The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Alex Bregman On The Astros and How He's Helping The Houston Community

Episode Date: April 13, 2020

I Heart Radio, the free app for your music, your stations like Sports Talk 790, and number one for podcasting. 131 in The Matt Thomas Show here from my Kingwood Estates, where my daughter is very jealous that our next guest joins us here for a couple of minutes. Let's say hi to our good friend and a man who has been putting in some serious time helping our community. In fact, Feed Houston Fundraising Campaign is out there benefiting the Houston Food Bank. Friday, Bregs was working like a muddha. Alex, Matt, good to hear your voice. Thanks for spending some time with me, and congratulations to your great event on Friday. Tell us all about it.

Yeah, thank you for having me. It's been a great last few days. My fiance and I were sitting here during the quarantine and trying to figure out a way to help. And we reached out to Jim McInvail and Paul Wall and decided that we were going to come up with a campaign and try and raise as much money to feed these kids in Houston as possible. And we wanted to do it through the food bank. They have a unique opportunity, and that is $1 donated equals three meals for these kids. And there's a tremendous amount of good that you can do with a small amount of money.

Any amount of money donated helps, and we set our sites at a million dollars, and we're hoping to reach that now well in the next few days, actually. It's been incredible, just the amount of support the Houston community has shown. We're up to $570,000 as of noon, which is about 48 hours from when we launched the campaign. So it's been a great last few days, and Houstonians are just wonderful people. I've seen that in the last few days, and I hope they would continue to help this effort and help feed people. Yeah, let's tell the folks how they can do that. You get to your phone, you text feed.

Hugh F-E-E-D-H-O-U to 414-4-4, and then all the heavy lifting can be done from there. Text-F-E-E-D-H-O-U to 41-44-4. We'll give you more details on that coming up. So, Breggs, tell me about a conversation that would take place between you, Paul Wall, and Jim McEville. What's that like? Well, we got on the phone, and we all thought that one of the biggest needs that our community would have during this pandemic was to feed you. that usually rely on schools for their meals. And we could, none of us could really stomach a kid missing a meal.

And we wanted to do it through the food bank who's just done incredible work. And I mean, any, whether it's $1, $5, $25, like you're putting meals on the table for kids. And we wanted to team up together. I know in talking to Paul, who I've been friends. with for a few years since I've been here in Houston. Jim McInville actually went to his school when he was in Houston, and he kind of inspired Paul to want to give back to his community. So Mattress Mac has just been an unbelievable human being and an unbelievable Houstonian

and someone that we all look up to. That's sweet. Alex Spragman with us here for a few minutes on the Matt Thomas Show, Sports Talk 790. Look, all of us have cabin fever, but you're supposed to do. to be playing games right now. How crazy has it been? What is your normal day like? Mine is doing this radio show, hanging out with my kids,

helping with their schoolwork. You're trying to plan a wedding. What's that eight to five Alex Breggman Day like these days? Well, we're trying to make the most of it. And we're, you know, I wake up in the morning and I get a workout in. And then work on this campaign, man. it's all-day thing. I'm completely, like, bought in 100%.

I've been doing on a little bit of a podcast as well. So that's pretty much my day, working out for a few hours, eat some great meals that Reagan's making over here at the house. It's just been fun. So her cooking ability was a large part of you getting the engagement going, or if she was a terrible cook, would you still try to marry her? 1,000 percent. She's just amazing.

And like you said, planning a wedding during this pandemic is kind of crazy. Reagan's like we're worried about whether or not we're going to be able to have gathering, gathering by then. We'd hope so. But we'll see. Yeah, I think a cyber wedding would be kind of weird, but that's, you know, I don't know what your schedule is all about. But everything is cyber.

Are you reaching out your buddies on Zoom and that kind of thing or phone? How are you communicating with your teammates and your friends? Yeah, so I have been FaceTiming with all my teammates and stuff like that, but I'm actually launching my podcast here in the next few days. Could be as early as tomorrow. And I've had numerous people on the podcast, Inky Johnson, Myron Roll, who's a doctor on the front lines of this, Stephen Wonderboy Thompson, a mixed martial artist, Dr. James Dent, who's here in Houston,

who works with kids that have special needs. I'm going to have Mattress Mac, Lance McCullors, Shane Hanchie, the number one calf roper in the world on there. Just a good unique group of people that I've had on the podcast so far, so making the most of time that way as well. Who's the dream interview? I mean, Matt Thomas, are you kidding me? I was going to say besides me, but I didn't want to come across as egotistical. Beyond me, who was the dream interview? I don't know. Probably Joe Rogan.

I'd like to talk with him. I'd like to talk with, I mean, Connor McGregor. There's a lot of people that I would definitely be interested to talk to. But you know what? I've had an absolute blast, and I wouldn't trade any of the the ones we've done so far for anything. Isn't it harder to be on this side of the microphone sometimes? It's not, you know, it's easy to be the one to answer the questions,

but one has to come up with one. You know, you've got to keep the thing moving. You have to be interesting. I mean, you're getting this training because when you retire in 15 years and after you go to the Hall of Fame, you're going to want to get in this broadcasting business full time, I'm assuming, right? I don't know about that, but it is a little bit different on that side of the microphone.

It's been interesting to try and, play the host of the show. So it's, it's been fun. But like I said before, we're just trying to make the most of our time and stay active, work out, just for both physical and mental health during this time.

