Archive for the “Skip Johnson (Jim Essian)” Category

Skip Johnson, aka Jim Essian here. Thought I’d stop in with the season 47/162nd of the way through.

If you’ve checked the Cubs’ May 2008 schedule, you might have noticed a couple of things:
1) The Cubs are 11-9 so far this month, not bad for starting the month 1-5 and having to play three games in Houston. If they go 6-3 against Pittsburgh, the Dodgers and the Rockies, they’ll have matched their win total for April, a month that earned a glowing review from hardscrabble blogger Mike Donohue.
2) What did those zany marketing guys do to May 22? I see the same people took over the banner of this site. I might have to do to Kermit what I did to Kirk Gibson once on an ice rink if he keeps this up. Maybe Kermit can get his act together and get MLB and the Cubs to treat May 22 on a calendar with the respect it deserves. Do you like the May 2008 calendar a little better with May 22 commemorated the way it was supposed to be?

Yes, today is a special day at HJE, Wrigley Field, Shea Stadium, baseball stadiums everywhere, Armenia, and anywhere humanity exists. It’s Jim Essian Day.

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In honor of the happiest time of the year, they have made today, April 3, Armenian Appreciation Day. It’s noted on Geocities, so it’s got to be true. It’s no secret that I’m fiercely proud of my Armenian heritage, so much so that I sensed shenanigans when HJE went out the other day? Hmm, a site dedicated to re-employ an Armenian-American goes kaput just as the current Cubs manager fell to 0-2 and in panic shuffled his lineup. Sweet Lou felt the pressure of Skip Johnson breathing down his neck, but the campaign to get me back in the Cubs dugout went down. So, I placed a couple calls. One was to this profane guy called Bad Kermit. Turned out it was the wrong one. The second call was to the artist formerly known as “M R.” Amazingly, his crack legal defense team hadn’t shut down Hire Jim Essian! (I think his crack legal defense team was out at the Purple Hotel with the federal government’s star witness.)
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Guys, I was just about to order a belated birthday gift (the official HJE 3/4 sleeve baseball shirt, of course) from the whole gang here at HJE for none other than Jim Essian himself. I have the option to send a birthday card along with the shirt. My first two drafts of the card are complete rubbish. The card needs to be heartfelt, yet not wussy. Respectful, yet not ass-kissing. Grateful, yet not giddy.

Any thoughts on what we should say to the Man behind the site? And, since some out there have doubted my credibility in the past, YES, THIS IS GOING TO BE SENT TO THE REAL JIM ESSIAN.

Yesterday’s opportunity to meet Jim Hendry was actually only the second-best thing that happened to me. The best? Receiving an e-mail from the REAL “Son of Jim Essian.” In the “Happy Birthday, Jim Essian!” post, Jim’s nephew Bob popped up, saying, among other things, that “Uncle Jim digs [the site].” I asked him if he would contact me so HJE could send him a shirt. Jim’s son, Skip, Jr., must have read the post, because I got an e-mail from him yesterday giving me the all-clear to send Skip, Sr. a shirt. That’s right. Somewhere out there JIM ESSIAN HIMSELF is going to be sporting a Hire Jim Essian! shirt.

Skip, Jr. also sent me some great pictures of his dad, included the one in this post. Awesome. Thanks for getting in touch with me, Skip, Jr. I’ll get the shirt sent out this weekend.

On January 2, 1951, James Sarkis Essian, Jr. was born in Detroit, Michigan. He went on to catch in parts of twelve seasons of Major League Baseball. After retiring in 1985, Essian became a coach for the Chicago Cubs. In 1991, after then-Cubs manager Don Zimmer was fired, Essian took the reigns and became the first ever (and perhaps only?) manager in baseball of Armenian heritage.

Happy birthday, Coach Essian! Remember, as George Bernard Shaw once said, “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”

Hi gang, it’s me, Skip checking in! This is a bittersweet time for me, watching Lou do such a masterful job with this club (although had Hendry hired me, we would have won game No. 110 Sunday).

