Little-known Mets pitcher from Long Island honored to receive invite to Old-Timers' Day

The culmination of a baseball journey began with a phone call one day in March.

Jay Horwitz, the Mets' longtime director of media relations who is now vice president of alumni relations and the team's historian, was on the other end of the line and asked Steve Dillon a straightforward question: Was he interested in participating in the Mets’ Old-Timers Day?

“I said, 'I’m more than interested,' and that’s how I got invited,” Dillon told Newsday during an interview at his Baldwin home recently. Dillon will be one of 65 former players and managers who will be honored before Saturday's game against the Rockies at Citi Field. 

“Since this began in March, it’s taken over my mind. Waiting for it to happen, talking to Jay [Horwitz and] finding out more about it, it’s totally taken me over,” Dillon said. “I’m really looking forward to going there. … It’s going to be an honor to meet all these guys and say hello.”

Dillon, 79, is among nine former players who will represent the 1960s-era Mets. Scheduled to join him are Craig Anderson (1962-64), Jay Hook (1962-64), Ken MacKenzie (1962-63), Cleon Jones (1963-75), Frank Thomas (1962-64), Art Shamsky (1968-71), Ron Swoboda (1965-70), and Ed Kranepool (1962-79). 

For Dillon, it is a chance to catch up with old friends. 

“Craig Anderson. He was established when I was with the Mets," Dillon said. "I’m looking forward to seeing him. Ron Swoboda, we played together in the minor leagues. Eddie Kranepool, [who] I kept in contact with. Periodically, we would meet up [and] talk. Eddie has gone through some serious health issues. I haven’t seen him since he had the [kidney] transplant. So I’m looking forward to seeing him. … Frank Thomas. He was a home run hitter. I had some good times with him just reminiscing, but I haven’t seen these people in a long time.”

Born in Yonkers and raised in the Bronx, Dillon signed with the Yankees out of Cardinal Hayes High School. The Mets selected Dillon in the first-year draft in November 1962, months after he compiled a 14-7 record and 2.61 ERA with the Yankees’ Class D farm team in Fort Lauderdale.

Dillon pitched in three major league games for the then-nascent franchise in the 1963 and 1964 seasons. Although he recorded an ERA of 9.64 in 4.2 innings and was not credited with a win or charged with a loss, the left-hander does hold a place in franchise history as he played in the first night game at Shea Stadium, a 12-4 loss to the Reds on May 6, 1964. Dillon pitched a scoreless eighth but yielded two runs on three hits in the ninth, beginning with Vada Pinson’s homer off the scoreboard.

That prompted some words from manager Casey Stengel when the half inning ended. 

“I went to the end of the dugout and all of a sudden I heard his gruff voice, ‘Dillon. Dillon. Come on down here,’ ” Dillon recalled. “I went down and he said to me if I allow another ball to be hit off the scoreboard and break the scoreboard I’m going to pay for it. It was his way of calming me down.” 

Dillon spent the 1965 season splitting time between Single-A Auburn and Double-A Williamsport, and shortly thereafter retired. He joined the NYPD in 1969 and spent 21 years as a police officer “and then I worked in private security for another 30 years,” he said.

So Old-Timers' Day gives Dillon the possibility of taking the mound once more.

“I play racquetball and I belong to a club,” Dillon said. “And the guys that I play ball with are ballplayers. Not professionally but they played [in] college or high school and I am throwing the ball to them. Just so if I get a chance, an opportunity to get on the mound, I at least will present myself, that I was a pitcher for real.”