1962 Topps #256 Elio Chacon
About Elio Chacon
The Mets drafted Chacon from Cincinnati on October 10, 1961, and he opened their first season as the everyday shortstop, starting 106 games there and appearing in 118 overall. He hit .236 but drew 76 walks for a .368 on-base mark, and his 12 steals led the club. A May 28 scuffle with Willie Mays got him ejected. He is best remembered for the Yo La Tengo story, in which Richie Ashburn supposedly learned to call for fly balls in Spanish to keep from running him over - a tale Frank Thomas, its punchline, flatly denied decades later. Card #256 sits in the set's third series; the capless Mets portrait is an airbrushed Reds photo.
Elio Chacon was a Venezuelan infielder from Caracas, the son of Cuban Negro Leagues player Pelayo Chacon and the seventh player from Venezuela to reach the majors. He represented his country in baseball at the 1955 Pan American Games, debuted with the Cincinnati Reds on April 20, 1960, and hit .265 as a reserve second baseman for the 1961 National League champions, starting 34 games. In Game 2 of the 1961 World Series he blooped a single off Ralph Terry and scored the winning run in the Reds' only victory of that series. The expansion New York Mets took him with the fourth pick of the October 10, 1961 draft's regular phase, and he opened 1962 as their shortstop, starting 106 games there. A right-handed hitter listed at 5-foot-9 and 160 pounds, he closed a three-year major league career with a .232 average, four home runs, 20 stolen bases and 39 runs batted in over 228 games. He never returned to the majors after 1962, played on in Venezuela into the early 1970s, and died in Caracas in 1992 at 55.
Sources: Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 201 | 1 | 7 | 72 | 81 | 27 | 7 | 6 | 0 |
| SGC | 14 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
Graded population — a scarcity guide, not a price. Snapshot 2026-09-24. Half-grades fold down (8.5→8), and PSA's qualified grades are counted separately from the straight-grade rows shown here. Slabs of the three cards printed #139 are joined by description, never by number alone. PSA registers the green tints as a separate set; a tint's population is listed under that state of the card it belongs to.
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- #7 Frank Thomas
- #26 Chris Cannizzaro
- #29 Casey Stengel
- #85 Gil Hodges
- #94 Jay Hook
- #162 Sammy Drake
- #183 Roger Craig
- #213 Richie Ashburn
- #279 Hobie Landrith
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1962 Topps #256 card?
It is card #256 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Elio Chacon of the New York Mets.
How many cards are in the 1962 Topps Baseball set?
600 cards, tracked as 708 collectible states. The numbers run from 1 to 598 with no gaps, but three different cards were printed #139 - two Hal Reniff poses, catalogued 139a and 139b, and the Babe Hits 60 Babe Ruth Special, 139c - so 598 numbers make 600 cards; 93 cards carry catalogued print variations, the series-2 green tints among them, that the master set counts separately.
Sources: Baseball Almanac, Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, Cardboard Connection, BaseballCardPedia, The Topps Archives, Baseball-Reference, the SABR BioProject and the National Baseball Hall of Fame, PSA & SGC population reports. Card data compiled and maintained by T206Cards.com. Page last updated 2026-10-03.