Question of the day: What is your favorite Lou Piniella moment?

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Reporters from around the Tribune family tackle the question of the day, then you get a chance to chime in and tell them why they’re wrong. Check back throughout the day for updates.

Bill Shaikin, Los Angeles Times

Piniella had a pretty fair playing career, and he managed the Cincinnati Reds to an improbable sweep of the mighty Oakland A’s in the 1990 World Series. Alas, so long as highlight shows shall live, Piniella shall be remembered for his mammoth meltdowns.

Search for ‘Lou Piniella ejection’ on YouTube and you get 58 results. Here’s our favorite, in his younger and feistier days, as manager of the Seattle Mariners, in which he yanks first base out of the ground and then heaves it, not once but twice.

Bonus points for the shot of a grinning Alex Rodriguez, playing for Texas, who might have been thinking -- given what we know now -- ‘I’m on steroids, but Lou is the guy having the crazy side effects!’

[Updated at 12:18 p.m.

Joseph Schwerdt, Sun Sentinel

Lost during the years manager Lou Piniella was kicking dirt, hurling bases and expletives and channeling Billy Martin was this: Player Lou Piniella was pretty bleepin’ good.

Piniella won rookie of the year with the Royals, was an All-Star, won two rings with the Yankees and retired with a .291 lifetime average, .319 in four World Series. So forget the ranting and raving and store away this all-time Piniella memory: Yankees-Red Sox, 1978, one-game playoff, Yanks up 5-4, bottom of the ninth, Rick Burleson on first, Jerry Remy hits a knuckling line drive to right. Piniella loses the ball in the sun but pretends to have it all the way, freezing Burleson before Piniella catches on a bounce, holding runners to first and second.

Smart manager? Sure. But Piniella was a really good, really smart player.]