VIDEO: Revisiting Lou Piniella Exploding at Wrigley Field and Kicking His Hat Around

With multiple decades of managerial experience, Lou Piniella is recognized as one of the best of his generation in baseball. But over the years, we've also come to remember Sweet Lou for his prodigious temper and long history of ejections. Piniella closed out his career as a skipper with a four-year stint in Chicago, and his first ejection in charge of the Cubs was an absolute doozy.

In 2007 against the Atlanta Braves, Cubs outfielder Angel Pagan tried to steal a base on a wild pitch, but that unforgiving Wrigley Field backstop helped the visitors throw him out at third base. The ball bounced in the dirt before the tag was applied on Pagan, and Mike Quade tried to argue with the umpire, but Piniella thought he'd have better luck convincing him.

Well, he didn't. Piniella got in the ump's face and threw his hat hard into the dirt to draw an immediate ejection, but Sweet Lou wasn't done there. Piniella went on a dirt-flinging, hat-kicking rampage and had to be restrained by two other umpires. The Wrigley Field faithful loved it so much that hats and trash were thrown from the stands, and the game came to a halt as the grounds crew cleared the playing field.

If there was ever a way for Piniella to make a bold first impression in Chicago, this was how. Sweet Lou was a terrific manager, but he'll forever be associated with his hilarious ejections and the meltdowns that often followed.