The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Escape with Series Win... Texans Preseason Opener

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

Astros Escape with Series Win... Texans Preseason Opener

is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Welcome to a Thursday edition of the Matt Thomas show at Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. The Houston Astros take two out of three in San Francisco. They defeat the Giants, two to one. Astros go three and three on their West Coast road trip through San Diego and San Francisco. I have been an Astros fan, Ross, since 1979. That's what old people do.

They go, 1079. And all my years of watching the Astros, which is 47 years, okay? That'd be one of the five worst victories ever in Astros' history.

It feels like a loss. They were able to get it done. Kevin Ashtonfeller called me on the way home yesterday from doing the post game on Space City, and he's like, man, a win is a win. A win is a win. But man, that game sucked. It was not, what do we always say? That one, not going to make it to Cooperstown, the film of that one.

It's not on the best of S-E-H-N. We will not be playing that at 2 o'clock in the morning here on 7 out of you of great astro moments. Yeah, it's not going to be in the best baseball moments VHS compilation. I mean, that game, not just regular sucked. It's super sucked. What's a super suck? Hmm, if you have to ask, you've never been a part of one. Stephen Okert got the win. Josh Hader, the save is earning out under one.

It's filthy. Stephen Okred, Everyday Okert is everyday awesome. We do love some everyday ogre. He pitches well, he's got a nice main. Brian O'Brien-Bray who continues to be very good. Yeah, he's Mr. 8th inning guy now, by the way. Let's go. Yes.

I'm happy with it. But yeah, let's read. You want to read the box score of this bad boy? No. Two runs, four hits, zero errors for the Astros. One, five, and one, and probably many other mental mistakes for the Giants for them. Nine hits between two teams. One who sucks.

One who's going to win the American League West by at least two games. And by the way, one who's mediocre. Correct. But mediocre in 2026 means you get to raise the flag. Just like you're at... We're not at ponchos. We're at Ranchos having us some extra Cazadeas with extra honey and cinnamon sugar.

Mm-hmm. Extra diarrhea. Hey, you don't know that? Allegedly. Yeah, I was going to say. Is there a lettuce okay over there? Trylosec. Yes.

Whatever it takes. K-O-Pectate. When I promise and guarantee you something, I deliver. You are on a good run. You are on a lucky run, quite frankly. After we saw that lineup, yesterday

Donald Varsho cleanup Lamont Wade Jr. batting fifth. You were worried about well, by the way, Brian King, it pains me to watch Brian King pitch. And he's a nice guy too. I mean, they're all nice guy. That's the worst part of this.

He got a couple of outs. He got a couple of walks. They also blow the basis two consecutive innings. Yes, they did. It only scored, what, one run out of that or whatever it was? Yeah, it's not two. You might three innings a shutout ball.

It's funny how baseball and ERA works. one time he looked extremely sharp with the three innings of shutout ball. It didn't look extremely sharp yesterday, but got the job done with three innings of shutout ball. Yep, yep. That's exactly right. And then Yon Nalera, no, Yon-Avarez hits a fly ball to right field that it would have left, I think, every normal human ballpark, except that one. 26 out of 30 ballparks, he gets a single. Yeah. 99.1 off the bat.

And Taylor Tremels was out of 29 out of 30. Yeah. You know what Taylor Tremel saying? I want to play every day. And guess what? Based of your performance the last two weeks, you get to play every day. Well, against righties. Whatever.

Against the lefties. Don Varsho? You don't need to be playing every day. You are who you are. No, Don't Varsho's going to be out there every day. I know. He made the trade for him. I know.

Good in the field. I know. I know. I don't remember. There was some idiot made a gut feeling that he was going to be at least the league average at the plate. not working out so much I don't remember that of being heard There's still hope

I don't remember that at all right I don't think you need to out that person Oh yeah no one we don't have to talk about it I'm actually deleting it off the file right now Perfect we've deleted things off this show before Trust me That by the way is Ross I'm in good morning everybody

Hey what's going on You can space it out I don't know what I promised We are with you today until 2 o'clock Yes we are We are going to have a significantly better show today than we had yesterday. Yesterday was a hot mess. I thought yesterday it was spectacular.

I was one for the books. I had a lot of people saying, you know, you may want to put a four sales line up in your house. No, nobody said that. It felt terrible. But the Astros get a win. And then last night put some TV on to go to bed. I'm going to watch me little Rangers, Angels, baseball and I didn't stay up for the whole thing.

Okay. And the Angels came back and beat the Rangers after the Rangers had multiple chances to blow that game open. So your beloved team, America. Because team, the Houston Astros are a game and a half in front of everybody else, at least America League West. And I did watch some of the Seattle Yankees game. Yankees were up like five, excuse me, the Mariners were up five to two. They're like, man, we go get our mojo back.

And then the Yankees offenses beat the crap out of them for the next four innings. Six in a row the Mariners have lost. I mean, the Astros went three and three on their road trip, and they still gain three games against them. Yeah, you, it won't be two out of three. But if you sweep them, they're done. Mm-hmm. And even if they take two out of three, they've built themselves a pretty big hole. I mean, the only way that they're feeling any better about themselves is that they come here and sweep the Astros at Diken Park.

If my quick math is correct, they have won only five of their last 20 games. Yeah, I hate to hear that. It's tough. Appreciate it. I'm sorry to hear that. You know what? Big dumpers in the, yeah, it's not going so hot for that. Yeah, we're not going to call soft you tomorrow.

We should. I want to drop a big dumpster on him. It feels rude. Because then he's going to start smack talking the Seahawks, and I'm like, yeah, you're right. You got scoreboarder. What am I going to do? Well, send him my regards. Just tell him we were going to get him on, but we don't want to just kick dirt on him. I'll text him and see if he responds. Okay.

He is a B minus texter. That's pretty good. Well, if you know people I work with, he's... Like who? Well, Adam Klein is an A-minus. Okay. Jonathan during the week is a C plus On the weekends is an F

He said I'm off the clock Shut your bum ass up Anybody get time for your Elmo videos You are consistently in the D category That's not true Uh huh That's not true Well I'm gonna be on vacation next week

So I'm be an F I'll be literally in the woods with no service so So how we're supposed to get a hold of here If we need you? For what? I don't know you never know things. What's going to happen?

News could drop. You don't know. What news am I going to need to come all the way back to from the Washington State for? I'm good. All right. I got to decompress. We're not going to hear for you for five days. I need to get rested and refreshed. Okay.

Especially for the next week. Yeah, I get you. All right. So the asteros get a win yesterday. And again, off today. Well, Brian Bocosevic normally with us on Wednesday. We push them to today. We have a whole series to chew on.

Yes. And again, game and a half. It is what it is. I mean, they're 62 and 60. Well, let me ask you this. You got a negative 27 run differential. We've got to check Standing 790. Okay.

Let's do that. Let me look at Standing. Because I'm looking about... Standing. Oh, yeah. 790. Right on cue, my brother. Thank you very much for that.

Stanings and the... How are they compared to the Chicago White Sox? They find themselves a game and a half out of the two seed. Yeah. That's what we're doing next. We're going after the number two seed. I would love that. You get a whole week off.

Do you understand what a game changer that could be? Absolutely. Game changer. I would love that. I would actually feel like they could maybe make the World Series if they get the two-seat. Just because of all of the raised Yankees and Red Sox, I mean, they're not all going to make it. Somebody's got to get knocked out. Two of those guys are going to be wild cards.

I think a week off will do the world. Not necessarily to organize your pitching staff, but it will be Josh Hader can rest. Look, Okrit's pitched a lot this year. You know, Jordan Alvarez has been pressing. Well, whatever. Feet. Joseo Tuve can take the rest of the season off the way. He can rest his foot.

Yeah, his foot's in pain, apparently. Everybody's hurting. Because here's the thing. Astros and White Sox play each other early September in Houston, Texas. They got to split that series to win the season tiebreaker. It's a four games. Yes, it gets the Astros are two or three from Chicago. So, yeah.

All right, we got that to get to. We got the Texans preseason opener to night. Texans and Chargers. Throw the record books out. I cannot believe you're not going. You get very rare opportunities to see your beloved team in your city.

You know why? You know why you're Him and and and Han? It's just the preseason. You know what? It is. You should feel bad. A friend of the show didn't give a tickets and then my girl had volleyball triads at her school today. You're going to tryouts or what? I got to help her out.

All these kids and all this. Oh, you're going to get a whistle? Like you running tryouts? Yeah. You were running a type shit, throwing cones down? I'm like the good cop. Oh, okay. She's a bad cop.

That makes sense. Yeah, she's Latina. I need you to get my buddy. You and my buddy, and are the only two Charger fans I know in this entire city. So we will get you guys together at some point. And now go Chargers.

Go! Oh, I like that. Oof. We're going to go see Kamani Vidal and the boys? I don't even know. Can you name six chargers? Yeah, I could. would play tonight. Oh, that'll play today?

That's another thing too. No, I don't know. That's exactly the point. We go and discuss some second and 13 minutes. Oh, hell no, we're not. We're going to watch a couple of plays tonight and call today. So what's going to do? Spent time with your families tonight. I want to watch the game. Football's back. I like football. I'm getting excited, but I'm going to have other things on. Fancy football drafts coming up. I'll have my MLO videos on my phone. I'll have the game on the TV. Okay. Well, see, you can do Elmo videos every day. You can't watch Texans football every day. I can watch. They're back, baby.

Let's see what Davis Mills has got. I'm going to see some Jawar Jordan and some British Brooks. That's Trey Lance versus David Mills. Oh, yeah. I like that. You're excited to see what James Neil the Thur can do at left tackle? Who? Mm-hmm.

You ready to see what Trayvion Saunders can do? What can Trayvion Saunders do for me? You're ready to look at some Josh Kelly? I'm ready to get some Marlon Klein action. You'll have a couple of drops. what he's in college It's fine Ryan Klein's ready to go

You're ready to see some Fabecchi noahu Yeah It's all the news that he signed recently a couple weeks ago You already see a steady eye Toad of Woody Marks Your co number one

I don't know if we're going to see Woody marks Ooh is it Joire Jordan and Noah Whittington What? Where's British Brooks? He's not on the squad anymore Uh uh no What?

Oh yeah he's a fullback Okay You're not gonna have fullback dives In the priest's there Why not? I guess you could You got to let Bridge Brooks cook If it's week one of the preseason

And today at 2 o'clock A momentous day in sports history is coming up in three hours In 45 minutes What do you mean? I'm about to tell you The NBA schedule is going to be released Oh

And the Rockets will go 82 and O this season Because that's what I do I cuss-discussed NBA schedule predictions Who are the Rockets going to play this year? 713-212-5-7-9 Come on and bring it in! Is that twice in the first segment? Yes.

We're going to literally have to make a jar. You're out of control. You're off the leash. No, I'm not. I'm fine. Yes, you are. People understand it. I understand that you're crazy.

That's fair. I get that. All right. So how do you discuss one of the most atrocious victories in Astros history? We'll intend to do that over the next three hours and 45 minutes. Full breakdown. Full breakdown. It's a bad base running, too.

Well, you heard the call. Yeah, we even hear Robert Ford. Robert was like, see you later. Get the hell out of it. Who's the base running coach? I would like to hear that call again. We're going to play it. We will play it several times.

And then we've got to get to, where are we putting old Russell Westbrook on the all-time great list? Oh, okay. Remember I told you all a few days ago that I heard no whispers of the Rockets signing him? You're right. I trust you on Rockets.

No, no, I just... If I would have heard whispers, I would have said I heard whispers, but I wouldn't hearing any whispers. It was completely manufactured. Thus against social media doing stupid crap. some Jonesy some reporter wanted to try to do something

again his recognition there was no interest because if there was why would Ross be quitting? He's got, he can make bare minimum for, he's a minimum guy around the league he's done it for the last four or five years. I mean he's probably made

who I mean I guess $400 million in his career or something like that. You know what I heard? We'll talk about this after one. Yes, we will. And Robert Ford. That's sniff that out.

It's my fault. Totally my fault. I wasn't going to believe. Yeah, Mr. Cussing and Discussing over here. 7.13. You're a If you're a Brian McTaggart fan, which why wouldn't you be?

He's University of Houston on the Astros B. He'll be with us tomorrow because he is flying back from San Francisco today. Wonderful. Yep, so we'll get a little astro fix for you. A little double dip.

He'll be on pregame too. Yeah, I may, we'll just win may tape it. I can do it on deck tomorrow. We'll make the ballpark? Yeah. It's good. Bring an extra headset. Maybe some live news will break.

I don't know. Yeah, I think I will be. extra headset. There you go. Yeah. I'm going to be at the ballpark a lot. I'm going to work Friday and Saturday. And then Sunday I'm going as Joe Fan with my son and his buddy. That's great. Are you guys sitting four? 413?

No. No. 423? Nope. You're getting colder. No, please. So fancy. 7.13. So fancy. 7.3-212. I mean, you know. Upper deck's not bad. at Minutemate. I'm just saying... No, no, no, there's not a bad

seat in the house. That's why we were talking about yesterday. Maybe when the air conditioner's dripping on you in some of the sections up there. It is ridiculously cold up there. I'll say this. But that's what we were talking about yesterday. You build this $2 billion megastadium in Buffalo and you have obstructed seats. I mean, that means somebody screwed up. There's some obstructed seats at Dyken.

Well, you can't see the field? In the right fits that are obstructed. They're not completely. There's no completely obstructed seats at the Buffalo place, right? I don't know. I'm not going to go out. There's partially obstructed in right field. It's just, it's the optics, Rossi. You have this stadium. Come, come check out our place.

Come see where your seats are. And come and join this experience of finally getting out a rich stadium after all these years. I think they're a bunch of winers. Have you met a Bill's fan before? I guess. Let me tell you, let me, I don't stereotype. Okay, go ahead.

I'm going to do it anyway. Extraordinarily passionate. Yes. a little bit of a northeast New York accent. It's not New York City accent, but it's definitely an accent. Number three, they will dive on tables and set themselves on fire and have zero issues with doing that. And they're typically going to have a higher cholesterol, blood pressure, body fat than the average fan would be. They're going to eat a trash plate and have about 17 Labat Blues and head to the game.

Yeah, they would also be probably more apt to have relations in a parking lot. before a game than most cities. I feel like if we did a power ranking, Bill's fan would be up there for getting jiggie with it and the power to potty. All right, let's go really quick. Not that we're stereotyping here on the show. Five teams, just stay.

You don't want to be a part of this to stay out of it. No, no, no, no, no, no. All right, getting jiggy with it in a tailgating parking lot, five cities. Green Bay. Okay. Buffalo, those are two obvious ones. That feels good.

That feels right. I don't know Giants and Jets well enough to say if I do. Well, there's no porta-potties and the Raiders, right? They don't even have parking lot, do they? No, there's no parking lot in Las Vegas. Now, in Oakland, absolutely. In Las Vegas, not so much. That's most likely to get shived. Correct. It's Oakland

if we did that. What else would... What else would have relations? What about New Orleans? New Orleans makes three. Is there a parking lot over there, though? It's just in the heart of downtown New Orleans. New Orleans, right? No, but they'll figure out ways to do it. You can go to... They'll figure out ways to do it. It's New Orleans.

Haven't you had sex in a hotel that you were saying at? behind a dumpster on Bourbon Street. There you go. I guess that counts. Three. Kansas City feels like it can be sneaky. I feel like Jacksonville might be sneaky. Jacksonville, it is.

Yeah. There are you five. Kansas City, Jacksonville, New Orleans, Buffalo, and Green Bay. Five places where you could potentially hook up with someone during a pregame tailgate. Boom. That's like a family feud question. Yeah. We'll put 15 seconds on a clock, Ross.

Name an NFL stadium. Didn't we do that, but we should bring that back. Sports family feud? We could do that for sure. Yeah. Well, then, you know, Andy used to do racial family feud, which is very uncomfortable. That was pretty fond. Very, and then he had me come host it. And then we, what did we do once?

Password? We did password. And I dominated. And Clinton screwed it up so bad. Yes, he did. He gave away the word, right? Yes. Piss me off.

And he's like, oh, I meant to do that. No, you didn't. You don't grasp the game, idiot. I love you, but you screwed it up. Meanwhile, Wex is rolling his eyes. I'm dropping F-bombs off mic. You're laughing like a heena like you are right now. Jesus.

