#23 New York Met Larry Elliot after his cup of coffee.

 Here is the first New York Met card to appear in the '67 set. Mets cards struck me as interesting when I first got my 9 year old hands on this set. The Mets were the reigning World Champions and while I was never a true Met fan, I respected the team and all of their players.

Generally, these '67 Met cards appealed to me. The lettering is striking and stands out against the photo well. This card failed to grab my attention at the time because Larry Elliot is a bonafide unknown Major Leaguer. For one thing, Larry Elliot didn't play in the Majors again after 1966. He had "a cup of coffee" with the Pittsburgh Pirates. A cup of coffee usually means a player spent such a short time with a team that it was as though he was there for a cup of coffee. Elliot was in the Pirate minor leagues for a few years but he only appeared in 12 Pirate games in two years. This was good enough for Topps tp feature Larry Elliot on a Mets Rookie Stars card in their '64 set. Elliot did appear in 80 games that year but didn't do much at the plate. His .228 AVG 9 homers 8 doubles in '64 led to his being demoted to the minors in '65. In '66, his playing time was less, his batting average was higher and he called it a day at the end of the season at the age of 28. Typically, when players with low batting averages and poor slugging percentages find themse selves in the Majors because they're great fielders. This is likely the case with Elliot, though he knocked around for a full decade in the minors.

His card has a decent photo with a nice view of the Shea Stadium scoreboard in the background.

Because of Elliot's long career in the minors, Topps made rookie star cards for him in '63 and '64. Both cards had multiple players on them. This is his first and last Topps card that features only him on it.