Watching the clock approach midnight, Andre Dawson, up unusually late, alone with his thoughts, found himself welling up with emotion.
After the top of the hour came and went, he prayed.
“I had been giving it a lot of thought the last couple of months,” Dawson said by phone this week, “and the only thing I could come to was, ‘Where has the time gone?’
“But I guess that night, kind of suddenly, I started looking forward to it. I reflected on people who weren’t here that I’ve lost and was thinking, ‘I made it. I made it to 70.’ ”
Dawson, the Hall of Fame slugger who starred for the Cubs for six seasons beginning in 1987, turned 70 on Wednesday. It might not be the old-man milestone it once was, but who ever really knows how the big, round numbers in life are going to sneak up and affect us? For Dawson these days, the echoes of ash meeting cowhide are distant in his memory and certainly not what has him feeling so sentimental.
What he wanted most of all for his birthday was to surround himself with loved ones, of whom there are many in Miami, so a celebratory night out was enjoyed at Prime One Twelve, a swanky steakhouse in Miami Beach that’s known for being frequented by celebrities. Dawson’s wife of 47 years, Vanessa, and their children were there along with six of his siblings — Dawson is the eldest of eight — several nieces and nephews and a handful of his closest friends.
Dawson — always conscious of his appearance — sported a fresh haircut from earlier in the day. Not a big red-meat eater, he excitedly went the seafood route.
“I’m telling you, the fried shrimp are on steroids,” he said. “These things are humongous.”
He wasn’t there just for the food, though, nor to be seen or even to be celebrated. No, what he really wanted to do to ring in the Big Seven-Oh was — even if he knew it would bring tears to his eyes — tell the most special people in his life how much he loves them.
“I wanted to give them a nice experience, a nice place, and I wanted my birthday dinner to be something they would enjoy more so than I would,” he said. “And I wanted to use the day to give them their proper due for how supportive they’ve been throughout the course of my life, what they’ve meant to me.
“I’ve always been family oriented, being the eldest of eight. Growing up, for me, wasn’t a struggle but wasn’t easy. I always wanted to make sure, being who I was and what I meant to my family, that I would be able to be there for them. But they’re here for me, too, and I wanted them to know how very thankful I am for that.”
So he told them so — each one — and it was wonderful.
As a rookie of the year, MVP and eight-time All-Star who endured 12 knee surgeries over a 21-year career, Dawson was almost mythologized for his muscles, his determination and his tolerance of pain. But he wasn’t a superhero. He had to have his left knee replaced in 2006 and then — eight weeks later, the prosthesis failing — had to have the whole thing redone. His right knee was replaced in 2018, and his right hip last December. He’s also a cancer survivor, having been diagnosed with prostate cancer after the 2012 season, when he was working for the Marlins.
When he was 62, I searched for him in and around the visitors’ clubhouse at Wrigley Field and found him at the tail end of a workout that was, for a man his age, simply spectacular. On the bench press, he’d done three sets of 10 reps at 225 pounds, then sets of eight, six and four reps with 245 pounds, and finally four reps with 295 pounds — a five-times-a-week routine. One of his shoulders was screaming at him, but this was what he endured to fight for his health and his youthfulness.
Yeah, well, not anymore.
“One day I sat there and said to myself, ‘What the hell am I doing? I’m not playing anymore,’ ” he said. “That was an eye-opening moment.”
He still lifts — “maintenance stuff,” he calls it — and does a lot of walking and biking. Correction: Make that stationary biking.
“I don’t get out there on the street with those fools,” he said.
He’s still in the funeral-home business in Miami, his hometown, but lately he’s spending less time at work — and a bit more time, he supposes, in his feelings. Who ever knows what’ll sneak up and affect us?
“Turning 70 for me,” he said, “that’s a big number. That’s a really big number.”