That was fun. It was not fun. Not fun at all. Good times. All right. 713-212-5-790. Your Stroes, my God. Let's go.

I think everybody's feeling. We're asking people be all jazzed up about a 62 and 16. You know what it is? It's frankly hard to ask you to get jazz up for a team as two games above 500. And on top of that, the game yesterday was one that a normal team would have lost 5 to 1. San Francisco, boy, you talk about mail-in-bed. They couldn't even run a routine 643 double play. They were like, it was like soft toss.

Yeah. It's crazy. You're telling somebody about baseball. You're like, right now these are the best players on the planet, okay? They went to double A. They went to single A, double A, triple A, through college. This is the best on the planet. And they can't even make simple plays.

And then the Astros are base running like they did. Nick Allen's waving in Jeremy Payne to go get thrown out at second. That is one of the worst double plays I can recall seeing. It was... Little Lakers do it? They both got Altovae brain. It felt like freshman in high school trying to make the team would do it. If I'd have seen that from Jose Altova, it'd be like, ah, yeah, that's Eltuve.

But come on, Nick Allen and Jeremy... Don't besmirch him like that. I'm sorry, his base running's bad. Am I wrong? His base running's bad between third and home. And at third base. And occasionally at second. Yeah, I was going to say, just name a base.

Well, first base, he's fine. He hustles. Yeah, that's true. He gets down the line. For a 36-year-old, he can get down there fairly quick. I think he's like, you know, 50th and sprint-speed percentile. The hate is just pouring out of your pores. Average for a 36 year, average speed of all of baseball for a 36 year old, that's great.

Okay. Just don't hate them, man. The greatest of the mall. I don't hate them. And I wanted to get the 3,000 hits, but this lockout is going to kill it. I'm sorry. It just is. I'm sorry, it's not happening.

I know. Brian Bogussevick 11 o'clock. I just don't get it today at 1130. What don't you get, Ross? A lot. Okay. News at noon, and believe it or not today is all things about... I got a commuting one.

A driving one. Okay. We're writing down so you don't forget. Okay. Russell Westbrook, believe it or not today, 150. We'll talk about his legacy. We come back 1029 on Sports Talk 790. 1034 on Sports Talk 790.

If you'd like to come in and say hello, we would love to have you. We are a radio show that actually likes to talk to y'all. Other shows in the marketplace don't care about you. Frankly, they don't even like you. They certainly don't want you to call their show. We like most of you. We want you to call the show. And we think you sometimes you add to it.

Sometimes you are another bore, but we don't really tell you that on air. We certainly make fun of you all fair, though. 713-212-5-7-9. Wow. What? What? I'm just kidding. Of course.

It's a joke, folks. It's a joke. 7-13-212-5-7-90. All right, Russell Westbrook announcing his retirement yesterday. People always ask, what are players like? and I just being completely honest I don't have a lot of relationship

with a lot of the players because I'm a broadcaster calling the games I'm doing my thing but they're not I'm 54 years old and these guys are 21, 22 they don't want to hang out with their dad

they want to hang out with their bros or their girls yeah more multiple girls whichever once whatever floats their boat now there are some guys that I will talk to and it be affable to

but I'm not running out and having dinner with Tar Easton and Jabari Smith put it that way. Okay. So when people say, what was Russell Westbrook like? If you were a teammate of Russ Westbrook, he loved you. If you were a support staff, you know, trainer, equipment manager kind of thing, he had great relationships.

He didn't have much time for us as traveling members of the team, so media team. So that's fine. I mean, so I can't give you an answer on that, Ross, about what he was like. I enjoyed calling his games. Yeah. He was obviously more down the back. back half of his career as a Houston rocket. The tray with Chris Paul obviously had negative dividends.

Do you want to give him the first round pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder? Because they've only gotten now 75 left. But point being is this. He was good when he was Oklahoma City early in his life. He was great. He is a triple double guy. Now, you could probably say he chased after some of those numbers. He was a stat not patter, but a stat chaser.

There was a lot of uncontested rebounds that he was getting. which they did have numbers on that. And he was very high on the uncontested rebounds. But then the counter argument to that was that, well, he's the point card. He should start the possession. So he can go get the uncontested rebounds. Who cares? So do this because you're not driving.

Okay. I'm talking about you. And if you are driving, you can't do this. But if you're not driving, you can do this too. Close your eyes. Where in the world is Russell Westbrook on your all-time? I'm building a dream team with a certain number of centers, certain number of power forward, shooting forward, shooting guards and point guards.

how long does it take before Russell Westbrook is commanding my team? Well, I pulled up, Bleacher Report ranked the top 100 NBA players recently, and when the top 75 came out, that was in 2022. ESPN ranked all 75 players. So I do have those rankings if you want to get to those. But just on Russell Westbrook, there's a lot of stuff about it. I mean, he had reports about him being a great teammate, great person, family man. He obviously wasn't the biggest fan of the media.

But overall, it seems like he was pretty. pretty good dude. He had some run-ins with fans over the years. Yes. He had adversary relationships with some members of media. We were not, by way, we were not adversarial. He just... No, we were interviewed. Remember we were scared when he got traded, and we were interviewing for media day and we're like, man, we don't... This guy's

always so rude with the media. He was great. He was fine. He was great. I just had no relationship with him. It's funny. I'd rather have none than a bad. Does that make sense to you? Uh-huh. So... So, yeah, I thought he was, he was great. And I think he's one of those guys on the short list of, like, you know, the old cliche, you're taking your kid to the game and you want to point out somebody and tell your kid, hey, watch this guy.

Watch how he runs around. Watch how he runs around. Watch how he's going after every loose ball. Plays with force. Russell Westbrook was on 100 every second he was on the floor. And I don't know if we can say that about a lot of players. So you can definitely do that. It wasn't a great shooter. Wasn't a great defender.

A great score in his prime, one of the fastest with the ball that I can ever recall seeing with. I mean, we can go on the short list of like Alan Iverson, Derek Rose, whoever, like is up and down quick. Honestly, like, I'm in Thompson might be creeping on that list somewhere. So here's the thing. Super fast. Can you ever be... He'll be in the basketball Hall of Fame. There's no idea of any of it.

Oh, yeah. It's about that. But is it hard to put him in the super elite category when he just was never a particularly good shooter, especially from three point range? Yeah, not a great three-point shooter, not a great defender. Well, he's not elite of a lead for me. of the top 76. Great court awareness, though. I was a little surprised.

ESPN had him at 68 of the 75 and 75. Okay, so who were the seven guys below him? I mean, it's a lot of older guys. Hold on me and pull it back up. Carmelo 69, Dolf Shays, Anthony Davis, Billy Cunningham, Dave Boucher,

Dave Bing, Damian Lillard. I would, I would, ooh, boy, Damian Lillard, or Russell Westbrook. Dames scored, though. Dame was a great score.

Also wasn't a great defender. But Russell Westbrook was a great playmaker. In Bleacher reports top 100 of all time that they did recently, they have him at 48th. Elvin Hayes, 47, Kevin McHale, 46. And this feels about right range. 45, Anthony Davis.

Sure. George Miken at 44. Can't give you any reference on that. Okay, why not? You want to break down full breakdown of George Miking? And then right behind him, they had Paul, okay, Paul Pierce. Paul Pierce or Russell Westbrook? Russell Westbrook. Man, Paul, Paul Pierce was the truth for a little while there.

But you just answered your own question. A little while. Yeah. I would just go longevity. Dominic Wilkins, 50th, Ray Allen 51st. Dwight Howard 52nd. Uh-uh, uh-uh. You're getting points off this poll if you're putting Dwight Howard number 52.

I like Dwight, but come on. Three-time defensive player of the year? 20 and 10 guy? How many rebounding titles he have? Yeah, but he was right place, right time. I mean, he was just powering over people. Yeah, but he didn't have any skill. I don't know.

He was a good defensive player, obviously. But his offensive repertoire was, I mean, Shaq was like, I got more than you do. Well, yeah, Shaq's top 12 all the time. Hmm. Okay, so we've, I think we've done a pretty decent job of discussing who he is. It's still going to take a while for me to build a team with Russell Westbrook as my guy, right? Before I pick him, yeah, just because of the inability to shoot. If he had a three-point shot, like if he shot like 37% for his career,

something close. It would be top 25-ish. Yeah. Because, again, got his teammates involved. He had the ability to not necessarily, well, he did chase rebounds, but he also got rebounds too. Yeah. When you average 10 rebounds game, they're not just dropped falling in your lap every day.

Like I said, all motor team. I mean, it's in terms of guys who just. played on 100 the entire time they're on the floor. Very admirable for him. He just had that fighting spirit. Yeah. At his peak, he was, he was entertainment. Because sometimes he would go crazy and he would shoot,

he would shoot the, they're like, give the ball to Kevin Durant. Because he would shoot the thunder out of games. But then whenever he went crazy and got hot, like he could have the greatest sequence in NBA history and then he could have the worst sequence in NBA history. He insists on. using the backboard for mid-range jumpers. Which I like, actually.

Yeah, that's old school. Backboard, baby. That's what I like it. Not much touch on that. You know, Timmy D. off the glass. There's nothing wrong with that. But yeah, I would say with my rocket traveling companions and trainers

and they loved him. Matter of fact, we were in Sacramento at the hotel. We were arriving and I think the Kings had just finished a game up and he came over to the hotel and he was hugging guys left it right. So he was obviously, and maybe that's just, you do that all the time, but you don't see that too often,

but he was beloved by the old-school guys that were still around. I mean, the players didn't know much, but certainly the support staff did. Yeah. The all-time scoring list, 14th. Ahead of Elijah one. Who's 15th now? And DeMarreauzen's 16, by the way.

My gosh. Elvin Hayes, 13th, Momelon, 12th. I'm just giving you kind of where he is. Yeah. But that's what, that gives you a great example of scoring isn't everything. because I mean, I like Demarta Rosen, but no one's ever going to put DeMarda Rosen and I got to have him on a team.

Yeah. Every time do we play, the Rockets have played Demar de Rosen, whatever uniform he's in, we're like, you know he's moving up the list, right? Well, like, what list? All time scoring. What?

All time scoring list? DeMarter Rosen? Yeah. All time assists list, Russell Westbrook. Number five. Stockton, Paul, Kid, James, Westbrook. See, that to me is what I put

on the front of the Hall of Fame conversation is that Russell Westbrook five, four people in the NBA history of Morris is than he does. That's a special number right there. That's what I put on the front of the program to honor him. He's 60th on the all-time rebound list. That's pretty good. Just behind Elton Brand, Jonas Valencius.

A head of Larry Bird, Sean Kemp, Lamarcus Aldrich. Not bad. Yeah, what have you played, 18 years? Yeah, I had a Nicola Yolkich. but you'll get you pass them. All right. 1044 on Sports Talk 790. If you'd like to join us, we'd love to have you.

713-212-5-790. If you'd like to be a part of this radio program today, 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Brian Bogus-Evick coming up at the top of the hour. Can we have a midweek emergency missing you? Yes. We'll tell you who that is. You know what I'm talking about? I do because we got tweets about it yesterday.

We'll do it next. 1044 on Sports Talk 790. This is an emergency edition of missing you. We haven't, we ever had an emergency edition of missing you? I think in the entire like 20 weeks we would do it. It's weird, but it had to happen today because of what's happening with the Chicago Cubs. It's funny. You go to the Cubs, you go to the MLB website.

Well, this is minor league baseball. Let me straighten this out. Ross promotes something. Follow me on Instagram at Sports RV. I really would appreciate it. I got my trip coming up to Mount. Rainier, also going whale watching in the San Juan Islands. I'll be posting up some pictures and some updates of that if you want to catch that.

And I'm really just trying to get my followers up. So I really, just as a favor to me, if you want to be my friend, I would appreciate it. Follow me at Sports RV. And until 2 p.m., I will follow you back. All right. At SportsRV. Follow me at SportsMT on Instagram and Twitter. What?

Because here's what happens. Did you notice what I did for you yesterday? I guaranteed an aster's win. Before that, I guarantee. a asterisk sweep of the angels. Jonathan, any lies detected in the last two statements I just put out to the audience? No. No, I'll see you.

Thank you. Thank you very much. And I guarantee you that you'll be bored by the fourth quarter of tonight's Texans' Charger game. Matter of fact, I will go ahead and say you'll be bored by early second quarter. Yeah, follow SportsMT. Follow SportsMt, Twitter, Instagram. There's a chance I might follow you, but there's also a chance I won't. Now, he won't follow you back, but I will. At sports, Harvey.

All right. Now, as expected. Here we go. Missing you. The Chicago Cubs got a little bit of offensive support yesterday, Rossi. For a man by the name of Alex Bregman. Yesterday against the Washington Nationals, he had three at bats. Excuse me.

That's actually true. He had five plate appearances. Three at bats. two other played appearances where he drew walks. He was on base five times. Well, he was on base for temporarily. Three at bats, three runs, three hits, three home runs. Is that good?

And drove in seven runs batted in for the Cubs against the nationals. Wow. That takes his offensive numbers for the year to 16 home runs, 61 ribbyes and his OPS has exploded to 759. We've been basically saying all year on the missing you segments like, yeah,

Breggman's going to wake up at some point. And I guess we're used to this at this point. August 13th, 118 games he's played, and now he's finally waking up to like the last week or so. Now his last seven games, which includes some for the previous week. which we've already talked about. 3,000. He is 12 for 30, which is a 400 batting average.

That's good. 14 ribbies. Wow. His OPS in his last seven games. $1,500. 171. That's pretty good. I will not ask you if you're missing him.

I'll wait for it. Well, you're not going to be here Monday. No, I'm not. I'm on vacation. I'm not calling in either. Jonathan, you got a lot of heavy lifting. Jonathan, you got a lot of heavy lifting. You're doing it to tell the truth next Monday.

Good luck. And I'll be bouncing on for missing. these players off of you next week. I'd go in for a raise. I don't know if your boss is. Yeah, see, we don't really know. I don't know. Is it Callum?

That's Calum for a race. Gordy? Brian? That's not me. No, not me. 1371. Good luck. All right.

Yeah, forget what I said about the raise. You're not doing one. Please. You've an hour limit. All right. Yeah, he's doing really well. Johnvin? Oh, no, Brighman.

Okay. His last 15 games. Yes? His OPS is 11-16. Good for him. That's great. I mean, he's a great hitter. It's going to be in the Hall of Very Good.

Can we make the Cubs a sneaky National League pennant winner? Or is that a fool's gold. Well, I don't know. Because Milwaukee and the Dodgers are so in front of everybody else. Go ahead. You were saying? Jeff Passing. was calling them a complete team.

I'd have to learn a little more about the... I mean, yeah, Pete Crow Armstrong is having an MVP type of year. Breggman's finally waking up. Yeah, Seas Suzuki's been good. Yeah, I'm looking at the pitching right now. Not really. Shoroa Imananga is good. Naga, I should say.

It doesn't look like they have a lot of good starting pitching. Okay, that concludes the Cubs talk here on 790. All you Chicago fans love what you just heard. The rest of you're like, Matt, we care about only the American league team in our town. Yeah. I think the Cubs got a good chance to make the NLCS there, Matt.

You just had to go to a stereotype, didn't you? What are you talking about? Do you want a Polish sausage? You're taking basically about 45 seconds of a skit SNL had 35 years ago I'm turning into a Chicago impersonation. I think that

makes about a baker's dozen for me there, Matt. love Chicago Are you going to go Little Dicker, Big Dicker Excuse me? Dicka, Dicka Look, watch your language, sir. The name of a hurricane

is Hurricane Dicka. Yeah, just stay out of there from like November to March. Chicago is an amazing city. Good food, nice people, easy to get around, but damn that weather can get nasty. Yeah, if you want bone rattling winds

in the winter, you can go there for that. And by the way, when you get a flight delay at either one of the airports, they don't care. We have a blizzard coming. We'll get you out when we can. Yeah. We're not going to promise you anything.

You're going to sit back. You're going to try to find a hotel around O'Hare. Good luck on that. You're trying to find a hotel around Midway and probably get shot. Yeah, you're in a tough spot there. Mm-hmm. So fly in Chicago, only when the weather is good. Yeah.

