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On Eve Of 2nd Round Of MLB Playoffs, Ted Lilly Fan Club Sits Down With Nostradamus

On the eve of the second round of the MLB playoffs, we decided that we would grow up a little bit by putting away the magic eight ball (sorry little buddy) and stepping up our game a bit. The result? A TLFC exclusive! A one-on-one interview with famed prognosticator and French apothecary Michel de Nostredame aka Nostradamus to get his predictions about the Phils/Dodgers and Yanks/Halos series AND other random tidbits.

TLFC: Nostradamus--welcome to the Ted Lilly Fan Club loft--happy to have you here.

N: Thanks--i just flew in from the year 1566 and boy are my arms tired! Yuck yuck yuck.

TLFC: Ummmm---okay. Anyway, let's start off with the New York Yankees match-up with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. What are your thoughts on the series?

N: I see that the young lion will overcome the older one,On the field of combat in a single battle;He will pierce his eyes through a golden cage,Two wounds made one, then he dies a cruel death.

TLFC: It sounds like you're picking up the upstart Angles to beat the more veteran-laden Yankees?

N: Yep---Kazmir is sick, defense is gold glove-friendly and the Yanks move to a three-man rotation in seven game series is most unwise--like that Nazi picking the wrong chalice in "Last Crusade".

TLFC: How about the Phils/Dodgers?

N: An Emperor shall be born near Italy. Who shall cost the Empire dear, They shall say, with what people he keeps company He shall be found less a Prince than a butcher.

TLFC: Are you talking about Tommy LaSorda, Special Advisor to the GM of the Dodgers? Pretty sure that he was actually born in Pennsylvania.

N: Mark my words heathen---this emperor thou dost embrace nutrisystem in jest. He shall mark the downfall of the empire.

TLFC: Okay--settle down, you're clearly picking the Phils. What else?

N: I'm getting another vision, another prophecy: He shall come to tyrannize the land. He shall raise up a hatred that had long been dormant.

TLFC: Any idea what this means?

N: Not sure--this happens a lot when I don't take my meds but, if I had to guess, I'd say that it probably has to do w/ John Cusack's new movie, 2012. Guy had so much promise but has really gone off the deep end into bad movie territory. I mean, did you see Ice Harvest or Must Love Dogs? Ugh---I'd take a 1000 years in hell if it meant I didn't have to see a Seredipity II.

TLFC: This is clearly getting weird. Any last thoughts? We need to, ummmmm, errgggghhh, go someplace other than here.

N: Yes--final thought---from the sky will come the great King of Terror. He will bring back to life the King of the Mongols; Before and after war reigns.

TLFC: Joe Buck? Is he and his terrible announcing the King of Terror? Wow...

N: Be afraid, be very afraid...

Sorry Fanhouse, Matt Holliday Deserves No Sympathy

While normally the sports site, Fanhouse, is chock full of interesting articles and analysis (excluding anything by Jay Mariotti), today, they simply went too far with their piece entitled, "Let's Give Holliday A Break" around his blunder in the 9th inning of game two of the STL/LAD series.

Author Terence Moore contends that, "folks should lay off Matt Holliday just a little" and procedes to list a few other examples of professional sports blunders including our own Leon Durham in the 1984 NLCS and former Cub Buckner in 1986.

His contention is that, while the errors are not ideal, they are not the sole reason that any one team lost the game or series. Our contention is that Terence Moore is an idiot.

I mean, really? We're supposed to feel sympathy for Holliday? Lest you forget, Holliday makes $13,500,000 a year to play a game. His only job is to hit the ball, play defense and determine a clever name for his foundation. While the rest of the country faces a recession, rising unemployment, a potential nuclear Iran, we should all get out our wah-wah tissues and shed a tear for Matt Holliday? No thank you. We'd take our Ted Lilly Fan Club Time Machine and travel back to 1908 to see our Cubs win the World Series against the Tigers.

Even worse is Holliday's excuse: That he lost the ball in the Busch Stadium lights. Wow--that's the best he can do? Shouldn't Cardinals PR head Brian Bartow be able to come up w/ something better than that? Maybe Holliday's dog eat his homework too?

