The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Hang On Through The Weekend Finishing 2-2 in the series vs Rangers, Can The Astros Hope Even With These Struggling Bats?

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

Astros Hang On Through The Weekend Finishing 2-2 in the Series vs Rangers, Can The Astros Hope To Still Go Far Even With These Struggling Bats?

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The Astroses, Houston Astros, the Rockets, Basketball, your home for your home teams. This is Sports Talk 790. The Parsons Imagine Next Studios. Much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers. Matt Thomas.

Ross v. Real. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. And welcome to a Monday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. This is Sports. Talk 790. I was a little worried that Robert Ford was only going to get a couple of highlights. And Steve Sparks is calling all the big home runs the last handful of days. As the comeback kids remain in play.

Last four victories for the Astros all in comfort behind fashion. The stressing stroes? We come up with a nickname yet? Oh, wow. Cardiac kids? They're not kids. Cardiac middle-aged men? That sounds a little weird.

In the middle of their mid-30s decline? Cardiac mid-life crisis throws. Oh, I like that. Think about it. Think about it. What do you do in your mid-life crisis? You come with a comeback. You find something else.

Okay. Good. The greatest example, but you know, I was trying. Some minor setbacks for some major comebacks. And I will use the L word. I don't care. They got lucky. They shouldn't have won that game yesterday.

Because? I mean, they got pulled. Isak Paratus snuck a three- run home or over the fence to pull it out of there. You know what? They had no business winning that one, but over 162, you take what you can get. Yeah, I don't think they didn't deserve to win it. You have to put the bat on the ball, baby. What are you talking about?

It wasn't like they got friendly calls on the umpire. Joe Spada can back that up. You get no hit for seven innings. I'll use the O word. I don't care. What's up? Come at me, bro. You can call me wrong. No. Lucky is a ball hitting the bag or ball are a miss call or an error, that's luck.

They socked that to them. Oh, okay. They put a charge in two of them. They were breathing orange fire in the land of that. Okay, well deserved. Great performance by the bats. Four hits all game. I didn't realize that the first six innings meant more than the last three, Rossi.

No, they all mean the same. Okay, good. I'm going to get you convinced us. Those are quality wins. I like comeback wins. Okay. A&M saltball does not. I'm just saying

You can't be banking on these Pulling them out of like this all year long Have you met? The bats need to be better You met the Astros offense this year? I have And it needs to be better That's what I'm saying

So up until yesterday Because I did the post game show on Saturday I talked to one person It was nice Oh that's good Yeah I mean It's fine Saturdays with a quick turnaround

Aren't they're going to be The medias of post game shows If you know I'm saying Man I mean Saturday night Road game Your team lost Didn't score

much, scored one run in the entire game of the first inning. It was not like silly a high volume call-in show day. But the Astros, let me take a look at that old box score. Okay. So they score one in the seventh and three and eight. They scored in a total of four innings in the entire series. Because they were shot out on Thursday. They had that six run seventh on Friday.

Yes. They had one run on Saturday in one inning. And then they had two. So one, two, three, four innings out of 36 sports RV, they scored runs. Most times when you say that, you're dropping three or four potentially even sweep. So you would say they're fortunate to get out there with us with a series split. I'm saying they're crafty. Oh, okay.

Meanwhile, Seattle went to San Diego and beat up on that Padre, you know what? So the Astros still find themselves in second place, tied with the Texas Rangers, There's two and a half games behind the M's. The M's will be in town for a four games set coming up, I believe, this weekend. That's a gut feeling L for you. You said they'd be in first by May 15th, right? That is an absolute L. And I also have them going four and three on this road trip, which they still can do,

as long as they'd take two out of three in Tampa Bay. Two out of three wouldn't be bad. In the steamy Tampa Bay. Oof, take a look. Let's look like old weather temperatures here. Okay. Now remember, at Trop, it was always pleasant 72 degrees. With nobody there.

Well, nobody's a relative term. It was extra chilly. There was a lot of body heat. Yeah. When there's 5,500 people in the building. I will say this. I wouldn't cover one baseball playoff series against the race, Walt Cart. And I didn't think it was as bad.

Now, granted, I'm not going there 81 times a year. But there was plenty of space. It was comfortable. A lot of elbow room. And the food was good. Yeah, okay. So the next three-day forecast. Today's high, 92.

That's good. Tomorrow's high, 93. And you're like, well, they're going to be playing at night. Who cares? Wednesday's game is at, 1-10 Eastern Time, 12-10 locally, 92 degrees. What's the feels like that on them at? 6 million.

They have the same humidity issues. I mean, anything close to a coastal town is going to have that, and they're super close. They're on the Bay, I feel like. They literally are. I mean, it's the airport. It's George Stambriner Field and there's Tampa Bay, right next to all within about five miles of each other.

Tampa, underrated town, by the way. I'll take your word for it. Oh, you are quite the strip club connoisseur, so I guess you would say that. I mean, I spent my summers in the Tampa St. Peter area for about five or six years when I was younger. That's what my mom said. You want to go spend six weeks with one grandparent and four with the other than I said, absolutely. Let's go. Accuweather says real feel of 102 today in Tampa.

Whew. Can you take an in-game shower on that bad boy? I guess you could. All right. Let's bring a bucket of ice, keep a couple of buckets of ice in the dugout. So needless to say. the Astros, fortunate, not lucky,

fortunate to take two out of four. That's all those synonyms. Blessed? Fortunate and lucky. Appreciative? Here we go, semantics. What is this? Two to six? No, it sounds... I know what lucky is. I've been lucky for most of my life.

Oh, you're fortunate, too. I mean, I put a little hard work in, but there's mostly a good luck. Okay, fine. I'll dial the lucky back to four. I will agree on fortune. There's a nice middle there. If you would like to be a part of the show, Ross and I would be fortunate to have you. We'd be lucky to have you. We would.

Both. We got to talk about, we have some marketing advice for MLB. We just do. And you and I'm not talking about this yet. But it was rivalry weekend, which is really a great idea for baseball. Everybody that, with the exception of Atlanta, Boston, had some sort of regional rivalry to it. Angels played Dodgers, A's played the Giants, the two Mets team, the two New York teams played, the two Chicago teams played. You had Colorado, Arizona, because there's really no natural for them.

And the only other odd one is Atlanta versus Boston because Washington Ball, I mean, you had to go geographically. And I know that not every city had to go through this. In fact, no other city had to go through this except Houston and Dallas, the TV markets. The Friday game was on Apple. Yes. which is very easy to get. Now, you have to subscribe to Apple. You can get a seven-day free trial.

You can. But all things considered, it's one touch. You want to watch the game? Yes, I think their presentation is good. The little stats are interesting. So everything on Apple is fine to me. Roku is a hot mess. I could not get it on a constant stream.

And I have great stream at my house. it's too early let's go I have great internet at my house okay thank you that I do not have to worry about issues such as that except for this damn Roku channel

I had no issue well you're more lucky I just downloaded it on my TV and then used it and then just like true TV that I only dust off in March I'll only dust it off when I go with the asteros You're back on? No yeah I had the constant streaming issues with it

really on my smart TV I got one of my TVs and downstairs has the ability to get that channel. One of my smart TVs doesn't. It's a long-ish story, different time. Okay. And then the weirdo commercials, you know, when they don't have advertisement, they just run those little... Yeah, they're running like, hey, watch the King of Queens channel. Yeah. It's 24 hours of King of Queens. Or watch the chalk being put down the first and third baseline, kind of a serenity moment. Major League Baseball, you've got to get off Roku. I mean, Apple I get,

FS1, I understand, Fox, even if you want to live life without ESPN, I think it's going to be a tragic mistake for them. You cannot put any more games on Roku. I mean, what's next? Now, Hulu would be actually decent. Hulu would be an upgrade. What would be worse?

Tube. Tube would be worse. Actually, Tube is not that bad. The Tubby game of the week? Yeah, could happen. They're owned by Fox, so. Tube Game of the Week. game of the week could be coming. So at least it'll be

market. Who the hell markets Roku? I don't know who they're owned by. I don't know how that happened. But they took a check and it's crushing their product. Now granted, as long as you equally distributed among all the 30 different baseball teams, and everybody's got to feel the pain once per year,

but I just feel like, again, the Astros and Rangers really got screwed. If you wanted to watch this rivalry, which is something that I would think the TV viewing habits in both Arlington and Dallas and Houston would be very good. You took two of the four games and you said, No, thanks. We're going to let the streamers pay for it.

