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Oct. 26, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:13
October 26, 2005, Wednesday, Hour #3
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Time Text
Hi, welcome back.
Great to have you, folks.
Fastest three hours in media well underway, already two-thirds through on the middle of the week, Wednesday.
My name is Rush Limbaugh.
I am America's anchorman, recognized by well over 97% of the people of this country as a radio racing tour and leading practitioner of the talk show genre.
Telephone number 800-282-2882, if you'd like to be on the program.
I got an email here from a subscriber at Rush 24-7.
Fascinating email, but anybody can send an email.
So I wasn't really going to share it with you because it's not double-sourced, and anybody can send an email saying anything.
But now I'm thinking about it, because Time magazine just openly now spinning for al-Qaeda, it appears.
They've got a, they're running a piece of, we wouldn't kill the media!
The insurgency said, we didn't blow up that Palestine hotel to kill the media.
We wouldn't kill the media.
Everybody's reporting that these insurgents, as a last gasp, tried to kill a bunch of international journalists to get the media all fired up against the United States again.
The headline here, the Baghdad Hotel Attack, the Real Targets.
Not journalists, say Zarkawi and Al-Qaeda, but a private security firm.
This is by Christopher Altbritten in Baghdad.
Monday's deadly attack on Baghdad's Palestine Hotel, a large, well-coordinated assault claimed by Al-Qaeda involving truck bombs, which killed at least six people, was thought to target the many foreign journalists who stay there.
But sources inside the Iraqi insurgency tell Time magazine that the real target was a security firm based in the hotel.
Okay, aside from the fact here that Time has got sources inside Al-Qaeda that they trust, let me share with you the details of this very interesting email.
Dear Rush, keep my name and such between us.
I'm a civilian contractor on a government mission at a hotel in Baghdad.
The insurgents believe that my compound is the headquarters of the CIA and the Mossad.
We are not.
We have been attacked many times over the last two years, and this latest bombing was directed at us, not the media.
From what we gather, the first car bomb was supposed to get past our front line.
The second car bomb was supposed to get to our rear security, and a cement truck was supposed to get inside our perimeter to cause the most damage.
Good news for us.
The first car was shot up and stopped at the outer perimeter, and the second two, unable to see or get close, blew themselves early.
We are on the east side of the street.
The media is on the west side.
Since the truck blew while it was on our side, the reporters incorrectly believe they were the target.
This is just their arrogance.
They want to believe they are high-profile targets.
They're not.
They're bugs on the ass of Iraq.
I'll tell you more, but please leave names out just that you have an inside in Baghdad.
Subscriber to Rush 24-7.
This account would appear to back up the Time story, except there's one key element missing.
In the Time story, Al-Qaeda seems to know what it's doing.
From our inside spy, they bungled it big time, and they're going after the wrong target in the first place.
The target they think is the CIA and a Mossad is not.
It's a different government agency.
Just as worthy of being blown up, if you ask me, but no, only kidding, folks.
Now, just stand down out there.
So just wanted to share that with you.
So the Time magazine, their sources inside Al-Qaeda are accurate, but Al-Qaeda apparently is all screwed up on who their real target is and where they are.
targeting something that has nothing to do with the CIA or the Mossad, and it's happened many times before.
Moving on, get ready in there for soundbite number 10, 11, and 12.
House Democrat, because this is hilarious.
House Democrats on Wednesday today will seek to amend digital television legislation with language that would substantially boost funding or subsidies so consumers could buy boxes to convert digital signals for viewing on analog-based televisions.
At press time, this is the National Journal here, at press time sources said it was unclear which member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee would offer the amendment.
Either John Dingell or Edward Markey of Massachusetts said to be involved in crafting the lingo, the converter boxes will play an essential role in the nation's transition to digital TV, enabling consumers to watch broadcasts on televisions otherwise would go dark.
Lawmakers are considering December 31st, 2008 or April 7th, 2009 for terminating analog transmissions.
The recent draft of the House digital TV bill would earmark $990 million for the government-run subsidy with up to $160 million spent on administrative costs.
That would leave as little as $830 million for consumer vouchers, said observers.
