RUSH: No, no. In fact, what I’ve heard, I’ve heard more people are just tuning out baseball. All it took was to see BLM, Black Lives Matter, on the pitcher’s mound at some of these games, and I know some big-time baseball fans that said to heck with this. And they just turned it off. And, you know, I don’t blame ’em. I don’t think these professional sports leagues have the slightest idea what has happened to them and what is in store for them.

And we’re gonna be discussing that and a whole bunch of other stuff. Great to be back, folks. Happy to have you here. Rush Limbaugh behind the Golden EIB Microphone. Telephone number, if you want to be on the program today is 800-282-2882, and if you want to send an email, it’s ElRushbo@eibnet.us.

You know, here’s the deal. Fourteen Florida Marlins players and coaches have tested positive. Now, the Florida Marlins played a three-game series in Philadelphia against the Phillies. The Florida Marlins are scheduled to open their home season tonight against somebody. I don’t even know who. I don’t even care. But they can’t. They’ve canceled it because they’re still in Philly because so many of ’em have tested positive.

But now how many Phillies are gonna test positive having been close to the Marlins who tested positive? The Yankees were supposed to open in Philadelphia tonight — well, not open, yeah, open a three-game series. That game has been canceled and they’re fumigating the Yankee, slash, Marlins clubhouse because they have no idea how many people have come in contact with the 14 Marlins players.

There was a report today that Major League Baseball’s executive council was gonna have a super-secret meeting, and they were going to discuss canceling the whole season. That report, according to latest news, is not true. The latest news, in fact, let me share with you the actual headline: “Report: Major League Baseball Has Not Had Talks of Pausing Season Amid Marlins COVID-19 Outbreak.”

You know, if they’re not, they’re gonna have to soon because we got three games in, and have you seen the story about A&E? The A&E TV network had this show called Live PD, and it was about cops. They’ve lost half their audience since all this anti-cops stuff started. Arts & Entertainment, co-owned by Walt Disney and Hearst, dropped Live PD in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd. It was one of their biggest-viewed, most-viewed shows. And it featured body cam footage and footage from the dashboard of the police cars. And people watched it.

But now, because of the anti-cop sentiment, they’ve lost half of the audience. Now, what does the NFL think is gonna happen and what does Major League Baseball think is gonna happen once they start protesting the anthem and kneeling, which Major League Baseball has done, and they put Black Lives Matter all over the pitcher’s mounds? And it’s a Marxist organization. Everybody knows this. And they’re ignoring it. It’s not hard to find out that it’s not about civil rights. It’s not about fairness. It’s not about doing this.

It’s a pro-Marxist, anti-American, full-fledged anti-American organization. And the fact that the people in professional sports don’t even seem to care enough to get it right, that they’re just gonna go ahead and follow whatever the erroneous conventional wisdom is, they’re in the process of dwindling their audiences down to — I don’t know what.

Snerdley, did any of you guys try watching Major League Baseball? (interruption) I did because I wanted to see what it looked like with no fans. I wanted to see what it looked like. I haven’t watched professional baseball on a regular basis in years. You know, once you work for a team, you lose the ingredients necessary to be a fan. And I worked for the Kansas City Royals all the way back in the ’80s. So I haven’t been a, quote, unquote, baseball fan, but I was curious, you know, as a media raconteur and commentator here, I wanted to see what it looked like with no fans.

And it didn’t look real to me. It looked like exhibition baseball. It looked like games that don’t count. And then the Black Lives Matter painted in black, however they superimpose it on the pitcher’s mound, so many stadiums, so many games. But it was the no fans — and then Fox came along, and they tried to put virtual fans in the stands. What a joke that was.

And then some networks piped in crowd noise. Whenever there was a strike-out you could hear a faint cheer from people that weren’t there. And what it was was evidence that the game itself is not enough to sustain interest. And it didn’t. I tried to get involved, I tried to get involved in the competitive nature, and I couldn’t.

