Grading LBJ on SNL

LeBron James hosted the season premier of Saturday Night Live. Here’s how he did.

Opening monologue: LeBron comes out looking very tall and very velvety and also a little nervous. Fortunately his monologue is mostly a pre-recorded commercial for Nike. That’s one way of dealing with stage fright. And now we’re back to LeBron. The joke is that he solved the universal health care crisis while the Nike commercial pre-recorded bit was running, only we missed it. Seriously, do you think LBJ has ever thought about universal health care in his life? I say no. Does that make the monologue funnier or sadder? I say both. LBJ Grade: C

Sketch 1: Charity Speech Hey, it’s LeBron playing a professional basketball player named LeBron James! Interestingly the character LeBron James is playing holds many of the same records as the real LeBron James, like youngest player to score 1000 points. I wonder how many SNL writers it took to come up with this character. Four?

If historical data matter…

Though CC Sabathia has been in the Majors since 2001 he has only pitched against the Yankees eight times in his career and the last time he faced them was 2004. Sabathia is the expected ALDS Game 1 starter, so let’s take a look at his careers numbers against the LeBrons Yankees.