The bill spearheaded by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton of Texas, a Republican, will be debated in committee on Wednesday.
Now, in contrast, the Senate is considering legislation that would allocate $3 billion for set-top converters.
A source privately said the House Democratic Amendment would propose a subsidy of roughly $3.5 billion, putting the House on par with the Senate.
So let me spell this out for you.
Analog has been deemed by our esteemed Congress to go away, either by late 2008 or 2009.
For those of you who still have your Admiral television sets and whatever your old RCAs, some of you even get up out of the chair to change channels, those TV sets, if they last until 2008, 2009, or any new ones you buy, will not be able to receive the new digitized signals unless you get a converter box on top of the television somewhere in the setup.
And so the government, since they are enforcing this change, has decided to come up with a fund to help people go out and buy the converter boxes, not buy them, but to give them the converter boxes or subsidize them so as they won't have to go out and buy a whole new TV.
Well, I don't know how much the box is.
I can't find that in the story, but $3.5 billion, it just grows on trees.
$300 billion for a converter box.
We're talking four or five years down the road.
This would be akin, although the price differential would be great, but this would be akin to saying, okay, by 2009, we're banning the internal combustion engine.
But if you can't afford the new alternative fuel engine by 2009, we'll buy you your new car anyway.
So even if you buy a new car between now and then, it won't work.
It won't be allowed.
You'll be violating the law.
We'll buy you the new car.
Okay, all well and good.
Now, without getting into the merits here of going digital, I'm all for it, this notion of converter boxes for people that can't afford the new TVs.
We can debate that.
But I want you to hear Markey discuss this.
It was on C-SPAN's Washington Journal this morning, and the host said, if I go to Best Buy, or if I go to Circuit City, how do I know if I have an analog television or not?
Right now, for better or worse, there's no warning sign.
This should be a warning sign on every television set.
Warning, Republicans will pass a bill to prevent this TV set from working in three years.
If you want to spend $500 at this juncture, You assume the risk.
But right now, no one is wanted.
Everyone assumes the TV set that they purchase at Best Buy will work in three years, and it won't.
And the Democrats are saying that everyone should get a box, at least, to put it on top of that new set, all their old sets, so that they can watch any program that they want.
Do you understand, folks, just how stupid the Democrats think you are?
You now, if you go to Best Buy or whatever, when this legislation finally is passed and signed into law, he wants warning stickers on televisions.
Warning.
Republicans make this TV obsolete in three years.
You buy at your own risk.
He's obviously concerned here that the charlatan sales staff at Best Buy, Circuit City or wherever, will try to unload these TVs on unsuspecting idiots while telling, oh, yeah, an old product singer worked for 10, 15 years.
Don't worry about new digital.
You'll get lied to.
So we need warnings now.
You know, it's not a, I don't know about you, but I bought a new car a little over a year ago.
Now, I'm a reasonably intelligent guy.
Would we all not conclude this?
I get in this car and I've got warning stickers all over me.
I've got warning stickers on the sun visor.
I got warning stickers on the glove compartment.
I got warning stickers inside panels when I open them.
I got warning stickers in the trunk.
I've got a 435-page owner's manual, and over half the pages are warnings.
What a bunch of dults that they think we are.
Now we need warning stickers on television sets.
So the host said, well, does this affect certain segments of the country?
Is it rural areas?
Is it urban areas?
It affects everybody.
In fact, for example, one-third of all Hispanic families use only free over-the-air television.
One-third.
And they're all going to be shut off.
That is, if you're in one-third of Hispanic homes in America, in three years, your TV set will not work, and the government's not going to be able to help you because the Republicans are not putting enough money aside in order to make sure that there's a converter box for your TV set.
Republicans never spend enough money.
Is that not a joke?
After the last five years, Republicans don't spend enough money.
And especially for you, Hispanics.
Now, why is it so many Hispanics are still watching over-the-air broadcasts and don't have cable?
Do you need to be legal to get a cable connection?
They're getting pirate broadcasts from Mexico and a super secret shortwave signal on their rooftop antenna.
What is this?
So, see, the point here is focusing on a minority and trying to tell the Republicans don't care about them.
