- Elio Chacón
Elio Chacón Rodríguez (
October 26 ,1936 –April 24 ,1992 ) was aMajor League Baseball second baseman andshortstop who played in theNational League between 1960-64. He was the seventh baseball player fromVenezuela to play in the majors.Chacón batted .265 as a reserve second baseman with the NL Champion
Cincinnati Reds of 1961. In game two of thatWorld Series , Chacón hit a key bloop single againstNew York Yankees pitcher Ralph Terry , and scored the winning run in the Reds' only victory in the series.During the 1962 season, New York Mets center fielder
Richie Ashburn and Elio Chacón found themselves colliding in the outfield. When Ashburn went for a catch, he would scream, "I got it! I got it!" only to run into the 160-pound Chacón, who spoke only Spanish. Ashburn learned to yell, "¡Yo la tengo! ¡Yo la tengo!" which is "I've got it" in Spanish. In a later game, Ashburn happily saw Chacón backing off. He relaxed, positioned himself to catch the ball, and was instead run over by 200-pound left fielder Frank Thomas, who understood no Spanish. The band,Yo La Tengo , gets its name from this baseball anecdote.In October 10, 1961, an expansion draft to stock the
Houston Astros andNew York Mets new National League clubs was conducted in Cincinnati. Chacón was the Mets' first candidate for the starting shortstop job. He led the club instolen base s in the inaugural season of 1962, but then never appeared in the major leagues again. According to "The Mets Fan's Little Book of Wisdom" byBucky Fox , Chacon got into a brawl withWillie Mays . That is why he didn't play in the Majors again.Chacón was a .232 career hitter with four
home run s, 28 RBI, 49 runs, and 20 stolen bases in 228 games played. In the Mets all-timers database popularity, he is ranked at # 250 in a list of 726 players.Elio Chacón died in
Caracas, Venezuela , at the age of 55.ee also
* List of Venezuelan players in "MLB"
*Cincinnati Reds all-time roster External links
*Elio Chacon's career statistics at [http://www.baseball-reference.com/c/chacoel01.shtml Baseball Reference]
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