Essian went 0-3 at the plate in his first taste of the Big Leagues, but would go on to play Major League ball over the next 12 seasons, playing for five teams, some of them for more than one tenure.
His best year would be 1977 when he was a member of that hard-hitting Chicago White Sox team when he hit .273 while seeing the most action in any of his MLB seasons, hitting 10 homers while driving in 44, all three figures career-highs.
He’d go on to generally play as a back-up catcher until his final season of 1984, when he suited up for his fifth different team in five years, this time a return to the Oakland A’s for whom he played from 1978 through 1980.
His final numbers as a Big Leaguer: a .244 average with 453 hits in 1855 at-bats, hitting 33 homers and driving in 207 runs over 710 games.
