Happy Jim Essian Signing Day!
On this date in 1969, the Philadelphia Phillies signed an 18-year-old kid as an amateur free agent. That kid was named Jim Essian. Essian went on to play twelve years in the Major Leagues, hitting .244/.327/.347 over that time, with 33 home runs and 207 RBIs. Essian’s best season came in 1977 with the Chicago White Sox. Essian batted .273 with a .374 OBP and a .435 SLG. Essian hit 10 home runs with 44 RBIs that season. Showing incredible patience at the plate, Essian walked 52 times while only striking out 35 times. In his career, Essian always exhibited that same patience, as he walked 231 times in his career against 171 strikeouts.
Of course, Essian parlayed his successful playing career into an all-too-brief managerial career. In 1991, Jim took over for fired Cubs interim manager Joe Altobelli, coaching the final 122 games of the 1991 season. Essian went 59-63 for the Cubs, good for a .484 winning percentage and a fourth-place finish in the National League East.
Other less notable events in 1969:
- January 12 - Led Zeppelin releases their first album, Led Zeppelin.
- January 30 - The Beatles give their last public performance, on the roof of Apple Records. The impromptu concert was broken up by the police.
- February 4 - In Cairo, Yasser Arafat is appointed Palestine Liberation Organization leader at the Palestinian National Congress, and takes command the next day.
- February 8 - The last issue of The Saturday Evening Post hits magazine stands.
- March 17 - Golda Meir becomes the first female prime minister of Israel.
- March 28 - Former United States General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower dies after a long illness in the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C..
- April 4 - Dr. Denton Cooley implants the first temporary artificial heart.
- April 14 - The EC-121 shootdown incident: North Korea shoots down the aircraft over the Sea of Japan, killing all 31 on board.
- April 25 - Joe Buck is born. Essian is too busy playing baseball to smother him in his nursery.
- May 10 - The Battle of Dong Ap Bia, also known as Hamburger Hill, begins during the Vietnam War.
- May 23 - Tommy, the first of two rock operas by The Who is released.
- June 15 - Hee Haw debuts on CBS.
- June 23 - Warren E. Burger is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States by retiring chief Earl Warren.
- July 8 - Vietnam War: The very first U.S. troop withdrawals are made.
- July 20 - Project Apollo: The Eagle lands on the lunar surface. The world watches in awe as Neil Armstrong takes his historic first steps on the Moon.
- August 9 - Members of a cult led by Charles Manson murder Sharon Tate, (who was 8 months pregnant), and her friends Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, and Jay Sebring at Tate and husband Roman Polanski’s home in Los Angeles, California. Steven Parent, leaving from a visit to the Polanskis’ caretaker, is also killed. More than 100 stab wounds are found on the victims, except for Parent, who had been shot almost as soon as the Manson Family entered the property.
- August 15-August 18 - The Woodstock Festival is held in upstate New York, featuring some of the top rock musicians of the era.
- September 2 - The first automatic teller machine in the United States is installed in Rockville Centre, New York.
- September 7 - Monty Python’s Flying Circus airs its first episode on the BBC.
- Something happened with the Cubs and the Mets.
- October 9-October 12 - Days of Rage: In Chicago, the United States National Guard is called in to control demonstrations involving the radical Weathermen, in connection with the “Chicago Eight” Trial.
- October 31 - Wal-Mart incorporates as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
- November 10 - The Children’s Television Workshop’s educational television program Sesame Street is premiered in the United States.
- November 21 - The first ARPANET link is established (the progenitor of the global Internet).
- December 1 - Vietnam War: The first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II (on January 4, 1970, the New York Times will run a long article, “Statisticians Charge Draft Lottery Was Not Random”).
- December 4 - Black Panther Party members Fred Hampton and Mark Clark are shot dead in their sleep during a raid by 14 Chicago police officers.
Congratulations, Skip! I hope you’re celebrating wherever you are!
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Comments
Bad Kermit Bah. Nice catch, J Rod. It was obviously meant to read “…against 171 strikeouts.” I fixed it.
Flem Fun fact about 1969: Midnight Cowboy appeared in theaters and became the only rated X movie ever to win the Best Picture Oscar. John Voight played the main character in that movie, a male prostitute named Joe Buck, coincidentally in the same year that Joe Buck the announcer was born.
Bad Kermit I wonder if Skip knows that today is the anniversary of his signing day. I would hunt down and tell his son, if that wouldn’t instantly be ranked the #1 creepiest thing I’ve ever done.
Bad Kermit Move over, “Pulled the wings off a bunch of flies and arranged them in a pentagram.” I e-mailed Skip, Jr. to let him know that today is Essian Signing Day.
Bored Again Move over, “Pulled the wings off a bunch of flies and arranged them in a pentagram.”
I can’t stop laughing BK
Bad Kermit If you don’t stop in 4 hours, go see a doctor. Or maybe that’s just for Boweners.
StPatrick Poor Roman Polanski. Being a widower is nothing to joke about. I guess I understand where he was coming from with that other thing now…or not.
CT
Bocaj
BigFlax
StPatrick
TDubbs
Heh heh…69.