“Well, I’ve been to one World Fair, a picnic, and a rodeo, and that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard come over a set of earphones.” — Major T.J. “King” Kong, Dr. Strangelove (1964).

Forward that quote to 2016 and apply it to a recorded commentary by conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum, made on February 29 and just discovered by Lachlan Markay of the Washington Free Beacon and the Heritage Foundation.

You see, Mrs. Schlafly wants to ban foreign players from Major League Baseball. She says they’re taking jobs from Americans.

Phyllis Schlafly wants to ban foreigners from Major League Baseball because they're taking Americans' jobs https://t.co/EwMhIzGJLV

— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) March 11, 2016

She said, with great emphasis on “our youth:”

The best baseball players today are American-born. All six of the six recipients of the top awards this past season are native born American. But more than a quarter of Major League Baseball players today are foreign-born, with whom our youth are less likely to identify. Some of these players cannot speak English, and they did not rise through the ranks of Little League. These foreign-born players enter on visas and take positions that should have gone to American players. Fewer than 4% of the Baseball Hall of Fame is foreign-born, yet 27% of today’s players are.

This foreign influx into our National Pastime may help explain why our youth is abandoning baseball. Youth who play baseball have declined by more than 40% since 2000, and some communities where baseball was once booming now struggle to fill teams. Television ratings for World Series games are less than half what they were three decades ago.

Baseball owners are doing the same thing that big corporations do – bring in foreign labor to take jobs that should go to Americans. American baseball players are better, as the awards and Hall of Fame prove, but perhaps baseball owners think that foreign players are cheaper and easier to control.

Oh, dear Phyllis. Bless your heart.

What baseball owners want more than anything is to build a winning team, not build the cheapest team. Their stands are filled by fans who want to watch winners, and if it means those winners are from South or Central America, then they’ll do their darnedest to acquire them.

Check out the roster for my team, the Kansas City Royals, as they took on the New York Mets in the World Series last fall. Nearly half of the players on that roster are foreign-born, with all the foreign players originating in South or Central America.

The Royals won the 2015 World Series. Baseball’s world championship was won by a team that was comprised of nearly 50% foreign-born players.

What was that again, Phyllis, about the “best baseball players are American born?”

In case she hadn’t noticed it, baseball is a passion in Latin America, so, of course, lots of great players will originate there. My son-in-law was born in America to immigrants from Nicaragua and Colombia (and yes, his parents came here legally and are proud citizens. Thank you for asking). He’s told me how his father’s Nicaraguan family members were ardent fans of the game.

And did Phyllis ever consider that maybe young Americans aren’t following baseball as much because they’re following other sports — like football, or basketball, or soccer? News flash, dear Phyllis, it’s not the 1940’s anymore.

In her broadside against foreign-born baseball players, Schlafly uses words and phrases like  “foreign influx,” “foreign labor,” “cannot speak English,” “should have gone to American players,” and (gulp), “easier to control.” Thanks, Phyllis, for contributing to the canard that ‘conservatives are racists.’

Furthermore, if Schlafly is such a staunch free-market conservative, shouldn’t she just let the owners obtain the players they want? Why should it be any of her business? Professional sports — including baseball — represent the free market at its finest: merit pays, not racial or ethnic quotas.

Maybe this Twitter post by conservative ‘Matt H.’ explains a lot:

@freddoso @jimgeraghty Well, she's nothing if not consistent.https://t.co/g8rOJj5xIf

— JP Teufel (@Convectuoso) March 11, 2016

Maybe Phyllis thinks that a Trump presidency will keep all those abhorrent foreign baseball players out of America. Bless her heart.