This is just, this is just comical.
And to further illustrate the point, Markey, to make sure that you people understand how mean and vicious and heartless and cold and cruel the Republicans are, added this.
There was the most famous football game in the history of the National Football League was in 1968 when the Jets were playing Oakland.
And at right before 7 o'clock, Joe Namath threw a pass which was caught and the Jets went ahead.
And then at 7 o'clock, NBC switched to the movie Heidi.
Well, all I can tell you is that the New York telephone system, the New York police telephone system, the NBC phone system, they all shut down because people screamed on their phones, what are you doing?
You can't turn off that program.
Well, the Republicans are planning on December 31st, 2008, to shut off everybody's television set.
Do you know how many people are going to wake up the next morning looking for their New Year's Day bowl games?
So all I'm trying to do is think about those ordinary people.
The Republicans aren't thinking about them.
People want their bowl games.
This is embarrassingly funny.
So he has to draw this analogy to 1968 in the Heidi game to saying you're not going to get your bowl games.
in 2009 if because the Republicans don't want you to watch them.
The Republicans want your TVs to go dark.
Oh, folks, these people are so pathetic.
I can't understand why we just haven't cleaned their clocks already.
Okay, back to the folks we go as the Excellence in Broadcasting Network moves on.
Manny in Houston, nice to have you, sir.
Welcome to the program.
Meganitos El Rushbro.
Thank you, sir.
I'm one of them minorities that I guess I should be insulted with what he said because, you know, Walmart, thank God for them, you know, as far as cheap stuff goes, you know, they make those stuff available for everybody.
I mean, the digital TV will be available by next year for everybody.
China cannot make them fast enough for the consumers here.
It's just pathetic that they assume things that are going to be seen like that.
You know, it's terrible.
Okay, now run this money.
You are a minority.
No, no, no.
You said you're going to rely on Walmart.
Oh, yeah.
How so?
But what do you mean?
You're going to rely on Walmart.
Okay, the cheap stuff, the TV, the digital TV, it will be available by then.
It didn't take for the DVDs or those CD players to be at Walmart to be cheapened down.
Oh, I get it.
I get it.
Yes, yes.
Wait, they're available now for crying.
There's no reason.
If you're going to go buy a new TV, there's no reason to buy it at a log.
I don't know.
Especially if you buy it at Walmart.
And he's plugging Best Buy.
I guess he's getting endorsement from them or something.
But it's inconceivable that the market's not going to take care of itself.
Well, no, this is America.
When liberals look at America, they don't see people like you or me or anybody else being able to take care of ourselves.
We can't watch our bowl games in 2009 unless the government makes sure the Republicans let us.
And that means getting a digital converter box on your old-fashioned television that you're not going to have enough money to, because you're not going to have enough money to buy a new digital one.
Oh, man, I guess I'll have to tap into my neighbor's cable then.
I'm kidding.
I'm sure you are, yeah.
Well, look, I appreciate the call, Manny.
Speaking, he's from Houston, and I alluded to this story earlier.
Astro's roster has no black players.
It's an Associated Press story.
Astros are down three to nothing in the World Series.
You know what time that game ended last night?
I gave it everything I had.
I said 114.
I said, heck with it.
And by the way, I'm not even going to bother you with my problems with televisions.
Who cares?
No, Don't try to force me into this.
I'm not going to do it.
All right, I'll tell you.
The last time I was here, I had local channels available on my Direct TV dish.
So I show up, turn it on, sorry, call customer service Extension 721.
Well, there's no way of getting hold of Extension 721 because there's no phone number.
I happen to know what the phone number is, but I don't know the, I've got so many different direct TV accounts.
I don't know which account number goes where, so it would be pointless to call.
But I have a backup.
I have cable.
What is the cable company that serves Manhattan Upper Manhattan?
Who is it?
Time Warner.
Well, I'll tell you what.
I would do better with rabbit ears than the picture that I'm getting from Time Warner Cable.
And I'm not even using a converter box.
I've got so much ghosting and floating around in that screen.
I got dizzy.
And I sat up there till 1.14 trying to watch this game last night.
I said, heck with it.
