CARL KASELL: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR News quiz. I'm Carl Kasell, and here's your host, at the Wang Theater in Boston, Massachusetts, Peter Sagal.
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PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you everybody. Thank you, Carl. Thank you so much. Come on, this is Boston. I thought you make people earn it. Come on.
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SAGAL: It's great to be here. It's great to be in Boston. Its time for that annual rite of spring here, when the Red Sox fans flock to historic Fenway Park, take their seats, and assume the crash position.
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SAGAL: A little tip for you, if you use a straw, you can still drink your beer with your head between your knees.
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SAGAL: Who better to explain the ongoing calamity that is baseball in Boston than Jim Bouton, former major league pitcher and author of the great baseball memoir "Ball Four?" He'll be joining us later to play our game.
First, it's your turn. Give us a call. 1-888-Wait-Wait is the number. That translates to 1-888-924-8924. It's time to welcome our first listener contestant this week. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!.
JULIE RHEINSTROM: Hi, this is Julie Rheinstrom, calling from Washington, DC.
SAGAL: How are things in Washington?
RHEINSTROM: Pretty nice.
SAGAL: Pretty nice. It's a beautiful spring there too, I assume.
RHEINSTROM: Uh-huh.
SAGAL: It's been everywhere. And your baseball team is doing well.
RHEINSTROM: Oh, I wouldn't know. I'm actually a Cubs fan.
SAGAL: Oh.
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SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show, Julie. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First, say hello to a comedian and the host of the "Who's Paying Attention" podcast, Mr. Alonzo Bodden is here.
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RHEINSTROM: Hi, Alonzo.
ALONZO BODDEN: Hello, Julie.
SAGAL: Next, a comedienne performing at Union Hall in Brooklyn in New York, on April 21st, it's Jessi Klein is here.
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JESSI KLEIN: Hi, Julie.
RHEINSTROM: Hi, Jessi.
SAGAL: And lastly, a genuine correspondent for "CBS Sunday Morning," Mr. Mo Rocca is here.
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MO ROCCA: Hi, Julie.
RHEINSTROM: Hi, Mo.
SAGAL: All right, you ready to play?
RHEINSTROM: Yeah.
SAGAL: Let's do this. You're going to start us off with Who's Carl This Time. Carl Kasell is going to read you three quotes from the week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain just two of them, you will win our prize: Carl Kasell's voice on your home answering machine. You ready to go?
RHEINSTROM: Yes, sir.
SAGAL: All right, here is your first quote. Now, this is from somebody who conceded this week that he was, in fact, losing.
KASELL: We were winning. We were winning in a very different way.
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SAGAL: That was somebody who ended up losing in the traditional way, the GOP nomination.
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SAGAL: Who was it?
RHEINSTROM: I think that was an excerpt from Rick Santorum's speech to suspend his campaign.
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SAGAL: That's right, Rick Santorum, indeed.
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SAGAL: He dropped out this week. His improbable run for the presidency taught us a lot about modern politics. That there's still a large part of the Republican Party that votes primarily on social issues and that the endorsement of the front man for Megadeth isn't the political coronation it used to be.
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BODDEN: I think he's on to something with this "we're not losing; we're winning in a different way." I can hear fired coaches in every sport saying that on their way out the door. Like, no, I was just winning in a different way.
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BODDEN: I figured having lower points, we wouldn't be as tired.
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SAGAL: So, after this campaign, he's become a dropout. We assume he'll hang out in the streets with the other dropouts, like Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann, and smoke cigarettes and cadge for change.
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SAGAL: This can't work. Everybody knows that dropping out lead to gang-banging and Santorum is opposed to both gangs and banging.
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SAGAL: I miss him already. I miss them all.
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SAGAL: I really do. I want them all back. I want Herman Cain. I want Michele. I want Rick Perry back.
BODDEN: As a comic, I'll trade them all in for another month of Herman Cain.
SAGAL: I know.
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BODDEN: Just toss us that one.
KLEIN: Nine-nine-nine.
BODDEN: Oh yeah.
KLEIN: So simple.
ROCCA: It's time for a reunion special, you know where they all get back together.
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KLEIN: They are kind of like the real housewives, those guys, together.
ROCCA: Yeah, yeah, we could see them on Bravo all together.