So it was just a frustrating Sunday because I could not get a steady stream feed. Thank you. Of the Astros game on Sunday. So all the shots taken at my friend Dave Raymond, I didn't get to see a lot of because... Well, he did say Yandy Diaz instead of Yiner Diaz on the home run. Yeah. That was a mistake. And somebody else did that last week.

I can't remember who it was. It was a national... Which is surprising because... it's not like Janer Diaz is new to the asteros. No, but Yan Di Yanir, it's not the craziest thing ever. Maybe his friends call him that. We don't know. Yandy? Maybe they do.

I mean, he's the Andy man. He can. All right. He makes the world... We are burying this first segment. No, we'll go any further. Thank you. 1013 on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. If you'd like to join us today,

713-212-5-790. 713-212-5-7-90. We have the Astros to celebrate. We have that Hayden Wisniewski is getting in a T-J. And Ross, where the hell is Jordan Alvarez? Swinging in the cages. Feeling better. We'll discuss.

Well, we've been discussing it since Tuesday. Or before that. We'll discuss. 1014. 713-212-5-790. 713-212-5-7-90. The Matt Thomas show with Ross continues. We're here until 2 o'clock to tell the truth at 1130 on 7-90. All right, if you're happy about your Astros,

I was saying, give me a hell yeah, but it was just a serious split. I mean, it is what it is. 7-13-212-5-7-90. It was fortunate. It was a good weekend. Yeah. I mean, again, as I said before, you score four innings total of 36. That doesn't necessarily lead itself to a prosperous weekend.

They weren't the smash strows, were they? There was a, okay, let's get them all knocked out in one inning. By the way, I was almost ready to send you a text about Janir Diaz who hit the home run yesterday. Oh, okay. He has five. Oh, you were talking about him being the sneaky team leader? He's not. He's in third place.

Okay. Paredes hitting the home run yesterday. He now has seven. But it is interesting that in a season where the Astro's slug has not been spectacular. spectacular, sneakiness can come in there and that's exactly what Yonner is doing. He's sneaky in the mix. I believe I told you there'd be two ways he'd be sneaky. A, Yordon is hurt or B, the team is not hitting well.

And so far we go. And so C of all the above. It's been both so far. I'm going to preface. I do a lot of things with prefaces. Okay. We call you Preface Thomas. I don't deny that.

I love the Houston Astros. Yes. I have been a fan for. 46 years. Woo! I had a long time to El Maddie. Even when I left town for five, I was still a fan. Yeah.

Why are they being so sneaky about Yoron unless they just want to say, hey, he's not getting any better. It's going to be a while. I mean, this feels like the last 10 years with different general managers, and I can't imagine that Jim Crane is all of a sudden going, you know what, let's keep things on the down low. What would be in his interest? It's not going to slow down ticket sales.

It's not going to slow down what the Astros are going to do from a fan standpoint. You're not going to lose fans. And it's not because I think you're trying to all of a sudden give a competitive advantage. Because if Yoron is not in the lineup, regardless of what the reason is, he's not in the line if you can't help you. It's just, Yoran hasn't spoken in four days. Not that we would carry a lot of it or any of it, but the interpreter could help us out. Hey, what's going on? What are you been doing?

I mean, it would be three minutes of, frankly, softball questions thrown at him. And I felt like we were doing this last year with Kyle Tucker in that long absence. But regardless of whether or not we care how the asteros handle the situation, damn, hold on, this is taking a lot longer than anybody, I think, initially anticipated. So for any of us, and I listened to Sean and I listened to Dan and Gordy talking about it, like, well, I predict he's going to be happy this weekend. You can't predict injuries. You can't predict when someone goes, I'm ready to go.

You can predict who's going to win a game. You can predict how somebody's going to do with the plate or what they're going to do scoring wise or how they're going to do. But you can't predict when a guy's going to wake up and say, I'm going to be the lineup today. So we're not going to do that. But this has been a long time. Yes. A lot longer than I think anybody thought it was going to be. I have a dumb question for you.

I'm here for it. I ask plenty of them. Why can't we just wait until he's in the lineup? And when he's back, he's back. I mean, if he's got a setback, yeah. Apparently, we had Dana Brown on last week, and he said within the next five days, it's been five days. They were hoping. And Joe spotted himself, at least last week, was saying, we're hoping for the weekend.

And when he's ready, he's ready. It's not like he's just hanging around eating ice cream and not swinging a bat. Okay, so then why wouldn't they make him available then? I don't know. Because he's hurt. He's on the I don't know where he is around the team. He doesn't like to speak to the media in the first place you were on, especially the last couple of years. Maybe it's the player prerogative, which very well could be the case.

Maybe he said, shut y'all, bum asses up. My hands ready when it's ready. I don't know. Substantative update would be nice, for sure. Yeah, so all I'll say is this. I'm not like angry or mad about it. I just, ultimately, I don't care when he talks or when he doesn't talk. I want him just to be out there because this team needs a scoring, it needs a hitting punch.

And here's the problem. It wasn't like he left on it. He wasn't batting OPS at $1,200 when he left. No, he was. struggling. What are our season numbers? Can you look him up? I will look him up.

I think he's around like 600 OPS. So, yeah, I just... I think I'm more just venting about wanting him back. And obviously, you don't want to bring him back too early. 646 OPS 210 average. A lot of strikeouts, too, right? Three home runs. 21 strikeouts and 121 plate appearances.

It's not horrible. I've seen worse. There's worse than this long. lineup. Yeah. So, he had had a lot of hard hit contact

throughout the season. But it's just, it had kind of come in waves. Almost like Christian Walker. It's come in waves. It hasn't been consistent. Yeah. Which, by the way,

Christian Walker average up to 207. And was it a high watermark of 210 at one point, correct? He's mashing. Hey. As long as the defense is good. By the way, the one thing about this weekend

that was kind of alarming was the fact the defense, I mean, Jeremy Pena had two airs called on him, could have been a third. They gave one to two, a walker. The Astros had three airs on Saturday. Defense has been nails all season. Yeah. Well, it's been really, as I've said before, it's been really great for about nine years or so. A little drop off last year, but this year, it has been really good, and that's really saying something because the Astros incorporated a new second basement or combo second basement and two guys that had never played the outfield before in left field and right field. You would think there would be a significant downturn, and there has it been. Well, yeah, Rogers and, yeah, on the right side of the infield, whether it be Rogers or Dubon, the occasional Jose Al-Tuvae, that's a huge improvement defensively over everyday Al-Tuvei.

And then Christian Walker, a major improvement over John Singleton and whatever else. Right, right. So, you know, it's interesting to me. And the boy Jake is out there making plays, Maddie. How's the average? Catching everything. What do you mean? 293?

Oh, I'm sorry. Second on the team? What's up? I'm happy. you should be he hasn't had you know may is usually typically his best month a slump to some degree i don't imagine a 230 hitter is going to hit 290 all season but if he stays about if he stays above 275 is that not a win-win for this organization don't no no no no you're president you as a president should understand you'll accept

275 i know i'll accept it for sure i just don't know what's going to happen all right other things today on the radio program uh yeah yeah i was going to say i i i back to Yordon. Maybe he just doesn't want to talk. Like, leave me alone. Yeah. Yeah, leave Yordon alone. You should be happy he performs for you people. But I miss him. We miss him too. He wants to be out there, I'm sure. It's not like he's got to get his legs ready. He's D.H. Go out there and get some hacks. Be all right. Ready to go. You know what he needs to do? He doesn't need his talk anymore.

He just didn't come out there and just put his arms in a flex position. It's like, I'm back. Yeah, he's like a Michael Jordan press release, except just with him flexing. Yeah, that's fine. Because he scares me. Look, get the hand issue out of the way. I don't care. Don't rush.

Be all right. They were fortunate to split the series, so you're still. They were not fortunate. I told you, they slug their way. Wait a minute. You just said fortunate where we're settling on. I'm going to upgrade. Oh, my God.

All right, fine. I'm going to upgrade. They were lucky. No, I'm going to say they were blessed. The baseball guy smiled upon them. Yeah, they got runs in four innings or whatever you said all weekend. So you split the series? I don't remember.

Yeah, again. How about this? You escaped with a series split. Well, that could have been better. Honestly, when you only score in four innings and the whole weekend, you are escaping in some respects. Because most times when you only score in fournings, you're not going to win. Certainly over four games. Yeah, but that's...