So I went to bed.
The game ended at 2.30.
And the White Sox are up 3-0 over the Houston Astros.
And so I couldn't help but notice this story today.
Astros roster has no black players.
Joe Morgan worries about the face of baseball, watching the World Series, the Hall of Famer.
And I met Joe.
I like Joe Morgan.
He's a great guy.
Don't misunderstand here, folks.
Joe Morgan is troubled by what he sees.
His old team, the Houston Astros, is down, well, the time this was published, 2-0 to the White Sox, but it's not their lineup that concerns Morgan.
It's their makeup.
The Astros are the first World Series team in more than 50 years with a roster that does not include a single black player.
Of course I noticed it.
How could you not, Morgan said?
But they're not the only ones.
There are two or three teams that didn't have any African-American players this year.
Morgan said it's a predicament and a challenge for Major League Baseball.
While more players from around the world are making it to the majors, Japan, Korea, the number of blacks is declining.
It's a daunting task to get African-American kids into baseball.
I don't see the trend changing.
The last World Series team without a black player was the 53 New York Yankees.
It wasn't until 55, eight years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 47, that Elston Howard became the first black and Yankee pinstripes.
Black players accounted for just 9% of big league rosters this season.
The commissioner, Bug Seelig, says, well, we got a lot of work to do here.
We'll continue to intensify our efforts.
I'm very aware of it.
I'm extremely sensitive about it.
I feel badly about it, but we need to go to work to change things.
And the general manager of the Astros, of course, agrees.
What choice does he have here?
Yeah, I think it's a huge, huge problem for baseball.
The pool of African-American players just isn't there.
And as baseball becomes more college-oriented in its draft, there aren't a lot of players to pick.
African-American athletes are going to other sports.
They're going to basketball.
They're going to going to football.
It's no wonder they're going to basketball.
I mean, it's their game.
Michael Jordan, you can drive around New York in the summertime, and the playgrounds are playing basketball.
The baseball fields are largely empty when you fly over them on a Sunday afternoon.
I've noticed this for years.
When I was a kid, you couldn't get on a diamond any day of the week.
But as usual, EIB Profit Center Break interrupts this dissertation, but we will continue it when we come back.
Don't go away.
You're listening to Rush Limbaugh on the Excellence in Podcasting Network.
Jobbing along with a good times of the EIB network.
To the phones we go.
I'm sorry, Vancouver, Washington.
John, nice to have you with us.
Welcome.
Hey, Rush, how are you doing?
Great to talk to you.
You there?
Yep.
Where would I be?
I'm right here.
Okay, well, I'm on a sell and I'm losing it.
Hey, listen, that article you just read about the no black players on the Astros, I can't believe it.
You're talking about the racial stuff, everybody bringing up race and everything.
I've watched the games.
I've watched the things.
I love the World Series.
Until you mention it, I never even noticed there wasn't a black player on the team.
I tell you why you didn't notice it is because there are.
They're just called Latinos.
They're called Jamaicans.
They're called Latins.
But they're not white.
But they're not African American.
They come from the Dominican.
They come from Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and other such places.
But they're all baseball players.
They wear red hats.
You know, unbelievable.
But it's not surprising.
Not surprising.
Well, you know, this is not news to me.
And I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago.
I was watching ESPN Stephen A. Smith Junior or whatever, Stephen A. Smith has this show on ESPN2 that runs at 6.30.
And the only reason I discovered it is because I love HD.
You're talking about digital.
I left digital in my wake long ago.
I'm already up to HD.
I'm not waiting around for Ed Markey to make sure I get digital or HD TV.
So I scanned HD channels first because I'd rather watch it because there's no comparison.
When I go from an HD channel to an analog channel, I think I'm going from 2005 to 1948 when TV was invented.
You just can't watch analog TV anymore if you've seen HD folks.
You just, particularly sports events or some of these wacko animal shows that show them eating each other.
You see those in HD.
I'm telling you, it's cool.
But I was watching this Stephen Smith show, and he had the coach of the Harlem Little League team that won the Little League World Series a couple years ago.
And somebody from Major League Baseball, the commissioner's office, talking about this problem.
