The Josh Innes Show - Whiney Astros Fans

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

First off, the Texans games seem like the worst time ever. The games used to be fun and loud. Now, it's mostly the other teams fans. That said, I don't blame people for being uninterested. Astros fans are annoying. They all seem to want to dump on the Dodgers for "buying a championship". Is that any worse than losing on purpose for years to draft good players? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So a group of people that I find really annoying lately are the Houston sports fans on two levels. And I love you. I say this with peace and love. And I understand that a lot of people will see my comments I make on social media and many of them have no clue who I am or that I worked in Houston. And that's fine. There's no reason for a kid that's 22, 23 years old to have any fucking clue who Josh is. And then he was on 610 or 790 or whatever. Like there's no reason for people to know that. So I'm not sitting here saying, you don't know who I am. But what I am saying is that there are people who see me have a comment and they'll just see, you know, I'm a radio host in Detroit and they have no idea that I have any sort of history with Houston or whatever. They just kind of go with the idea that, you know, stay in Detroit, stay in your lane, whatever, you don't know anything about us.

But I've been commenting lately on how the Texans home games look like shit and the fans have no interest. And by the way, I'm not blaming them. It's just an observation that the whole crowd vibe seems to suck there. It's just a shitty environment. And now I'm starting to get heat from people in Houston on social media and whatever. For the most part, people are agreeing, but you'll get the occasional person that'll come at me and be like, stick to what you know, stop trying to kiss people's ass in Detroit. Like, fuck you.

But anyway, let me play a couple commercials, and we'll get into this. I think my favorite thing isn't really a Texans-related thing, because let's be real. People in Houston do not give a fuck about the Texans. There are some that care, and there are some that'll pay attention because it's the team in Houston. and all that. That's fine, all well and good. But for the most part, there's not a ton of passion about the Texans. And there will never really be a ton of passion about the Texans.

It's just how it is. That's how people are about that team, and it'll never change, right? And they're a boring franchise. But what's wild is they had a moment. Two years ago, it felt like there was a corner being turned, and Hannah McNair was cool, and Cowell was fun, and you had the young quarterback, and you're wearing, like, the new uniforms.

And there was so much about it that felt, fresh and new, and now it's right back to being just completely obsolete and nobody giving a shit. It's crazy. Like, it really is to watch how quickly, because it turned good. You had Domeco hired, and you got CJ, and life is great, and let's rock. And just a mere two years later, we're sitting here like, it's back to me. Like, if you don't win big and win fun, people in Houston do not give a shit about that team. Maybe if it were still the Oilers, maybe, but maybe not because people at the end didn't really give a shit about

them either. So, like, it is just a passive, transient sports city. We know this. It is a late arriving, early leaving crowd. It always will be. It is not a passionate place. And it never will be. There are diehards there, but it's not a place that's live or die, make or break. And we know this. I'm not telling you anything you don't know. But it is wild to watch how quickly it changed. Because two years ago, it was fun to watch them. When we were sitting in St. Louis, I remember during the playoffs, it was snowing in St. Louis. I'm outside smoking meat. Texans are playing the Browns and the playoffs and it's fun and then they're playing the Ravens and the playoffs and I got on this podcast telling you that holy shit they are they are legit

and they're going to be good for a long time and all that and then it just all changed and people do not care the passion is zapped the crowd's not there when the game starts it's it doesn't feel loud and I get it I'm not blaming you in the sense that the the games themselves are boring the team is unwatchable on offense so I get it but it's an observation that's legit like when you watch them they're just not a very enjoyable team to watch and people aren't that interested another thing i've been seeing from houston people that i find annoying is the number of people who are commenting on the dodgers winning the world series and to be fair to the houston people this is everybody across the

country if you don't root for the dodgers you're talking about how the dodgers are the death of baseball like oh my god fuck the dodgers they bought themselves a championship blah blah blah And they did. I hate the fucking Dodgers, too. I hate the baseball structure. I hate everything about it. I do. You know why the NFL continues to be successful because of the structure of the finances of the NFL?