At least Saturday's game. I did the post-game show. It was quick. Yeah. What are you whining about? I want more wins. I don't like the Rangers. I don't like their uniforms on Friday.

You're going to the white, top, and black pants. I didn't like the all blue yesterday. I like the all blue. I didn't. I don't like their city ones are terrible. Extremely uninventive. Well, I don't even know what they are. Yeah.

Why would you go black pants? I don't know. Whatever. Arlington Rangers, good weekend for them. They had big crowds all weekend, too. Well, yeah, because the Astros are in town. Yeah. I could always say they let's go Astros in the background.

The Astros are in town stimulating the economy of Arlington. You're welcome. Yeah. All the hotels and stuff? Yes. The pawn shops guy got some new business out of it. The Dollar Tree, I heard it was flooded with people. Dollar Tree?

The Astros people have to spend more money than the Dollar Tree. You go to the Walmart. Hey, man. Corner Market next to the stadium, you're good. You spend that money getting up there. You got a penny pinch. I remember you used to go to Dollar Tree and get the Dollar Cokes. I'm potted meat for dinner.

Oh, like dinty beef? Like the beef stew? Yeah. Or the spam? You ever had spam? Yeah, I've had spam. Oh, gross. But ask for our friends,

and I ain't even spam in Arlington. There's a Barbies down there. You can get you a beef and cheddar and call it a day. That's true. There's a Bendy's over there, too. That's what the parade started a couple of years ago, right? I think they did start at the Bindies line. Yeah.

You go to the Rangers parade. You get a $5. Biggie bundle. Give me a full. and I will be in the parade. All right. Co-rangers. I hope you have a nice weekend.

Enjoy your parade. And by way, Jock Peterson going deep on Saturday. What is that? Jock. Jock is batting half his weight. He started off the season hot. And everybody's like, oh, Rangers. He's got back, 130 now.

Yeah. It's terrible. 1030 on Sports Talk, 790. 7.13. 212. 5, 790. 7.13. 2-1-2-5-7-8.

I just want no more Roku. If you want to give me some Apple, I'll get it. You want to put me on the... What else is there? Oh, the Fox Game of the Week would be cool. We got some of those coming up. Hopefully. A little ESPN's in the night baseball.

I'm not a super big Carl Ravich fan. I think you have, you know... He's all right. Was he the one that called the home run that wasn't? Well, he called a home run. It was a game winner. Oh, and it was in the top of the inning. Oh, that's well.

Nobody's perfect. It's going to happen. I wish I was perfect on a game, broadcast. But you know, we all can't about a thousand. Yeah, they won't accept calls. That's right. I ain't no Joe Buck. 10.30 on Sports Talk 790. 1034 on Sports Talk 790.

The text I get on this show. Cracking me up. What she said? She said she loves the show. Can't wait to listen every day 10 to 2. She said she can't wait to follow Sports RV on Instagram. That was great. She's like, I appreciate that. She says, I love sports MT on Instagram.

He doesn't over post. He doesn't beg. He just says it provides quality material. I'm begging, baby. I ain't too proud to beg. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Oh, it's a group chat Monday.

That's right. Let's go. Unfortunately, the last text I just got within the last 30 seconds, I cannot repeat over the air. Do not. Then don't. What's in the group chat? Would you like to know what's in the group chat? I am in the group chat with my fellow rocket broadcasters.

Okay. And we'll go to Tommy and Matt in just one second here. Vanessa Richardson's going to be working with some ESPN.com, like pre, pre, post, post kind of stuff before their game presentation. Good for her. What does that mean? It's just you go on their website and just get like, you know, like if their game starts at 7 o'clock, they're on at 6, just kind of talking about it.

She's working at the Western Conference. She's going to go to. Oh, okay. Like the studio? No, she's going to be at sight. She's in Oklahoma City and then she'll go to Minnesota. I don't know if it's it. It could be interviewing players.

They're on the court. Her and I'm on Shepard are doing the show. Remember the former short-term rocket? Oh, okay. Rocket's legend, Matt. Legend's kind of a strong tale. And when he signs autographs at Toyota Center before the game, he's a rocket's legend. Okay, fair enough.

So, Her and I'm on Shepard. So in the group chat today, she told us she's the hotel she's staying at in Oklahoma City. Mm-hmm. Is the haunted one? It very well. could be. Oh, okay. Sorry. You know what? I always spoil your stories. You do spoil my stories. I'll shut my bum ass up.

So the bottom line is that she's like, is this really true? And we've all commented on said stories. And how a member of our broadcast team apparently met the ghost one time. And had relations. Well, apparently she wanted relations and he refused. Hey man, that's a once in a lifetime opportunity.

So the question I would ask to all of you is have you ever had sex with the ghost? 7-1-3. 212-5-790. You know what? I have the... I think I have somewhere... I got called on the Sports RV show, remember? The woman said she was having sex with a demon.

Yeah. Because the Bobby Brown story happened. Yeah, Bobby claimed to have sex with the ghost, correct? Yes, yes. He said he was being mounted by a ghost, and for some reason I can't find that. So I have brought up this story about this person in the broadcast team having sex or being attempted to have sex with the ghost. I was being mounted by a ghost. Yeah.

Thank you, Bobby. And the name of the ghost, boy, for those of you playing at home in Oklahoma City, it's Effie. I'm letting it fly by. I've just let it go. Why? EFFIE. I didn't make it up. I'm short for Eiffram?

I don't know. Is it a male or female? Or is it? Definitely a female. Oh. The legend has it. And you can go look this up. The legend has it that you can throw.

that Effie was a part of an adulterous affair back in the 20s. Short for euphemia? I don't know what it was short for. Or Ophelia? I don't know. Well, you seem to know everything about the ghost. I'm just asking. I didn't ask for the long name.

Jeez. All right, Ghost hunter? I ain't Ghost hunter. I'm just saying that the story is that apparently her and the baby perished. Being mounted by a ghost. Yeah. And they died in the 20s and that the ghost still stays at the hotel. Hmm.

So, there it is. That's my story. So that's part of the group chat. Thank you, Matt. What other group chat do I have today? Oh, no, can't read that one. God, there's somebody I can't read. It's just terrible.

Yeah. You and your depraved people that you have your circles that you keep. Yeah, seriously. The key to being in an empty group chat is the ability to race quickly. Okay. To protect those that are innocent. That's pretty smart probably on your part. Thank you very much.

talk to the great people of Houston, Texas. Matt and Spring Branch at 1039 on 7. Matt, good morning. Hey, good morning. Happy Monday. Matt and Ross. Yeah. I wanted to call and chime in. I went up to the game Friday. I drove to Arlington.

Okay. I went to the game. And I got to say, as much as I hate all things, Dallas and the Rangers and the Cowboys, they've done a fantastic job with that statement. Now, it's pretty awesome. I got to say in the surrounding areas, lots of entertainment. We spent like $300 and just alcohol there. So we had a good time.

Good Lord. Yeah. You were talking about the Rangers appalling uniforms, those special ones they wore Friday. I noticed after a few pops on Friday that the Old English Texas Rangers logo looks like the Rice Owls logo. So I got into a lot of, I got into, I got into, I got under the skin of a lot of Rangers fans by going, let's go Rice Owls over and over again. You did. Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, were you going, Hootie-Hoo? Matt.

I was going, I was going, hooty-hoo, ow. I absolutely was. Okay, let me tell you why. Hold on, hold on. Let me tell you why they pissed you off. Or they got mad at you. Because no one knows what that is. You could scream, let's go Astros.

You could go Let's go Al Tuve or Isok or Christian Walker for life. I mean, there's a lot of, you're going to the Rice Al-Chant and a Ranger Astro game. I'd be mad at you too. And I'm an Astros fan. That's how obscure and stupid it is. And either way, I got under their skin. So I'll take that to win. Yeah, he said it worked, Matt.

there you go but I'm an astro fan mat and you're getting under my skin for this I wouldn't want you doing that let's first in the material the uniforms look like rice out he's right what's the problem yeah Google rice out

oh I know what they look like I'm not doubting you I just know if I can go over that material or not I mean I want my material to stick so how many people said shut your bum ass up how many people said oh that makes a lot of sense yeah they are the rice owls well the 50 50 spattery of Rangers Astros fans I've got a lot of high-fives from the Astros fans.

