Hire Me? Hire This Guy Instead!

Hi gang! Jim “Skip” Essian here, checking in with you just before the pennant race gets any more uninteresting. You see, the Cubs are pulling away from Milwaukee and St. Louis, threatening to make September moot. The Cubs close August with 13 games after going 11-4 in their first 15. Ten of the final 13 are at home (three are in Pittsburgh). The final four games are at home against potential playoff opponent Philadelphia. The other nine games are against the Reds, Nationals and Pirates. If the Cubs can go 5-8 the rest of the month and winless the rest of the way, they’d still finish .500, a feat that not even Jim Essian’s Cubs could accomplish.

Pardon me if I am a little testy the next few days, but the 2008 Cubs are threatening to become the ninth Cubs team to eclipse 76 wins ever since my club pulled it off 17 years ago. We won 77 games in 1991 despite only getting 160 games. That year, it wasn’t so easy to win 77 games. We had to win the last four games of the season — two of them on the back of Greg Maddux, who threw two complete games three days apart. That 77th win of the season, I’ll never forget. Dawson and Grace each went deep. Derrick May hit an RBI double. Sandberg blew it open with an RBI double (just a couple batters after Dunston scored on a balk). And then Dawson went deep for the 31st and final time of the year just before budding star Hector Villanueva belted a solo blast.

These Cubs have it so easy. They won’t need Maddux throwing 117 pitches and heroics from Derrick May and Hector Villanueva. They’ll probably get wins number 77 and 78 this week, a full five weeks before the regular season is done.

The 1991 Cubs still have a record this club won’t touch. We played 83 regular season home games, a record Lou’s bunch won’t break. Yes, look it up. Concrete falling from the Olympic Stadium roof moved two games to Wrigley (and canceled a third game).

That all said, I have to concede that maybe hiring me might not be the Cubs’ No. 1 priority right now. Besides, I think we need to concentrate on finding work for another gentleman:




Yes, this is our friend Elias Coblentz, president of the Jim Edmonds fan club.

Mr. Coblentz decided to let us all know his profession. This, of course, would be insightful given that his favorite ballplayer e-mailed Elias’ last known place of employment and learned that said place no longer held Elias Coblentz in its employ. As one of my predecessors (and HJE contributor) Lee Elia once said, Elias “should get a $@!& job and learn what it’s like to earn a %@^! living.”

Apparently, he’s tried to learn.

What is Elias’ profession?

He doesn’t know.

“I’ve worked jobs for years,” Elias Coblentz tells us. The guy could not have been out of diapers when I managed that three game sweep of the Cardinals to finish off my tenure in 1991. This kid can’t be out of high school, right?

No, my sources tell me he’s in his early 20s. Let’s examine the job history of a Cardinal backer:

A research development person for Monsanto Technology. “A fancy term for a detassler of corn.”

A columnist. Anyone can be a columnist these days.

A photographer — “Not a photographer with his own booth or studio. Like a freelance photographer who has had his photographs published [sic].”

A radio personality (”for a very brief time.”) Again, this puts him in select company.

A car salesman. (”Hated that.”) Again, good company he’s in.

Now he’s a delivery man — not “in a traditional sense,” he tells us. He delivers something we all have in our home every day — “if you don’t have it, eventually, you’re going to die.” That hint was all he gave us.

Please, Elias, tell us what you deliver:

Food?

Water?

Sudafed and antifreeze?

Oh, he’s not done with his resume:

• Stand-up comic and musician. Together? Separately? It’s a cruel world when those who are actually good at the craft do not outlive those who are not.
• IBM computer repairman. He did this while in college (pray tell, what college let this guy in?). So why did he not stick with his job as a computer repairman (and software installer)?

1. It was a “dorky thing to do.”
2. “I’m a Mac guy anyway. I hate PCs.”

Very nice, Elias. So far, you’ve flitted around with no place to go. Perhaps you could serve as designated chauffeur for a Major League team that needs help knowing when to say when. Think they’d be able to pay you a significant number?



Well, Mr. Coblentz wraps up this captivating video explaining that he knows what he’s good at. He has two fortes:

1. Sales.
2. Entertaining people.

I don’t know how good he is at sales, but yes, it’s obvious, he does know how to entertain people. Someone, please hire this man!

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