KLEIN: Yeah.
ROCCA: Or they should get a beach house this summer. Get them back together.
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SAGAL: Julie, here is your next quote.
KASELL: It's meteorological March Madness.
SAGAL: That was what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is calling this March. It was very unusual. Why?
RHEINSTROM: It was the hottest March.
SAGAL: It was one of the hottest months ever, in terms of being over its average temperature.
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ROCCA: Oh my gosh.
SAGAL: You know how much fun you had in March, going for walks in your t-shirt and shorts, admiring the flowers and trees, tossing your dog to your Frisbee.
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SAGAL: Well, I hope you all enjoyed the end of the world. Believe it or not, that was an extreme weather event, one of the warmest Marches ever. More than 20,000 local temperature records were broken in one month.
ROCCA: That's winning in a different way.
SAGAL: It is.
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KLEIN: Al Gore is winning now.
SAGAL: But all that fun you were having, it was a disaster. It was the picni-pocolypse. Now we know the world won't end with a bang but with an al fresco brunch on the terrace.
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ROCCA: I think this is the return of La Nina. I think if we sealed our borders, we wouldn't have this problem.
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SAGAL: Really? It wouldn't let those foreign patterns...
ROCCA: No, El Nino and La Nina would have never come here, if we built that wall.
SAGAL: Exactly.
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ROCCA: And we wouldn't have any irregular temperatures.
SAGAL: But this disaster, this sort of pleasant disaster was why the Weather Channel had all those reports from grim-faced field reporters, standing in lovely meadows in shorts and Hawaiian shirts.
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SAGAL: "It's terrible out here, Phil. You can see the grass gently blowing in the breeze behind me. Thousands of residents here desperately in need of wine coolers and aperitifs."
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SAGAL: But this means like if this goes on, the entire country will become southern California.
KLEIN: Oh no.
SAGAL: Which cannot work. Crusty Maine lobstermen will be getting boob jobs and abandoning their traps to go to auditions.
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SAGAL: Julie, here is your last quote.
KASELL: I love him. I respect. You know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill him for the last sixty years, but that bleep is still there.
SAGAL: That was Ozzie Guillen, the new manager of the Miami Marlins - that would be a baseball team in Miami - praising whom?
RHEINSTROM: Oh, I don't know anything about sports.
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SAGAL: Let's play a little game with you calling are you smarter than Ozzie Guillen. Let's say you're in Miami. Miami. And you want to do something that will offend the maximal number of people in Miami, particularly Spanish speaking people in Miami. What world leader would you then praise if you wanted to do that?
RHEINSTROM: Oh, Fidel Castro.
SAGAL: Yes, indeed, there you go.
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SAGAL: Congratulations. You're a winner on you're smarter than Ozzie Guillen.
And this wasn't an ambush. Time magazine didn't say "hey, what's your opinion of Fidel Castro, the Hitler of South Florida?" No, Ozzie Guillen volunteered his love for Fidel Castro.
He said, hey, reporter is your tape deck running? Great, here we go. Ready? I love Castro. Did you get that? Also, Stalin was underrated, Pol Pot is my BFF. And my favorite deadly virus is a tossup between HIV and Ebola. Anything else you want?
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ROCCA: What did he say? What was the quote?
SAGAL: He said I love Fidel Castro. I respect him. You know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Castro for the last sixty years but that obscenity is still there.
KLEIN: What question was he asked?
SAGAL: He wasn't asked any question at all.
KLEIN: It just came out?
SAGAL: It's like, oh, Mr. Guillen, how's the team going? You know, before we get to that...
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SAGAL: There's something on my mind.
KLEIN: Mr. Guillen, how do you feel about your pitching this season? Well, I love Fidel Castro.
SAGAL: Pretty much.
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BODDEN: Ozzie's defense was that he was thinking in Spanish and speaking English.
ROCCA: Is that right? Is that what he said?
BODDEN: And I have tried that line on more Latin girls...
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BODDEN: It just doesn't work.
SAGAL: No.
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SAGAL: Carl, how did Julie do on our quiz?
KASELL: Julie, you're a winner. You had three correct answers, so I'll be doing the message on your voicemail or answering machine.
SAGAL: Well done.
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RHEINSTROM: Thank you. Thanks so much.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.