Rush Limbaugh: Black Lives Matter is a “full-fledged anti-American organization”

Limbaugh lashes out at Major League Baseball for having Black Lives Matter on pitcher's mounds

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

Fromt he July 27, 2020, edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show

RUSH LIMBAUGH (HOST): In fact, what I’ve heard, I’ve heard that -- I've heard more people are just tuning out baseball. All it -- all it took was to see BLM, Black Lives Matter, on the pitcher’s mound on some of these games. I know some big-time baseball fans that -- "to heck with this." And they just turned it off. And I don't -- you know, I don’t blame them. I think this -- 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.

...

Here’s the deal. 14 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 them 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, but yeah, open a three-game series. That game has been canceled and they’re fumigating the Yankee / 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 -- 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 this is -- we got three games in, and have you seen the story about A&E? A&E had this -- 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. Everybody -- a lot of people -- 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 -- 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 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 just -- 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? Over the -- 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 I couldn't -- 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 -- it was the no fans – and then Fox came along, and they tried to put virtual fans in the stand. 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 it was -- it was -- what it was was evidence that the game itself is not enough to sustain interest. And it didn’t. I tried to stay, I tried to get involved, I tried to get involved in the competitive nature, and I -- and I couldn’t.

Now, I may not be normal in that sense. A lot of people are baseball fans where I’m not, and they might've -- 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. That was it, tuning out, not watching.

So we shall see what happens with -- Well, now the -- the 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 asymptomatic. 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 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. 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, he’s with 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, the -- and 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 they -- when somebody gets the virus, they don’t know what to do now. They’ve canceled the Marlins game. Fourteen, fourteen members of the team and the staff still in Philadelphia, and I guarantee you Philadelphia 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 -- I don't -- I don’t see how the NFL has been -- I’ve not envisioned them being able to play. I admire them for trying. I admire them for setting it up. You know, the NFL has tried to proceed on as much a normalcy contingent as they can.

But I just -- I -- No, it’s not -- 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 -- 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.”