Orioles on SNL

[Eutaw]

I laughed but since when is Manny Machado black lol

I tapped, I talked, I conquered.

[Guest rochester]

The fact that he felt the need to apologize for that tweet makes me weep for our country.

I hear ya.... but he did just gain a fan here - that was a good one, but I guess it is just my insensitive side laughing at a really good quip.

[CA-ORIOLE]

I laughed but since when is Manny Machado black lol

Well, the census/government pretty much wants him to choose between black or white.

[MdSooner]

Well, the census/government pretty much wants him to choose between black or white.

When did this happen?

My Native American sons and wife say hi

[byrdz]

That was pretty bad and I watch SNL pretty regularly.

[CA-ORIOLE]

When did this happen?i

Around 1982.

My Native American sons and wife say hi

You got me there. Best I could do was a Filipino and 3 daughters.

[scOtt]

The original crew of SNL, not ready for prime time players was the best, a very talented brunch of people they were.

Second City Chicago. Sister group to the Canook SCTV. SOOOOO many geniuses!

[scOtt]

I thought the Camden Yards sketch was pretty bad, but IMO there's more to it than "SNL used to be funny but isn't any more."

Much of the SNL franchise was built on humor that was aggressively irreverent. Most of the humor was directly or indirectly satirical, poking fun at both easy targets (politicians, TV executors, Hollywood celebrities, TV pitchmen, etc.) and more obscure, sometimes politically incorrect, joke butts like little old ladies who don't hear well, Greek luncheonette proprietors, Eastern European bachelors, nerdy teenagers, and Latin ballplayers who no speak English so good. While I can't bring myself to watch SNL regularly, I do catch it occasionally, and the spirit I've described above lives on in a few sketches.

That style of SNL humor might have used last week's game to lampoon ballplayers. I'm no comedy writer, but maybe you can hear players' dugout conversations about competing mutual funds, or maybe there's a brawl that ends when the players realize there are no fans to watch it, or maybe hitters don't bother to come out to the on-deck circle because there are no skirts to look up, or maybe Adam Jones refuses to bat until the crab race is shown because he owes his bookie $100,000 that he has to recover by winning a bet on the race or throwing the game.

Seeing SNL performers dressed up to look a little like Frobby, Cakes and Amber, hearing a few puns about fires, and imagining absurdities like a vendor with no customers and major leaguers using nerf bats may have been funny to some viewers. It wasn't funny to me. But more to my point it was timid, safe and pointless -- the antithesis of what SNL used to be.

OH! I seem to have cut myself!