If not, you may be sitting in Terminal C-6 for like three days. That's a great city, though. Hancock Center. Well, they don't call it. anymore. And they got a downtown casino too. What? Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. Since when? A couple of years. Oh, okay. It's recent.

So, Rockets put the Bulls last year, and we go to eat after, and I said, eh, I want to go to the casino. Everybody's like, I'll go with you. So we got terrible Chinese food at like 1 o'clock in a morning up in the casino in Chicago. Really? Yeah. I think I lost 300 bucks in about five minutes, too. So it was basically a $400 moushu, uh, muu guy pan. that's how I always think about it $400 Mugu Guy Pan.

Yeah. When I lose money at the casino, like, did you have a Bigivacus? Did you have a beer of Caesar's Palace? I said, well, the prices. I said it's about $275. Yeah. It makes it. Everyone makes that joke. It makes it easier to justify, does it not? I just had a $300 dosacques. I've had a lot of $300

dosakis in my day. I know. She'd buy some of that stock. Brian Bogussevick. This is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. 1102 on Sports Talk 7-9. We appreciate Brian Bogus-Hivoc, moving from yesterday to today for his Thursday, 11 o'clock visit. Bogie, I got to be honest with you, I brought this up to open up the show today.

Under the preface of all wins are great. Okay? I'm just going to make sure I tell you that all victories are great. But since I've been an Astro fan since 1979, Bogie, that was one of the five worst victories I've ever seen the Astros ever. win in their franchise history. Where do you put that among the all-time worst victories you've ever seen in a baseball game? It's a pretty fair assessment. It was not pretty.

They didn't play particularly well. Most of all, it was just kind of boring. You know, sometimes you have poorly played games that at least are exciting because there's, you know, a lot of action. There wasn't a whole lot of action. But, yeah, wins a win. And you know what, though? It might not be even the worst one.

the season. That Angels game still is probably up there. That was more, you know, the Angels just completely dumping on themselves. But yeah, it was bad. The Giants are bad. And it was one of those series where it felt like, like, if the Esters could just hang around long enough in all of the games, eventually the Giants would just give it to them. And that's exactly what happened, at least in two of the three games.

Let me ask you this, and these are two different things. Playing a bad team in a series, you can play down on a competition. It happens in all sports. but I want to get to the getaway games. And look, you've got a long fly coming back. It's the dog days of August. You're not ready to hit September yet for the pennant chase. You're playing a subpar team.

You've been through a lot of these, whether you were playing in college or the pros. How do good teams become great teams when they don't allow that last day of a road trip, day game, getaway day, affect them as much as sometimes teams do? Yeah, you know, it's really one of, many things, right? There's a lot of things like that that can affect you, whether it's, you know, the last couple of series leading into the All-Star break or, you know, days where there's maybe weather in the mix and you end up playing on a day where you thought maybe you were going to get rained out, those things that can kind of turn the switch off mentally. So they all kind of

fall under the same category for me. And it has to do with just, are we all moving in the right direction just as a whole. Are we all on the same plan? Are we all, do we all have the same goals? And this team, they haven't always played their best, but they've never really given things away. They've never really falled into love, right? They have that Oriole series where they look completely flat and then they immediately bounce back and look like the best version of themselves. If you can do those kinds of things, you're not going to let all of those other things affect you all of the time. But yes, you're human. There are times when you're tired. There are times. and you just want to get home there.

There are times when you just want to get to the off day. But, you know, good teams know that a Sunday game in June means the same as, you know, game 162 at the end of year. Another thing that I brought up to Ross yesterday that we talked about, you know, when guys go through slumps, you always hear of the needs a day off, needs to sit, just kind of let the game come to him. And we'll use Christian Walker as an example. He didn't really get a full off day yesterday because he was brought in late in the contest. But when you're slumping, Brian, people think a day I was supposed to fix that. When you're slumping and work, usually take a weekend off or, oh, go take a week off in Mexico and go sit on a beach. Now, you do get highly compensated to do this, and there's only a handful of people that get to play professional baseball and make good money.

But, man, it's a cruel world because when you're supposed to be slumping and need time away from the sport, that means 24 hours, but that also means you're in uniform, you may be a defensive replacement, and you're most likely going to pay. pinch hit in the ballgame too. Yeah, you can't ever totally get away, right? Because who knows what's going to happen? And especially this time of year, you know, a lot of times, especially early in the season, if the manager gives one of the regulars a day off, they'll tell them, hey, there's no way, right? Like, I'm not going to you. Don't even wear cleats into the dugout. But this time of year, everybody knows the deal, right? Like, yeah, you're not in the lineup, but if they need you, you're available. And, you know, part of a manager's job is to keep a pulse on his guys and what they need and what they're going through. And even when somebody's struggling, if you feel like

it's maybe a result of them getting worn down a little bit physically, then they need the day off. If they're getting, you know, kind of piled on them mentally and you can see it starting to build, maybe they need a day off. Or the opposite could be, hey, this guy's going through a struggle right now, but he still looks competitive. He still looks fresh. He still looks like he looks like he's fighting through it, which means any at bat or any game could be the game that he breaks out. So I'm just going to keep him in there and ride him a little bit longer. So, yeah, it's different approaches for different guys who are maybe going through the same kind of stuff. Well, we know Yoron Alvarez is a different guy.

He hasn't hit a home run in a while, but still has, looks like he's had a lot of hard hit contact. Have you noticed anything different with him or it's just, eh, it's just been a baseball on a stretch of games where he hasn't gotten one out. And of course, we know he got close yesterday. Yeah, it's very much just baseball. You know, he hit a ball the other day, what was it, the second or second hardest hit baseball in major leagues this season. And if he gets a little bit more elevation on it, balls, you know, in the ocean.

So no, I'm not, no real concerns about the approach, no concerns about, you know, is this swing not producing enough, you know, loft or fly balls? He's just at a stage where he's, everything that he hits hard is either on the ground or a line drive, which is fine. You're going to get hits that way. He's also, you know, you go through stretches where when you're him, when you're the guy in the lineup, when you're the guy in all of baseball that everybody doesn't want to mess with, they're going to be very careful with you. And oftentimes that results in you getting a lot of walks and not getting anything to hit. But, you know, these are major league pitchers.

Sometimes when they're trying to be careful and make pitches, sometimes they do it. And sometimes you get dealt up a little bit and don't get a whole lot to hit. So, you know, when you go through those stretches, it's just, there's a reason that people don't hit 400. There's a reason that people, you know, don't hit 70 home runs. It's because even when you're fine, sometimes it just doesn't happen. Brian Bogusevich was here on Sports Talk 799. Nine games into his Astros career.

It has been a struggle at the plate for Dalton Varshow. What are you seeing there? You know, honestly, nothing really stands out as, oh, if they fix this, if he gets this going, he just hasn't really had anything clicked. The bats have been fine. It doesn't look like he's really chasing anything. It doesn't really look like he's overmatched by anything. You know, honestly, he wasn't swinging at all that well when he came over.

I think he was, you know, under 200 for his last 20 games or so as he was coming up to the trade deadline. So just kind of going through a stretch like that. But it is what it is. It looks the same against righties and lefties. It looks like it's competitive. It looks like at some point it'll break out. and be better. But no, you just haven't seen it yet.

I feel like, Brian, that to Taylor Tremel in the battle of, let's see, what Outfielder wants to stick around and play as much, has done everything he's can. Cam Smith has played well, but Cam Smith has much been more of a solid position because of his defense. But Tramel, it feels like, has taken a little bit of a leap because we've been looking for somebody to kind of step up and at least say, hey, I should be playing in the outfield five days a week.

Yeah, he's been really good. and the bats have been very good in terms of just, you know, swinging at good pitches, controlling the zone. His bat speed looks really good. He looks fresh. He looks healthy. And this is kind of the trickle-down effect of the Varsho thing. I know a lot of people are looking at them bringing in Varshow and saying,

hey, we're getting decent production in center field with Tremel in there. You know, why are we kind of making that trade? But the trickle-down effect is that, you know, before you were kind of fine with what you were getting in center field and you had really no answers in left field on an everyday basis. But now you bring Varsha in. He's an everyday center fielder type. He had lefties, he's about the same. So now you can slide Tramel over.

So now you have at least that side of the platoon figured out in left field. They're trying to figure out the right-handed side of it. So it's not, you know, necessarily, oh, we made a trade for a center fielder. It was more just we upgraded the outfield as a whole. And it feels like Taylor Tremel, you know, all throughout the course of the season, And he's constantly being like the forgotten man and then reminding everybody of, hey, I was playing pretty good before that. And he's doing it again.

We saw the opener yesterday before Tatsu Emi got out there. Do you think if you're Joe and you're on the plane ride back yesterday, that's going to be what you're going to have to do with him probably the rest of the year? I think it will be dependent throughout the rotation, you know, seeing how this starts leading up to it. I think it's kind of obvious that there's three spots in the rotation that they're pretty comfortable with, right? You have Hunter of Lambert, you have Wesnacki, they're all throwing the ball fairly well.

They're pretty reliable. You know what you're going to get. And then there's a couple of spots where it's just like we don't know exactly what we're going to get from Rennel or Javier, Emi, obviously, has been up and down. So you're going to try to massage those all throughout, you know, the rest of the season. And between off days and being able to shuffle the rotation around and are you getting a deep start from one of those guys before to where the bullpen is a little bit fresh. I think, yeah, I think they're going to try to limit the exposure of those guys,

how many times they're going through a lineup. And, you know, the case like yesterday, if you're thinking that a bulk guy or starter type is only going to go through the lineup two times and maybe give you four innings, well, why not play a better matchup in the first inning if you can bring in a lefty to face a left-handed heavy top of the order. So, yeah, I think that's going to be something that's certainly on the take. table from here on out. All right. Before I let you run, I get this question occasionally on the 10th inning show,

and my easy answer is Christian Vasquez can't play six days a week. Okay, that's just, the backup catcher always gets a lot of the run, and we've seen that with other catchers here and before. But the record with the Astros with Christian Vasquez is significantly better than it is with Janer Diaz, even though the sample size is a little off. Explain it to me. Coincidental? Is there something about what Vasquez is doing behind the dish?

And the reason why he's not playing more, it's because he's well north of 30 and the bat's about 205 batting average. Yeah, I think it's mainly coincidental. I mean, Christian Vasquez is a very good catcher. He's a very good game caller. There's a reason why he's been around for so long. There's a reason why all the pitchers that he's ever worked with have liked him. I think the numbers are skewed a little bit because Jiner was a guy catching

at the beginning of the season when they come. couldn't do anything right and it had nothing to do with him being back behind the plate. But, yeah, I think, you know, just he works very well with the pitchers, Fasquez, I'm talking about it. And Yiner does a job also, but I think just, you know, he's fallen into a good rapport with a couple of the starting pitchers that have gotten really hot. And when you do that, you're winning more games with those guys and the records going to be reflected in that. But I don't think it's any kind of slight to say, you know, that he's so much better than Yiner. and yiner is detracting from the guys that he's catching.

Yeah, I'd agree with that as well. Thank you, friend, for the time, and we'll look forward to having you back on a regular slot on Wednesday next week. Thanks, and we'll see at the ballpark this weekend. All right, cool. See you guys. Brian Bogusific with us here on Sports Talk 70. I mean, you just, he's plain spoken, doesn't overthink things,

doesn't stat give you to geeky to death. He's Brian Bogusufix. That's why I love it. Oh, okay. I was like, who you're talking about? I'm talking about you. I'll stack geeky to death. Yeah, you will stack geeky to death.

to death. Man, I like some of it. We're talking, now we're talking to RE24 or nothing. Come on, Space City. I love you all,

but you cannot. I don't know. I'm going to bring up WRC Plus. I could. I was going to give you some initials too, but I can't do that

because I want to keep it a family radio show. DRA minus? That's enough from you. I just don't get it. Stack geek. Okay. That's 1130 here on

Sports Talk 790. Would you like to join us? We'd love to have you. We want to talk about anything that Mr. Bokosevik had to say. 713, 212-790. 713212-5-790.

There is a new NBA coach, Rossi, that did a story about why he left college to go to the NBA. I'm going to give you a guess as to why he did it, beyond the money, and I think you'll probably get it. Okay. Think about that during this short timeout. Plus your phone calls, Astros, and I just don't get it all here.

On a Thursday edition of the Matt Thomas show at Ross, this is Sports Talk 790. 1121 on Sports Talk 790. Good morning to you. Matt and Ross with you until 2 p.m. today. We have I just don't get it coming up at the bottom of the hour. Thanks again to Brian Bogos. I think we got believe it or not today, all things about Russell Westbrook.

Rocket schedule coming out today at 2 o'clock, and I will be going Facebook live, going through all 82 straight victories of rockets will have. Because that's what we do here. We just take schedules and we embellish them and spend hours talking about them. Okay. How'd you like my mock schedule? I didn't like the fact you had Saskatchewan of the opener.

That's not going to be a possibility. Six straight games against the Lakers, I thought, in December. What is this? Minor League Baseball? Like, if you were... There's a six-game set. You guys don't get this, but surely if you look at their schedule, they will play six and seven games in a row against the same opponent.

You got to cut down on travel, baby. It's like, they go to play in Vegas for six days. I'm like, I can be the voice of the space cowboys for six days. Jake Myers' travel budget, got to go somewhere. Oh, Jake. We'll remember you, Jake, for the good times. Jake Myers on a different team next year. Probably.

I mean, I would almost guarantee. to it. Yeah. Let's move on. The Astroship has passed. Now, you'll get a tribute video. And now I'm founding the Cam Smith fan club. By the way, you are allowed to Oh, wait, hold on. No, no, no, no, no, he's allowed. He's allowed to start that. Absolutely. He's like Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham.

What? Yeah. I'm sleeping with a bunch of minor leagues. Correct. I love you so much more for that. You know what good. Yeah, that's exactly you are. You are Susan Saran. You're just moving on. He's 30 years old. He's not on the team. Yeah, exactly. The AAA. As soon as Randon's character,

you can be in two fan clubs. Why not? You're not in the Taylor Swift fan club and the Nickelback fan club. Why not? You could be. But you're the president. You can only be president of one. You can only be president of one. Well, we'll see. We'll see how what happens with Jake.

No, seriously, why would he, why would you be the president of Jake fan club when he's playing for the Cleveland Guardians? Yeah, I'm not going to stream his games on spacecowboys.comnet. Now, we'll have a missing you next year category. Of course, we're talking about 2028. By the way, missing you for 2027 is going to be every player in baseball next year. He might be on the Durham Bulls next year.

I'm talking about every baseball player. Yeah. That's a really long-ass segment. I'm missing all of them. Joining, missing you. We're going to recap their fishing trips on Instagram or what? Missing you. They're going to have any stats.

Farmer Valdez. No appearances this week. Alex Breggman, O for O. How is Frommbert doing? He's all right. He's seven and seven. Okay. Yeah. All right, real quick. So the Michigan Wolverines, I don't know if you remember this, because we're not a huge college basketball town.

I just, you know, I read the athletic. It's great publication. Our friend Channel Rome works for them. Yes. Does a nice job. Sam. Khan writes for them as well. Just really, really. It's sports journalism as compared to just, hey, a team beat beat beat team by a score of this and giving the box score. But the coach of the Dallas Mavericks used to be the coach of the, Michigan Wolverines. Jason Kidd? No. Oh. You want to keep going?

Go ahead and say John McLean. Donnie Nelson? Mm-hmm. May he rest? He rest. John McLean. No, John McLean wasn't coaching the Mavericks. That'd be ridiculous.