Oh. Oh, okay. I was getting the whole thing. So I'm an equal opportunity offender, so I'm glad I offended you, too. Yes, and I love you for it. And you spent $300 in liquor, and you're okay, and you drove back safely, yes? I drove back safely the next day. Yes, even though I spent all that money on booze, I still caught a win.

Because Andy Astros won two, that was also nice. Did you stay in Arlington or do you go and stay in Dallas area? I stayed in West Dallas, which was sketchy as hell. Surprise all my windows were intact the next day. West Dallas is a little sketch. I'll get you that. Thank you, Matt, for the phone call. Appreciate it. Good phone call. Yeah, I don't know if I'd go with a Rice-Al reference in the middle of an Astro Ranger,

but you know what? You do you, right? So we say here on the show, you do you. I feel a little bad that I've not been to that stadium before. Why? I don't know. It is nice, and it doesn't really look. When you get in there, it doesn't really look like a minute-made part. Well, I'm going to say this.

When I was younger, I wanted to say, let's go here, let's go here. I travel so much for six months of the year. I don't know if I want to jump in a car and go somewhere else or three. or four days. I get it. I mean, now, if I can get a luxury suite, that's one thing. Oh, Jesus. And valet parking would probably be a big help as well. Valet. Nobody's valeting your car at the stadium? You don't know that? Not you. Unless you're President Ops over there or something. Well, I do know Rob Matwick, who works for the Rangers. You worked for the Astros a long time ago.

I didn't even need a name drop. I just did there. I've known Rob for... It doesn't count as a name drop. No one knows who the hell it is. Okay. Rob Matwick is a senior vice president operations for the Rangers. He's a former Astros PR guy, and I've known him for probably 35 years. When's the last time you contacted him? Oh, we're Facebook friends. Yeah, it doesn't answer my question. I might have wished him a happy birthday. Oh, you liked his post?

That doesn't count. You might have gave him a happy birthday. Well, see, you know what I'm feeling about a happy birthday. You might have put a laughing emoji on his real. It's like, here's what I'm thinking about on Facebook. My birthday is coming up in about two and a half weeks. Okay. And always about June 4th, which is the day before my birthday,

I get the hundreds of happy birthday Matthews, or happy birthday, Mac, make it a great day. or they just go H-B-M-T to really simplify it. Yeah, what's wrong with that? I'm thinking about taking my birthday off of the Facebook page and seeing how many people still wish me a happy birthday. Nobody will do it. Nobody will do it, and you are going to feel like everybody hates you.

Don't fall on that trap. Yeah. Don't worry about it. Who cares? Nobody knows when your birthday is, Matt. I don't know your birthday. Yeah, see? You're December 11th, right?

Hey, close enough. What is it? I'm not going to tell you. It doesn't matter. It's in December some point, right? You're correct. You're correct. Jonathan and I have no.

when your birthdays. Jonathan's closer. You never brought it up once. I've known Jonathan for 15 and to change fewer years and he's closer. But that's okay. I don't care. It's fine. So you think I should take it off or keep it on? I took mine off of Facebook years ago and I can't remember if I put it back. I don't think I did. I have it still on, but I'm thinking about pulling it off. Why not? You can hear from that person from high school that you haven't seen in 35 years. Because it would be nice to have the people actually remember your birthday. Nobody remembers your birthday, Matt, unless they have it on a calendar. See, like I said, You don't remember my birthday.

We've been working together 16 years. So I mean... I had the right month. Yes, you do. And I'm proud of you. I bought you gifts. I didn't know you. I thought yours was June 1st.

You said June 5th? Yeah. Okay, see, I'm close. We're both close. It doesn't matter. We're in the range. There's too many birthdays to remember. I get you.

I remember immediate family members and that's about it. I have my three kids, my wife, and my mother and my father. And that's just, that's probably as far as deep as I go. Okay. Stop. Yeah, you can go ahead and get that. that one. I feel like you just trying to catch me. I didn't try to do anything. I didn't make you say quote, that's as deep as I go. I was I did not make you say that. Oh, I don't know.

It was that bad. I mean you, I don't need your commentary. 713212-5-790. 7-1-3-2-1-790 if you want to jump in. To tell the truth is coming up at 1130 and we've got the news at noon. We've got believe it or not today. What's believe it on? Is it going to be on Scottie Shephler? Longhorn legend. Did you watch much of the PGA championship? I watched about six minutes because the thing was on somewhere I was eating food. So remote for you.biz came in to help that, huh? No.

All right. 1052. Good morning. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Astros split a series in Arlington. Three in Tampa today. Well, actually not three. One in Tampa. Tuesday is a night game. Wednesday is a day game. been their home for a four-game series, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday against the Seattle Mariners.

Then they're off on Memorial Day. Rossi, again, Major League Baseball. 100% of, I shouldn't say 100%. What percentage of the American workforce is off on Memorial Day? 80? I mean, the service industry obviously still working. Yes. But all government employees are done.

Schools are out. I mean, I would think most companies, so let's say 80%. you are taking a day where every game there should be a game in every 15 ballparks at least players get to spend some time with their families man i think that's great fooie foo for them no memorial day we play baseball they're not here to just perform for you matt 310 minute may park aster's a let's let's go i think you'd be out there in grilling grilling grilling and chilling by the pool well then they're going to do that then invite us Do you want them to invite the city of Houston into their homes?

No, me. Oh, just you? No, I have a relationship with them, some of them. No, you don't. Not really, no. I used to have a lot, great relationship, a lot of them are all gone now, but that's fine. Taylor Scott actively hated you. Now is he gone?

Not true. Not true. You built the relationship with Taylor Scott. I didn't. No, I didn't, actually. Okay. Me and Ericetti are close. You guys are boys?

We are boys. Unfortunately. He was almost in our fantasy team league. Well, we're getting there. He sounded like he knew it. He's doing those. I didn't want him out there. I got news for you. If you get Sprinter Ergeti in our fantasy league, I'll be back. I thought you're going to come back, you said. No. Come on. No. I'm good.

Jonathan'll take my spot. 713-212. Go fund me for him. Wow. Wow. Wow. What? Insulting right to him. What do I even say to that? Nothing. Get your girlfriend and get after him. Oh, no. Please don't sit her. Let me tell you something. I'm scared. I'm scared. The Valley Girls will throw him. hands in a millisecond. She don't care who it is with. Tommy's at 1054. Tommy, good morning. Hey, good morning, guys. Thank you so much for having me on. I love the show. Thank you.

Hey, so my take is kind of on Bren. Well, not kind of. It's on Brendan Rogers. I mean, I like the signing when we signed him. I like, you know, he was a low risk, high reward type sign. But, I mean, his OPS is under 600. I feel like we're better off with Dubon. And I always keep an eye on Sugar Land. And I mean, Shea Whitcomb is tearing the cuff. off the ball. Man's got over 10 home runs over there. And I mean, I don't see why we can't bring him up and take a look at him again and maybe left field or maybe even at the second. So I was curious

what y'all's take was on Brendan Robb. Now, you mentioned Sugar Land. I've not looked at the recent numbers. Have you noticed a thing about Bryce Matthews in the last handful of days or weeks? Well, he's been injured now. Yeah. Before he got injured though, he was starting. He was stealing bases left and right for them. Yes, sir.

He was. The defense has been really good too. my family went to a couple games in Sugarland. The experience out there is just unreal. And I mean, Bryce Matthews had some good games. The strikeouts were a little high, but I mean, I think he's going to be great. Yeah, my feeling is on Bryce, and I'm just getting the tone of what the team talked about is that if he was to be brought up here, it would be a late, late season call up, or maybe they would think about maybe giving him an opportunity to be a starter in 2026. I think, honestly, if I was a betting man, which I can bet on a certain.

things certainly not baseball predictions, that they're going to probably keep this combination working for a while and then maybe kick the tires on trying to find somebody via the trade market to get a little more punch at second base. Because look, I don't know if Dubon six days a week is going to give you significantly better numbers. Not saying that Brandon's a good offensive player. He hadn't been really good since he played at home in Denver with the Rockies. I like his glove.

He's had a few memorable moments. It's just one of those spots. where you can't, I hate to be an excuse maker, but maybe you just got to have trouble spots on certain parts in your lineup, and that may be just going to be a real bad spot for them this year, getting productive out of that second base position. And when it comes defense, I mean, at third base, I know it wasn't great.

I couldn't tell you how he would be as a second baseman. Yeah, no, that's true. I know that third base game was rough, but his hitting has been great. Oh, yeah. I mean, look, at the end of the day, if you can give you, if you can get average work at second base, Like, frankly, the asteros are getting, you know, I mean, I wouldn't say that they're, they're not embarrassed themselves.

