The latest Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me ran the gamut from all-Jewish (Peter Sagal) to half-Jewish (“Not My Job” guest Amy Schumer to not-Jewish-at-all-but-thought-to-be baseball barnstorming team House of David.
Here’s the relevant portion of the transcript.
PETER SAGAL: Amy Schumer, it is a real pleasure to talk to you. And we have invited you here today to play a game, this time we’re calling, Play Ball. It was the first week of baseball season. Thank God. So we’re going to ask you three questions about the House of David baseball team, one of the weirdest teams in the history of baseball. Get two right, you’ll win our prize for one of our listeners. Carl, who is Amy Schumer playing for?
CARL KASELL, BYLINE: Amy is playing for Fiona and David Sutherland (ph) of Southbury, Connecticut.
SAGAL: All right. You ready to play?
AMY SCHUMER: Yes. I’ll do my best for you guys.
SAGAL: Now the House of David baseball team was a traveling team in the first half of the 20th century. And according to an article we saw at the “Need Supply Co.” blog, the House of David team was known and soon became nationally famous because of what quirk? A, every time they got a base hit, they would stop to pray on the base path, resulting in a lot of outs.B, all the players wore very long hair and are even longer beards, or C, they would line up after the game and apologize to their opponents for winning.
SCHUMER: Those are all pretty good. I’m half Jewish, so I have half confidence here. I am going to say B…
SAGAL: B, they wore long hair, long beards?
SCHUMER: …The long hair and long beards. Yeah.
SAGAL: You are correct.
PAULA POUNDSTONE: All right.
SAGAL: They had long hair, long beards. Although – and it’s an easy mistake to make, ’cause they were called the House of David, and they had beards, but they were not Jewish. They belonged to an evangelical millennial cult in Michigan.
POUNDSTONE: Oh…
SAGAL: But one of the rules of this cult was you can’t cut your hair or your beard. All right. In addition to being credited with staging the first night games in baseball, the House of David team also featured what baseball innovation? A, instant replay. In those days, they just had actors who would come out on the field and reenact the play in slow motion. B, female players who were required to wear fake beards, or C, performance-enhancing drugs, namely a Vim and Vigor tonic, they also sold up in the stands.
SCHUMER: That’s really hard. I’m guessing that these guys like to keep their women in their, quote-unquote, dugout. So let’s go C, I think.
SAGAL: You’re going to go with C, the performance-enhancing drug known as the Vim and Vigor tonic?
SCHUMER: Yeah. And I need to write that down. That sounds great.
SAGAL: Vim and Vigor tonic. That’s with a V. No, actually it was B. They had women players…
POUNDSTONE: Wow.
SAGAL: …They were remarkably politically liberal for their time. They had women players, they had African-American players – long for the major leagues did. But as per their rules, everyone had to have a beard, real or fake.
SCHUMER: Wow.
SAGAL: All right. Now this is exciting. You have – it’s bottom of the ninth, whatever metaphor you want. You can get this one right, you’ll win. The House of David team, at that point again, pretty famous and successful – they put out an offer to Babe Ruth, who at that time had retired from the Yankees. Ruth’s manager replied that Ruth would not play with the team. Why? A, because he had died six months before. B, because of a childhood accident in the orphanage with some hot wax, he could not grow a beard, or C, there was no way Babe Ruth would ever take a vow of temperance?
SCHUMER: I’m going to go with C. I don’t think the Babe would take that vow.
SAGAL: You are exactly right. That’s what happened.
POUNDSTONE: Wow.
SAGAL: The manager told the team the Babe would never give up his beer and his liquor as all House of David players were required to do. Carl, how did Amy Schumer do on our quiz?
KASELL: She’s a winner. Two correct answers, Peter.
SAGAL: Well done, Amy.
The program also featured an event which I included in a previous entry.
SAGAL: Roxanne, on Tuesday, the World Series champion Boston Red Sox went to the White House to meet the president. The highlight of the visit was when team star David Ortiz, Big Papi, whipped out his phone and took a selfie with the president. But it turns out that selfie was what?
ROXANNE ROBERTS: It was a stunt by Samsung.
SAGAL: Exactly, right…
ROBERTS: …I know…
SAGAL: It was a promotional stunt.
ROBERTS: I was so bummed out.
POUNDSTONE: That’s terrible.
SAGAL: Paid for by Samsung.
POUNDSTONE: What do you mean paid for by – so they paid him…
ROBERTS: They signed him that morning…
SAGAL: …The day before. What happened was – so they’re meeting the team, you know, the president was standing there posing for a photo. David Ortiz says, hey can I take one with you? Puts his arm around the president, pulls out his phone, his Samsung phone, takes a selfie, tweets it, goes around the world – yay. Turns out the day before, he had signed an endorsement contract with Samsung.
POUNDSTONE: Oh, that is gross.
SAGAL: The White House was furious. They said they never allow people to use the image of the president for commercial purposes. That must be why, at the last second, a Secret Service agent tried to save the president from the selfie. He jumped in front of the camera yelling cheese.
(LAUGHTER)
POUNDSTONE: Well, let me just say that when the margarine people came to me, I said no.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: What did the margarine people want from you?
POUNDSTONE: Margarine people – many years ago this was – they came to me from all over the country – the margarine – the board – the margarine board, they – but they wanted me to surreptitiously bring up margarine in a positive light when I was in public.
KASELL: So, how do you do that?
POUNDSTONE: I think for me, I probably just would leave some on my face.
SAGAL: People would say…
POUNDSTONE: People would go, what’s that on your face? And I would go, oh, delicious margarine.
SAGAL: And then you’d lick it.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah. But I guess probably Big Papi doesn’t make as much money as I do. And so he had to sell out to Samsung.
SAGAL: Right.
POUNDSTONE: I totally understand.
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