And they were debating it as a very, very serious problem.
He goes, where are young black athletes going and whose fault is it?
The thing that I noticed, they all wanted to assign blame to this.
Obviously, young black athletes themselves are making up their minds.
They're choosing to do other things.
They're choosing to go to basketball, the National Football League, or whatever else is out there.
They can get into the WNBA.
They might be trying to do that.
And yet, there's something wrong here.
They're making choices.
They don't want to go to baseball.
They're making choices.
And yet it's somebody's fault.
There's somebody to blame.
And it boiled down to baseball is not providing a friendly environment.
And this guy, this little league coach from Harlem, I think he said that the reason that black athletes don't go there is because the non-starters, the black non-starters in the league, don't get paid nearly as much as white non-starters.
You can have a bench player on the baseball team making $3 to $4 million if he's white, but a black player, no general manager is going to play a black replacement player or a bench player, $3 or $4 million.
And these kids know that, so they're going to other sports.
He also, and this happened a couple of weeks ago, so my memory may be a little bit vague on this, but I think he said, you're not going to have baseball owners and general managers put black players in star positions like centerfield and shortstop or pitcher, things like that.
I'm watching this, and my head is literally spinning because I'm listening to people who think that there is an active conspiracy to keep black kids out of baseball because of the way they've structured who gets what positions and who gets what salary consideration based on whether they're starters or not.
And I've never heard this.
This is the first I heard of it, so I was sort of glued to it.
And I'm like you, John.
I mean, anytime, you know, no matter how much progress we make on race, it's like we haven't made any.
The cycle repeats itself.
It's getting to the point here we need a new Jackie Robinson.
If you listen to some of these activists, we need somebody to break the color barrier again.
The real question is, why aren't young black athletes choosing baseball?
Now, I don't know.
I frankly don't know.
Because I'm like you.
Until I heard these people complaining about the problem, I didn't notice it.
I didn't notice it existed.
I know we're getting Japanese players.
We're getting Korean players are coming over.
A lot of more Japanese players are coming over.
But we're also getting, you know, when baseball expanded, I've got to put this stuff in context.
When baseball expanded all these teams many moons ago, for a while, you had a lot of teams that were really minor league AAA level because they didn't have the player talent.
I mean, to play Major League, any professional sport, NFL baseball in this country, the number of people out of our total population that are really good enough to play Major League Baseball at that level is not that many.
So it took a while, but they started staffing teams with Latin American players, players from Japan and in some cases, Korea.
And the competitive balance has gotten back to where it used to be, and the talent pool is spread out now.
And because of the importation of players from other countries, I think the overall talent league in Major League Baseball stepped up now.
It's gotten back to where it was before they expanded to all these teams.
But now, people are saying, well, there's an active conspiracy to keep young black athletes out of baseball.
And I'm just, I throw up my hands in utter frustration and confusion when I hear this because I think this has become almost a business, this race business, to search everywhere, start counting colors and counting heads.
And when you don't see enough of your group, bamo, you got the script in front of you, go out and read it off.
There's some sort of conspiracy.
So now Bud Sealing's been brought in.
And Bud, okay, but we want to work it.
Well, what are we going to do?
We're going affirmative action in baseball now.
And we're going to end up having perhaps people not as talented make rosters to have competitive racial balance as in affirmative action.
How else are you going to fix this?
If the problem is rooted in the fact that young black athletes, and that's what this show said on ESPN, if the problem is that young black athletes are choosing other sports, then what can you do anyway?
No, kid, you're not going to play basketball.
You're going to go play Major League Baseball.
You're just as good at baseball as you are at basketball.
You're going to go there.
I frankly am justified, am mystified by it.
And it seems like there's a desire on the part of some of these activists to make sure that their group always remains a victim of something.
They can never become dominant.
They can never become just co-equal status with them.
Always have to be a victim.
And the problems that we have racially and socially are not going to ever be solved if we're going to continue to have leaders of groups whose main objective is going to be to make sure that every member of their group is portrayed as a victim so that some sort of special status is conferred.
This is athletics.
It ought to be the case everywhere, but it's athletics.