Jose did not. And certainly, as a matter of fact, campsman's getting better out there. But can you afford a slight defensive drop at second if that's what you're getting? And you'd probably get a pretty significant one if you were to all of a sudden give Shay an opportunity to play there. I don't know. I think it's very much a work in progress right now. I agree. Thank you so much, guys.

Nice to hear from you. Thanks, guys. Yeah, thank you, Tommy. I mean, and also again, well, Shea's sample size of big leaguer is very limited, correct? Yeah, but he's leading the, or at least as the last week, was leading the PCL and home runs.

So he's caught fire with the bat. I don't know if you think that. I mean, he's not thought of as one of the best prospects in baseball, so we have to take all those types of things with grain of salt. Is he a quadruplea player, stuff like that? Yep. I can't, unfortunately, our internet has gone down, but I believe Brennan Rogers is like,

he has been having some good, hard-hit content. It just hasn't been translating, unfortunately, on the field for him. Honestly, to me, when I think about this team, this is a terrible, but I feel like if you get anything on a second base, Ross, it's gravy at this point. And I know I shouldn't feel that way, but that's why I feel. Brennan Rogers, Dubon, and then some Altova, depending, yeah. What I'd like to see is I want to see continued development from Cam Smith. Zach Desenzo getting some A-Bs, you know, an opportunity, and maybe those two guys fighting

it out. Getting Yordon back will certainly help this team. and I do believe that Christian Walker will get into some sort of rhythm to get that OPS above a more respectable number. Above 700 will take it this moment. Yeah, I'll take it. I mean, yeah. Because let me tell you, if he gets above 700 here in the next few weeks, that means he's going to have caught fire. And you're two and a – let me tell you something.

You want to be a little bit lucky in this situation? Your Astros are two and a half games at a first place with basically 66% of the old roster line up being subpar hitters. I don't know how they're doing it. Oh, I do. Good defense. Good pitching. Good pitching. And amazing bullpen work.

And hopefully, Lance McCuller's Jr. holds up. And here's the thing about bullpen is you've got so many guys in that bullpen not going, starting rotation, not going five. You're having to use your bullpen a lot. And it doesn't feel like it's been overly taxed. And we'll talk more about that tomorrow with Joe Espana.

10.58. It is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. second hour coming up. Ross. Matt. We have an NBA Western and Eastern Conference finals in play. Okay. We will give that a... City of Houston wants a full breakdown.

We'll give the 30 to 45 second run on that. Okay. We've got to tell the truth at the bottom of the hour. And we also have... I found out today something on the Today Show. That Hallmark, you know, Hallmark makes those cheesy-ass movies. They're like Lifetime without violence. Lifetime movies have violence?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. You took my sister's kid or separated a birth or my husband's other lover. Oh, yeah. They get stabbed and whatnot? Absolutely. I didn't know that. Hit by car, shot, all that good stuff. This is why you love those movies so much. So my wife's been watching a lot of these hallmarks and they're just... It's the same plot every time I thought.

Exactly. We met at the Christmas tree and then now you're ringing my bill. Okay. And feels succinct. There's a new Hallmark movie out. about love involving the Buffalo Bills. We need to create a plot for it. Okay. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90.

It's 11 o'clock on 790. It is 11-03 on Sports Talk 790. It is the Matt Thomas Show and Ross. Matt and Ross with you here on this Monday. Astros split the series against the Texas Rangers. We have an NBA Eastern and Western Conference final set. We had golf yesterday. Not that we spent a lot of time talking about John.

Ron Ram. But he was won back through I think 13 and wound up finishing seven out of first place. That's a shame. That's a huge what they call. The kids call an implosion. And it cost to me, what did you say? About a million and a half dollars? I think it was, yeah, it's 1.4 or something like that. He went from 2.2 to 800,000, something like that. Two million to 600,000, I think. Ooh, Lordy. That's a shame.

But what else do you finish in life in eighth place and you make $600,000? Not bad. Not bad for four days of work. It's doing okay. And I mean, yeah, professional golfers got to be one of the most cake jobs ever. I would completely disagree with you on that. What? Yeah.

I think it is one of the most difficult, you can call it skill, game, whatever you want to call it. I don't care what you call it. Yeah, golf is hard. Golf is a life. Oh. Oh, yeah, you get to go to, like, nice beaches and the most beautiful golf courses in all the world. You make millions of dollars. Have you seen golf wives?

By the way, have you ever seen a guy win a championship and he walks out of his girl and she's like, oh, no, you don't. You're right. Golf wives are minimum eights. Minimum eight and eight point nine's. That's true. No, but I would say anybody that rips on golf or being all, I'm not ripping on it. I'm not saying it's easy. Yeah.

But yeah, you're on Alex Breggman's in the cage 10 hours a day. You're hitting golf balls 10 hours a day. And the crazy thing about golf is you have to work again. about you have to spend two hours on drives. You're going to spend two hours on your mid-clubs. You have to spend an hour on your chips. You've got to worry about the sand. You've got to worry about hitting the ball in the woods.

Oh, by the way, you've got to worry about putting. Oh, no, I've got to hit a golf ball. This is horrible. This is the worst life I've ever had. This is one of your worst takes ever. Oh, my God. You are so wrong. Golf is as difficult as it.

And, oh, by the way, the pressure... It's difficult. It's ridiculously difficult with millions of people watching and thousands of people watching you by yourself. 300-pound John Daly's out there hitting a heat. and then just smoking drives. He didn't seem like he's having that hard of a life. He didn't last long.

He looks like he's doing it all right. He's a mascot. He ain't doing it because he wants to win. He's doing because he wants to drink beer. Yeah. And hang out with fours and fives. When he could be hanging out with nines and tens. You can be the best golfer in the world and have man boobs.

Okay. Name the last. Oh, Lord. Phil Mickelson. Go ahead. Besides Phil Mickelson, who has manbreast, large ones

that have won championships it's going to go back 30 years. Scotty Sheffler's not it's not like he's ripped now Bryson de Chambot is ripped I would say

nine out of ten guys on the tour Jordan Speeth Scrony have flat bellies especially these days 1993 that's about five six

yeah it was a little bit a different in the 90s yeah oh come on you're telling me Scotty Sheffel looks like a bodybuilder

come on but I'm saying Come on, man. I mean, he looks like he's got a dad bod. Look, he looks like he's dropping off his wife at Target three hours. Which target? One by San Felipe? Sure.

Ooh, that's a good one. I'd go there. It'd be longhorned legend, Scotty Shuff. Yeah, so why are you ripping on one of your own? I'm not ripping on him. It's terrible. Golf's just very difficult. I wish I was good at it.

I didn't say it's easy. I wish I was good at it. Said a lot of things about my life. All right. 1107 on Sports Talk 790. 710-1-2-5-7. 790 713-212-5-7-90. The NFL owners meetings are taking place in Minneapolis,

which is surprising that you would think they would go down to Florida. Maybe the rates were too high. Maybe they have to rotate around different cities, like they do the draft. There are two things in play, and I will not discuss either one of them because I'm saving them for to tell the truth coming up for the bottom of the hour. Okay.

But we can get your thoughts on this. Sure. Tuck rule. Not the Tush-push. Okay. There is word around the streets that they're going to put a vote to this while they're there at the owner's meetings.

What do you think? Get rid of it? I say leave it. Okay. Because, well, first of all, the team that's best at at the Eagles, they weren't as good once Jason Kelsey retired,

and everybody else tries it and does it's not as highly successful. And it's a legal play. And by the way, it extends drives, NFL loves points. I would be surprised if it was banned. All right. Again, I'll say my opinion on this for 23 minutes from now. Okay.

Number two, I already know your thoughts about this. We've talked about this before. They are going to have a conversation about whether or not you make the playoffs, you make the playoffs, but you're not guaranteed a home playoff game if you win your division. Thank you. Can we have some logic in this? This is ridiculous. Now, the NBA does it that way.

Yes. Major League Baseball does not, right? If you win your division, you get a home. You're guaranteed one in the top three. Yeah. Unfortunately, and this is ridiculous. You should be guaranteed a buy. You shouldn't have to play some wildcard team like the Astros did last year,

where they throw Terrick Scoobel and then a bullpen game with great matchups that they can formulate, and then you lose in two games. After winning your division out of 162 games season. It's ridiculous. So you're saying that winning a division should mean something? Yes. Well, then you should, I'll save it for the bottom of the end. No, I'm saying it should mean something in the NFL.

