Like Lots of People, Elster Looking for a Job : Baseball: Following surgery on his throwing shoulder, former Met shortstop is a free agent hoping to revive his career.

Everything always came easily to Kevin Elster, from his ability to cover acres of ground at shortstop to his knack of coming up with pithy remarks that endeared him to the New York media during his days with the Mets.

“I had a pretty fast track to the major leagues. I had no real trouble getting there,” said Elster, who was a standout at Marina High School and Golden West College before signing with the Mets. “Now, it’s a matter of staying healthy.”

That’s no small matter for Elster, who underwent surgery on his right shoulder in May.

Uncertain how well he would rebound from the operation--the second on his throwing shoulder in two years--the Mets didn’t offer him a contract after the 1992 season, and he became a free agent. Elster, 28, is throwing three times a week and working out at Golden West while he tries to revive his career and win a spring training invitation from another team.

“My shoulder is wonderful,” he said. “It’s the best it’s felt since I originally hurt it. All the signs point toward go. I’ve been throwing 140 feet, which is farther than I’d have to throw, and I’m building up strength. . . .

“We have a few things going. Houston is one, and L.A. is another. I think (this month), I’m going to go up to Dodger Stadium and throw for Tommy (Lasorda) and Fred (Claire, the Dodgers’ general manager) so they can see me and they can get a feel for what they want to do with (Jose) Offerman. I’m going to get myself into camp with somebody.”

Elster was drafted by the Mets in 1984, after his second year at Golden West. He hit .338 his first season with the Rustlers and overcame a slow start to hit .349 his second season, all the while honing his superb defensive skills.

Despite a 6-2, 200-pound frame that’s considered bulky for a shortstop, Elster has always been smooth and quick, displaying remarkable range to his left and good range to his right. In 1988, his first full season with the Mets, he set a National League record for most consecutive errorless games in one season by playing flawlessly in the last 60 games, a record later eclipsed by Montreal’s Spike Owen.

He carried his streak into the 1989 season and set a major league record for consecutive errorless games by a shortstop by playing 88 games (and handling 294 chances) without an error. That record was broken by Baltimore’s Cal Ripken Jr., who played 95 games without an error in 1990.

Although not an offensive threat in the major leagues--his career batting average is .224--Elster set a Met record for runs batted in by a shortstop when he drove in 55 in 1989. That same season, he tied Ed Bressoud’s club record for home runs by a shortstop with 10.

Those were to be his best days in New York. The Mets went to the NL playoffs in 1988, but by 1990, the team was broken up by trades and free agency. Elster’s prospects took a distinct downturn when he hurt his shoulder during the 1990 season. He’s not sure when it happened, only that it was never quite right afterward.

“I believe (the injury occurred) in an incident against the Padres, when I charged the mound after getting hit,” Elster said. “I never had any trouble with my arm before that. I’m a real fluid thrower, and I never had any mechanical problems before that. . . . It might have been a game we played in the rain (after which he and pitcher Dwight Gooden developed sore arms). That was ridiculous, if you’d seen how hard it was raining. Joe West was umpiring that day. If I were Dwight, I would have walked off the mound.”

He made it through a long summer, finally undergoing arthroscopic surgery in September, 1990. “It seemed to do the job and it got me through one year (1991) although I kind of sputtered,” said Elster, who also spent 15 days on the disabled list in 1991 because of a strained groin muscle. He batted .241 in 115 games, including 98 starts at short.

“But it really didn’t fix it,” he said of the arthroscopy. “I couldn’t play on a consistent basis. I’d play a few days and take a couple days off. I was on a lot of anti-inflammatory drugs. I was in some pain still.

“I got into spring training (in 1992), and (Manager Jeff) Torborg and Company didn’t believe it was going to get better, and I really was in some pain. As soon as they traded for (Dick) Schofield, I had it operated on.”

Elster never did hit it off with Torborg, whose rah-rah approach clashed with Elster’s dark sense of humor. Invited early to spring training in 1992, Elster didn’t arrive as scheduled because of flight delays, but Torborg took his later-than-expected arrival as the sign of a bad attitude.

However, that became moot early in the season. After trying to ignore the weakness in his shoulder, Elster had to acknowledge he could no longer throw. His season ended May 7, when Dr. Frank Jobe repaired and stabilized the anterior capsule of his right shoulder during surgery. “It’s turned out a lot better than I’d expected,” Elster said.

He couldn’t say the same of his Met career. If the Mets’ acquisition of Schofield from the Angels for Julio Valera in April warned Elster his days in New York were numbered, their October acquisition of Tony Fernandez from the Padres for Wally Whitehurst, D.J. Dozier and a minor leaguer was a push out the door.

“It was sad in one respect, because everybody has a little pride and you want to play for the organization that developed you,” said Elster, whose career fielding average of one error every 34.6 chances at short is the best in Met history. “I enjoyed playing in New York, and who knows, I might play there again someday, but not now.

“I really think the organization is really going the wrong way. It’s gone downhill since they started trading away great players like Lenny Dykstra, Rick Aguilera, Wally Backman, Darryl Strawberry, Bob Ojeda, Ron Darling and Mookie Wilson. None of those guys should have been gone. It was a championship team and it was broken up so quickly. It was a popular team, too.

“You play your whole life to try to get onto a team like that, and it was gone so quickly. But I guess you just try to do it with another club.”

If all else fails, and he can’t hook on with another club, what would Elster do? His family used to raise and breed cats, and he still has several as pets at his home in Huntington Beach. Anything else?

“I’m going to be a gigolo,” he said, adding a laugh. “Really, I haven’t thought too much about it. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Right now, I think I can still play and I know I want to play.