Sure--as Cubs fans, we are bred to hate the Cardinals so we're clearly biased but it's insane to think that Holliday deserves any measure of sympathy for messing up. He had a job to do and he failed. Clear as day. Enjoy your off-season Mr. Holliday.

Photo above is from Darren Cummings, AP

Ted Lilly Fan Club "Tedtastic" Player of the Day: Matt Holliday

Ouch.

Ouch for two reason.

First - Ouch: replay's of Matt Holliday's outfield gaffe indicate that his man- parts now likely reside deep within his body cavity. For all you Lady Tedheads out there, the result direct impact of a hard hit, line drive, baseball into a man's nether regions is not fun. Late last night we replicated the situation with out Ted Lilly Fan Club Pitching Machine and Line Drive Simulator (TLFCPMALDS) and our jaws still remain clenched on a strip of raw hide. Fortunately, The State had us sterilized to prevent reproduction, so no harm - no foul.

Second - Ouch: our friends from the eighth circle of hell, St. Louis, can't be too pleased right now. Sure, our Missouri backwater brethren, those "true fans of baseball" are probably holding on blissfully to the possibility of a comeback, but then again, they're also probably holding out for a repeal of the Nineteenth Amendment.

Matt Holliday, guess what? We don't blame you and no one else should. Let us see, two outs, bottom of the ninth, no one on base. A diving line drive in the late afternoon LA sun, you make an error. We might be old school, but up a run, man on first, two outs is still an enviable position. We're going to go ahead and blame LaRussa - he was likely drunk driving while petting animals and didn't have the appropriate mindset to settle his team down.

Tedheads, this is a win-win for us. St. Louis wins this series, you're treated to another few posts of anti-St. Lousi vitriol, likely with Joe Buck Flavor! St. Louis loses, well, St. Louis losses and we celebrate! Tip of the cap to you, Matt Holiday, for a Tedtastic play!

Ted Lilly Fan Club "Tedtastic" Player of the Day: Matt Kemp

Clearly, the Cubs not making the playoffs hurts....a lot (we keep repeating that in posts b/c it helps our argument to our psychiatrist that we need more Xanax--official mood suppressor of the TLFC) but the one thing that hurts more is that the god damn St. Louis Cardinals did and, to make matters worse, they are even the Vegas favorites to reach the World Series from the National League.

That said, we watched yesterday's Game 1 in St. Louis w/ joy and glee as Los Dodgers took advantage of a sloppy Chris Carpenter to beat the Cardinals 5-3.

Our Tedtastic Player of the Day? Matt Ryan Kemp. Kemp, who hit a first inning homer off of Carps to give LA the lead and help lead them to the win, is actually nicknamed "the Bison" (all praise to Dodger Thoughts for coining that term) and uses Rick Ross' "the Boss" as his at-bat music.

On a quick side note, if the TLFC was going to have at-bat music, it'd probably be the Aaron Neville and Linda Ronstadt ballad, "Don't Know Much." Would it pump up the crowd? Maybe, maybe not--but we would all learn a quick lesson about true nature of love.

Clearly, we want the Cardinals to lose...we need them to lose...we require them to lose. If not, we have to wait til December 16th for Blackhawks goon Adam Burish to lay the smackdown on the Blues and, frankly, we don't have that kind of patience.

Virtual tip of the cap, Matt Kemp.

Let's Break Out Ye Ole Magic Eight Ball And Make Some 1st Round Playoff Predictions

With the first pitch of the Yankees/Twins series only a few hours away, we thought that, with the Cubs dead and buried, we'd turn our attention to the other playoffs series and make a few predictions. Remember--in bizarro world, the Cubs just won the World Series with Ted Lilly getting yet another MVP trophy (sigh) but, in real world, we can only wonder "what if" and buy heavily-discounted parapheneralia at local Sports Authority locations ("oooohhh, a $10 Aaron Miles jersey? Why not...")

First Round Predictions:

• Yankees vs. Twins. While we love the "Rudy"-esque moxie of this Twins ballclub, this simply are overmatched versus the Yankees in a five-game set. Sure, Jorge Posada can bitch all he wants about not starting game but that's probably the only "challenge" the Yankees have to face outside of where to find good, NYC-style prostitutes in Minneapolis. Prediction? Yankees sweep, 3-0.