Well, you get a playoff spot, but getting an automatic home game, I don't think so. But you said maybe baseball should get a buy. From a wild card, yes. Oh, so playing the division. They shouldn't be, if they're putting how many six wild cards? No, there's three wallet cards. Six teams each, total. Three division champs and three wild cards.

Yes, and the NFL is seven. Yes. Only the top team gets a buy. Mm-hmm. Okay. We'll save my thoughts on this because you might be surprised at the buy. bottom of the hour. Okay. Because I've had a chance. I didn't do much this weekend. I did watch some basketball. Obviously watched the Astros until Rook who screwed it up for me yesterday. And then I did

binge watch the series, you got that all finished up. Me? No, you. We're not doing this. I didn't do it. A step back, I didn't do it. Yeah, Vikings won 14 games. Tampa Bay Buccaneers win 10 over a 17 game season, I think that's significant enough to have the Buccaneers not earn a home game. If anybody did see you, let me know what you think. You know what, I'd be down with that in baseball. If you win your division, you win a crappy division, which the Astros did, and some teams got like 95 wins.

Like the American League West, there was a couple of years ago. Then the Giants and Dodgers, one was like 105 wins and one was like 104? Yes. So you're saying the same thing. You're basically, I think you have to be consistent. If you win enough games to capture a playoff spot, you should not be hurt by your divisions, what you're saying. Yes.

In all sports. You're hedging. You're hedging a little bit. Because 162 game season is different than the 17 game season. I'm trying to think. Yeah, but you can't play 162 football games. Oh, yeah, thank you. I'm aware of that, Matt.

So it's going to be different. I know it's going to be different. So that's why perhaps I could say that I could have two different answers if it's two different seasons. I think you've got to say you're going to be tried and true to one formula. This is my thought. I'm going to use logic. and you're going to use feelings. Feeling, I don't have any feelings.

Okay. Until I tell you that to tell the truth at bottom of the hour. 713-212-579. If you want to jump in, 7-1-3-21-2-5-79. We've got two minutes left in the segment. This will give us plenty of time to discuss the NBA playoffs. Okay, so Aaron Gordon is the power forward for the Denver night. Yes.

Grade 2 hamstring. They said he's going to be out for a month. A month. He was in warm-ups. He practiced a day before he started. It was actually pretty good. Denver got out to a 21 to 10 lead. And when I saw that on my phone,

after I was taking a nap on Sunday afternoon, I'm like, I got to put this game on. This could be one of the all-time upsets. So I did that, Rossi. It was 21 to 10. And then after that, the Nuggets went on to only score 72 points of rest of the way while the Thunder scored 115. Yes, 125 to 93.

Nice wrinkle by Mark Dagnol. Dagnold. Dagnold. The Thunder coach. They used as the primary defender on Nicoliochich. He only took up nine shots at Yokic. That's crazy. They used Alex Caruso.

And he was allowed to get away with a lot of grabbing and holding. Do we like guys that wear headbands? Because this is becoming way too prevalent in the NBA. What's wrong with a headband? Eh. What are you trying to do? Get sweat out of your eyes. Why doesn't every player use that then?

because they don't want to. I don't know. They want sweating their eyes? She Gilgis Alexander does it? Yeah, there's, I mean, Aaron Holiday for the Rockets does it? Sometimes Jayhont Tate. Yeah, you just wipe your brow, it's fine. Knock the sweat away?

Yeah. Caruso's basically bald, right? I think you definitely is bald. You got a lot of sweat trickling down your head. I know. I sweat when I eat. I've seen it. Yeah.

It's quite a sight. It's worrisome. I start dialing 9-1. If you look worse, I hit one more one. But do you ever hear? the send button. No, just no. 1112 on Sports Talk 7.9. It is about Toma Show with Ross. If you want to chime in on the Astro's

split of the series, if you want to chime in on the NBA playoffs, I would love an NBA call. I don't want to get one, but I'd love one. If you want to get your thoughts on whether or not the divisions champion should be guaranteed a playoff spot in the NFL. They're discussing that. The tush push is in conversation as well. And we have to think about this plot for this Buffalo Bill's Hallmark movie. Okay.

It's coming out? No, they're literally starting production today. Okay. See, that's what shows you. They're going to be, it's going to be ready in time for Christmas. You're starting it in May. They basically just take any run-on-the-mill actor, do they not? Because usually don't take movies take a couple of years to edit and go over scenes and rehearse.

Pre-production. They're like, man, just get out there and improvise it. Yeah, it's a home art movie. They do very well. Apparently. One household in Kingwood, Texas is on 24-7, like November 1st. It's ridiculous. That's why I go to the other room and watch me some Roku.

Astros and Rays on deck tonight. Oh, it's going to be Adam and Adam doing it. Well, that's because it's in their time slot, so they would easily do the show. I'll have their time slot and hence. They can't be bothered. 713-212-5-7-9. Why are you shaking your head, Ross? You know what I'm right?

Why am I shaking your head? I shake my head at you every day. It's fine. I'm sorry that you have to endure this abuse, Adam and Adam. I wish you the best. You always do. Colton Gordon will throw again today for the local nine. Okay.

You know, Framer gave you enough innings yesterday, so your bullpen's in pretty good shape. We haven't talked about your boy, Lance McCullors, Jr. Yeah, four innings, which was right at the number, I think, as we talked about the other day, right? Right at the number. Didn't get any help from his defense early. Give up two runs.

They were not earned. Yeah, well, it was his error. Yeah, that's true. But the Astros got great bullpen work. I'm seriously, where would this team be? without its bullpen. It's crazy that one of the things that, frankly,

think about this. I think we were, three or four days out before the start of the season, and there were still loads of question marks about who was going to do what role. And it's been great. King, Orte. Suza's been, meh.

Sean Dubin's been good. Dubin came back from injuries. Brian, Bray has been great. Josh Hayter's been nails. And Abraya has been overused. I mean, it feels like there has been not a concerted effort, but just a, he's pitching like a normal eighth-ed-ending guy, would be in that spot.

Yeah, start of the season, he was playing about half their games. Let's see, he's got 21 appearances now. But it's cool. I felt like it's cooled off considerably the last couple of weeks. So where would this, think about this, when do you say this? A team stays relevant in its own division with its bats

performing well under expectations, its defense and its relief pitching kind of carrying the heavy lifting of the squad. That's the 2,025 Astros, in a nutshell. Yes. And it's going to get better, Matt. The bats are going to start hitting.

It's going to turn. I like your enthusiasm. It's early. No, it's, I mean, it's still. I think we can stop saying it's early after, what? 75 games, would you say, give or take? 50? We're closing it.

We're closing on that. We're getting there on that, for sure. No, I think you can, I think you can, it feels like to me sometimes there's a second season after the trade deadline. You kind of... Okay. You know what I'm saying? You have a new...

You may have a new roster spot or you got a trade. Maybe it wouldn't start hit until September, and he would end up with good numbers at the end of the year. Yeah. Tell me he's cooled off a little bit. I mean, I love Breggman, but he might have. I mean, I feel like I'm not watching highlights him every other day on ESPN. Yeah, I haven't heard his name much.

So, he's cooled off a little bit. He's only hitting 303 with a 950 OPS. How do you do in the last 3D? Can you tell us? Let me get his game logs for you. Geez. I mean, I'll have to.

No, I will. I think it's informative. I think you're the information provider of the show. He went one for his last 10. Okay. Because you know what? He's human. With a double.

And no, one walk. So he's human. He was for three days. Yeah. For one weekend set against the Braves. He's going to cool off. I mean, I hope to a point where, I mean, because think about this, even though he has had a

spectacular start to his red soccer career, it hasn't translated into a dominant performance. I mean, they're not in first place in that division. Yeah, it's not like his fault, though. It's a team game, Maddie. What's their record now? They are, I don't know. I mean, they've been kind of hanging a little,

a few games above 500, right? They're 23 and 25. They're in second place. That division was supposed to be all-world. Well, do you see the Orioles, fire and Brandon Hyde over the weekend? Yeah.

Go to two straight playoff appearance and granted they were also two big playoff quick excellence. They went 100 games last year? They're good. Well, they also didn't sign a couple of guys in the off-season.