And when you're talking about making a major league roster, be it the NFL or Major League Baseball, talent rises to the top.
But if you start saying, okay, two roster spots now have to go, regardless of everything else, to this racial group or that racial group, what do you end up going to do to the talent pool?
Especially if you're putting kids in there that don't want to go for whatever reason.
So it's, to me, it's just history repeating itself.
And it's just another bit of evidence that no matter what we do, it'll never be enough.
No matter how much progress we make, it won't be counted.
And that the same old rules that have governed all of this are going to be the same old rules that always will govern it.
Anthony in Pittsburgh, you're next on the EIB network.
Hello.
Yeah, I'd say just poor Joe Morgan, just like so many other Americans, doesn't understand market conditions.
All the players are coming from where baseball is big, Puerto Rico, Japan, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela.
That's where the players are.
And if you look at the NHL, if you can't pronounce Andropov or Ivanovov or don't know any Russian, you know, I'm just waiting for somebody to say, hey, there's not enough Canadians in the NHL.
The roster is just filled with Eastern Europeans and Russians because that's where the players are coming from.
It's just market conditions like anything else.
Okay, well, then tell me that what are the market conditions in the United States for Major League Baseball that are dictating all these foreign players?
Baseball doesn't get a lot of publicity.
It's basketball and football, and that's where almost everybody's interests are.
I mean, you know what it's like in Pittsburgh and in western Pennsylvania.
Football is king, and everything else plays second.
I know the Pirates are a joke in Pittsburgh in a lot of people's minds.
Yeah, and in so many other parts of the country, football is king, and basketball just gets so much publicity, and it's all over the airwaves, not just on TV, but in basketball and the backdrop for a number of ESPN television shows.
So that's what people are attracted to.
But see, this is the interesting thing, though.
If you look at, you say, baseball doesn't get much publicity, I understand that.
It's harder to make a really like the most prominent Major League Baseball commercial I remember in the last two years is Rafael Palmero's Viagra commercial.
No, honestly, honestly, I don't see Nike making great spots about baseball players.
No, they don't.
I don't see any of these other shoes.
But boy, when it comes to making great spots for basketball or football players, some of the most creative advertising in the country is going on there.
Well, probably because Nike and Reebok and Puma and everybody else that sells shoes, maybe they don't make a lot of money selling baseball equipment or baseball shoes, so they make more money selling basketball and football.
And again, it's market conditions.
No question.
No question.
But then you balance that.
When you look at the record attendance at Major League Baseball, yeah, they don't get the same kind of publicity.
I think one of the reasons they play every day, and it's sort of ho-hum.
And by the way, here's another problem.
I've always thought this, and there's nothing you can do about it.
It's just the nature of the game.
But these past few Sundays, we've had either playoff or World Series baseball games on at the same time football games have been on.
You go back and forth between this.
You can, I found myself sticking with the football game because more is going to happen faster in a football game.
I can probably watch five or six plays and maybe a touchdown during one at bat.
With all the foul balls and all those kinds of things.
It's a much, much slower game.
Well, back to your thing about the attendance.
Baseball tickets are a lot cheaper.
I think the NFL's ticket prices have gone up a greater percentage the last, say, five or six years.
Right.
And then baseball tickets have.
Well, it is, you know, it is a mystery.
When I was a kid, all anybody wanted to do was play baseball.
And Major League Baseball was the sole occupier of time, looking at the standings, baseball cards, and all that.
And I just, I'm not a kid anymore, obviously, but I don't get the sense that it's that way, even among the people that follow it.
But I could be wrong because I don't really watch kids follow baseball.
So if I'm wrong about that, chalk it up to my not seeing it.
But it does seem to be a little bit different.
But it boils down to this.
Market conditions are exactly right.
And if you have athletes of whatever color or proclivity, whatever, choosing to do other things, then how can you claim that the blame for this lies somewhere and that the fix then lies somewhere?
Because aren't you then say you're running into a little conflict here with the personal choices that are being made by these young athletes?
They'd rather play football or basketball.
It's not the money.
I mean, the money in baseball is good if you're a starter, even if you're on the bench.
This business is about managers and owners not putting people of color in star positions.
