As birthday presents go, fishing with baseball Hall of Famer Andre Dawson is hard to beat.
But 12-year-old Drew Blazekovich and his father, Jeff, got a lot more than they bargained for when they headed out of Fort Lauderdale to fish offshore with the former Chicago Cubs outfielder.
An electrician from Diamond, Ill., who fishes primarily for bass, Blazekovich, 34, won a WFN contest looking for the Chicago area’s most passionate angler. The winner got to fish with Dawson.
They were supposed to fish on Lake Michigan, but Dawson, who lives in Miami, is a Special Assistant to the President of the Florida Marlins and it fit his schedule better if Blazekovich could come to South Florida. When asked if he could, Blazekovich said, “Of course!”
A trip was set up with Capt. Jimmy Wickett, who arranged for his friend Capt. Jeff Maggio to take everybody out on his 31-foot Bertram Team NV. Blazekovich and his son flew in the night before and met Dawson at Lauderdale Marina the following morning, which was Drew's birthday.
Although the fishing was slow, no one minded as Dawson told stories about his playing days and talked about the Marlins.
When a dolphin finally hit a jig that Maggio was trolling behind his boat and Wickett handed the rod to Drew, Dawson showed the same drive and determination that earned him a spot in the Hall of Fame.
Dawson got behind the 6th-grader, grabbed the rod with both hands to steady it so the youngster could reel in the fish and urged him on.
“Come on now!” Dawson said. “You’re better than that fish!”
Within two minutes, the dolphin was in the boat and Dawson was telling Drew what a great job he did.
“My friends are never going to believe this,” Drew said.
Things got even more unbelievable when Dawson invited Drew and his dad to attend that night's Marlins game against the Nationals and go with him into the Marlins locker room.
As Jeff Blazekovich said, this was a birthday that neither he nor Drew will ever forget.