• Red Sox vs. Angels. Easily the best first round series of the four---both teams have a surplus of pitching, offense and gold-glove friendly defense. We still can't believe that the Angels somehow added Scott Kazmir to their rotation and think that they'll ultimately emerge victorious after Dice-K implodes. Angels win, 3-1.


• Rockies vs. Phillies. Flip side to the Red Sox/Angels tilt, this is easily the worst series of the four. Rockies are on a rocky mountain high after surprisingly making the playoffs despite having Frenchy Marquis as their ace and trading Holliday before the season. Phillies have no bullpen after Brad Lidge did his best Cubs impersonation and channeled the 9th fuitility of the Marmot and the Goggled One. Feels like Rockies in 4 but who cares? they are just chum for the eventual STL/LAD victory in round 2.


• Cardinals vs. Dodgers. Italians Unite! Torre vs. LaRussa! Mi piace davvero! Oh yeah, Manny, Pujols, Holliday should be fun too. We clearly want the Dodgers to win b/c a) St. Louis sucks b) a STL loss would give Joe Buck convulsions and c) it heightens the chance that the Dodgers pay tribute to Dodgers 1996 Draft 23rd Round Gem Ted Lilly. Sadly, magic eight-ball says that STL wins 3-2.

Other random predictions:

• Ted Lilly will get snubbed by Nobel Foundation. In turn, Ted Lilly Fan Club will burn our living room couches and "What Would Alfred Nobel Do" bumper stickers in protest.
• Swine flu will become the most-popular halloween costume of the season, besting the couples costume of Jon + Kate (or triples costume of Jon + Kate + Divorce Lawyer) and concept costume of President Obama's sagging approval rating
• International Olympic Committee anonymous source will disclose that real reason Chicago lost the bid for 2016 Olympics was the lack of a TL appearance/autograph session.
• Same source will also reveal that Rio got the bid on strength of impromptu performance/dance for IOC members from Charo (despite her Spanish heritage)--cuchi-cuchi-cuchi.
• TLFC Magic Eight Ball, responsible for above predictions, will fail miserably in prognostication efforts, fueling speculation that it is, in fact, using eight-balls of cocaine
• Cubs superfan and Chicago native Vince Vaughn's latest movie, Couples Retreat, will bomb at the box office and add to his Cubs-esque, really bad run of misses including Fred Claus and Four Christmases. Can Wedding Crashers II be far behind?

Nobel Prizes Awarded; Ted Lilly Snubbed….Again

Ok—we’ll grant you the Noble Prizes in Physics for Charles K. Kao (who discovered how to transmit light through fiber optics) and the team of Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith (who designed the first digital-imaging sensor) but Elizabeth Blackburn and team’s Nobel for her research on telomeres (aka the protective ends of chromosomes)? Hog wash.

Where’s Ted Lilly’s prize? Where the f- is Ted Lilly's prize?

Can Elizabeth throw a face-melting Lillyhammer? Nope. Can team member Carol W. Greider carry an entire Cubs team on their back for a season? Not likely. Has third team member Jack W. Szostak been nominated by his colleagues at Howard Hughes Medical Institute for the Roberto Clemente Award? Try again.

Now, Ted has already been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace (which he later declined to give glory hound Al Gore his 15 minutes of fame) but that was two years ago. Looking down the list of Nobel Prizes that have yet to be awarded, we feel that two make perfect sense to give to Ted to add to his growing (but not important) collection of hardware (which includes a few All-Star Game appearances, a 2009 roster spot on Team USA and a future 2010 Cy Young).

• Nobel Prize For Literature: For Ted's book, "It Takes A Lillyhammer" about his ragtag youth and claim to fame as a member of the Fresno City College baseball squad (Go Rams!)
• Nobel Prize for Chemistry: For Ted's own examination of his body's molecular structure to determine why he is, in fact, immortal

TBD on whether the "geniuses" in Oslo will wake up and smell the Sanka and give TL the prize but, if not, we have a homemade version of our own (made from old Hersey Kiss foil wrappers, popsicle sticks and some glitter we stole from a Chicago Public School classroom). That said--we wouldn't give it to Ted b/c, let's be honest, that'd be creepy and, as part of our TLFC mandate, we can't cross the 4th wall and actually interact with Ted (result would be akin to blowing up the Death Star but, in this example, even the Ewoks die).