We're talking about Dusty May, obviously. So, Dusty May has been doing a few radio interviews and publications and they did a story. Okay. And he said, they said, okay, what's the end of the day? What is the real? reason why you left. And he said, look, I'm making great money in the NBA. I've always wanted to be an NBA coach. It's kind of the mecca of where the Krem of the Krem of the Krem coaches go. And I'm reading this story, and I suggest you all do this. He basically said,

I know who my team is. I know who I'm going to be coaching. When you're a college coach in 2026-7-8-9, you're doing less and less coaching. You are a de facto general manager. you are worrying about NAL, you worry about dispersal, the money that the school gives you. You are constantly, constantly recruiting, even keep the players that you brought originally to your squad. Constantly thumbing through Supreme Court rulings. And then he said something that was very interesting. He says, I can get a kid to commit with me on a Friday. And he'll see that same kid two days later talking to another school, basically saying that they're lying to them about, yes, I'll go with you.

think their job is done. They've got their point guard or their center and they wind up finding up there somewhere else two days later. I'm trying to find better. I think I mentioned this on it. I don't get it within the last few months. I don't get commitments. Why do we even do that? Why do we even? I'm announcing my commitment

to this. Nobody, it doesn't matter. Probably just stop. It doesn't matter. Unless you sign on the dotted line. Correct. And it's only one year. I mean, you're not signing four year commitments. I'm announcing this is my favorite for right now in this moment. Correct. And that's what I'm saying. It's like, until somebody else ups the offer. He's like, I can't, how do I build a roster when I got a kid telling me he's

committed to me? And then two days later, he goes somewhere else. Yeah, I understand his frustration to it. Yeah, using their ever, they're using agent to leverage you. Like you commit to one school so they can, well, I'm going to see, I committed. Oh, you want to up your offer? It's no longer I'm thinking about it. Yeah. I'm committed to. And then, oh, I can decommit once you tell. You can decommit and commit every other day. Yeah. Who cares? So, honestly, now, if you still want to be the leader of everything. If you want to be a general manager, a head coach, a recruiter, you want to build a program. Like

Calvin Sampson embraces the college experience because it's his program. IMAIDOCA is the coach of the Rockets, but it's the Houston Rockets. It's the NBA. That is the grand scheme of this. When you identify with basketball, college especially, you really identify

with the coach. I mean, Mike Chashefsky identifies with the Duke basketball brand. Dean Smith did with North Carolina. More money, more prestige, and fewer headaches in the NBA. Yeah, you know what you do? You practice

them. You can yell at them for a certain level. Now, if you yell too much, you'll get you fired. But it is about X's and O's and nothing else. You're not a psychologist. You're not a team dad. When things are down, you're a psychologist, and you know, you've got to, you know, depend on how many girlfriends each player has. But really, when EMA or any NBA coach walks in at 930,

and they practice 10 to 12 or 10 to 1230, and they look at tape and they look, after 1 o'clock, they can go out and do what they want. You are on the hook for these kids, and this is even before NIL, but now you're really worried about them because now they've now only got these college kids that are not mature that are need of figure.

They've also got a lot of money in their piggy-maint that kids didn't have 15 or 20 years ago. So I kind of get what he was saying. I totally get it. That's not and I just don't get it. I get that. Yeah. I just thought it was interesting that he was basically saying it's just I'm doing less and less coaching and more and more administrative stuff.

And if you're a coach, if you're at the end of the day, you want to coach people. I don't know how much coaching doing the NBA, but it feels like you're getting more of an opportunity to do that than you are at the collegial level because you're now having to handle a lot of other administrative duties besides just keeping these 19-year-olds happy. Mm-hmm. All right, just don't get it. You wrote yours down, right? What? You did, I told you to write it down. I had two of them, actually.

I forgot there was one I showed. A double doozy on this? Eh, my same. All right. If there's something in life you just don't get, which is my life in a nutshell, 713-212-5-790, if you'd like to join our program today,

7-13-212-5-7-90. We are like your advice for the next half-hour. Jonathan's Young, so his advice may not be really good. mine is I'm a little older My advice always as the kids would say It's quite sage It's usually just lie

That's also fair Yeah lying can help you out at the end of the day It just can't Do you have something in your life That you just don't get No need to worry No need to fret We will discuss the topics

To see if we comprehend The things that may confuse our friends It's time to say I just don't get it I need to do a shout out real quick shout out to Jay Muton Fitness Jeremy never gave up

Trav 60 Rosie Marie Casey and Jake for all following me on Instagram thank you very very much I'll not let you down you might

I'd be fine I would like to thank Slow Ladin Texas Trill Foodie Samie LLV Jake Walston Jay Muton Fitness as well

Greg M09 Trav 60 Marcus Tibet and Casey Cache for following me. Thanks, everybody, for following us. We very much appreciate it. You're the best. All right, I just don't get it.

Things that confuse you. Conundrums? We're here to give you sage advice, at least one of the three of us is. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Rossi, you got two this week. Oh, really?

Oh, I don't know. Am I going with both? Okay, so I'm driving. And you know what? I might even have done this before, but it just still puzzles me. And I'm approaching a red light. So what do you do when you're approaching a red light? You coast or you slow down.

As I'm doing that, this guy, and of course he's in a pickup truck behind me, starts riding my tailgate like I'm going 20 in the slow lane. I'm approaching a red light. And I always see people like zoom in and zipping and like, it's a red light. and we're like, it's a red light, folks. Red means stop. Why is everyone always so in a hurry to get to the red light? Like, why can't I just have a little bit of space? You relax.

It happens to me all the time. Why are we in such a hurry? It's a red freaking light. Red means stop. Lay off your gas. That way, you don't have to jam on your brakes, so you're wasting gas. And, by the way, you're wasting your brake pads.

Just coast and hang out and get to the red light. Everybody chill out. I don't get it. The reality are is I get it We collectively as society Just can't drive We are

Why not? Because if you You know how you have a driving test Where you pass and you get to driver's license Yeah If you had a Listen to this analogy This is not going to be bad

Uh oh If you had a pop quiz Of driving Any age I think 80% of us would fail the quiz we speed we run through stop signs I don't get it

we tailgate we're just we were in Providence last weekend moving Carly up there Providence Providence the drivers are horrific up there I mean

God awful so I will say Ross while I empathize with you I feel sorry for you I mean if you're not giving me a reason you don't get it you're saying people are bad drivers that's not getting it yeah I get it

I get it that you're not getting it I totally get it I get that you're going to have traffic issues. Okay. You know what? I don't know where to stand here. Well, just go on history. All right, what's your second one?

Oh, you want me to give you another one right now? Sure, why not? My life's pretty good. It's actually car-related as well. Please. And maybe people do get this one, because I see this everywhere. I need this explained to me. Why are people wearing earbuds in the car?

Ooh. Ooh. It's very unsafe. I mean, maybe if you're wearing like the Bluetooth and you want to like, you're on the phone all the time for your work, I guess maybe I get that. Right. But listen to your, listen to your stereo. It sounds better. Crank that bad boy up to 11 and get it going.

I always see people like always wearing their earbuds in the car. I mean, I need that explain to me. I'm not trying to be like mean or whatever. I just don't get it. I don't get it either. I will back you up 100%. I think about this all the time. I don't get it.

I don't know what's the point. Even if you had your stereo, why would you stereo be messed up in the car? Yeah, you can talk on the phone on the Bluetooth, right? Or, I mean, or just use your phone. So I don't get it. I mean, you need to hear sirens. You need to hear people honking at you.

You need to hear any kind of crash. I don't know. Any number of things. Now, of course, you can't hear that when you're blasting your stereo to 11 too, but I mean, you have a better shot, I feel like, so I don't know. I don't get it.

That great, you. This one, I'm going to talk directly to Jonathan in the audience and used to add to this. Why? I don't get taste bud shaming. Oh, Lord. I was talking about this with my father-in-law yesterday. Oh. You like my fault, and we dumped it down last night, we were having dinner.

You like what you like. You don't. I mean, it's not, we're not criticizing you for liking something. Like, I don't like sweet tea. don't like the flavor of it. I love iced tea. I just don't like sweetener in it. But it doesn't make me a bad person. And when you go to a restaurant, Ross, and you have a choice of delicious ribs, good brisket, amazing sausage, chicken, turkey. If you don't like something in there, I don't go, Ross, you don't like barbecue turkey. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Oh, really? Yeah.

What if I put ketchup on my hot dog? I wouldn't do that. You wouldn't shame me? I wouldn't shame me? I wouldn't You're such a fraud and a liar. Hold on. I would say you're six years old. Oh, what if I order my sake? Well done. I would say you're hurting it, but I'm not going to judge you. You're such a liar and a fraud again.

You shame people for their food opinions all the time. I don't know what you're speaking of. All the time. Hypocrite. I shamed someone for her well-done turkey and well-done steak and she got really mad. I know. See? And you'd call some of that too.

Yeah, I did. I was just sitting here catching strays. Now you shouldn't get your well-done steak. I'm sorry. So I'm telling you I don't like sweet tea. Okay. I would prefer ribs and sausage over brisket. And I don't...

And I... So yes, I am going to shame you. I just don't get it. Because you're a sick human being. That's why. Jonathan, you're next. No one to answer. Do you get it, Jonathan?

Do you get why you're ashamed? No, I get it a lot. I just... The same way you make your kids eat vegetables And they say they don't like it No, you're going to eat your vegetables It's good for you. Yeah, I'm trying to steer you in the right direction.

Uh, all right. Guys, I don't get this Jaden Daniels LSU. I really don't get the side of LSU. Oh, we should explain what that is. Oh, yeah, I was going to talk about this in the news. No, no, no, no, go ahead, go ahead. No, no, no.

First of all, let's explain it. And then we need Gordy, if you're listening to us right now. Yes. I actually want a deeper conversation with this because I really, you know, let's wait for this. No, go ahead. We can do it. I mean, we're a different audience in 20 minutes.

It's fine. Like, I just don't, I just don't get it. So barely Jaden Daniels sent a cease and desist to LSU to stop using his name, image, and likeness on anything. And this is in retaliation of allowing someone a sophomore cornerback DJ Pickett to wear his number five jersey. Mm-hmm. Which if you had asked me what number Jaden Daniels wore at LSU, I couldn't even tell you.

No, I would have a no, no, no idea. It's not iconic. But the thing is, but I don't get the hate he's getting, honestly, because, I mean, think about it. If you were him, hold on, hold on. Have you met a professional athlete? He met their egos? No, but I'm saying, but as a foreign. You don't understand.

You don't understand, because no one's trying to see his side of things on this, what I'm reading on it. Okay, well, tell me what his side is. I don't get that. Has Joe, anybody wore number nine? I have no idea. No, they haven't. Okay. I mean, well. And obviously, Gordy can come and explain it.

If he's still here, he can explain this a lot better. But to me, it's more like I can see the disrespect. And all of Jayton Daniels are saying, hey, don't use my stuff to gain more fame on that stuff. If you're not going to respect my number that I got on. Okay. So again, I didn't even know what number he wore. LSU gave away a number to another player. But LSU has sales gear with that, with his number right on it?

Is that correct? Am I getting that right? They're upset about it. Oh, man. So he said you got legal. You get your lawyer involved? Like, if you want to talk to somebody or say something about it, I guess, would you bring lawyers into this because you got your feelings hurt?

Nah, I don't get it. I don't know, y'all. So I guess he went a hymn 14. So what he wants is he wants his number retired. Did he playing long enough at LSU to get his jersey retired? Joe Burrow, let's play, what, two years, the same as him? I think Joe Burrow, I think they each started one season

at LSU right, or did Jadennell start two? And Daniels was a Heisman trophy winner, correct? Yeah, he was a Heisman trophy winner, but also Joe Burrow won a national championship, and that's one of the greatest teams of all time. Heisman, greatest team, I mean... So who you're signing out here with? I think it's...

I'm going to say this. I think it's disrespectful for LSU to do that. For letting someone else wear... One of your Heisman numbers. They don't have to retire, but I can see the disrespect. And as an athlete myself, I would be like, this is disrespectful. And you still selling stuff from my name. He started there for two years.

His second year is when he won the Heisman. What was his last season? 22, 22, 23, somewhere in that range? 23. So I will do this. They went 10 and 3. You can't finish 12. You can't save a number unless you retire, right?

I mean, that's the bottom line of this. But I will actually, in this small sense, I will side with the athlete on this because Because you don't have to give him the number right away. Now, if it's 2031 and you've decided not to retire the number five, then I kind of get it. See, see, it's just like I'm getting, saying I'm pulling, you guys can't use me for anything now. That's a little far. That's, yeah, I would, here's what I think. I get getting your, yeah, we'll talk about this.

All right. We've got to get to Austin. He's not to Austin, Texas. Just Austin. Austin. Right of Austin. Yeah. Also, Katie and Tyler are on the line.

I don't believe it to be accurate. Oh. If your name is a city name in the state of Texas, you don't get carte blanche. You'll start with Austin. Porter? Wagner. Necagnosus? Wimberley?

No, there's no Wimperley out there. I don't think. All right. That's enough. I'm sorry. There's no Abilene Jones running around. I bet you there's some kid named Lubbock somewhere. Like Red Raider parents.

No, that wouldn't be. That'd be terrible. What's the word? The worst name that you can give your kid from a city would be Nacadoches. You don't want to mean, you'd be called NAC. That's a problem. Yeah, it's a problematic. Best name?

It would have to be Austin, right? Tyler's not bad. Dallas is not bad either. Dallas is not bad. You don't want to be called Fort Worth Jones. Nobody's called Fort Worth Jones. I mean, Corpus Christi would actually not be horrible. Probably the worst one would be Brownsville.

Oh, Mike, what's your name, son? Brownsville? What? All right. move on. With your fancy five. Jonathan, say the line,

Jonathan. I like this conversation. I like it. When he likes it, he listens, keep going. Yeah. Thanks.

I checked my Instagram during the break. Got a couple new follows. Thank you, everybody follow me there on Instagram. Thanks to Bonnie Joe for sending me a message too

about she hates food shamers. I happen to work with one every day. Oh, you know who hates food shamers? People with bad palettes. Yeah. Let us love our lives. And yet you shame people.

Who's the last time I shamed you about your food choices? I don't know. I basically eat everything. I'll at least try anything. Yeah, but you... Weirdest thing I eat recently was probably Firefly Squid and sushi. Where'd you get that from? It was an Omikaze place in L.A.

It was a delicious or no? I didn't like it. One and done? No. But the rest of the sushi was incredible. Now, what are you going to eat when you're in the middle of nowhere? Are you going to pack food? Is that what you're going to do?

I have some freeze-dried food. Well, I'm going to have sandwich. Normally, like, for the first day, probably eat a sandwich. Okay. And pack that in my pack. And then also I have freeze-dried food. So, like, you know, like, you talked about how you were talking about it with the Survivor Meals. Yeah, I did.

There's different ones. There's, like, Mountain House. You can get good. This sounds pretty good. I did Survivor Meal commercials in Utah, but it wasn't for packing for, it was for when the Angel Morona was going to turn. Okay. Well, no, this is for backpacking. Like, so, I mean, it's the same thing.

It's usually about $10 to $12 a serving, depending on what you get. You can get, I mean, you can get whatever you want. You get, like, cheeseburger, macaroni, lasan. lasagna, biscuits and gravy, you know, beef enchilato, whatever you want. Favorite hamburger helper flavor, go ahead. Oh, number one is beef stroganoff. It's not even close.

Number two, I would go lasagna. Number three, I'm going to go cheeseburger macaroni. Although I feel like lasagna and cheeseburger macer inter, you could swap. To me, it's number one and not even close is the cheesy hash brown. Cheesy hash browns. Oh, my gosh. No, that's extra steps. This is another thing I didn't like. Oh, hamburger helper. Dude, it's hamburger helper.

They're like, yeah, why don't you add an extra two-thirds cup of milk and then you're going to boil down these hash browns and then turn it on high and sear. No, no, it's hamburger helper. I'm browning some meat and I'm tossing in some pasta. Let's keep it simple, folks. Sorry. 713-212-5-790. Austin, what don't you get, my friend? I don't get the idiots that have to be on Facebook live or, you know, video T, video phone. all day long, especially at the damn grocery store.

It's like, get out of the way. Let me get my groceries and move on. People are like FaceTiming at the grocery store? Yeah, FaceTiming or whatever it may be, man. It's just unbelievable. You don't need to talk to your kids while you're at the grocery store or your granny telling you what milk to buy. How about this?

I need a ruling on this, boys. Now, I am not an influencer. I've influenced a few things. Now I'm trying to influence you guys. You're usually under the influence. 1130, write that down. Why? It's a joke. Look, we influence y'all to support our sponsors.

Yes, we do. There is a level of that. But there are people that I are friends with on Facebook that are somewhat famous that use their Facebook for products every day. And I don't mind it once in a while. I get it because I do it sometimes with my Instagram. I don't do it a lot. Yeah.