Anyway, it’s a little disappointing that the Cubs have not invited me to partake in any of the festivities prior to any of these final home games. Doug Glanville gets to represent the 2003 club, but I don’t get a call to appear at Rally Monday? Doesn’t being the winningest Armenian-American manager of all-time mean anything? How about being the second-to-last Cubs’ manager named “Jim?” Oh well. If the Cubs couldn’t ask me to come up for Rally Monday, they could have at least called another former Iowa Cubs intern:

(Yes, that’s no one but the World-Famous 2005 Iowa Cubs intern Jessica Carper, aka the “Rally Carp.” Should someone find her and bring her to Wrigley, I’ll guarantee a World Series.)

Regardless, McDonough has a golden opportunity to redeem himself. The Cubs have at least one, if not up to nine, home games left. They had no problem inviting pseudo-celebrities to throw out the first pitch or sing “Take Me Out to The Ballgame” during the 2003 playoffs. Maybe that’s the problem. I’m available, and everyone knows I’ve been the reason the Cubs have been such the Cinderella team this year. No one has won as many games as manager of the Cubs while wearing No. 41 as I had, until Lou came aboard. You notice that Lou has not participated in a World Series ever since I became a Major League manager?

I managed one of the best Cubs’ farm affiliates ever — the 1987 Pittsfield Cubs. I gave my life to this team. Well at least 4 months of it to this club. Please send a letter to:

John McDonough
President
Chicago National League Ball Club
1060 W. Addison St.
Chicago, IL 60613

Or e-mail him at john.mcdonough@cubs.com. Or try calling 773-404-2827. All I need is a phone call. I’ll be there guys. I can sing the Seventh Inning Stretch, and I’m sure I’d be better than any loser named Lance.

By the way, I pick the Cubs in 4. Sunday will be a wild night, and then we’ll wait for the Phillies or the Rockies. Speaking of the Rockies, did anyone else laugh when they saw Michael Barrett drop the throw to the plate that would have been in time to get Matt Holliday?

In the excitement of taking three of four from the Thirdinals, we missed the anniversary of the debut of Jim Essian. For that, I fail. Saturday marked the 34th anniversary of Skip’s first at-bat, as he pinch hit for Ron Diorio with Skip’s Phillies down 4-1. Skip grounded into a 6-3 putout for the first out of the fifth inning, but went on to have a solid career both at the plate and behind it.

Happy Belated Jim Essian Major League Debut Day (any way we can shorten that?)!

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.
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I hope your weekend was a little better than the Cubs’. I’m hoping that Hendry senses a new direction is necessary. I could manage this club. It was rough for me on Thursday and Friday to watch Lou replace me as the winningest Cubs manager to ever wear No. 41. If Lou can just escape Durocher-style to Camp Ojibwa, and if Alan Trammell can contract food poisoning, I hope Hendry would know I’m available.

But this is not why I’m checking in today. When I see ridiculousness out there, no matter the source, my job is to expose it!

It appears that a group of basement dwellers haven’t received word that Plessy v. Ferguson has been overturned, so they have taken to sharing each other’s all-time greatest baseball teams, separating out the players by race. That’s right, they are debating about who is on their “All-White” teams (no Frank White? No Bill White? No Devon White? No Rondell White? No Hank White? Because of the color of their skin? Travesty!), their “All-Black” teams (minus Bud Black to boot), an “All-Hispanic” team encompassing anyone who has a Spanish-speaking last name and an “All-Asian” team filled with guys who look like they come from Asia. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m glad Sweet Uncle Lou is back with his Friday and Monday roundups, because I really wasn’t in the mood the fill in for him again. I have to look for work, you know, and it looks like I won’t be taking over the Cubs anytime soon. I do have to ask: How’s that Fire Lou Piniella movement working? If someone was looking to make dollars by cybersquatting on a Fire Lou Piniella site, I hope he has a decent job doing something else. Maybe he’s a commodities trader, like the “It’s Gonna Happen” moron.

Anyway, I come to you one week to the day after a very happy anniversary passed. No it wasn’t the 10-year anniversary of the founding of Desipio, unless news like this is music to your ears. The big anniversary was the 16th anniversary of one of my true managerial highlights. July 23, 1991 was a day revered by Cubs fans all over the world. I’d like to get together a reunion featuring Andre Dawson, Doug Dascenzo, Rob Dibble, Joe West, Lou Piniella and myself. I was going to mention it last Monday. And then I looked at the schedule: Friday night, Lou’s team was in the visitor’s dugout for a Reds-Cubs game, just as he was in 1991. Then something came up, and I had to attend to that. So, here we are reminiscing about an event exactly 16 years and one week ago today…

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