CALLER: Hello?
RUSH: Yeah, Steve, welcome.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. How are you?
RUSH: Hi. Good.
CALLER: Good. A few days ago you talked about a baseball study that showed bias, and you said there was a flaw in the study?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: There really isn’t necessarily a flaw. You can tell just by looking at a large number of pitches, like there were about two million pitches, all you have to do is see what the average of balls and strikes are. Let’s say it’s 50-50, and then if you’ve got a black ump with a white batter or vice versa, if you see that it differs statistically from the norm, you can see a bias.
RUSH: Okay, let’s set the table here so that people know what we’re talking about because this was last week, I think. Some researchers — was this University of Texas?
CALLER: Oh, I don’t remember.
RUSH: I think it was. I’m not sure. But they studied over two million pitches in Major League Baseball. They concluded that there is racial bias, maybe not intentional, but racial bias when a pitcher and umpire are of differing races. A white ump will favor a white pitcher with more strike calls, and a black ump will favor a black or Hispanic pitcher with more strike calls. And what I said was, ‘It seems to me that you would have to be able to know what every pitch actually was.’
CALLER: But you don’t because all you have to do is know what the average is.
RUSH: Okay, so you average —
CALLER: You know the average is let’s say 50-50, but when —
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait, wait.
CALLER: Black pitcher gets up and 60% strikes or —
RUSH: Hold it. I’m like a woman when you get to numbers. I don’t follow them too easily. 50-50 what?
CALLER: Let’s say 50% strikes and 50% balls.
RUSH: Okay, okay.
CALLER: Overall average for all pitchers, batters, umps.
RUSH: Gotcha. I’m with you so far.
CALLER: And then you get, let’s say, a black pitcher up there and a white ump, and there’s a greater percentage called of balls, statistically significant greater percentage, you can see a bias.
RUSH: A-ha. So it’s a statistical bias. They’re not making some actual claim here?
CALLER: Right. I mean it would be almost impossible to do that.
RUSH: Well, that was my point.
CALLER: Right. But you can see statistically if there is a difference.
RUSH: Yeah, I guess you could. All right, well, I stand corrected. Until somebody else calls and tells me you were wrong.
CALLER: And gauche happens to be French for left, so…
RUSH: Yes. You’ve been waiting for a whole week —
CALLER: I have. You know what, I don’t listen to you so often, I’m driving in my car sometimes on the way to or from appointments, that’s what I got a chance to listen to you. It’s hard to catch you, and hard to get in, so I just thought —
RUSH: I appreciate your making it. Thanks much.
CALLER: Okay, thanks. Good-bye.
RUSH: We had a call, I was asking some guy what some words mean. I was using some words one day that were a little bit esoteric and off the beaten path, and I asked a guy what gauche meant, and he got it half right, but I didn’t correct him. I was not trying to laud my vocabulary skills over anybody, but this guy remembers the call. Gauche, which is really inappropriate, just goofy, ill-mannered behavior is rooted — it’s a French word — and it means left because in the old days in France, left-handers were thought to be goofy, odd, outcasts, this kind of thing. Well, outcast is the wrong word, but it was something that was improper. It indicated poor potty training in the formative years, they thought. So that’s where the word comes from. It is French, and it has its roots in left, as in left-handedness.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Cheryl in Shreveport, Louisiana, you’re next on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hello?
RUSH: Hi.
CALLER: Hi.
RUSH: Hi.
CALLER: I can’t believe I’m talking to you about this. There’s so many times I wanted to call and couldn’t get through, but this is last thing. You’re funny but you’re not always funny, like your snide remark about women and numbers?
RUSH: (Sigh)
CALLER: Are you trying to lose your women listeners?
RUSH: (Laughing.)
CALLER: (Laughing.) That was not funny.
CALLER: Well, why would you joke about something like that?
RUSH: Because I haven’t been to bed all night and I love stereotypical humor. And it’s true, people start throwing numbers around, and you’ve heard me on this program, I start adding, subtracting things in my head, look at Barbie —
CALLER: But you just degraded women.
RUSH: I had a Barbie doll once, Cheryl, and you’d pull the string on the back, ‘Math class is tough.’ You know the stereotype. I was just making a stereotypical joke.
CALLER: Oh, my goodness, I can’t believe you said that. I really can’t. We laugh at you all the time, but that was not funny. That was degrading to some women.
RUSH: Why? Because it’s true?
CALLER: No, it’s not. Maybe it is nowadays, but not to your listeners. We’re smart out here.
RUSH: Yes, I understand this.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: All right. It was just some stereotypical humor.
CALLER: Okay. Do you apologize to the women? (Laughing.)
RUSH: Well, you know, Cheryl, I have to tell you, Cheryl is one of my all-time top-ten female names, and I hope that I can salvage your loyalty here as an audience member. I’m not going to apologize. People in my position never apologize. But we just acknowledge that you were upset and offended by it. I’ll apologize you were offended.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: But I’m not going to apologize for saying it. I meant to say it. Why would I apologize for something I meant to say? It was a joke.
CALLER: Okay. I guess. Okay.
RUSH: All right.
CALLER: Thank you.
RUSH: She’s laughing. She’s laughing.
CALLER: Well, you are funny most of the time.
RUSH: Admit it, you thought that was funny. You laughed a little bit, didn’t you?
CALLER: I was laughing at your response. But, boy, I couldn’t believe I got through the first try, and your call screener said it was fate.
RUSH: Yeah, divine intervention, karma, whatever you want to call it.
CALLER: Yes. Thank you.
RUSH: All right, thank you, Cheryl, and have a wonderful summer.
CALLER: You, too.