Because if you think if you do it every day, five times a day, then it gets lost in translation. But there is, I don't want to say who it is. Everything that this person does is a sponsored something. Yeah. I think it's, I don't know. I shouldn't say I didn't get it. Just use the bathroom sponsored by Charmin Post. Correct.

Like relax. Oh no, I spilled this Kool-Lade. I guess I got to get some brawny paper towel. I mean, look. We are, the world is full of sponsorships. Advertisement makes the world go around. I just, when I do it, I don't do it a lot. And I would think you guys would respect that.

So if I, if I use my IG, which I will have kind of occasion to promote big city wings or I'm going to see my friends at Sethi's fine jewelry and showing some photos. But I don't want to inundate you with it. And I just think sometimes you got to just take a step back and not let everyday occurrences. Oh, I got to take a shower. Oh, I guess I got to use, you know, acmead sour gel. I heard her spring. It just feels like... I can't use it because I have sensitive skin.

It's like that woman, do you know who Star Jones is? Does that name ring a bell to you? Yeah, she used to be on... On the view. Okay, the view, yeah. So she got married about 15 or 20 years ago. Oh, congratulations to her.

I don't know if they're still married or not. Oh, well, maybe congratulations. So she'd go on her show every day and talk about the next thing that's happening in her wedding. And she wanted everything was sponsored by something. Okay. I don't know. Getting married, don't worry about having... David's bridal care

do your dress. Go ahead. I mean, she's probably getting paid for or getting taken care of it. It's just It's very easy. I get it. I know. I get it. But it just feels like they're taking it. Cut the check, baby. It just feels like it's a little

a little over the top. I get it though. They're almost like robots. They're like their own commercial. That's all they live for. Yeah. Like I said, you're going to see some for me. I don't do them very often. Because I feel like if you're doing it, if I'm getting it for me because I'm genuinely excited about something. I'm not, I want to be like, oh, you're me, Matt, you're being hypocritical.

No, I will do it, but I'm not going to do a lot of it. Yeah, when I post the Dijon Wildcott Cod, you actually enjoyed it. It was delicious. Yes. And when I show you the wings and how delicious they are from Big City Wings, because we love them. And they love us, and they're a huge part of what this show is. And I will attest to both their sponsors, great food. There you go.

I got a few jobs on his belly. I'm just saying. Oh, he wants a gift certificate. Well, we'll take care of them. I can't take care of them for sure. You don't pay for... I'm going to... I'm going to...

Are you coming to... The meeting on Friday? Yes, he is. Okay, good. We're going to be done by 3 o'clock. So you're only going on an hour. Tell your girl, you'll be back in plenty of time. Yeah, totally relax.

All right. Before we get to the news that dude, Roger, what don't you get? I've previously discussed yesterday, Matt. I was actually a row-wrapped higher. And they do not... If you have the insurance, they take care of this tire and fix it for free.

However, I guess I gave it to the wrong person and he was a young fellow, very robust. He didn't want to move too much, so I brought the tire to him, rolled it to him, and he was like, yeah, we'll get it fixed. So he comes back, he calls you back in about an hour and says, yeah, we couldn't get to your tire because it has two side, tiny holes

right next to each other, and so now we cannot fix it because whatever reason that I just made up. Dude, come on, man. I don't get it, man. You should have just told me that route from the beginning. But you know what? I'll, like, doing nothing a day.

Just take it tomorrow, which I did, right across the street. 20 bucks, done, three minutes. Just, yeah, I don't get it. Thanks, thanks. Thank you. Ross, a thought or two on that? You normally, if the, he's talking about his tire getting repaired, that's on the sidewall, they won't do it.

He said discount tire. I, let me tell you something. They don't spend the money with us. I've had nothing but amazing experience as a discount tire. They don't spend money with us. I love they did, but I'm with you. I love discount. I've had nothing but a great experience from them every single time, every single time.

All right, that's how I just don't get it. Make an appointment. They'll put you head on line. Pro tip, don't walk in because you're going to be sitting there for two and a half hours. You're still going to have to wait when you make an appointment, but they'll jump you ahead a little. And they, you took the time. They'll take the time to give you the extra time. Discount tire, you walk in without an appointment, you'll be drinking nine cups of coffee.

All right. They have coffee there. No, I look. Yeah. I get a bottle of water or coffee It'd be nice to have an Amelette station

I'll read I'll read Car and Driver from 1996 I'll read the freshest episode latest magazine of Sports Illustrated yeah

Bird versus magic yeah it's good stuff the news dude by the way we found out the giants are only human

is this a deep cut on Billy Joel I thought it was a fairly popular song you had never heard it before I'm not familiar with it This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Three in San Francisco.

They defeat the Giants. Two to one. Rossi. Now, granted, it's not a top five for me on the Billy Joel list, but it reached number nine on the Billboard Top 100. Oh, wow. For how long? For how long?

For how long? In the adult contemporary chart, 1985. And it's on its Billy Joel greatest hits album. Good for them. Damn, it's just one guy. Oh, I thought Billy Joel was a band. No. Pink Floyd.

It's funny. I'm just kidding. Pablo Cruz is a band. Uh-huh. It's not one person. I thought Led Zeppelin was a dude when I was a kid. Did you? I thought Steely Dan was a guy.

Man, this Steely Dan can play. That's right. The morning of. Yeah. You thought Led Zeppelin was just one guy? Yeah. You thought somebody was named Lead, L-E-D? M-A-T-T?

I mean, this is a way you know? What? Is this letters? That's great M-A-T-T. You must have taken that of music appreciation class at SFA. Great. Let's get to the news at noon, please. This spicy John that we've had in the last month.

I like it. Everything okay at home? Are you watching more cinema? I like it. I like it. I'm good. All right, good. Let's get tired of your BS.

No, he's not. Rob and miss. And he's having my back more neat than you have. I like him better. But not right now. The Astros win. It feels like a loss, but they win two to one. You heard the base running blunders and the other issues with double plays.

And my goodness, what the heck was going on out there? Brian King got the start and gave up a run. then Inyo de los Santos came in. Tatuille Mai walked the bases loaded, but it had to work out of the bases loaded. But they somehow, some way, got the victory two to one over the San Francisco Giants. Now 62 and 60, Matthew.

And most importantly, because of the Rangers lost one and a half games up in the American League West. And the Mariners also lost the Yankees. They've dropped six consecutive games. They are in a free fall, and hopefully Astros will bury them this weekend. By the way, how did Robert Ford's call? What did you say at the very end? That was horrible.

Which one? That one you're talking about. I don't remember like horrible base running and I don't know. I would like to hear that again. Jonathan, listen it again. I throw a second and they get pain you. Oh, that's horrible. Okay.

That is just absolutely brutal base running by the Astros. How about this? All that's horrible, that's just brutal. Clip that part. I was thinking about that, but the brutal part, it's not going to sound supernatural. Okay, how about all that's just horrible? We might be able to get it.

And we need to play that occasionally on the show. Like maybe four times a day. Okay. Continue on, Ross. I will continue on, Matt. You mentioned the Mariners losing. They've been getting crushed by Tampa Bay and New York. Then they have the Astros over the weekend.

Then they play Milwaukee and Chicago and Philadelphia. Things get really ugly for the Mariners over their next 12 games. But as you say that, however, the Astros had these nine guys. games coming up against winnable opponents. Yeah, well, they took care of, they two out of three. It's 12, they're in the midst of 12 straight games against teams below 500. They took two out of three in San Francisco. Now they come home for nine.

They'll be the Mariners, Angels, and A's four, three apiece for the stroes coming up. Elsewhere in the news, Russell Westbrook, retiring from the NBA after 18 seasons with seven different teams announcing on social media. He is going to retire. Quote, sometimes you don't even know when you've already watched the end. You had to be there and now it's over. It was a video narrated by actor Michael B. Jordan. Oscar winner, by the way.

Russell Westbrook bring in the heavy hitters for his retirement video. Do you know when he was here, we had videographers with us on a lot of road trips. He was trying to chronicle. A lot of these guys are trying to chronicle their lives. Like LeBron James is going to chronicle. Yeah. I think he did last year. year and with the Lakers. I think he's going to chronicle this year with Philadelphia.

Yeah. Well, they did the last dance. They brought that out of the vault. Do you know why? It makes perfect sense. It's very interesting because there's a lot of things you will be able to see that you don't normally see when they're just playing a basketball game. It's good PR. Normally, you just cut out the bad stuff too. Man, these guys are right. Oh, and when you're the executive producer, you don't ever put that time where you were mean to a fan or you didn't sign that autograph. You're just going to put the ones in there that you were there to the wee hours of the morning shooting baskets. Right. Absolutely. So there you go. All right. Elsie.

where in the news. We mentioned this during I just don't get it. Jaden Daniels and an attorney representing him informing LSU it can no longer use his name, image, and likeness according to a letter

on August 5th sent to the Tigers Athletic Directive. Uh, Jawsberry. Who? ESPN obtaining a copy on Wednesday. Apparently, Jaden Daniels upset that the Tigers are allowing sophomore cornerback DJ Pickett to wear his number five jersey,

as of course that was the number he wore when he was LSU's third Heisman trophy winner in 2023. Can I give you my, I thought about this a little bit more since we've brought this up a few minutes ago. John, then let me give you this answer to you. What if Jane Daniels would have called the AD? Like when you call your Jane Daniels and you want to get the 80s number, the 80s going to pick up the number phone for you, correct? Every single time, right?

No, come on. If Jane Daniels calls it. Maybe he did. And the AD, so you're telling me that Jane Daniels. I don't know if you'd go straight to a lawsuit, right? Would have called the AD and said, hey, man, come on. Can you let some space between me and number five? Hmm.

I just, I can't imagine the LSU AD saying, no, bra. Five is five. Sorry, you won a husband for us three years ago. Well, Lane Kiffin said it was promised in that guy's recruiting. Oh, that makes sense. That's the rest of the story. That's why I was looking up over the, when we're doing it. I just don't get it.

I got you. And he said he had no control over the matter. It was already promised to him. Well, who's doing the promising? Lane Kiffin? No, it's before him. Just get him enrolled in class and then slap another number on him. Can't $5,000 fix that?

It can't transfer a week too, can he? Well, maybe now. But imagine you're James and you're hearing that. You already promised number five. What, Brian Kelly did that? There was a statement. I don't know if Brian Kelly did it. Well, what?

then the interim coach would have done that. A statement from Daniel's spokesperson. The Daniels family is deeply disappointed and feels profoundly disrespected by LSU's decision to give Jaden's number to another player. Jaden and his family had every reason to believe that his number would remain a meaningful part of this LSU legacy and would be honored and protected in recognition

of his extraordinary contributions to the university. Jaden made it clear he did not want his number given to another player and believed his wishes would be respected. Did somebody tell him that? Now, again, there's layers of this, Jonathan. If he was told no one's wearing five again, then I would be mad. We don't know. And that's what I'm saying.

So, like, the anger, I'm just saying, like, I don't get. I just don't, what I don't hope is I don't hope that Jane got his feelings hurt and said, instead of having some conversations with somebody, he just went to go get a lawyer. That would have been the part that's the immature part. Because there's only been three Heism's in LSU. Other two have won national championships, but wouldn't you want to honor these Heisman's? To see his number given to another player is incredibly disappointing and feels like a failure to honor the significance of what Jaden accomplished at LSU, including a victory in the Reliqquest Bowl. The what bowl?

Oh, I added that last part. Accomplish at LSU. They went 10 and 3 and went to the Reliqquest Bowl. Okay, I get it, but come on. Let me tell you something. He's still a Heisman, though. The University of Houston's had one Heisman trophy winner. No one's wearing 11 again.

Nobody. Period. End of story. Ain't happening. Not on anybody's watch. I don't care what it takes. Rely Quest Bowl champion, Jaden Daniels is upset. Stop mentioning you, I'm sorry.

I don't know what the hell that is. What bowl is that? I don't know. Does it exist anymore? I don't know. Is it like in Montgomery, Alabama or something? I'm not sure. Jeez.

And that's the news at noon. Now you really got me curious about this. I want to know how immature he was or how mature he was. Ooh, in front of 31,000 at Raymond James Stadium, the Reliqqq West Bowl. Okay, Tampa. That's not a bad place. Getting a lot of information from our LSU Insider. Oh, K&A.

Talk them NNSU Tigers. Where did the quarterback think he is? Apparently the mom is bat-blank crazy. Sources tell me. Close the situation. I asked if I could say that. He said, yeah. I mean, maybe she's not crazy.

I'm sure she is. Well, apparently, according to... LSU Insider. Matt Muscona, who is an insider there in Baton Rouge, he says, sources confirm Daniel's camp wants LSU to return its copy of the Heisman Trophy, something LSU has no intention of doing. Daniels contacted LSU leadership before fall camp. Lane Kiffin has personally spoken to Daniels.

He says, give you my husband. He has his own Heisman. So he has a Heisman and then the school gets a Heisman. He wants the school's Heisman of his, of him. That's a little ridiculous. All right. John, we're changing our mind on this. This guy needs to grow up.

I'm going to let it simmering. I'm going to just because I'm on the face. No, no, no, no, I'm done. The mom sounds like she's nuts and he wants the Heisman back so we can have two of them. Oh, come on. Let's shut your bum ass up then. And stay healthy. And by the way, Ross, giving out more wrong information.

What? He didn't play in those. Hoochie Boch? Oh, he didn't even play in the Royce Coochee Bowl. Apparently he opted out of the Reliocquest Bowl. So he even stayed for that. He said, See you later. We went 9 and 3. What is

what is Robert Ford say about that? I don't know. Is the clip ready yet? He's having lunch. Let him. Yeah, let him eat. That's fine. Let the man. It's a good clip. Oh, that's horrible. Yeah, see? There it is. You did it. He didn't even play at the Reliant Quest Bowl. Oh, that's horrible.

I know. He opted out of the school. And now he wants him to opt out of his Heisman. It's too much. Robert Ford, I'm getting shamed over my food takes. I mean, I get, yeah, you should. Oh, that's horrible. No, Robert, no, Robert will be on our team.

No. McRibb. Robert probably supposed to catch up on his dog. That's okay. It's fine. It's not that big of a deal. Look at you. You're not shaming.

I'm not shaming. I'm just something about it. It's not preferred. Jonathan, do you hear that? What do you put on your dog? If I had the perfect choice, mustard and onion, I like relish, I like sourcrow. I'd put chili on it.

I'd put cheese on it. I would love that bad boy. Anything but ketchup. It's not my preference. I do feel like it is for children, but it's not that big of a deal. I have a bigger problem with well-done steak. Way bigger problem.

Because here's the problem. And by the way, I got to tell you, and we'll get back, I swear I got out of back to sports. I had a surloin over the weekend. Okay. Oh, you've been shirloin shaming. I said it's my least preferred.

I really enjoyed it. I didn't shame it. I said it was my least preferred cut. Oh, that's horrible. Thank you. That is horrible. You're shaming people for, yeah, that's another thing you shamed people for. You sirloin shamed me when we went to malt mass.

But I mean, if somebody's paying for it, or you would choose a higher cut of meat or getting a discount. In our case. Yeah, no, first of all, I paid for it. you did. Which is half off, number one. Number two, yeah, it's also, it's also leaner. And it's, it's, it's, sirloin is a good, when you hear loin in something, tenderloin, beef loin, whatever. That's loin is lean.

So sir loin is leaner. So I don't want to, I, I didn't feel like a super fatty, heavy rib eye. I love a rib eye. I love a New York strip. Yeah. I just wanted a nice little lean sirloin for a light dinner. But the problem is when you cook it well done and you know that, you, you, you didn't. But for those of you that believe in well done, you suck the flavor out.

Yeah. Right. I told this to my friend and she had no interest in hearing that argument. You might as well get a steak puck. That's ridiculous. That's funny. All right. 7132.

So you're just surloin shamed and hot dog shamed, literally less than an hour after you didn't. You were talking about people pallet shaming. Uh-oh. We got two NFL nerds arguing about whether or not C.J. Straud should get $50 million a year. We teased something, didn't we? Oh, I know we teased. Man, my short-term memory sucks. Same. All right.

