PADRES UPDATE : NOTEBOOK / BOB NIGHTENGALE : Essian, Picciolo Share Laugh

It happened 14 years ago in another city, in another league, but Cub Manager Jim Essian and Padre third base coach Rob Picciolo, former teammates, still laugh about it.

Essian was a catcher for the Chicago White Sox when it happened. They were in the middle of a tie game against the Texas Rangers in Arlington when there was a meeting on the mound between White Sox Manager Bob Lemon, Essian, and the pitcher.

With Juan Beniquez on third base and Mickey Rivers on first base, Lemon told Essian not to worry about Rivers. That gave Essian a brainstorm.

“I had this sponge in my back pocket,” Essian said, “so on my way back I asked (home plate umpire) Bill Haller, ‘If Rivers goes for second and if I throw this sponge, is it against the rules?’ ”

Haller: “No, it’s not against the rules, but don’t do it.”

Essian: “I’m going to do it.”

Haller: “Don’t do it.”

Essian: “I’ve got to do it.”

On the next pitch, Rivers broke for second, and Essian threw the sponge wildly toward second. Beniquez started for home.

Surprise!

“I threw to third and we got him,” Essian said, still proud of the ingenuity. “We won that game in the 10th inning, too.”

Said Picciolo: “That’s Jim. Everything he did was a thing of beauty. It was the Esco-bar. The Esco-bloop. The Esco-line drive. It sure was a good time playing with him.” The ex-Padre player of the week award goes to none other than Jack Clark of the Boston Red Sox, who was in rare from this past week.

Clark, who departed the Padres as a second-look free agent in the winter, hit four home runs during the week, same as the entire Padre team.

Yet, in typical Ripper fashion, it hardly told the whole story of his week:

In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Clark told a columnist that he was fed up being a designated hitter, blamed the media for running the Red Sox and said he’d welcome a trade.

The next day, Clark said that wasn’t what he meant at all and insisted he was perfectly happy in Boston.

And when his drag racing team dropped from third to 12th in the NHRA Winston Championship Series, he fired the four crew members and shut down the team for a month.