That's why Green Bay, Wisconsin can be good, and Kansas City can be good, and L.A. can be good. It's why cities like New York can suck. The structure of it makes sense, and it works, and that's why it's the most popular league in all of American sport. And that's easy, right? baseball is not part of it is because most cities don't have a fucking chance Kansas City has no hope St. Louis has no hope go down the list of cities that just have no Pittsburgh has no hope Tampa has no hope they are hopeless situations where teams because of the way the money is set up

you've got a couple of markets that can give a shit ton of money to a lot of people and because of the way it's set up and they can defer payments and all this other shit that's how it's going to be but I see Houston fans talking about this. First of all, Houston fans yelling like there's some poverty franchise is comical. They have money. They've spent money. They've proven that they'll spend money. Now, obviously, they don't have like, hey, build a dream team money that they're going to spend. But people in Houston acting like there's some poverty franchise that went out and won it with the little guys is such a fucking dumb view. But I'm bringing up Houston

because I see a lot of Houston people in my timeline and in my feed and everything. And part of their argument is, oh, they went out and bought a championship. Oh, the Dodgers bought a championship. Blah, blah, blah, fuck the Dodgers. Here's the thing, Houston fans. You didn't buy a championship. And if you want to tell me that buying the championship is a bad thing, I'm with you. Again, like I would prefer, like I'd like to see a team where like Freddie Freeman

plays on one team and Otani plays on another team and like you have a star or two on each team maybe and then you have to build a team around them. I'm with you. That would be a more enjoyable experience. It would get more people involved, get a salary cap floor, all that shit. I'm with you. I am on your side, to be very clear. But the way Houston people talk, Houston people talk as if, like, oh, my God, we've done

everything, like, above board and, like, we've done it the right way. You built a dynasty around losing on purpose. Your golden era of baseball came because you went out, because you hear about integrity of the game. Oh, what is the integrity of the game when one team? got a billion dollar payroll, and this team doesn't. What about the intent? And I'm not even talking about the cheating shit and the Steinstealing,

because I don't really give a shit about that. But if we're being fair, if you're going to flip the bird at the Dodgers and say they did it the wrong way, well, you know, whether you like it or not, you're going to be tied to the sign stealing forever. But I'm not even going to use that because I don't give a shit that you stole signs. Everybody steals signs. I don't care that you banged on the garbage cans. None of that bothers me. That doesn't impact my life.

It doesn't impact how I feel about those teams that won the World Series. But from a fan standpoint, if there are going to be fans on the internet and their angle on this is going to be that, oh my God, the Dodgers went out and bought a championship and that's pathetic and that goes against the integrity of the game and we need a salary cap floor and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If that's what you're going to do and if that's going to be your angle, then you have to acknowledge that your golden era of baseball was built around losing on purpose and fielding a team that was. purposely so bad that it was going to lose 100 games for multiple years. Like, I'm not even going to look at that era from the 2005 team to like 09 and 10 when they were just, they had some good players and they just couldn't win because they didn't have enough. When they still had Birkman and they had Hunter Pence and they had Michael Bourne and they had El Caballo

and they had all those guys. Like, I don't, and Wandi Rodriguez, like, I don't think that that was a team that was out there to lose on purpose. They just weren't good enough to win, okay? The teams you put on the field once you got Jeff Luno there, you lost on purpose. And look, I'm not going to tell you that's the wrong way to do it. Look, it built you a World Series, a multiple-time World Series champion. It worked. But if your idea is that the Dodgers are the devil and they're fucking with the integrity of the game by spending billions of dollars in payroll,

then you have to look at the fact that you fucked with the integrity of the game by spending no money for three years to build a roster. of players through the draft. Look, you did it, and it worked. I'm not shitting on it. You tanked. A lot of people tanked to get success. The Indianapolis Colts eventually tanked, and that's how they got Andrew Luck. Some teams are going to lose on purpose.

