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Who Would’ve Known, I Didn’t Hate Host Jeter?

Even back when I actually did enjoy sports, baseball was never my thing. Yes, I did like the San Diego Padres but that was more because it’s the city where I was born making it a default interest when I was a little kid. By the time Derek Jeter started to get big, it’s possible I was still passively following football but any interest in baseball was, by then, completely gone. Even when I would watch games with the roommates, I was far more interested in watching what was going on in the stands than what was happening on the field.

Those I was completely out of the loop as for as the actual sport goes, I was aware that unless you were a Yankee fan Derek Jeter was seen as a horrible man both as a player and in real life. At least that’s what I picked up from drunken Seattle fans when A-Rod left for New York. I don’t really know how the two were tied together but I do remember the people of my new hometown were really pissed off. Because of this, I went into this viewing with extremely low expectations.

That said, I wasn’t completely shut off to the idea of liking this episode because, in the past, there have only been two or three hosts from the world of sports where I didn’t like their appearance. The one athlete that comes to mind is Deion Sanders because of his arrogant attitude which I felt Jeter might share. Fortunately, this didn’t end up being the case and this episode turned out to be rather fun.

I don’t know if this episode is before or after all of the success went to Jeter’s head, or if he’s always been cool and people just hated him for not playing for their home team. Either way, he had a fun attitude that made this a very entertaining show. I also feel like today’s viewing makes three in a row that feel like a cohesive season and no longer as scattered and confused as the early episodes that were still coping with the chaos of 9/11.

Since they were able to pull off this good of an episode with a host I was expecting to hate, I now have faith that this season won’t end up being another duplicate of the last couple of years. Where before I was bracing myself for a season where my main goal was to simply make it through the year, I’m now much more excited to see what the rest of the shows have to offer.

Now that I have this new hope, it’s time to move on and share what I saw so that I can move on to the next show, and with that, I give you…

The Wicker Breakdown:

This week's show started with A Message From The Attorney-General Of The United States where once again Darrell Hammond as John Ashcroft listed the signs to look for if you think someone might be a terrorist. He did this in a way that made it seem that he was sharing this information as a fear-mongering tool for control and not as sincere advice. Will Ferrell as George W. Bush eventual joined the scene to point out how much Ashcroft’s list sounded like a Jeff Foxworthy, You Might Be A Redneck list before continuing on to list more. Of course, with this being the opening sketch, these jokes eventually led to the announcement of, “Live from New York…”
Derek Jeter then officially opened the show with a monolog about baseball stuff before he started to hit baseballs into the studio audience to show off what he’s known for while providing with fans with souvenirs, only to end up injuring anyone who had a ball come their way, creating a chaotic scene.
This was followed by a repeat of the Preparation H ad from earlier in the season which had skater kids talking about the “H” while they tried to promote this hemorrhoid product to the youth.
The Iglesias Brothers had Derek Jeter as the lesser-known/ugly Iglesias brother who joined, Jimmy Fallon as Enrique and Chris Kattan as Julio Jr. so that the three could promote their new collaborative album/world tour.
Baseball Wives to us to a baseball game where we got to witness the ballplayer’s wives gab about their husbands from the stands while they’re “better halves” attempted to play the game out on the field. Derek Jeter played the newest member of the player’s wives club having just married one of the players who I was surprised to find wasn’t himself out of drag. Toward the end of the sketch, more ballplayers showed up in drag to join in on the fun.
The Masseuse was a sketch where Derek Jeter was too tense to enjoy his massage from Chris Kattan because this was his first massage. It didn’t help that Kattan kept singing along to the slow tempo music that was supposed to get Jeter to relax. There was a sense of homophobia that went along with this sketch but at the same time, Jeter only protested Kattan’s touch when he started to act super weird even after giving him multiple chances to give him a normal massage. At the end of the sketch, we learned that we were actually at a store where Jeter was simply trying to buy a piece of gum while this played out in the cashier’s/Kattan’s head.
We then got a fake ad for a dog training video called Dissing Your Dog that taught pet owners how to train their dogs by using roast like insults as motivation to get them to stop acting badly as opposed to resorting to physical abuse used to correct any issues.
Derek Jeter's Taco Hole was a fake ad for a taco shop that they claimed Derek Jeter owned and ran during the offseason.
Dealing With Mom And Dad was a sit-com parody that had Derek Jeter drop by as a special guest for a very special episode where he coached Chris Kattan to be a better ballplayer but after only a few seconds he discovered that the kid really was no good. Just when Jeter was about to give up completely, he decided to give Kattan a second chance and taught him how to be better at batting by violently attacking his bullies with the bat.
Shakira then took to the stage to perform Whenever, Wherever.
Once again, Jimmy Fallon and Tina Fey gave us the news. This week, Derek Jeter and Seth Meyers had a point/counterpoint baseball debate since Jeter was a Yankee at the time and Seth was a Red Sox fan. Seth took the “Derek Jeter sucks” side of the argument and Derek took the “No I don’t” side. We also got a quick tribute to George Harrison that showed a couple of clips highlighting his involvement with the show.
Osama Pep Talk had Will Ferrell as the terrorist leader who was preparing to create another video to scare the West, only to end up scared himself when others in the group started to throw out the idea of turning in bin Laden in order to get the twenty-five million dollar reward, especially now that they’ve been losing many of their Afghanistan battles.
The Perm was a sketch where Derek Jeter stuck by his outdated perm even though everyone else was openly expressing their concerns.
Bubba Sparxxx then took to the stage to perform both songs Ugly and Lovely back to back.
Season's Greetings From "Saturday Night Live" was just another excuse for Horatio Sanz and his group to perform I Wish It Was Christmas Today once again.
Jack Handey then gave us another installment of My Big Thick Novel that acknowledged how bizarre it is to breed for reproduction purposes.
Finally, Derek Jeter closed the show by thanking the audience and saying his goodnights.

As I said up above, I was surprised to find that I liked this episode but it turned out to be really fun thanks to sketches like these that contained my three favorite moments of the night. First, I loved The Perm because it reminded me of the time where the same idea got stuck in my own head as a goof and had my older sister perm my hair with an at-home perm kit and the results were hilarious. Next, I really liked the Osama Pep Talk sketch not only because Will Ferrell as bin Laden got a laugh out of me but I liked the way he nervously tried to lessen the terror cells interest in the dead or alive reward that was placed upon his head. Finally, I was a fan of the fake ad for Derek Jeter's Taco Hole because who doesn’t like jokes and songs about tacos?