Ted Lilly Fan Club Mailbag: End of Season Edition

Only a few games left before this miserable wretch of a season is over. While we appreciate Ted Lilly purposely throwing yesterday's game to create a sympathy vote for the 2016 bid, it's still been hard to get up every morning and face the prospect of a Cubs-less post-season. It just doesn't seem right that Joe -fing Buck will get to the postseason and we won't. Sigh.

Anyway, to wrap the virtual bow around this blog season, we thought that we'd throw out a final, end-of-season mailbag. Yes--it's the lazy man's way to blog but, right now, we feel like a fat girl stood up on prom night--just want to sit in bed with our pink bunny slippers, eating rocky road ice cream with a big wooden spoon and watch tivo-ed episodes of Ugly Betty. Sigh. Onto the questions...

With 2016 Olympic host city being announced tomorrow, any chance that Ted might be able to fly over to Denmark and help put in a good word with IOC representatives?-P. Ryan, Chicago, IL (via Copenhagen)

Sadly—no. While Ted is BFF with IOC President Jacque Rogge (TL taught his kids how to throw a curve), Chicago wasn’t smart enough to get Ted involved from the word ‘go’ and, thus, will have to deal with secondary spokespeople like Oprah and the Obamas. However, given that the United States and their television contract pretty much bankrolls the Olympics, we feel pretty confident that Chicago will get the nod. Bigger question is whether Ted will receive the deserved honor of lighting the flame at opening ceremonies in 2016? We think yes and that, instead of using the Olympic torch, Ted will simply throw a Lillyhammer into the mix.

Any update on Ted’s nomination for the Roberto Clemente Award? Anything we can do to help him bring home the trophy? -OJ Reebie, Glenview, IL

Great timing! Tomorrow is actually the last day that TedHeads can get out there and vote for Ted. So, please, do yourself and your soul a favor and click on over to http://mlb.mlb.com/sponsors/chevy/clemente/index.jsp to vote for Ted. If it only lets you vote once, clear the cookies on your web browser and vote again. It’s Chicago politics time—vote early, vote often, vote Ted. Ted Lilly. Yes.We.Can.

What does Dr. TLFC proscribe for the Cubs in the off-season? Clearly, only winning 80 or so games will not cut it for a $134 million payroll?-A. Macphail, Baltimore, MD

First thing is we need to shake up the rotation. Clearly, Ted is the rock and the Randy Wells Project has clear promise. After that, it gets a little murky. We should have known better than to pay that sort of coin for a Canuck in Dempster but we're stuck w/ him so there's three. We'll join the masses and agree that Harden needs to go and love the idea of a swap of Not-So-Big Z for Peavy. Second, we need some glue guys so let's overpay for The Rose and give Abreu a two-year deal (which we should have done anyway). Third, we need a closer--do we take a run at Billy Wagner or maybe Soriano? TBD...but this should give Hendry some food for thought.

With the demise of the Saturn brand at General Motors, do you think that Honda Motor Co. needs to be concerned about the potential trademark infringement of their Acura TL with the Ted Lilly "TL" brand?--S. Center, Torrance, CA

Wait....S. Center? Torrance, CA? Is this Steven Center? Is this the same Mr. Steven Center who is Vice President of Advertising and Public Relations for Honda? Tsk tsk tsk, sir. We've tried to play nice with earlier emails asking an official apology from Acura but you continue to virtually thumb your nose at Ted Lilly and his legions of car-owning TedHeads. Mess with the bull, get the horns. Or, in this case, mess with the TL brand, force TedHeads worldwide to buy Toyotas.

Do you hear us, Joe Tetherow, Ming-Jou Chen and Sam Butto (PR contacts for Toyota)? This is PR gold for you...contact us at tedlillyrules@gmail.com. Acura has scorned us--we'd gladly welcome opportunity to test drive any of your new and improved Toyota models and blog about it to Cubs fans and TedHeads alike. Shameless blogging? Absolutely but we are serious and would love to stick it to Acura for using/abusing the TL brand.