Signed on time there went somewhere else. Yeah, they let Corbyn Burns go. Their pitching was not very good. It has not been very good. It's funny. That's a franchise that you would think with all of the history that team has had, especially in the 60s and 70s.

They don't spend like big market team. It's Baltimore, though How would you describe Baltimore? I mean, I've been a few times Major? I don't think it's small. You take D.C. Baltimore area. It's obviously big enough to...

Yeah, but D.C.'s got its own team. Yeah. But Baltimore's kind of like a regional team. It's got those in Atlantic States, Virginia, Maryland, parts of North Carolina. You're going to sneak into Braves territory? I don't know. It feels like to me they should be a team that could spend big money.

They've had their own TV network. They were one of the original. teams that had their own TV network. Granted's had a hard time getting picked up by networks and whatnot. So I don't know. They just don't spend. And that's good. Teams the Astros are competing with

frankly are always going to be the ones that are spenders. The Yankees spend? Who else really? The Angels. Red Sox. Red Sox spend. The Angels spend that never getting any benefit out of it. Seattle doesn't spend. Now, the Rangers do spend a little bit. They spent a lot.

They bought a ring. the entire central division spends. No. Think about five. I mean, the White Sox are in a big market, but they are the stepchild of the Chicago Cubs. They're in second place in their own town.

Yeah. So it's, you know what? I'm okay with teams that don't reinvest. And that's why it's one of those things that I think that Jim Crane and his group get a lot of hassle about is the Astros, even though they

do watch their dollars, even though they don't want to get into the luxury threshold and the taxes on that. Every time I look at a payroll of teams in majorling baseball, I see the Astros in top 10. And it's been that way, just about every year that Jim Cranes own the team as they were like, say, 2016 and beyond. When some of those guys were getting arbitration years and signing long-term contracts. Now in 2013, 2014, when you first bought the team, that's, that was a rebuild. There was no reason to do that. Think about it. If you have been a fan of the Baltimore or deep, deep Ross fan base, generational fan base. I mean, think about it, Brooks Robinson and Cal Ripkin and Jim Palmer.

I mean, it's a, you know, a just Earl Weaver. Mike Quaya. That's an enterprise that you would think would want to spend money, that have a fan base, that have guaranteed huge crowds. And yet they don't. They're 15th in payroll. That feels about where they should be. Yeah.

Astros 9th, according to SpotTrack. So, I think as long as the Astros stay in the top 10 and they have been that way, it feels like forever and ever and ever, I think the criticism of Jim not wanting to spend money is validated. It just hurts this year more. Not validated. The criticism, yeah, not validated. It just hurts this year a little bit more because you not only saw one great player traded, but you saw another player depart. A lot of teams that have two players of that heart of the order, middle of the lineup guys like Bregman. and Tucker leaving, it stings much more.

And that's why there was so much energy towards Paredes coming in and doing what he's done, which is in a very nice type at third base. That's why the Christian Walker trade, relatively speaking, you were blessed by that because you were going to get some pop at first base you didn't have before. And signing. And then you were thinking that Cam Smith was going to be the phenom.

And it hasn't worked out yet. Cam Smith's showing some signs of life. You had a good weekend. I'm not, I'm, you know, Thomas Sports Enterprises doesn't dig into baseball, but I'm bullish on Cam Smith. You should be. His defense, he didn't embarrass himself.

No, he's been great. And he had four hits over the weekend. Yeah. And three games. And again, if he and his sense, we're going to fight this out, they'll get the most A-Bs, let's go. But as Joe Spotted told us last week,

he'd like for one of those two guys to kind of take that spot over. And at this point, that just hasn't happened yet. All right, every Monday at 1130, I give Jonathan and Ross four sports takes. Ross and Jonathan, I believe only one of them this week. I'm giving you three lies. It's up to you to decide which one I'm telling the truth on.

We'll have that for you next. 1128 on Sports Talk 790. 1132 on Sports Talk 790. We're the news and noon coming up at about to 25 minutes. Every Monday on this radio program, we come up with a little game we called to tell the truth. And this is what we do here. I have four sports takes here. Now, granted, some are a little off, and they're not ones I believe.

One of these four, I believe. Gentlemen, that means what? Just one. Just one. It means three of them I don't believe. Okay. It is up to you to decide which one of the four I believe. I can't wait.

Here we go. I have in my mind what I envision for the NBA finals. The Oklahoma City Thunder, will represent the Western Conference. Okay. The Eastern Conference will be represented by the Indiana Pacers. Okay. Number two.

Ross, unfortunately, does this to me about once or twice per year with sports takes. He convinces me. Uh-oh, this is a lie. I have changed my mind. And I hate doing this. I hate giving you credit. The NFL should not guarantee. Divided a vision winner of playoff home game. Okay.

I hate that. Number three, it's cheap and it's gimmicky. The NFL should abandon the tush push. It's just, it's, when they created the game of football, they didn't think of a dumbass push rule to allow quarterbacks get some help. Okay. Okay. So I don't think the NFL needs to be cheap and gimmicky.

Leave that for arena football. Canadian football league in for the UFL. Okay. Get rid of the tush push. And number four, Bill Belichick's off the field life and troubles aren't going away?

I have a feeling. I have a take that I don't think he's going to be coaching North Carolina before the start of the season. I think there's going to be a very convenient way for him to say, my health, or I decided this is too much work. I don't think

Bill Belichick will coach a game at North Carolina. those are my four takes. Which one of the four do I believe? One, Thunder and Pacers in the finals. The NFL should not guarantee a division winner in a playoff home game.

The NFL should abandon the push push because it's cheap and gimmicky or Bill Belichick will not coach a game at North Carolina. Which one am I telling the truth? All right, you only believe one of these. Only one. Only one. Only believe one. Okay.

Only believe one. Thunder. Pacers finals. All right. throwing out the last one I think Jonathan throughout the last one yeah I think Bill Belichick would be the start of the season is a couple months away

and then yeah the first one too maybe I don't know like that's a little to the Knicks are the favorites it is vanilla to just do this just to put an NFL take trying to throw us off with the Pacers I don't know if he actually lose that this is a good list because he's

this is interesting oh really you weren't going to say it's a high garbage I will take that as a compliment from you Some weeks it's really hot garbage and then you believe something that's not going to be anywhere remotely close to true. Now, Ross, I don't know Matt too much. Like, I'm getting to know him. Start to get to know me then. Does he like the creative parts of the sports?

Like, did he like innovative things? Like about the disper. No, he, no. He's normally likes, he's normally old fogy. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Oh, foggy. That was rude.

You hear how rude people. You know what that was rude. No wonder I don't like you. He's normally, no, we don't need automatic balls and strikes. No, these young players can't make. money in college football football I have my answer then I think I think he believes that

this bush is to be gone should be banned because it's new I could believe that I also don't want to believe Matt is going to come to my side on something even though I do normally over the years wear him down sometimes on everything with my senses of logic I just bow down to you because I'm just tired arguing

with you by the way Stevie Wonder concerts did suck continue on whatever oh my go that's that's our biggest argument of all time and I'm right on that and it is matter. So anyways, I think it's two or three. I'm going to stick with, you know what? I'm going to go rogue. I'm going number one. Jonathan, what do you got? I'm sticking with three. I'm sticking with this wish. All right. I think North Carolina has some serious regrets about Bill Belichick, but it would be a horrendous stain on North Carolina's hiring policies. And it would be the

staying on Bill Belichick not to even coach one game. I may amend my thought of how long he's going to be there. It could be a one and done, but he'll be the coach. Plus, again, it's so late in the season. You talk about just jointing a football program by not having a coach who all of a sudden just quit right now. So, no, I think he'll be coaching in North Carolina. Is there a regret? Absolutely.

But no, he'll be there. I've not changed my mind. I do believe there should be some value in a divisional winner. game. Yeah, you get in the playoffs. I believe there should be the regular value, not the amended value, as you would like to do. So a 7 and 9 Seahawks

team should get a home game against like a 13 win. However many wins the Saints team had that year. Okay, and that happens once every 10 years. I can live with it. It's ridiculous. Okay? Now I can argue your point very easily. See, I told you, he likes to dig in. If it's once every, I'm not changing things

for once every 10 years. I'm just not. That was like, yeah, it was a long time ago. Long time ago. So it's down to one in three. You know what? I'm not the biggest fan of the tush push, but it's, it is what it is. It works.