So Nick Casaria, a few weeks ago when training camp started, said this about contract negotiations with C.J. Stroud. Excuse me. That's where I'm... Well, I hit the button. I take it one day at a time. Like I said, we've had pretty constructive discussions here over the course of the spring. So I'd say, you know, it's a possibility something could happen in training camp. It doesn't happen in training camp.

and probably have to make a decision about, you know, what we feel makes the most sense. So, like I said, try to take it one day at a time and, you know, if we reach an endpoint, great. If we don't, you know, I think everybody understands what that, you know, will entail as well. One day at a time. That's what I remember being surprised. Like, what? That was such a Casario bot. You just, he pushed the wrong button on Casario Bot.

One day at a time is like what, how somebody's injury or in practice or something, not a contract negotiation. Would step by step by step in better? I guess. Something like that. I don't know. One day at a time is. that anyways. Let's stop myself.

It's who he is. Yeah. You're all overcompt. Yeah, I'm worried about you. Oh, yeah. I told you not chugged that bottle of whiskey. Trying to eat lunch during the show is not great. Yeah, well.

Shouldn't do it anymore. You know, you shouldn't. So probably will stop. Okay. All right. So, let me tell you about these guys. Excuse me. Wow.

Let's hear those guys talk. You know what? I have no idea who you're talking about. Unfortunately, I'm sorry. We have audio of them? Yes. Okay, what show is this on or who is this or who are these people? Or is a podcast?

It's the same by. I'll answer. All right, let me give it to you. This is the guy Houston Stressants put it on his page. Excuse me on his page. Okay. There are two bros, Dan Hansis, and Bill Bardwell. Okay.

Dan Hansis used to be on, he was on an NFL, around the NFL podcast. I don't know what he does is he's still on that and Bill Barnwell's with ESPN and apparently they were arguing about CJ Stroud

and here's what they said let's say CJ Straub's agent came to you and you are Nick Casario suddenly and he says you know what CJ's just wants to get a deal done he wants security

he's willing to sign for $50 million a year way less than what you were thinking a couple of years ago and you thought he was going to be 65 or maybe might be 65 this year if he has a good season.

Are you signing CJ's draft with $50 million a year? No. In fact, on my show a couple weeks ago, I had a rant about Casario speaking to the media at the dawn of training camp about, yeah, we're in conversations and nothing is imminent. But it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. You got to pump the brakes here. You have a gift here. It's called the fifth year option.

And you get one more look at this guy. if you're going to tell me it's like the deal that's similar to what has been floated out there with the bucks are offering Baker where it's like two for 110 or something you start to think about it but I would imagine Stroud is also probably thinking to himself I want to cash in on my first contract after my rookie deal I don't know if he would be into that either but I'm holding tight if I'm a GM and I know that if it doesn't work out there will be other possibilities like ironically maybe Baker Mayfield that could do the job that we've been trying to get Stroud to do the last couple of years. Okay, just two NFL minds that talk about this stuff all the time. Uh-huh. And I happen to see it and I was also into this tweet that was put out. I thought it was interesting to get a different perspective on that. But we did play the sound by first.

I wanted to match what they were talking about. Yeah. So that's the reason why we played this. The conversations. Taking it one day at a time. Let me ask you this. Now that we're about three weeks away from what, when he said that originally. Do you think it was just him just word saluting that thing to death?

That maybe wasn't any sort of real conversations. I think there's probably real ongoing conversations right now. I don't think so. I think maybe Casario said we'll do. And I guess as Bill Barnwell, I guess it was Bill Barnwell that was the second voice there. Yeah. Alluding maybe it was a shorter term deal with smaller money that they would be open to. But clearly, C.J. Stroud wants to bet on himself.

Baker Mayfield didn't want that in Tampa under any circumstance. No. CJ Stroud is also going to be younger and one side is gambling and one side is going to lose. I don't know if that's CJ Stroud side. I don't know if that's Houston Texan side. And you don't even necessarily lose.

Like, okay, well, we lost. Now we have a franchise quarterback where I'm paying him $60 million a year rather than $10 million. A good general manager would forecast his salary based off of paying CJ's $60 million a year. You have them for three, you've had them for three years in the building,

looking at his work ethic, seeing getting around him in quarterback rooms. And of course, I mean, it has been his second offensive coordinator that he's on now. So it's a little bit different. But I mean, the Texans and Nick Casario are dealing with a lot more information than we are. And they want to see the results on the field. And as of right now, he's not worth $50 million a year. So let's do this. And maybe we didn't do a very good job of this the first go around.

Let's role play here in all seriousness. Okay. if Nick Casario is having conversations, what does that mean to him? We'll offer you two years at $40 million. And C.J's folks say, no, no, no, no, we're good. And then what do you go from there? Because if the Texans don't budge from that number or short-term deal, then there isn't conversations. Maybe even, no.

I would say the conversations on the Casario and Texans in probably haven't been much at all. Even if two years 80, that feels like a slap in the face. you know that's not going to do you even want to sign him for that that means you're you're committed to cj stroud for four years well you are buying out a fifth year option right do that okay so you'd buy out a fifth year option so then you do an extra one and then you're committed to him for three years so the question is when he when casario said what he said was he speaking in terms of fluid conversations and we're back at the table again a couple of times during training camp or we had a visit during the summer and we let it left it where it is right now with

CJ not having an extension. We had a couple of visits probably. We offered maybe two years at a certain number. Yeah. Maybe three max. Yeah. At a little number and they're like, no, we're going to bet on ourselves. C.J. Stroud and David Mulligate or whoever.

That would be my guess is that they believe that they can come back and have this big gangbusters year and get all the leverage pendulum. The leverage pendulum swinging back their way, because right now the Texans have the leverage. Well, the one thing I did get out of when Nick Casero said it, I didn't get, They were on the precipice of something. They were on the cusp of doing this. No. Nothing imminent at all. And even it was, we wouldn't even really hear it from him.

He would not even give us a little wink, wink, like, stick around or stay tuned. It was... Look, David, we like DJ. We like CJ. We think he's a good guy. We want to see more from him. So I can offer you two extra years at 80, or we can just table this thing and see how he does this year. And Mulligata's like, talk to you in a year.

See you later. We're going to bet on ourselves. We ask Robert Ford. what he thought about the contrary negotiations and what was his thoughts on that oh that's horrible what's so horrible about it that was my gonna say it that called my friend robert for and see what he thinks it's oh gosh well legetta thinks it's horrible yeah they're gonna bet on themselves yeah i uh i'm okay with that but it's funny i don't think you you you're not finding national pundits now again these are just two jimokes they could be they have no more in intel or insight

than you and i do but they're they do look at this stuff more than we do, and they're saying, I would pump the brakes. Last year, he rebounded in QBR, in quarterback rating, in yards per attempt, in touchdown percentage, lowered his interception percentage, but then, of course, completely wet the bed for two games in the playoffs. So it was a bit of a bounce back in terms of those types of metrics. And those no one's account. That's why I said, Ross. We just have a horrible taste in our mouth. We need, the next 17 weeks are going to be cool, but I got to see what CJ does for me in

January. And that's a terrible attitude to have because you could have that about any of your favorite athletes. Right? You know what another storyline to me is? Is his concussions? He's had a few of them. Did I get a hmm from you back there? I was going to...

Trying to get some hmm. I mean, it's a good point. It's a good point. Miss three games last year. 19 touchdowns, eight picks. That's pretty good in 1991. Damn, hey, former Charger great Dan Fouts would love that.

Do you even know who damn Fouts is? No, I think the earliest I remember was Drew Brees. That's my start of. That's why he was stumping for Drew Brees over the other day. We should do a San Diego Charger or not. You'd be easy. I'd probably go, I think he's picking Philip Rivers over Tom Brady. Do you know who Kellen Winslow is?

No. And of course I'm picking Rivers over Tom Brady. Well, don't. That's not even a... Oh, here we go. That's not, come on. Let's not do this here. Big Philly style.

Do you know who West Chandler is? Chuck Muncie? Hmm. Do you know Don Corrella is? No. Junior Seo? You know Junior Seo?

Maybe? Whoa! Don't read the last paragraph of Junior Seo. Yeah. And don't read the last paragraph of Kellynne Winslow, either. Oh, yeah. Well, he wasn't in charge.

I know, but his father, you mentioned Kell and Winslow. I did. I did. All right. Bill and Katie wants to talk. Antonio Gates? That's my favorite player all the time. Oh, Danian Tomlinson?

Second. Okay. That's good. And my favorite defender is Eric Weddell. That's what I feel like. Okay, here we go. Oh, Quentin Jammer, Longhorn Legend. Natron Means?

Natron Means. Do you know what that is? That sounds familiar. What about Vincent Jackson? Yes. Okay. Anthony Miller? All right.

Chargers Talk 790 continues after the break. What other audience we have left is gone. Bill and Katie try to salvage the audience. It's 1243 on Sports Talk 790. 1249 on Sports Talk 790. It's Matt and Ross. till 2 o'clock today. If you messed our visit with Brian Bogaisevic,

I can't help you. I mean, if you want to listen to bad, crappy radio, that's John Y'all. If you don't listen to good quality radio, Brian Boga Sevick is with us every week, and he'll have a chance to let you hear that coming up at 1.30 today. Good stuff. Always good.

And we have, believe it or not, today, all things about Russell Westbrook. Mm-hmm. By the way, only you go one, zero-time NBA champion, one-time Olympic gold medalist. I thought he would at least have two or three. I always get confused about that. If you would have said name the member of gold medals, this XYZ athlete, I would have had.

I believe Kevin Durant's got the most. Am I right about that in terms of gold? Sure. I thought that's not good with that. I thought I was on his resume. Let's go to the phones. Let's go to Bill and Katie at 1249. Bill, what do you got today?

Believe it. Hey, Matt. What? I know you guys are talking about names out of the city in Texas. And, you know, my mom, of course, you know, she named me Bill, but when I was pulled out the womb, the nurses wanted to name me Longview. But anyway, I thought that was funny, man. Hello? I mean some dessert.

Go on. Okay. You hear me? You hear me? What are you? Stop doing that. What is wrong with you? You hear that joke he tried?

Yeah, I heard the joke. It was miserable. It was a little bit of a segment. You can't wait five minutes? It's delicious. cake bill it was fine okay he's munching on some tress letches wow man anyway he liked lecher i was called about the i was called about the but i was called about the tvs the w nz canter and uh oh great yes okay let me let me let me ask you this okay uh could they get sued

uh if they they don't give them a trial i you know i don't know i don't even know i mean they would be they're a tryout. Well, I mean, they have to be invited to a camp. I don't even get sued for not inviting someone for a tryout. Yeah, Bill, they don't have like come be an epidemi NBA player. You know what? I'm suing the NBA because they didn't invite me to a tryout. Okay, but you know if they can do those?

Oh, here we go. Okay, like I guess they all, well, you know, they identify itself as a woman. So they're going to fight. The only thing they have to do it is cut them, Matt. Just cut them from the team. You say, you know, they got cut. No, you, when you have tryouts, you are invited to. a tryout. They don't have open tryouts.

Okay, but they say they're open for, you know, to be drafted. They put their name in. So if they get drafted. I've also entered my name into the NBA draft and the WMBA draft and the NFL draft. No, Bill, think about this. Just think about this for a second. If you declared yourself in the NBA draft, the NBA doesn't have to invite you to their draft invite. Exactly. Okay. Okay. So they're not going to invite Ennis Canter. They're not going to invite Royce White. This is not going to happen. It's a non-story. Now, is it a terrible PR one layer

after the other. And yesterday they tried to have a conversation and they didn't want to announce what it took to be a woman which is bizarre in itself, but that's not here nor there. I'm more offended.

I'm more offended by your Longview joke than I am anything else, honestly. All right. I call it back and believe in that. Bye. I mean, if you'd have said he's out of the womb, he was named Big Spring,

that'd have been something different. You didn't like the joke for real? That got me to laugh. It was fine. Here's what I can't do. I can't give Bill flowers ever, no matter how funny it was. Yeah, Bill's pretty funny, actually. We love Bill.

We met him in person. He's actually pretty quick. But I don't want to give him too much run. Yeah, right, John. Because then he's going to call in every week. He's going to call in every week with jokes. Now, has he won it? It wasn't bad.

Has he won in the last 30 days? Probably. He used to sign up, and then he would give me his brother's name, and then sign up and come pick up that stuff, too. What was his second name that he used besides Bill? I can't remember. It wasn't Longview Was it Camp Wood either

I'm trying to think of another name for the city Okay I'm trying to run through the entire state here Corpus Christi Is Big Sandia City? Yes Okay, there you go Is that what they call you?

What do they call me? I'll get back to you on Yeah, move on Thank you. Why don't you finish up that an escander conversation No, I'm good Are you sure? To me it's not, I mean

those guys like to make names for themselves. Good for them. Oh, they won't be other ones. There'll be others too. I don't think it puts in anyone in any uncomfortable position. The WMBA's just not going to draft them as far as time. No, they don't invite them to anything. They can't sue them. The WAMBA has made some lot of PR mistakes. The one thing they've done right is not even acknowledged.

Yeah. By the way, Royce White's... How's he doing? He's not going to be running for an office. I thought he ran for Minnesota governor. Yeah, he did not make the point of night. Oh, wow. Is he going to sue them for that too?

Mm-hmm. It's funny because when I was, you and I, was Royce White predated us, correct? No, I was here when Royce White was doing his thing. I didn't buy into any of it. No, you didn't like him at all. I didn't like him at all. That was a terrible, terrible idea.

Yeah. Frankly, Kevin McHale got some terrible advice from Fred Hoyberg and drafted him, and it was just a terrible, terrible, not Kevin and Moore. Yeah, 2012 first round draft pick. They had three first round draft picks that year.

Do I know the other two were? Was one of them Marcus the twin? Oh, Marcus Morris? Was one of them, Marcus Morris? Sergio, you'll one of those guys too? No, I'm trying to remember them without looking it up. But I can't remember, so now I've got to go

look it up. Yeah, I remember distinctly going, this is a bad idea. McKell It wasn't Carl Landry, was it? No, no, no, no, no. Not that, no. No, it was Jeremy Lamb, okay. Jeremy Lamb, Royce White, and Terrence Jones. Terence Jones, the best of three.

He knew as mid as it is. Yeah. Didn't get along with homeless people in Portland. No, well, yeah, those homeless people didn't have a chance, unfortunately, for them. Yeah. The Royce White ordeal was pretty crazy. Because you remember how, you remember this. This is early in our show. It was people like, hey, give him a chance.

get him a bus and do all this. So he had bad anxiety, Jonathan, so he didn't want to take a plane anywhere. He wanted to take a bus. But he would fly with Iowa State. Yeah, he certainly. He thought he was flying the NFL. I mean, the NBA.

But yeah, then he kept saying every one of his treats was be well at the very end. Oh, I was like, what a fraud? He was such a fraud. And then he played overseas or something. Canadian Basketball Association. He had an M.A. career.

Oh. And then he started running for office. I'm researching right now. I don't know. He was, okay. Oh, he ran for his. Yeah, 2024. He ran for Senate.

And then most recently did not qualify. He ran for Republican nomination of the United States House of Representatives. Apparently that didn't go so hot. This guy can't catch a break. But there were people, Jonathan, they were trying to say, hey, he can bus from Portland to Sacramento,

Detroit to Chicago. And I think even Darren Warren was like, we can make this happen. You just got to have a little bit of heart, and he had no heart for this. This Wikipedia is very interesting. He said the good guys didn't win World War II. Remember what General Patton said and why they capped him? Patton was assassinated? I thought he died in a car accident.

Oh, I guess conspiracy? And then he's running for U.S. Senate. Or you said he's not doing that anymore? No, he's done. Be well, by the way. Dang. All right, we got an hour left to go. This show's flown by again.

We got two straight flyby days. This one better than the last. Oh, today is much better than yesterday's show. Yesterday's show sucked. Oh, he won a 24 Republican primary? 75,000 people voted for him. That's pretty good. In what state is this, Minnesota?

Minnesota. He'll lose. It's a very much Democratic state. In 2024 in the Senate, he actually did pretty good. 1,700 votes for Amy Klobuchar. Mm-hmm. I'm sorry, 1.7.92 million. Sorry, 1.29 million.

You got 1.29 million of people to vote for him. That's actually impressive. You got a million people to vote for him? Yeah. Really? He lost 56 to 40%. Well, he can't say he's a failed politician. He's got the moment.

