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On Tuesday, it was announced that long-time Expos and Cubs outfielder Andre Dawson was voted by the Baseball Writers Association of America to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Dawson will be inducted on July 25th, in Cooperstown, NY, along with former Major League manager Whitey Herzog and umpire Doug Harvey, who were both elected by the Veterans Committee in December. The statistic that most people in the media are tossing out there, as pertaining to Dawson, is that he is one of three players in the history of MLB to hit at least 400 homeruns and steal at least 300 bases. The other two men are Barry Bonds and Willie Mays. That is obviously a very exclusive club and Dawson is quite deserving. In his 21-year career, Dawson hit 438 homers, drove in 1591 runs and had 2774 hits. Not to take anything away from those who ARE being honored this year, but I feel as though it's time to honor someone who has been deserving for a long time. If you aren't familiar ...

Let's take a break from the history and take it easy on this hot Sunday with a classic baseball related story. The following tale is an excerpt from famous negro leaguer Buck O'Neil's great book I Was Right on Time . O'Neil happened to be the very first African American MLB coach. This story explains the origins of why his pal Satchel Paige had a unique nickname for him. When Satchel and I were with the (Kansas City) Monarchs, we played this one game on an Indian reservation near Sioux Falls, South Dakota. It was there that Satchel, who had a weakness for a pretty face, and the more of them the better, met this beautiful Indian maiden named Nancy, and since we were going to Chicago to play the Chicago American Giants, he invited Nancy to visit him there. She had some relatives there or something, so she accepted his invitation, and he told her we were staying at the Evans Hotel. Well, now we were in Chicago, and I was sitting in the coffee shop of the Evans Hotel wh...