That one lost me.
That one still loses me.
I still don't get that, but I think that's part of the routine of making all these people members of a group is a victim.
Anyway, I've got to run here.
I appreciate it.
Cole Anthony.
We'll be back in just a second.
Stay with us.
You know, the Houston Astros, I think, have three Latin American players.
Isn't it funny?
They're not considered black, but Bill Clinton is.
We've had the first black president in this country, Bill Clinton.
We got three Latin American players on the Houston Astros, and they are not considered black.
Here is John in Houston, sir.
You're next on the EIB network.
Hello.
Rush, I've got the perfect person to blame for the baseball thing.
Yeah?
Michael Jordan.
Because he popularized basketball so much.
Well, because he tried to play baseball and he couldn't.
Role models are so important.
Yes, but that's the point.
There have been so many great role models in baseball.
How do you Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente and Ike?
I mean, they start listing these names and you can't stop.
But the attention span, people don't want to look back at history.
They look for the role model who's in today.
And we are just at the time when people may have quit trying when they saw Michael not be able to make it in baseball.
It's a little simplistic.
No, look, you may have a point for all any of us know.
I mean, we don't know.
The choices are being made to go into other sports.
I mean, it sounds ludicrous.
It sounds over the top, but you never know.
What did the press in baseball?
Well, that's another thing.
You got a little steroid ball going on out there and baseball players being called up to testify and all that.
I don't know.
If you look, if you compare it to the NFL, this comparison won't hold up with the NBA, but if you compare it to the NFL, every NFL game is national for the most part.
There's one game a week, and I know they're regional, but they are national.
And every game is treated as the end of the world.
Every highlight of every game, or every game has highlights that are shown.
Baseball has one national telecast a week for three months of the season.
It's a Saturday afternoon on Fox.
The rest of it is local.
ESPN, cable packages in local markets and so forth.
And there's so many teams and so many games that it's hard to sell each game as this one means everything, which you can do in the national football.
But in national football, if you start one and two, they're already, oh, you're out of playoffs.
Start one and two in baseball, and it's still snowing for the most part.
Mark in Atlanta.
Hello, sir.
Nice to have you.
Welcome to the program.
Yeah, Rush, you remember the Buccos, the Pirates back in the late 70s with Al Oliver, Willie Stargill, Dave Parker, go on and on.
That team was predominantly African American.
Are we going to say now, 30 years later, that Major League Baseball has gotten more racist over the last 30 years?
I know, it's absurd.
It is absolutely absurd to say that there's some sort of conspiracy here.
I was in Pittsburgh when those Pirates were around.
Starjill and Dave Parker, and you had Roberto Clemente, Al Oliver.
You had Doc Ellis.
Renny Stennett?
Rennie Stennett, Manny Sengin.
Well, Manny Sanguin was led.
But these guys were, they were an awesome football baseball team.
Rush, you nailed it a few minutes ago.
The sport, and I think in African-Americans' mind, it's too slow because it's a slow sport.
And additionally, I think, as over the years, it's a very family-intensive sport.
I have coached it.
It takes time to get the kids to the park, to get the kids together, and it's much easier to grab the ball, to go play a fast sport at a court right next to your house.
And I think over the last 30 years, that is what has happened.
I think it's a good point.
Same thing with soccer.
We had, in fact, soccer was so arduous for parents, we had the soccer mom phenomenon.
But you're right.
With basketball, folks, you can see it.
Just drive along the FDR here.
There are basketball courts and they are full.
It can be 120 degrees in August and they're out there playing basketball.
It's just and it's easy and mom doesn't have to round up the kids, put them in the family SUV and head over there.
Just bounce the ball from your house to the local court.
And they are jam-packed, by the way.
Break time because of time.
Back in just a sec.
It also takes a lot more money to maintain a baseball field.
And they're not as plentiful.
There are all kinds of fields when I was growing up next to my house.
and other hospital parking lots and that sort of thing.
But that doesn't happen with the basketball courts.
All right, folks, that's it.
Another exciting excursion into broadcast excellence in the can and on the way over to the limball wing of the Museum of Broadcasting.
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