Lou Piniella doesn’t just say stuff to say it.  So when he went off in his postgame press conference after Monday night’s loss to the Cardinals, and challenged his team to “roll up your damn shirt and kick somebody’s ass” he had to be pleased to see one of his players lay out Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina, better known as the kid with the banjo from “Deliverance.”

While it was probably a little disappointing that it took the starting pitcher to do it, at least somebody did it.  

The play was perfectly legal, and completely clean, after all, while Ted was running headlong into Molina at home plate, Molina had a) the ball, b) about 14 pounds of protective equipment on, c) an extra chromosome or two.

Lilly was out, but he escaped the play unscathed.  Molina moped around like a pre-teen beauty pageant and eventually left the game.

A couple of innings later, Cardinals starting pitcher Braden Looper made a half-assed attempt to brush Lilly back off the plate, and what did Lilly do?  He stuck his arm out, trying to get hit by the pitch.

How do you not love this psycho?

He is, after all Theodore Roosevelt Lilly, and like his famous namesake, when there’s a hill that needs to be charged, Ted will grab the flag and run at it.  Last year, after Cubs losses he was 9-1, this year he’s 8-3.

(Actually, I just Ron Santo’ed that stat, I heard it once and believe those numbers are right.  Hey, they’re close, what more do you want?)

Now, speaking of psychos, the Cubs are headed into Houston after tonight’s game with the Cardinals, where a hurricane is expected to arrive shortly after they do.  The Astros are adamant about playing the series as scheduled, or at least trying to.  Their contingency plan includes moving Friday’s game up from 7 p.m. to 1 p.m., then potentially having a doubleheader on Sunday (assuming Houston gets a windy bath on Saturday–something Lance Berkman could use), or playing on Sunday and Monday, since both teams have Monday off.

To that, Ryan Theriot says, screw that.  The Cubs co-hurricane expert (along with Mike Fontenot), little Ryan doesn’t understand why if all of Houston is leaving town to avoid the Hurricane that the Cubs are expected to fly into it.

Hurricanes and tornadoes are not to be trifled with.  While some would enjoy JO’ing into their vortex, the Cubs do not appear to be among those.

So why do they have to?

Because of this douche:

This jerkoff is Drayton McLane, the insanely rich owner of the Houston Astros.  He claims that he is demanding the games be played in Houston because his Astros are still in the Wild Card race.  They NEED those home games.

First off, they’re sort of in the wild card race.  They’ve still got the Brewers and Phillies ahead of them, and the Cardinals are only a half game behind them.  But they’re in it enough to value their home games.

But that’s not the real reason Drayton wants the games played at home.

The reason is that he’s sold out all three games.  Granted, most of those fans will not be coming to the games this weekend, but if he allows Major League Baseball to move the games to a safer, more sensible location, like Atlanta or (guh) St. Louis, Drayton’s got to give the money back.  

He doesn’t want to do that.

No, he’d rather endanger his $100 million payroll of players, the stadium workers, police who work the games, his training staff, his coaches, his broadcasters (actually, he’s probably hoping that Milo Hamilton gets sucked into the gulf) and the Cubs players, coaches, announcers, etc.  He wants them to ride out a hurricane, so that he doesn’t have to give back three nights of gate receipts.

And, because Interim Commissioner for Life Bud Selig is a pansy, he’ll probably get his way.

I say we sick Ted Lilly on him.