Basketball, you tank, a lot of times, people tank. It's part of the game. I'm not telling you that you're the only one that's done it. I'm not telling you that it's wrong to do it. What I'm telling you is it is 100% against the integrity of the game. fielding a team that is built to lose fucks with the integrity of the game and it's obvious why

because once you start building a team that's made to lose people circle you on the schedule and they go oh this is a team we can win we should beat them three times in a row because they are not trying to beat us they cannot win their lineup is built to lose so that's the part where I'd say spare me get off your fucking high horse

the number of Astros high horse people is comical at this point get off your fucking high horse get off your moral high ground get off your oh we need a salary cap floor yeah when you were out there winning with a bunch of young players that you were able to draft because you lost on purpose for three years you didn't care about ceilings and floors and anything else but now that the dodgers are out there and they're just outspending everybody and they're getting otani and they're getting freddie freeman and they're getting mooky bets and they're getting yamamoto and they're spending all the money they want to spend and they can because it's not against the rules now all of a sudden we're worried about floors and caps and doing it the right way. You didn't fucking do it the right way. I mean, look at teams like, look, I'll blow the Cardinals for when the Cardinals were good. The Cardinals, for that 20-something years, they were good. Really, it was about 15.

The Cardinals had 15 really strong years of baseball from 2000 to 2015, right? After that, it's been kind of hit or miss, mostly miss, in the last five years. But the Cardinals never tanked to get good players. They drafted well, they spent money where they needed to spend money. The economics were different. I'm aware of that. You can go out and trade for a Jim Edmonds and keep them around. You can go out and trade for a Scott Rowland and pay for them.

You can go out and draft Albert Pooholz and keep him for a decade. Totally. The economics were a different, it was a different situation, and St. Louis was different economically back then than it is now. I get that. But there was never a point in those 15 years where the Cardinals were like, well, let's just tear it down. There was no tanking in St. Louis to,

get good. The way the Cardinals went out and got good is they drafted Albert Pujols and hit the lottery with him, but they got good by, hey, we're going to go out and trade for Jim Edmonds. We're going to go out and trade for Scott Rowland. We're going to go out and pick up free agents that made sense, and we're going to get good that way. There was no point that when the Cardinals were going to Four World Series in the first in 10 years, there was no point that they tanked and lost on purpose to get there. The Astros did. The Astros tanked and lost on purpose. I'm not judging you.

You did what you had to do. There are different ways to get everywhere. Some people spend a billion dollars. Some people tank for Carlos Correa. It is what it is. But spare me the moral high ground. Spare me the finger wagging. Spare me the baseball is broken bullshit.

You're part of the reason baseball is broken. Because you spent three years losing on purpose. when your team showed up at the ballpark, your front office and your ownership was deliberately fielding a team not good enough to compete in Major League Baseball. So fuck you. Spare me.

Save me your bullshit. Save it. I'm with you. Get a salary cap floor. We need a salary cap floor. It would make baseball better. It might improve my enjoyment of the game. Because watching the Dodgers go out and crush people is not fun to me.

I don't enjoy that. I don't enjoy knowing that every good player, marquee player, is probably going to go to a handful of teams that have the most money. the Mets, the Dodgers, the Yankees, the Phillies, they're all going to get all the good players because they have all the cash. You have a non-competitive league. You have a top-heavy league that is super not competitive in the bottom half. Oh, but what about like the Brewers?

Cool. The Brewers had a moment neat. They didn't do shit in the playoffs. Who cares? But I agree with you. Baseball is a non-competitive sport for the most part. And it would make it better. If it were more like the NFL, it would make it a lot better.

The NBA deals with it, too. Although the NBA is now super competitive because there's no real superstars. There are superstars, but there are no like dominant superstar teams. So in a given year, there's a lot more teams in basketball that can win the whole thing than baseball. That's what baseball is going to run into. But again, spare me, save it on the oh, the Dodgers, oh, the evil Dodgers. Whatever. All right, more to come.