No, he can't. You haven't won a race yet. Yeah, but yeah, okay, I guess. All right. Oh, then he got beat by Michelle Tofoya in another race. Can we go to break? Michelle Tofoya is running for office? She's, she won the Republican primary.

She's in office? No, she won the primary. Michelle's up for you? Yeah. You know what? I agree with Matt. Let's go to break. Let's go to break. Call her. I think I got her in the Rolodex. Get her on, Matt? I don't think she'd say no. It doesn't do her any good to be on a Texas radio show. No idea. If we were doing the shows at my old station in Minneapolis, she'd be on every day.

She was very nice. Oh, we had her on the show. Absolutely had her on the show. She was quite pleasant. Yeah. And she, well, she beat Royce White. When you go to break. It's 1258. Final hour of the show will feature our conversation with Brian Bogus Sevik. The Astros was one of the ugliest, ugliest wins ever. Robert Ford, how ugly was it?

Oh, that's horrible. But it still counts as a win. Standing 790 starts the final hour of the Matt Thomas Show at Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. All right, what's going on today? The Astros are off, relaxing in their homes. A game and a half lead better than Texas Rangers.

The Seattle Mariners are in a complete free fall right now. I hate to hear it. They'll be in town for a three-game series Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Standing 790 tells you right now the Astros, again, one and a half games better than the Texas Rangers, five and a half better than Seattle. Would you've ever thought at any point of the year, forgetting about the wins and losses,

would the Astros be five and a half better than the defending American League West champions, a team that was one winner? They went to Game 7 with Toronto, right? I think so. One series away from going to their first ever world series. They have fallen off the map, and I'm here for it at 56 and 65. They have lost six in a row, seven of ten. And now every team comfortably in the American League West has a negative run differential.

Maybe they should put more shoes on their heads. Stupid fans. I look like they won five World Series, getting all mad about everything. They never been to one, have they? I don't know. A bunch of losers. I hate Seattle fan. At least they got a Super Bowl, I guess. Good for them. And they're still craving for an NBA team.

Yeah. It's true. It feels like a lot of the buzzes for the Las Vegas side of it first. Well, it was, but now Iger and... Bob Iger. Bushner. Bought the L.A. Lakers. And said, see you later.

And they're going to the Lakers. Yep. That one's up a few more people to open up. $12.5 billion. Well, maybe that means the expansion fees. is a little too much. That if you're going to spend $9 billion and go, wow, I don't want to lose all that. Three more and get the Lakers.

And get one of the five most recognized sports franchises out there. All right. So the Astros win off today three-game series with the Seattle Mariners. We mentioned this of Brian Bogoshegill here coming up in a few minutes as well in our replay. Are we going to keep with EMI doing this starter thing? I don't know. I would have liked them to look sharper. You know, the reality is,

as Matthew Thomas would say. Yeah. He's last two times out, three innings a shutout, three innings a shutout. That's good. High pitch count. Last time you. So, 35, 34 pitches once and then 55 pitches the next time for the three. So, yeah, it was a little bit more of a struggle.

Yes. Not very economical. Uh-huh. I got to be honest with you, it's almost like, see if this comp works. Oh, here we go. You have a subpar employee. that you have to keep around. Why?

Is this somebody's brother? Maybe the nephew's boss. Nephew's boss is nephew. So you put him in a spot where he can't hurt you. Oh, he still hurts you, though. I know, but let's say, for instance. Let's see what he's making, you got to throw him out there. Let's say Jonathan was a bad producer.

Hey! I just said, let's say it. It's not true, though. He wouldn't be doing the 10 to 2 show. If we got to keep Jonathan around, he'd be working. Overnights, KT, R. 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. I thought there's anything other more

with overnight's KTRH. I work that too. We all have. Yeah. Okay. How's an analogy, Jonathan? I think it's not bad. I'm getting like a C. No, no, I think it's better than that. EMI's got to be on the team. You're paying them a lot of money. Put him in a spot where he can't kill you.

No, he can kill you. Okay, I guess it can't kill you. He's going to kill you. I'll give you a bee because he was in-house. Yeah, thank you. He didn't really got to carve his own. Thank you. He's being very generous. Appreciate that very much.

That's good. By the way, they're skipping Javier this weekend. No surprise. It's Lambert, Wesniew, and Hunter Brown. That's your playoff rotation, by the way. In what order? Brown Lambert, Wesneske? Yeah, that's it.

But Brown's been struggling. You might go with the Lando. Remember, just because you want it to be that way, doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be that way. Because you may have to have one, game 160, 61, and 62 may mean something. That's true. you're going to have to use your heavy dogs to get in the playoffs.

I said the running way and hide and get that second seed. West Nessie's going to step up. I'm going to come roaring back. Cam Smith's going to keep swinging the hotbat. And the Astros win the West by two games. Dalton Varsho, ready to dominate. I'm kind of over that, I think. You're over Varsho?

It's been nine games. Yeah, but it's not really, that's the problem is it's not been nine games. It's been nine games in Astros' uniform. Oh, so all of a sudden he's going to change. his tune right away from his days in Toronto. Okay. I hope you're right. His career OPS Plus is 97.

Let's just get him there. So let me throw a little condom at you here. September 27th, you've got to win game 162. Okay. To make the playoffs. Yes. Hopefully you did not, but let's say. And you had to use your third best pitcher on the 25th.

You had to use your second best pitcher on the 26th. You had to go with your ace on the 27th. Okay. 29th is the first playoff game, the wild card game. Uh-huh. What the hell do you do that? Do you bullpen game? You have to, right?

It is what it is. Because there's no forced starter that you trust right now. At this point, you don't. Well, luckily, your division sucks. You're playing bad teams. Now, September's going to be tough for the Astros. I have to go back and look at it, but they're playing the white socks. Okay, you have it?

Yes. They're playing the white socks. Let's do this. Let's fast forward the last five weeks of the season. Okay, even to start at the end of August, you're Yankeesies and Mets. Mets are terrible. Yeah. Yankees are really, really good.

They just are. Then you got four with the white socks. And you know they're pissed off because they lost two or three. You need a split at least. Three with Arizona. Arizona's pretty good. Arizona's pretty good. Three with Philly, playoff team.

Three with the American League favorites, Tampa Bay. Those are all those six right there on the road, Philly, Tampa Bay. Kansas City at home for three. They're bad. You feel better about that. Atlanta, three at home. They're ferocious. They're like one of the best teams in baseball.

If they're done winning the American League, the National League East, maybe they start resting some players here and there. I don't know by then. They're probably still fighting for seating by then. Then you have two in Seattle and four in Sacketamato. Against a team that beat you up in their building. Okay. So we've been looking at the strength of schedule has been among the worst in baseball,

but that's going to turn a little bit once you play all these bad teams. Right. right now 27th Rangers have the 22nd most difficult really remaining schedule you have 27th Seattle 29th but Seattle I'm starting out like this No it doesn't matter what Seattle has

They need to wake up immediately They're there on life support for sure But you got uh well what is it this weekend It's George I'll go George Kirby Who's having a down year You know why he's having a down year It's because he's got no run support

368 ERA yeah It's not bad Are you kidding me 368 would be a front liner in this roster. Yeah, and then Emerson Hancock on Saturday. Yes. And then Brian Wu, he's

taking a little bit of a step back. He's 415 ERA, but he's still pretty good. If that's your worst picture with it, 4.15 ERA, you're in a good spot. But the problem is they just got no bets. You could lose two out of three. I'm saying, he could lose two out of three there, money, or there was sweep. And he'd come back.

Then we'll call soft a Monday. Sweep him, baby. We'll call soft a Monday. Honey Brown and home. Just relax. can I get seven and two-thirds some Hunter Brown this weekend how much did you get that even from last year how many times did he go eight innings last year are you saying that's his biggest detriment is his length yeah I'm gonna what did you say I said are you telling me his biggest detriment is his length so I'm not focused on his length like you are I'm focused on how deep he's going

into these games tomato tomato he's not going deep enough oh that's horrible you'd like him to go deeper more consistently year he went eight innings once. So he's not going to be a, he's not a marathon worker. Seven innings four times. You can count on one hand the amount of times you went seven in years or more. Maybe this year it's not going to happen because of all the time you missed. Maybe this is not necessarily a loss season, but a season that expectations are different.

So you want them deeper. You want them to last longer. We got another minute. Oh, that's horrible. Yeah, I know. We get another minute here. terrible. Trying to end this as quickly as possible.

Oh, go ahead, please. Believe it or not today is all things about Russell Westbrook. Okay, good. We've never done Russell Westbrook because Ross was on vacation when he got traded. Day he got traded, I was going to Sequoia National Park. It was fantastic, by the way. Highly recommend. It's funny because now next week I'm going to, you know what I go to National Parks

when there's Russell Westbrook News. Mount Rainier National Park coming up next. Is it going to rainier? up there and be cold. It's supposed to be 72 during the day and like 52 at night. Oof. You just want to cuddle with someone, right? Sounds great. Not a bear or a mountain line, correct. No, I, no, I've always said every time you go on a trip like that, not to get mauled. Yeah. If it happens, it's fine, but I mean, I... What's that? I mean, I hope nothing like that bad.

Because you're, I mean... Your war is not, you know, right here. What? Yeah, your winds above replacement. Oh, this station's tanking if I'm gone. I'm just letting y'all know. Shownman, could you slide into Ross's spot here easily? I'm not going to get paid. And we'll pay you. We'll give you Ross's wages. Okay.

See? We get you. We're locked and loaded here. 113 on Sports Talk 7. We have Texan Chargers tonight. Let's get into what we are interested in. I think it's fair to bring that up, right? Okay. What we are interested in in tonight's Texans Charger game. We'll do that next year, 113 on Sports Talk 790. Texans and Chargers playing tonight. The presumption is many of the starters will not play,

but Aaron Wilson was on this morning with Gordy, and he said that a lot of the offensive linemen, first teamers will get some reps and work together, which is the most important thing. I mean, honestly, I want to see rookies. I don't need to see what Jadavia and Clowning has left in the tank. I mean, the Texans know that. The secondary probably doesn't need to see the field at all.

I don't think I need to see David Montgomery. I don't even know if Woody Marks is going to play, as you said. Probably going to be some Jaward Jordan, some Noah Whittington, a lot of Davis Mills, a lot of Graham Mertz. Yeah. And maybe very little of Dalton Schultz and some Foster Morrow and Marlon Klein and the offensive line, right? Is that a nutshell if I pretty much figured it out?

I think so. I think you nailed it. I don't have to tune in anymore. No kidding. Yeah. Preseason to me, you know, it's worthy of watching the first couple of series, but then it's not even, you get so many players that are not, either going to be practice squad guys or special teams guys. And just unless you're in the weeds deep down Texans nerd,

you're just not going to get a lot out of that. Because I can look at a preseason game from two years ago last year. And I would say 98% of the players that play in the third and fourth quarter of this game or not going to be significant members of this team. Whether they make the team or just wind up being special teams guys. Now, the Texas special team's always been important, so that is always something to keep an eye on. I think eventually they go to two.

Yeah, when they go to 18, absolutely. It sounds ridiculous that they did four, and then previously they did six, right? What's the way for, they used to be six. You ready for this? And I don't remember this as a kid. I don't. But they used to have six preseason and 14 regular season,

which is, man, what a waste of time and energy. It's ridiculous. No Will Anderson, my guess is, no Rankin's, no Togiyai, no Hunter, no Tootola, no Allsawir, no Stingley, no Blankenship, no Lasser, no P... I mean, again, if you want to see some Elijah Huzzy... Who? Yes. You're going to see some Wade Woodaz. I do like Wade Wood as.

I wouldn't mind seeing Caden McDaniel for a few snaps on the defensive line in second round pick. A lot of folks thought they got them as a steal. Mm-hmm. Do you want Jonathan Alexander's four players he's watching for game one? I respect Jonathan Alexander. He's one of the few rare, legit media that go to Texans practice. Undrafted cornerback, Colin Wright. By the way, his tweets are dominated by him.

Apparently, Colin Wright has been like a camp star. Yeah. So we'll see him in action. Tied in Marlon Klein. Yep. Linebacker Wade Woodaz. Talked about that. And punter Kai Kramer.

The only punter in camp, right? He's the only punter in camp, but that doesn't mean you can't be replaced quickly when you're a punter. Oh, let me tell you something. There's some guys waiting by their phone. If you know that Casario has got no emotions for his linemen and his quarterbacks and his running backs, he got zero, less than zero emotion for his punter. Those guys can be fine on a dime a dozen. By the way, the Texans also brought a kicker in just to bring him in.

What? Yeah. Kimey doesn't need to kick during the preseason. D'Amico Rine. not having any of that. That's like his baby boy. Jaime Fairbairn. He's going to call him out there five times a game.

I got to be honest. If there's only one extra seat left in the Uber, Tommy's getting it over CJ. I think so from D'Amico. That's in the hip pocket. That's the guy. He's the best friend you don't tell anybody about, but he really is your best friend.

Yeah. It's D'emiko's best friend. Because not only is he accurate. Yes. But he also kicks for distance, too. Yeah. It's one of the best kickers in football. And it's funny because two contracts ago, not this one, but two contracts ago, people

are like, why do the Texans giving Kimee Fairbairn make him in the top five in kickers? He hadn't done squat. And he has saved this bacon, team's bacon, more times than he could possibly announce. The Texans bet on Kimey Fairburn, and it paid off. Like, they bet on Nico Collins and it paid off. Yeah. I do believe again, as I said to you the other day, if there's any shot at Tankdale making this team,

he's got to be playing the preseason. There's no way they're putting him on an active roster without having some sort of preseason play. So I don't know if he'll be active. I don't think he's going to be activated for today's game. I think CJ was, or D'Amico was asked about the goal is to get him in some sort of preseason game. Now, this game doesn't mean much.

The one that means a lot, it's going to be, frankly, next week against Las Vegas. That's going to be a theatrical show. Do you understand why? Why? That's ABC game. Okay. Joe and Troy are coming to town for that.

That's good. We'll probably see a little bit of C.J. Shroud. And some Mendoza too, maybe. Fernando Mendoza? Yeah. Okay. What do you think he's going to be? I like him as an Indian.

I didn't think he was a moral beater. I can think he's a threat for top to 15-ish quarterback, which is good these days. CJ Stroud was ranked 20th last we looked. Isn't it funny, though, there were so many other quarterbacks that we've talked about over the years that were the unbelievable camp miss. Like Trevor Lawrence, you could not get, people could not get off his hype train. They just were like, this guy is going to be generational. Or is there a freshman at Clemson?

Like, this guy could start in the NFL right now. And he's been, he's been, would you say to mid career for him? Well, his paycheck isn't mid and he was very good last year. He was really good last year. But if he go over the, he still overthrows receivers all the time. At least he gets against the Texas. He does. He's got issues.

Yeah. It's just hard. We want him to be one of the five best quarterbacks on the planet. It's a high threshold to hold him to. Yeah. When he was a freshman at Clemson. Yeah. So he just got overhyped.

It happens. How many first round picks don't pan out. I mean, we can point to any number of guys. Yeah. First round quarterbacks. I mean, we're never going to say C.J. hasn't panned out. But it depends on where the bar is. This is a big season.

This is a big season for him. It's a big season for him. It's a big season for his pocketbook, legacy, any kind of whatever you want to put on the line. It's a huge season for Sajon Shrew. A good, I should say good. A great season will help Nick rest at night. A good season, he's going to have some conversation with Hannah. A bad season, Hannah's going to tell him what to do.

Yeah, if he has been what these last couple of years, 20 touchdowns-ish, 10 picks-ish. Not great in the playoffs. But you get a look at him this year. You get a look at them next year, and then even worse comes to worse, you can franchise tag them. But that's going to be a huge, huge paycheck. Yep. All right, let's hear from Brian Bogus Civic next as we get his thoughts on what was characterized Rossi as one of the worst wins in Astros history. Fair to say?

Yeah, okay. Although he brought up the Anaheim game earlier this year, too. Oh, yeah. There has been some ugly ones. Altuvius have been thrown out of the plate by 100 feet. Yeah, and Logan O'Hoppy. Who's no longer in Anaheimer. I know.