Now, I may not be normal in that sense. A lot of people are baseball fans where I’m not, but I’ll tell you, I have heard from people who are livid over the Black Lives Matter imposed on the pitcher’s mound, people that are big baseball fans said that was it, tuning out, not watching.

So we shall see what happens with… (interruption) Well, now football, here’s the thing. If you’re gonna look at what’s going on with football, you can’t ignore this business with the Florida Marlins, because 14 people have tested — and they’re not all symptomatic. Some people are suffering symptoms. But those 14 that have come down with it have interacted with who knows how many other people who may not test positive for a day or two or maybe a week. You don’t know.

So they played the Phillies. That means that they got close to some Phillies players. They were in the clubhouse, the Marlins were in their clubhouse, the visiting team clubhouse, and there was a staff of players, you know, the home team furnishes the clubhouse staff. Those people were in there. They might have become infected. So it’s probably gonna be more than 14.

Now, it’s apparent here that the plan was this. The plan was we’re gonna start playing baseball, we’re gonna have as much social distancing as we can. We’re gonna have no fans in the stands. We gonna have the umpires and anybody else that wants to wear a mask, except for Dr. Fauci. Dr. Fauci does not have to wear a mask when he’s watching the Nationals.

By the way, who had the worst first pitch, was it Fauci or Obama? What is it about leftists that cannot throw a baseball? Did you hear Fauci’s excuse? Fauci said, you know, he hadn’t thrown a baseball in, like, 80 years. So the day before the first pitch he went somewhere and started rehearsing. And he was throwing and throwing, and he threw too hard and he wrecked his arm, he ruined his arm, he said.

So when it came time to throw out the first pitch at the game, his arm was wrecked, he had practiced too much, and that’s why he couldn’t get any juice on it. He should’ve just lobbed it, he said, but instead he tried to fire a fastball right over the middle of the plate and instead it ended up halfway to first base. Do you realize you couldn’t do that unless you were trying to?

Most people couldn’t do what Fauci did unless they were trying to. (thump) Pardon me. I hit the microphone there. Didn’t mean to do that. And then Fauci shows up later, he’s in the second deck, three people, and he’s not wearing a mask. And he’s the guy that’s been encouraging everybody to wear a mask! Anyway, anyway, apparently baseball’s policy has been to play the games and travel around as normal and just hope that nobody got the virus.

Just hope. And then when somebody gets the virus, they don’t know what to do now. They’ve canceled the Marlins game. Fourteen members of the team and the staff are still in Philadelphia, and I guarantee you Philadelphia (chuckles) wants the Marlins out of town. “Would you guys leave? Would you take whatever it is you’ve got and go back home to Florida?” So, we’ll have to see.

Now, your question about football. Football’s gotta be watching this. Football is gonna be featuring players in much closer contact than baseball players will find themselves, and I just don’t see how the NFL has been… I’ve not envisioned them being able to play. I admire ’em for trying. I admire ’em for setting it up. You know, the NFL has tried to proceed on as much a normalcy contingent as they can.

But I just… (interruption) No, it’s not that. The reason I don’t think they’re gonna be able to play is because of the reaction everybody’s having to the virus, not the virus itself. I think the reaction has gone way beyond the rational. We don’t even… You know, all these scare stories every day about the new number of cases all over the place, and we still don’t know what the real number is because it’s being fudged because there’s a political component.

You know, everything about this is “Get Trump.” Everything about this is “Stop Trump.” Everything about this is “Get rid of Trump.”

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: All right. So the Marlins and Orioles game is canceled, the Yankees-Phillies game is canceled tonight, while Major League Baseball conducts additional COVID-19 testing, the members of the Marlins traveling party self-quarantining in place in Philadelphia while awaiting the outcome of these new testing results. There are people who think that there will not be another Major League Baseball game this season.

Ah, they do. People think, “This is it. It’s just a matter of time, just a matter of when the league can let everybody know this on the down low.” But we will see.