TTH 4/9/26

SNL Recap

Jack Black now becomes the newest member of the prestigious 5-Timers Club, and as per recent tradition the monologue included his official induction into the institution. His welcoming committee this time consisted of Jonah Hill, Tina Fey, Candice Bergen, and Melissa McCarthy, as well as Domingo for some reason. The gist of the piece was that the clubhouse has fallen into disarray and that the addition of Black, with the help of musical guest Jack White, was exactly what was needed to rejuvenate the place. White was in a hurry because he needed to leave; 5 time musical guests only get their parking validated for 15 minutes. Fey was wearing a slightly different smoking jacket; hers was the 1-Timers Club jacket for SNL UK hosts and was apparently made out of pieces of Paddington.

This week’s show continued to demonstrated Ashley’s value to the show as she once again starred in the Top Sketch Of the Week. This one took place in an office break room; Ashley hovered in the back as the weirdo co-worker with whom no one wants to be roped in a conversation. It takes skill to have a performer repeat the phrase “we talking about tech?” over and over with the correct inflection and comedic timing to keep it funny. All of the actors were on point in this one; even famous scenery chewers Kenan and Jack Black calibrated the atmosphere perfectly.

I was less impressed by the sketch in which a quintet of female friends were attending a house gathering in which their respective spouses had met each other for the first time. It cut between the kitchen, where the women were enjoying their wine, and the living room, where the men were limited to awkward silence. That is, until Black began to hum Carry On Wayward Son and the rest of the husbands joined in on an elaborately choreographed rendition of the song. This, even though Kenan’s character didn’t even know the song, the words just came to him. The problem was that it was awkwardly staged; the pauses when it cut from one set to the other were too noticeable.

Better was this week’s pre-taped music video. It was a country song performed by Black, JAJ, and Andrew in which they each received wisdom which they quickly forgot after their minds wandered. Or in Andrew’s case where he refused to acknowledge what his young son was trying to tell him because a child is too stupid to be worth his time. It was punctuated by Jack White shredding a guitar solo until he too was distracted by the sight of a soaring eagle.

Rather than a POTUS starring cold open, this week JAJ instead got to portray Ernie Johnson in a Final Four studio show sketch. It focused on Charles Barkley’s recent remarks defending the contributions that immigrants have made to America. Kenan’s Barkley constantly interrupted the basketball talk to insert social commentary. I have never been all that impressed by Kenan’s Barkley impression, so this didn’t do much for me. It was noteworthy because this may have been the last time that we will see Ashley as the recently fired Pam Bondi.

That was one of two appearances this week by Ashley as a recently jettisoned cabinet chief. Her Kristi Noem cameoed on Update as part of a desk piece from Sarah as Noem’s husband, who recently made the news with the revelation of his proclivity for cross dressing. The joke was entirely about his oversized fake boobs, that was it. The other desk piece starred Kam as the new version of Snape who will be seen in the upcoming Harry Potter reboot. So far everything about Kam screams “one year cast member,” this segment was no different.

There was lots of stuff this week which was largely based on Jack Black’s famously manic energy: Black as a sensei in a dojo, Black in an ill-fitting tunic as the 301st Spartan soldier who became the last cut before the Battle Of Thermopylae. The one that I liked was the sketch in which he played an Airbnb host who was trying to find a way to hang with the spring breakers renting out his house.

Overall? I give this a passing grade. Would I have guessed back in his Tenacious D days that Jack Black would one day become a beloved performer in movies for kids? Nope, but in retrospect it makes sense. From the very beginning of his career he always seemed like an overgrown child and I am not saying this as an insult. The dude is a force of nature in all of the best ways. Next week Colman Domingo makes his debut as SNL host with Anitta as the musical guest.

They Are The Champions

It was a good final week of college basketball for the Big Ten, with schools from that conference winning both the men’s and women’s titles. Michigan’s victory in the men’s final was the first for the Wolverines since the Glen Rice/Rumeal Robinson team won the 1989 title. The last title for any Big Ten team occurred when Michigan State won in 2000. You would need to go back slightly further to find the most recent champion on the women’s side. Recent transplant UCLA broke the drought which goes back to Purdue’s 1999 title. It was technically the first NCAA crown for the Bruins, although they did win a championship when women’s basketball was still run under the auspices of the AIAW. This win comes with mixed emotions; it served as yet another reminder that the PAC-12 is nothing but a memory. Kudos to UCLA; the senior laden team - they are expected to have 5 or 6 players selected in the first round of next week’s WNBA Draft - put on a defensive clinic, punctuated by Lauren Betts’ game saving blocked shot in the waning moments of the semifinal game against Texas.

Back in the days when Twitter was good, there was a saying that each day would produce a main character on the website and that no one wants to be that main character. Geno Auriemma made himself the main character of Final Four weekend, as he suffered multiple meltdowns in UConn’s semifinal loss to South Carolina. First, he gave one of the few interesting sideline interviews, venting over what he described as inconsistent officiating. Specifically he ranted over the fact that one of his players had her jersey torn without a whistle being blown. That would have been a compelling argument, had the ESPN cameras not shown Sarah Strong clearly ripping her own jersey in half in frustration.

That was only the appetizer, the main course was when Auriemma started screaming at SC coach Dawn Staley during the aborted postgame handshake. That brought out the North Philly in Staley; the two had to be separated, and Auriemma soon left the court without actually shaking anyone’s hand. It seems that he was offended that Staley did not shake his hand pregame. Once again the cameras contradicted this; Staley shook the hands of the entire UConn staff. What she did not do was the traditional head coach handshake in front of the scorer’s table after the starting lineups had been announced. It sure seemed petty to be so up in arms over that, especially once he continued to double down on his tirade in his postgame comments. The two coaches have since buried the hatchet, and Auriemma apologized for losing his cool and making it about him, but this incident has clearly temporarily damaged his reputation and made him seem small.