He's a Texas Ranger Farmer. arm hand now apparently. Yeah. Good for him, I guess. No. Wow. They get the relief and it's good, but the Rangers, they're fine. Southern California. Game and a halfback. Yeah, that's true. Arlington. Ugh. All right. Brian Boko-Sevick, after I tell you about the Shell Federal Credit Union, for less than the cost of your favorite coffee or fast food meal, you can get starting with the Shell Federal Credit Union. Just $6 all it's going to take to open up the door

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Sports Talk 790. Guaranteed human. Matt Thomas Show with Ross, here on Sports Talk 790. Continuing with you until 2 o'clock. Next segment we have Believe it or not, Russell Westbrook. Some fun ones on there. So make sure you stay tuned for that. But right now I want to bring you conversation with Brian Bogussevik.

Our normal Wednesday guest here on Sports Talk 790, but he's on Thursday today because he was busy yesterday. But a good conversation with him, as always, started off. Well, we talked about a number of things covering the Houston Astros, but started off talking about the win yesterday. Almost felt like a loss. Pretty ugly stuff, but the Astros able to get the dub and the series win against the Giants. It's a pretty fair assessment.

It was not pretty. They didn't play particularly well. Most of all, it was just kind of boring. You know, sometimes you have poorly played. games that at least are exciting because there's, you know, a lot of action. There wasn't a whole lot of action. But, yeah, wins a win. And you know what, though, it might not be even the worst one of the season.

That Angels game still is probably up there. That was more, you know, the Angels just completely dumping on themselves. But yeah, it was bad. The Giants are bad. And it was one of those series where it felt like, like, if the extras could just hang around long enough in all of the games, eventually the Giants would just give it to them. And that's exactly what happened, at least in two of the three games. Let me ask you this, and these are two different things.

Playing a bad team in a series, you can play down on competition. It happens in all sports. But I want to get to the getaway games. And look, you've got a long flight coming back. It's the dog days of August. You're not ready to hit September yet for the pennant chase. You're playing a subpar team. You've been through a lot of these, whether you were playing in college or the pros.

How do good teams become great teams when they don't allow that last day of a road trip day game, getaway day affect them as much as sometimes teams do yeah you know it's it's really one of many things right there's a lot of things like that that can affect you whether it's you know the last couple of series leading into the all-star break or you know days where maybe weather in the mix and you end up playing on a day where you thought maybe you were going to get rained out those things that can kind of turn the switch off mentally um so so they all kind of fall under the same category for me, and it has to do with just, are we all moving in the right direction just as a whole? Are we all on the same plan?

Are we all, do we all have the same goals? And this team, they haven't always played their best, but they've never really given things away. They've never really falled into lulls, right? They have that Oriole series where they look completely flat and then they immediately bounce back and look like the best version of themselves. If you can do those kinds of things, you're not going to let all of those other things affect you all of the time. But yes, you're human. There are times when you're tired. There are times

when you just want to get home. There are times when you just want to get to the off day. But, you know, good teams know that a Sunday game in June means the same as, you know, game 162 at the end of year. Another thing that I brought up to Ross yesterday that we talked about, you know, when guys go through slumps, you always hear of the needs a day off, needs to sit, just kind of let the game come to him. And we'll use Christian Walker's. an example. He didn't really get a full off day yesterday because he was brought in late in the contest. But when you're slumping, Brian, people think a day I was supposed to fix that. When you're slumping and work, usually take a weekend off or ho. Go take a week off in Mexico

and go sit on a beach. Now, you do get highly compensated to do this. There's only a handful of people that get to play professional baseball and make good money. But man, it's a cruel world because when you're supposed to be slumping and need time away from the sport, that means 24 hours, also means you're in uniform, you may be a defensive replacement, and you're most likely going to pinch hit in a ballgame, too. Yeah, you can't ever totally get away, right? Because who knows what's going to happen? And especially this time of year, you know, a lot of times, especially early in the season, if a manager gives one of the regulars a day off, they'll tell him, hey, there's no way, right? Like, I'm not going to you. Don't even wear cleats into the dugout.

But this time of year, everybody knows the deal, right? Like, yeah, you're not in the lineup, but if they need you, you're available. And, you know, part of a manager's job is to keep a pulse on his guys and what they need and what they're going through. And even when somebody's struggling, if you feel like it's maybe a result of them getting worn down a little bit physically, then they need the day off. If they're getting, you know, kind of piled on them mentally and you can see it starting to build, maybe they need a day off. Or the opposite could be, hey, this guy's going through a struggle right now, but he still looks competitive. he still looks fresh. He still looks like he's fighting through it, which means any at bat or any game could be the game that he breaks out. So I'm just going to keep him in there and ride him a little bit longer.

So, yeah, it's different approaches for different guys who are maybe going through the same kind of stuff. Well, we know Yoron Alvarez is a different guy. He hasn't hit a home run in a while, but still has, looks like he's had a lot of hard hit contact. Have you noticed anything different with him or it's just, eh, it's just been a baseball in a stretch of games where he hasn't gotten one. out. And of course, we know he got close yesterday. Yeah, it's very much just baseball. You know, he hit a ball the other day. What was it, the second or second hardest hit baseball in major leagues this season. And if he gets a little bit more elevation on it,

balls, you know, in the ocean. So no, I'm not, not, no real concerns about the approach, no concerns about, you know, is this swing not producing enough, you know, loft or fly balls? He's just at a stage where he's, everything that he hits, hard is either on the ground or a line drive, which is fine. You're going to get hits that way. You go through stretches where when you're him, when you're the guy in the lineup, when you're the guy in all of baseball that everybody doesn't want to mess with, they're going to be very careful with you.

And oftentimes that results in you getting a lot of walks and not getting anything to hit. But these are major league pitchers. Sometimes when they're trying to be careful and make pitches, sometimes they do it. And sometimes you get dealt up a little bit and don't get a whole lot to hit. So, you know, when you go through those stretches, it's just there's a reason that people don't hit 400. There's a reason that people, you know, don't hit 70 home runs. It's because even when you're fine, sometimes it just doesn't happen. Brian Bogusevick was here on Sports Talk 799 games into his Astros career.

It has been a struggle at the plate for Dalton Varshow. What are you seeing there? You know, honestly, nothing really stands out as, oh, if they fix this, if he gets this going. He just hasn't really had anything clicked. The bats have been fine. It doesn't look like he's really chasing anything. It doesn't really look like he's overmatched by anything.

You know, honestly, he wasn't swinging at all that well when he came over. I think he was, you know, under 200 for his last 20 games or so as he was coming up to the trade deadline. So just kind of going through a stretch like that. But it is what it is. It looks the same against righties and lefties. It looks like it's competitive. if it looks like at some point it'll break out and be better. But no, you just haven't seen it yet.

I feel like, Brian, that to Taylor Tremel in the battle of, let's see what Outfitter wants to stick around and play as much, has done everything he's can. Cam Smith has played well, but Cam Smith has much been more of a solid position because of his defense. But Tramel feels like has taken a little bit of a leap because we've been looking for somebody to kind of step up and at least say, hey, I should be playing in the outfield five days a week.

Yeah, he's been really good. and the bats have been very good in terms of just, you know, swinging at good pitches, controlling the zone. His bat speed looks really good. He looks fresh. He looks healthy. And this is kind of the trickle-down effect of the Varsho thing. I know a lot of people are looking at them bringing in Varshow and saying, hey, we're getting decent production in center field with Tremel in there. You know, why are we kind of making that trade?

But the trickle-down effect is that, you know, before you were kind of fine with what you were getting in center field and you had really, no answers in left field on an everyday basis. But now you bring Varsha in, he's an everyday center fielder type. He had, you know, lefties, he's right. He's about the same. So now you can slide Tramel over. So now you have at least that side of the platoon figured out in left field. They're trying to figure out the right-handed side of it.

So it's not, you know, necessarily, oh, we made a trade for a center field or there, that was moved. It was more just we upgraded the outfield as a whole. And it feels like Taylor Tremel, you know, all throughout the course of the season, And he's constantly being like the forgotten man and then reminding everybody of, hey, I was playing pretty good before that. And he's doing it again. We saw the opener yesterday before Tatsu Emi got out there.

Do you think if you're Joe and you're on the plane ride back yesterday, that's going to be what you're going to have to do with him probably the rest of the year? I think it will be dependent throughout the rotation, you know, seeing how this starts leading up to it. I think it's kind of obvious that there's three spots in the rotation that they're pretty comfortable with, right? You have Hunter of Lambert, you have Wesnowski, they're all throwing the ball fairly well. They're pretty reliable. You know what you're going to get.

And then there's a couple of spots where it's just like we don't know exactly what we're going to get from Rennel or Javier. I, obviously, has been up and down. So you're going to try to massage those all throughout, you know, the rest of the season. And between off days and being able to shuffle the rotation around and are you getting a deep, start from one of those guys before to where the bullpen is a little bit fresh. I think, yeah, I think they're going to try to limit the exposure of those guys, how many times they're going through a lineup. And, you know, the case like yesterday, if you're thinking that a bulk guy or starter type

is only going to go through the lineup two times and maybe give you four innings, well, why not play a better matchup in the first inning if you can bring in a lefty to face a left-handed heavy top of the order. So, yeah, I think that's going to be something that's certainly on the table. from here on out. All right. Before I let you run, I get this question occasionally on the 10th inning show, and my easy answer is Christian Vasquez can't play six days a week. Okay, that's just, he's just, the backup catcher always gets a lot of the run,

and we've seen that with other catchers here and before. But the record with the Astros with Christian Vasquez is significantly better than it is with Yannard Diaz, even though the sample size is a little off. Explain it to me. Coincidental? Is there something about what Vasquez is doing behind the dish? And the reason why he's not playing more because he's well north of 30 and the bat's about 205 batting average. Yeah, I think it's mainly coincidental.

I mean, Tristan Vasquez is a very good catcher. He's a very good game caller. There's a reason why he's been around for so long. There's a reason why all the pitchers that he's ever worked with have liked him. I think the numbers are skewed a little bit because Jiner was a guy catching at the beginning of the season when they come. couldn't do anything right and it had nothing to do with him being back behind the plate. But, yeah, I think, you know, just he works very well with the pitchers fast as I'm talking

about. And Yiner does a job also, but I think just, you know, he's fallen into a good rapport with a couple of the starting pitchers that have gotten really hot. And when you do that, you're winning more games with those guys and the record's going to be reflected in that. But I don't think it's any kind of slight to say, you know, that he's so much better than Yiner. And Yiner is detracting from the guys that he's catching. That again, Brian Boga-Sevick, with us Wednesdays at 11, but we moved into today at 11. Speaking of our 11 o'clock Thursday visitor, Brian McTaggart, we'll be able with us tomorrow as he's traveling back from San Francisco today.

He'll join us tomorrow at 11 o'clock here on Sports Talk 790. Ross has, believe it or not, next, and we've got the category today is all things about Russell Westbrook, who officially last night called her career after 18 NBA seasons. We got some nice prizes, concert tickets. We have boxing tickets to give away as well. Jonathan, I have a quick question for you. Do we have a lot of prizes or a little? Should we do one correct answer or two on this today?

We have a lot of the boxing, but a lot of people want to go to Lennard Skinnerd, so we probably don't only have two left of those. Oh, don't have to do two correct answers. And two correct answers will win you Leonard Skinner tickets plus boxing tickets available for you, unbelievable or not. So if you want to play, 713, 212, 5, 790, 713, 713, 212-5-7-90. Believe it or not, all things Russell Westbrook next after Ross and I tell you about Kalshi. We are down the home stretch with baseball, about a month and a half left to go in the season.

And there's no better place to keep an eye on America's pastime than with Kalshi America's number one prediction market platform. You know, on Kalshi, you're training in its peers in a live market, meaning there's no house. And as a probability changes, you can buy in and out of your position. Now, Ross keeps very good track. Pristine numbers about the percentages about winning a championship within a division, a league, and the whole thing, right? AOS, 56% for Houston. How are we feeling? 100 to get you 169.

Five minutes left to go on the show. What should we do? Oh, we should do a breaking news sounder. I goof that up. John, that's on me. Half a breaking news sounder. Shea Wickham got recalled, or excuse me, got claimed by the San Francisco Giants, Ross, of your thoughts.

See you later. What did Robert Ford not say? You didn't say anything. He's like, it's fine. Go on. Hope you enjoy your time in Fresno. Let's play America's Fast and Growing Sports Radio Game. Show we simply call Believe or Not. Here's how it works.

You call 7-1-3-1-2-5-790. 7-1-3-1-2-5-7-90. Today's edition of Belie or not. It's all things about Russell Westbrook. You get two statements about Russell Westbrook, correct? You're going to win either of fights under the lights tickets August 14th, the Constellation Field, or a pair of tickets to see Forner and Leonard Skinner to August 27th at the Willens Pavilion.

Tickets on sale for that are at Ticketmaster.com. If you want to go to Fights under the Lights, that is available for you at B-I-Y-U Boxing.com. Let's play. Mike on 790, Mike, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Yes, sir. Mike, good like to you. Russell Westbrook was just 5'8 inches before his senior year in high school when a growth spurt pushing to 6-3. Believe it or not?

Believe it. Believe it. Statement number two for the win. Russell Westbrook wears number zero because that's how many scholarship offers he had before his senior year of high school. Believe it or not? Not. That is correct. Congratulations. Tim on 790. Tim, your favorite part of today's 10-2 radio show. Reminiscing about rocket's draft picks. When did we reminisce about rocket's draft picks? Royce White. Oh, Royce White.

Thanks, Tim. Thanks, Tim. I doubted myself and you, and for that, I apologize. With 17 injections, Russell Wilson is third of the NBA's all time. Russell, what I say? Westbrook. Russell Wilson. Russell Wilson, Westbrook is third of the NBA's all-time list behind only Rashid Wallace and Dremon Green.

Believe it or not? Not. That's right. He's 12th and 11. I really want you to win, Tim. Here we go. Wall at UCLA, Russell. Westbrook formed a rap duo with teammate

Aaron Aflowe and they called themselves the danger collective. Believe it or not? Believe it. Not. Oh, God. I know. It hurts. It hurts. Ron on 790, Ron, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Growing up in California,

Russell Westbrook, I was saying Russell Wilson. Russell Westbrook was a Los Angeles Lakers and a Dallas Cowboys fan. Believe it or not. Not. He was. I said it once and a thousand times. You gotta know who Russell Westbrook liked in life. Let's go to Bill, calling again on the same show.

Hi, Bill. Man, you never said, I really hope for you to win, Bill. You never said that to me. You know what? I'm going to try something for the very first time right now. You ready? Yeah, I can't wait. During his playing career, Russell Westbrook was superstitious.

He ate two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before every game. Believe it or not. That's unbelievable. Believe it. Believe it. You're a one away from not playing for 30 days. Good luck. Russell Westbrook is a huge fashion enthusiast and often attends Paris Fashion Week and even went down the runway last year. Believe it or not. That's funny. I won't call you for 30 days. Believe it. Believe it. It's kind of win for all of us, isn't it, basically? Jeff on 790, Jeff, you ready to play, believe it or not?

Yes, sir. Russell Westbrook is a minority owner of the Premier League club Leeds United. Believe it or not? Not. Oh, he is, but thank you anyway. You know what I wish I was a partial owner of? Big City Wings, 12 Houston locations. Why?

Because they are so profitable because they serve great food and have great customer service. And you guys go back over and over. over and over again. And for that, we thank you. Big on wings, big on specials, big on buy one, get one free, boneless Bonanza. Boneless executive chicken nuggets, I like to say. Sauce and toss the way that you want to. Whole chunks of white meat deliciousness available for you. Buy 10, get you 10 free and so on and so on. Do it today at Big City Wings. Have your fantasy football party there. Have your college watch party there. Have a party with your friends and neighbors or just go up by yourself and say, you know what, Matt sent me here. And if you go to the Kingwood location,

you sit at the Matt Thomas table. Nothing but Mr. Texas excellence there at Big City Wings. To find a location near you, you go to Big CityWings.com. That's Big CityWings.com for a buy one, get one free boneless wings today at Big City Wings. Up next, four hours of rocket schedule breakdown. They're not going to talk about the Texans game. They're not going to talk about the Astros. It's simply four hours of schedule prediction with Clinton and Wexler. The 80. This is Sports Talk 790.