Page 166 - 1975 BoSox

’75—THE RED SOX TEAM THAT SAVED BASEBALL 159
Dillard batted second and had a 2-for-5 game, scoring two runs and even stealing a base. He was awless in the eld, with eight chances. He enjoyed a .400 batting average his rst year in the majors. “Everything was downhill there after that,” he joked.
In 1976 Dillard made the team out of spring training, and got into 57 games. By year’s end, he’d hit a very good .275, and also claimed his rst major-league home run, o left-hander Dave Roberts in Tiger Stadium, a three-run homer on September 19. For a period of time in August he was sent down to try to learn second base, a position he’d played for a few games back in eighth grade or thereabouts. After his couple of surger- ies, Dillard wasn’t able to throw as well as before, and the Red Sox thought they might be able to convert him from a utility player to a second baseman. Shortstop was a position that was pretty well set for the Sox, with Rick Burleson. Second base seemed like a good position to learn.
Between ’76 and ’77, there had been an interlude where Steve had played winter ball for Valencia Magallanes in Venezuela. Most of the position players were in the Pirates organization, but Steve was able to go in, and played second base for a couple of months. e experi- ence was “OK,” but he did say at the time that he’d never go back. He wasn’t sure if it really helped him to develop in any way. Most of the players were American at that time, and Steve remembered the crowds as sometimes passionate. “When Magallanes and Caracas played in Caracas, that was a big rivalry, I guess like the Red Sox and Yankees, so when they played, you might have 30,000 or so. Some big crowds there.”
At second base, Dillard was behind Doug Gri n and Denny Doyle, but in 1977 he platooned with Doyle, batting against left-handers while Doyle played against right-handers. “I didn’t get to play a lot because most teams didn’t want to start a left-hander in Fenway, so more of my playing I guess was really on the road than it was at home.” He got more starts the year before, and more at-bats. In 1977 Dillard’s average dipped to .241.
Early in December 1977, the Red Sox acquired second baseman Jerry Remy from the California Angels. “I knew it was going to be pretty crowded and I asked Haywood Sullivan, I called him and told him I wouldn’t mind getting traded if the opportunity was there.” e Red Sox accommodated Dillard and on January 30, 1978, he was traded to Detroit for two minor-league prospects and some money. “ ey just tried to help me out, give me a chance.” He was optimistic about his chance to get more playing time with the Tigers, but that’s not how it worked out.“It looked like I was going to get a real good opportunity over there because they had a couple of young in elders and they didn’t know how much they were going to play or how well they were going to do, and that was Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker.” Dillard platooned with Whitaker for the rst month or so, but Lou “was just wearing it out, so I didn’t play very much after that.”
After a full year with the Tigers, near the end of spring training 1979, Dillard was moved to the National League, traded to the Chicago Cubs. “I got traded to the Cubs and spent three years with them. at was a good time. I enjoyed playing with them. e Red Sox, to me, were the greatest place to play in the American League and I thought the Chicago Cubs, that was the greatest place to play in the National League.” Partly it was the old ballparks that appealed to him, but more so the fans, with how devoted and “crazy about their teams” they were. Dillard hit .283 his rst year with the Cubs, but tailed o sharply to just .225 his second year. e players strike in 1981 curtailed play for everyone, and Dillard’s average dropped a bit more to .218 in more limited action, though he still amassed 119 at-bats. “We came back and played after the strike. We were out about six weeks that year, and then came back and played. I don’t think I played hardly at all after the strike, and that was when the Cubs brought in Dallas Green from the Phillies to run their major-league operation, and he released a bunch of guys.” Dillard was released on December 17, 1981, but hooked on pretty quickly with the White Sox.