About Dawn Staley…

On a related note, before South Carolina lost in the final, this thought came to me. Is Dawn Staley the strongest example of great coach/great player that we have ever seen in American team sports? Let’s dig in. I don’t follow hockey closely enough to be able to judge that sport, so please let me know if I have overlooked anyone there. I can’t think of any football coach who was Hall of Fame caliber as both a player & coach. Mike Ditka, to use one example, was an HOF tight end and a Super Bowl winning coach, but he’s not quite there. Most of the top baseball managers were mediocre players at best. I can make the case that Joe Torre deserves to have entered the Hall as a player, but he was nowhere near being an inner circle HOF type.

The Naismith Hall Of Fame does allow for individuals to be inducted more than once, so there are examples we can go by. Lenny Wilkens and Bill Sharman were each inducted as both players and coaches, but neither were ultra elite. Bill Russell certainly was as a player, but his induction as a coach was due to the pioneering aspect of his hiring. He did not have much success leading teams other than the Celtics. The closest parallel I can find to Staley is John Wooden. He was first inducted as a player way back in 1963, which means that he was a Hall of Fame player even before he won his first championship as UCLA coach. That said, his playing career was so long ago that it’s nearly impossible to put into into perspective.

I suppose one could also compare Staley to Becky Hammon. Both have been inducted as players, and both have coaching résumés that will obviously merit a second induction once they have coached long enough to become eligible. But as good of a player as Hammon was, she was nowhere near Staley’s class. It’s the same with Pat Summitt and Kim Mulkey, both of whom were great players but not as great as Staley was. Staley was a Final Four MOP and a 3-time Olympian. She has also coached 3 NCAA championship teams and there is no reason to doubt that more are on the horizon. I can’t think of anyone who matches that dual record.

Davey Lopes

Former Dodgers second baseman Davey Lopes has died at the age of 80. He was part of the legendary Dodgers infield who had played more games as a unit than any infield in MLB history, and was a 4-time All-Star. He was probably best known as a premiere base stealer - he ranks 26th all time and holds the record for most consecutive steals - but even though his peak came during a time in which stolen bases were highly valued, I believe he would have been even more highly regarded had he played in a different era.

More specifically, the advanced statistics era would have made his overall value even more apparent. In addition to his baserunning skill, he was an outstanding fielder and he drew plenty of walks. Over a 7 year period he averaged almost 4.5 bWAR per season. He was an exceptional older player as well, he stole 47 bases in his age 40 season! Imagine what his career could have looked like if he had received regular playing time at a younger age; he did not debut in the major leagues until his age 27 season, and the first year in which he played 100 games was his age 28 season.

He was well-respected as a guy with a high baseball IQ and was often spoken of as a likely future manager. Unfortunately for him, his only shot came when he led the Brewers for just over 2 seasons. That was a team with limited resources, he was not placed in a position to succeed and it would prove to be his only big league managing job. He was a first base coach for multiple teams both before and after his managerial stint.

Davey Lopes was not quite a Hall of Fame caliber player - with the caveat that he could have been had he been given an earlier shot - but he was a perfect example of a great player who fell just shy of that level. He was one of the most popular Dodgers of any era, and one of the signature MLB players for those of us of a certain age. RIP Davey.

The Sports Movie Pantheon - Cinderella Man

Cinderella Man can serve as a companion piece to Seabiscuit. Both movies involved underdog athletes - whether human or equine - who captured the imagination of Great Depression era America. Cinderella Man, directed by Ron Howard, told the story of James Braddock, who held the title of heavyweight champion of the world from 1935 to 1937.

Russell Crowe starred as Braddock, who was a pre-Depression contender until a hand injury forced him into early retirement. He worked the docks as a longshoreman before a last minute cancellation from another fighter gave him an opportunity to return to the ring, where he discovers that his punching power had been better than it was before his injury. His longtime manager, played by Paul Giamatti, books him for more fights, which allow him to methodically climb the rankings ladder.

The unsupportive spouse, especially in boxing movies, is one of the bigger film cliches. There is an element of that to the depiction of Braddock’s wife (Renee Zellweger) but she eventually comes around. Braddock goes on to earn a shot at the title against champion Max Baer (Craig Bierko.) Baer was depicted as being both cocky and dangerous; in real life two separate fighters had in fact died following fights with Baer. In one of the great upsets in boxing history, Braddock defeats Baer to become heavyweight champion.

Because Russell Crowe has such a well-defined public persona, this is the type of role I prefer seeing him in. One would not think of Crowe as someone with vulnerability, so when he does portray that type of character it resonates more strongly. My personal favorite Crowe performance came in The Insider, in which he portrayed a man seemingly defeated by life. Braddock is similar; he started off as a broken man, he finished as the champ during an era in which the heavyweight title holder was routinely the biggest alpha male on the planet. The movie didn’t make Braddock out to be more than he was, either. The film’s postscript mentions that he would soon lose the crown to Joe Louis, so as inspirational as his rise to the top was, he was essentially a placeholder. Oddly enough, the loss to Louis was his one and only defense of the title. He did not fight for almost 2 years following the Baer victory.

Boxing is an inherently visceral sport; that is a large reason why it has been such a frequent subject for films. I don’t think Cinderella Man is mentioned as often as it should be among the cream of the crop, but it was damn good. The 3 leads were rarely better.

Closing Laughs

That’s all for today? That’s all for today. Thanks for tuning in and have a great day everyone. I’ll see you all again on Saturday.