 home runs and 65 runs batted in (RBI), and won the Most Valuable Player Award in 1987 after leading the league with 49 homers and 137 RBI; he had been runner-up for the award in both 1981 and 1983.

Dawson was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2010, his ninth year of eligibility, rising from an initial vote total of 45.3% in 2002 to 77.9% in 2010. Dawson's Hall of Fame plaque depicts him with a Montreal Expos cap.  The major impediments to Dawson's election to the Hall of Fame had been his ordinary career .323 on-base percentage, his statistics being diminished in stature by sluggers who played after him in the steroid era, and never playing in a World Series. Cubs teammate Ryne Sandberg campaigned for Dawson's induction during his speech at his own Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2005: "No player in baseball history worked harder, suffered more or did it better than Andre Dawson. He's the best I've ever seen. I watched him win an MVP for a last-place team in 1987 [with the Cubs], and it was the most unbelievable thing I've ever seen in baseball. He did it the right way, the natural way, and he did it in the field and on the bases and in every way, and I hope he will stand up here someday."  Andre Dawson was the second player in the Hall of Fame whose plaque depicts him with an Expos logo, after Gary Carter. Although Dawson had played the majority of his 21-year career with Montreal, he publicly expressed his disappointment with the decision, saying it was "a little gut-wrenching" to find out he would not go in as a Chicago Cub. Dawson's reluctance to be enshrined as an Expo stemmed, in part, from the breakdown of his relationship with the team during MLB's collusion scandal of 1986-87, when he claims the team not only "threw him out" of Montreal, but tried to prevent other teams from signing him as a free agent. While Dawson played only six years with the Cubs, five of his eight All-Star appearances were as a Cub, and his only MVP award came in his first year with the team in 1987. The Hall noted that "Dawson had 1,575 of his 2,774 hits as an Expo, won six of his eight Gold Glove awards in Montreal and led the Expos to their only postseason series win".

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