The Josh Innes Show - JIS Classic: Yao Ming Segment

Episode Date: November 14, 2022

Hi All! Here's another classic segment. This one comes from one of my appearances on the Rome show. This segment includes reading Rockets fans letters to Yao Ming. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Top of the hour, Brian Baldinger from the NFL Network will join us. The people in Houston are dedicated sports fans. I think you've learned this when you heard from Matt Bowie, who was obsessed with Carl Landry. Whenever I think about how much I miss Carl Landry, it's like how much I miss an ex-girlfriend or something. Whenever he made a big play or anything, you just, like, sum up with, like, this joy. We'll still love you no matter what jersey you're wearing.

Carl Landry, we drafted him. We watched him grow up. I like Kevin Martin, and we really need Kevin Martin, but Carl Landry, Kyle Lowry, like, my favorite players. We'll still root for you wherever you are, wherever you go. I miss you, Carl Landry. That booty misses you. That booty misses you. I miss you, Carl Landry. I will be right here waiting for you.

That movie misses you, Carl Landry. And I play that to tell you this. A, that I just love that. It doesn't get old to me. And two, that the Rockets fans in particular are a dedicated loyal bunch. And Yao Ming just recently retired.

You can say what you want about him on the the court and his numbers didn't you know didn't bear out because the guy was hurt for like the last five years of his career nice guy so people have an attachment to him he meant something to the global game I get all that but on the Rockets website fans wrote letters to Yao and those were posted on the website you You want to read one of these? Let's read one of these. Give me some kind of emotional, sappy music for this one, Ben. Give me something that means something.

Because some of them, you know, some of them make sense. You know, they're just, hey, Yao, you meant a lot to the city. We appreciate it. Sorry things didn't work out. You know, that kind of thing. But then you get people that you're just fairly certain live in their mom's basement. Fairly certain. The kind of guys that wear their pants right up above their navel, play a little D&D. A guy named Chewy, it's already off to a good start, isn't it? A guy named Chewy wrote this letter to Yao, and Chewy writes, You were one of the most important motivations of my life.

You made me know that I cannot be as tall as you, but I can have a pair of soft hands as you. You told me that I cannot prevent accidents in life, but I can hold faith like you, instead of being a coward, fighting for my destiny. You taught me that talent is useless, without hard-working attitude is useless without hardworking attitude and hardworking attitude only makes sense with persistence.

You made me brave. Yao made this guy brave and helped me build my confidence to walk on this earth. Here I want to say, Yao, thank you for everything. And he continues. It's a sad day for everyone who loves basketball because of your retirement.

However, as Gandalf said in The Lord of the Rings, death is just another path that we all have to take. Retirement does not make your influence vanished. It is just another stage of life which makes you complete, man. Your spirits will be locked in your legendary decade in rockets, but keep spreading through the future and inspire more young men like me. So long, my friend. Wish you and your family all the best in the future.

Your biggest fan, Chewy. Okay, now listen, I get it. You have an emotional attachment to somebody. That's how fans are. Fans feel like they know these guys and they love these guys. I get it. That's fine. But keep in mind the guy just retired. He didn't die.

However, as Gandalf said in the Lord of the Rings, death is just another path that we'll have to take. I just think that that quote is a little bit out of context. You know, as Carl from Caddyshack said, when you die on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness. So you got that going for you, Yao. Which is nice. That was so out of context, you could have put any quote in this letter to Yao, and it would have made sense. However, as George McFly said, Hey, you.

Get your damn hands off her. You know? Anything could have applied here. Fans get emotional. Just like Matt Bowie. I think the Rockets might have the most emotional fans in the universe. They grow attached to players. Like Matt Bowie grew attached to carl landry matt bowie misses you and he misses yaoming too i'm sure 1-800-636-8686 were you ever a diehard

fan of something like that like to a point where you were so emotionally tied to it that you would write a letter to someone who's never going to see it. I don't think I ever got to that point in life. Now, that doesn't mean I haven't done dopey things in my life and gone into crazy fandom at any point in my life. You know, I did some wacky things. When I was 15, I used to watch the Baton Rouge Kingfish Minor League Hockey team, and I used to dance for my dinner in the stands. Fat 15-year-old kid.

In between doing awful play-by-play for them i was up in the stands 1200 strong at the riverside centriplex christmas time i put on a santa suit they were playing around halloween time i would put on you know a costume i got wild these are the kind of things i did there was a guy i saw a picture these are things i don't understand. I was looking at the Houston, well, actually, I was looking at Sports Radio 610's website. That's the station I work for. We were posting pictures of fans at Texans practice. And there was a guy that was dressed as Darth Vader. And I made fun of him because, you know, bless his heart, somebody has to. It's 110 degrees outside.

And the guy's dressed in a Darth Vader suit, but with a Texans jersey. He's a little wacky. That's fine. And that's cool. He's wacky. He's dressed in full-on Darth Vader gear in 110-degree weather with a Texans jersey on. But here's what makes that story even better. Is I got a tweet from this guy,

at Josh Ennis 6'10". His name is Darth Texan. And he says, Heard you were calling me out. Give me a chance to defend myself. I said, no. I don't think that's going to happen. Although, I'd like to give you a chance to defend yourself.

It has all the makings of something really special if I did. 1-800-636-8686. Always the guy. And on Monday Night Football, I was watching the Texans Jets on Monday Night Football. You've got guys in Viking helmets. You've got obese guys. You've got guys that look like they're roided up, sleeveless jerseys on, looking like Mark McGuire. Like, I wonder what goes through your mind when you get up, you go to work, whatever you do for a living.

That's another thing I wonder. These wacky guys that dress up at these games are probably the most straight-laced guys you've ever met. They're guys that work at a bank or they're accountants, CPAs. They do all that. And then at the football game, they get wild. It's like eyes wide shut. By day, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise, they were just business people. By night, they were involved in freaky deaky sex world.

And that's kind of what those fans are like. They've got a family, maybe. Sad thing is their wife is probably embarrassed by it. And what would make it even worse is if the wife was actually into it. But I guess you've got to find someone you have common ground with, right? You've got to find someone to bond with. Alonzo Highsmith will now join us

at the bottom of hour number two. So in the second hour, Brian Baldinger will join us. That comes up next. Bottom of the hour, we'll talk with Alonzo Highsmith from The U. That story's just big right now. And again, it's the hypocritical people out there that claim they want change in college football and in college sports.

Yet what do they get? They get sold out stadiums and giant television revenues and ratings. I think everybody just needs to step back and stop being so hypocritical about it. So we'll talk with Alonzo Highsmith at the bottom of the second hour. Coming up next, we will talk with Brian Baldinger from the NFL Network. He's one of my favorites. 1-800-636-8686. Text to 37170.

You can tweet me at JoshNS610. It's I-N-N-E-S, at JoshNS610. This is the Jim Rome Show. Josh Ennis in for Rome, and this is the Premier Radio Network. Jim Rome, on your home of the Texans.