You can get a little stir crazy. So I feel like us working out every day has really helped us during this pandemic. But then also giving us something to work on and helping other people. And we're, I mean, we're more than halfway to our guys. goal and I assume in a few days when our Feed-Hugh campaign hits a million dollars, we're going to

try and take it to the next step and raise too. So I'm really excited about it, and hopefully we can continue to put food on the table for those in need during this time. Yeah, Feed-Hugh, F-E-E-D-H-O-U, you text that to 4-1-4-4-4-4 to help feed the Houston Food Bank. That's Feed-H-E-E-E-D-HU to 41-4-4-4-4-4-4. And Matt, I want to, Matt, I want to say that if you donate $1, you're helping, you're putting three meals on a table for a kid in need. So just $1 makes that big of a difference.

That's huge. And by the way, I mean, I don't, I don't know what kind of view of how emotional you are and stuff, but these commercials I'm seeing on TV are first responders and these arenas and these conventions being opened up with these food panters all across the country. this is a trying time for all of us, especially with those that aren't able to feed their families right now. It really is. And us as baseball players, we want to be playing baseball, but we know right now there's more important things to do right now in the world. And that's help other people, and it's great to see people coming together, helping one another. And I think our city does just such an unbelievable job of that.

And just in talking with the people at the food bank right now, there's more of a need right now for food than there was during Hurricane Harvey. So I know that Houston will get behind this and help out as much as they can. And we'll get through this all together. A couple of rapid-fire baseball questions. Have you mentally prepared for the thought of not playing in front of fans this year when you guys get to get back out there? Yeah, we're pretty much prepared for anything. that we don't have any control over it, but we got to try and do everything we can to stay ready. Arizona, Florida, when you hear of those options, are you indifferent to it,

or are you like, all right, whatever we got to do to play? I mean, what is, and how often do you get updates from your teammates and whatnot about what the next step is and what the next thought process is? We get updates pretty often, but I'll be honest with you. I want to play in Houston in front of these great fans. So we'll see. We'll see what happens. I have no control over where we play,

but I would love to be playing in Houston in front of the best fans in baseball. Oh, couldn't have said it better. Are you going to cages and hitting? Where are you getting your swings in right now? Yeah, we got a little social distance slings at the cage, about a mile down the road. One of our friends was kind enough to let us open and just let us in there to hit.

So we're thankful to him and keeping the swing ready to go. Yeah, don't tell anybody where that is. We want no one else to go there except. That's what we need is people watch it over you. Hey, that would be great. That would be great. It would be a lot of fun. Yeah.

Did you watch this NBA horse stuff on ESPN yesterday? I didn't see it. No, I didn't see it. You didn't miss anything, so don't worry about it. I was going to say, as Major League Baseball come to you and said, hey, let's do something fun with video to get people some programming. Has anything crossed your mind? Have you asked to do anything at this point?

Well, I see McCullors is playing for us in the MLB the show tournament, and he's off to a two-and-two start. Real life, we'd probably be four-and-oh. But we're off to a decent start, and it's been fun to see everything that everyone's doing on social media, the TikToking that's been going on. It's been a lot of fun to see that. And the coolest thing is seeing people come together.

And, yeah. How old are you? 26th, I just had my birthday, a quarantine birthday this year. So turned 26, March 30th. It would have been the fourth day of the season. But instead, we spent it here at the house. and Reagan made me some cookies, and they were really good. It was about the extent of my birthday.

Let me tell you some of his interview. You dropped her name five times in the last three minutes. She must be with an earshot of you because seriously, you're trying to gain some points or something with her right now, yes? Oh, I lost the bet. So I have to mention her name five times in every interview from this point forward. What was the bet? I'm joking.

I'm joking. The reason why I ask you your age is because it's 26 too old for TikTok Or is that about the right at the cusp of people should be on TikTok accounts Well, I've been on TikTok this during this call on Reagan's page So everyone go follow her it's Reagan Howard 2 And she posted one last night She freaked me out She didn't let me know what was going on

A piece of pasta in her mouth And she asked me to crack her neck I didn't even see the camera and both she brought it up at the end. And she asked me to crack her neck. So I like tried to crack her neck and she bit down the pasta and it made like the loudest cracking sound. So she got me. Y'all are weird. I mean, that's just no other way to say it.

I mean, I love you, but you know you're weird. Go watch the video. No, I'm not going to watch it. No, I'm a grown ass man. I'm not going to watch you and your fiance eat pasta together. No chance. No chance whatsoever. All right.

If you don't watch that, do me. one favor. And I hope everyone listening can do me do me one favor today. And that is to text FeedHugh to 4144 and help these kids out. I'd rather much rather do that. Seriously. Here it is. Feed Hugh, F-E-E-D-H-O-U to 41444. And go ahead since she's in shouting distance, give her TikTok mention one more time so she can get more in an orderity. We can watch you sickos do a Positas. It's Reagan Howard, too. Soon to be Reagan.

Ray Bragg. Ray Bragg. Instead of Abreg, Ray Bragg shortly. All right, I'm confused. Let's just more importantly send people to feed Hugh to 414444. Alex, my friend, congratulations on kicking ass on this. You have stepped up big time for our community and for that. We thank you. Stay safe.

Good luck with all the engagement activities. And I cannot wait to see you at Minutemate Park. very shortly. Thank you. Thanks for having me on. Thank you, everybody, for helping out. And thank you, Houston, for coming together and look forward to helping out as many people as possible. Thanks. You got it. The great Alex Spregman with us here on the Matt Thomas show, Feed Hugh, F-E-E-D, H-O-U, to 4144 and help out that Houston Food Bank, as he says, three meals can be taken care of for just a single dollar. Back with more in a moment. 146, the Matt Thomas show continues on Sports Talk 790.