It's legal. You can't change it. Nobody threw a flag. And more importantly, guys, Jonathan, it's going to be very hard to determine whether it's, what are the referee going to say, illegal tush push? I mean, I think it would be way too hard to monitor and have arguments about, whether it was a real tush push or not. So I do believe the Indiana Pacers are going to beat the New York Knicks to win the Eastern Conference.

It'll be Oklahoma City versus Indiana in the NBA Finals. And as much as Ross, you and I will love that because it'll be two very explosive, awesome, great offensive teams. It could go down as one of the lowest rated NBA finals in history because you're talking about two teams that don't have much national cachet. Yeah, I think it's good for the long-term health. Don't disagree with you on that. Look, even if it's a smaller stage because there's not, get these guys, the Shay Gildes Alexander, the Jalen Bruns. I mean, the Nicks or the Pacers, yeah, if it's the Pacers, whoever it's going to be.

It's going to be a good matchup, although I think the Thunder are going to be favorites. Minnesota, Oklahoma City doesn't have, like you said, national cachet, but Aunt Edward, Shea, Alexander, let's let these guys get on this big stage and grow the audience that way. To me, I'm actually more excited about what could happen in the West than maybe even in the NBA finals. And there's also a part of me, so the answer is number one. I think it'll be the Thunder and the Pacers and the NBA finals. Congratulations. Thank you.

Thank you. Jonathan, you got one win so far. You're all right. I swerved at the last second. And you made a lot of sense with the Tishper, so I'm not even upsalty with this one. Thank you very much. I find myself annoyed by the celebrity Nick fans that haven't been seen in like 25 years. First of all, Stephen A. Smith, screaming on ESPN about his next fandom is annoying as hell.

Yeah, but he's been consistent with that. He has been. but he's interviewing Ben Affleck. When did I want to get Ben Affleck's NBA opinion about anything? He's not a Boston fan? No, he is straight up in New York. What? Oh, yeah.

I thought it was a Boston Red Sox. No, well, he may be a Boston Red Sox. And Matt Damon. Time out. Time out. Wrong person. Ben Stiller. Excuse me.

Oh, okay. I correct myself. Ben Stiller is the New York fan. Okay. Yeah, no, Ben Stiller's been doing next games for years and years. But do I need his expert analysis on this? No, probably not. And I'm tired. I don't want to see Spike Lee.

I don't want to see any celebrities. I don't care about the celebrity appeal. I just don't. Matt, well, a lot of people do. I know. I'm in the minority. People love celebrities. There's networks and magazines and websites dedicated celebrities.

And I choose not to partake in those. We're everyday sports fans. We don't really care what Ben Stiller has to say on it. It's like I don't care about celebrities' opinions. And I don't care about news anchors that wear the gear and pom-poms and go, I can tell you, I don't really care about Stephen A. Smith's opinion either. I know. But at least, as you said, he's been.

consisted. Yes. And that is to tell the truth for this week. Nicely done. It's the Thunder's championship to win. And I'll be very curious. Or to lose. That's the proper phrase on that. Both. No, both. It's there's the win and it's

they're the significant favorite. Yes. And it will be a major shock if they were to lose. Yeah. Part of me wants to see how this works out because could you imagine the small... Oklahoma City is the smallest city in the NBA, right? It's smaller than San Antonio, I think.

I think so. Now, I'm talking about television market. I like city population, but I think from TV-wise, they've got to be the smallest. How does the NBA handle that trying to market a team that is the smallest in the NBA? And they have been on TV a lot this year. I'm curious how much Oklahoma City's fandom has grown just in the last four months. Because, again, the Thunderbush. Yeah. The Thunder been on national TV a bunch.

Are they getting any, any national cachet at all? You would hope so, but it also takes personalities. I mean, it was happening when they had Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. Yeah. I mean, those guys were on commercials and very extremely marketable. And to a lesser extent, James Hardin when he was there. Mm-hmm. It can't happen.

You just have to continue to win and be likable. And have personality. But Durant and James were distinctive. had charm. Would that be, is that the right term? I think the way that he plays hard and he's loud and boisterous.

I say Hardinstein, Jalen Williams, Casin Wallace, Lou Dort, Chad Holmgren, Rossi, they're all fine players. But give me something memorable they've done. You know what they need to do?

They need to go on. Lou Dort memorably got blocked by James Hardin in Game 7 of the playoffs. They need to go on on a TV show. Chad Holmgren, they're in commercials. Chet and Shay were in the the AT&T commercials that were all over March Madness. See, I don't remember that at all.

You don't remember that? No. What a guy needs. What a guy wants. It was on every other commercial break in March. Maybe I'm losing my memory. Well, that's very apparent. They need to go on. Ross is my name, by the way. Okay, Paul.

713-21. I'm not wrong. That's true. 2-1-2-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. Real, very quick. WNBA take we come back. What? I know. You said you'd never bring it up. So I won't.

I'll let you do it. No, you lied. I'll let you do it coming back. 1144 on Sports Talk 7. All right, I can't do it, so Ross, you do it. You're right. I got to maintain some sort of credibility. You're still a fraud. I mean, I get that too. What am I bringing up? Exactly. The only reason why they... Just whisper it.

They ever get headlines. Angel Reese? Yep. So what happened? I know there was a flagrant foul that Caitlin Clark committed on to Angel Reese. Is everybody okay? They got beef still? I believe they all woke up this morning, had a good nutritional breakfast and went to practice.

Okay, great. They're doing fine. And apparently the WNBA is investigating allegations of hateful fan comments directed at Angel Reese. Okay. The WNBA saying in a statement, we should. strongly condemn racism, hate, and discrimination in all terms. Well, it certainly hope so. And in no place in our league or in our society. Imagine the WMBA says blank happens. We are aware of the allegations and are looking into the matter.

Oh, man, see, if I even bring up the, you know what, you have to throw a question at me. Okay. So I can, so it doesn't come across as Matt's coming up. Hey, Matt, what do you think about this Angel Reese Clayton Clark thing? I don't know a question I'm posing. That's good. That's good. Okay. If this is the only thing that gets headlines for, the league needs has still a lot of work ahead of them well yeah they're not established

and they're they've been kind of I mean for 20 plus years now floundering higher isn't it 30 yeah who was the first year

2000 or 99 or before that it's got to be 95 96 somewhere in that range yeah it's founded in 96 first season was 97 so you're talking about 338

8 years of it. And the only thing that gets any attention is when it's two most recognizable stars have beef. Or one commits a foul on the other, the other one gets up and wants to fight. Well, the NBA was floundering in the 70s, and then Larry Bird and Magic Johnson had a big rivalry. That rivalry saved the NBA. This rivalry is just annoying. It's annoying me.

What's annoying about it? Because it's on my television. Okay. And granted, we're in a very slow time in sports and this is the reason we'll bring it up i mean i'm i'm i'm being a couple minutes here okay honest matt i mean i'm you know what they call me they call me honest matt and honestly when i have to go to watch my shows or anything i'm watching and this is i mean this is what we get it's if you and again i look i peruse espn you do as well all of us do is sports fans and our broadcasters we'd like to see what's going on the world of sports and when your for you tab is

interdated with it and when your sport, your ESPN.com is inundated with it. It's not about, hey, this great game between A versus B, it's these two are fighting again. They don't like each other. My guess they don't even respect each other. My guess it's nasty no matter when they play, where they play, what time of the day they play.

If they play in front of the pulpit, it's still fight. There's no resolution to it. At least when you had magic versus Bird, they eventually came to to appreciate each other. Maybe that's what they have to do. But if this beef is the only way you get headlines, then your league is still in a lot of trouble.

Now, I don't watch the NBA, but my understanding is that Caitlin Clark is way better than Angel Reese. That is accurate. And I don't even really know that, except for the numbers that I've seen on the website. I mean, I've never watched a full WMBA game. Now, now remember, I did call the

Comets games many years ago. And it was fun. It was new. It was something different. But every time I want to gravitate towards it, this is what I have to hear about. And I just think that if you're the WNBA, not granted, you can't, you can't artificially come up with storylines, but it's the only way they're getting attention is by these two women that want to throw hands. Not literally, but you figuratively. It'd be nice as they did.

And how do you? And let me ask you this. And maybe there's no answer to this. But how do you solve that? If the only way you grab headlines on non-women sports sites and non-WMBA fan sites is by, oh, Clayton Clark, Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese are mad at each other again. What does that say? It says that we're not really paying attention to the quality of basketball.

And I think that's what the women probably, my guess, don't you think that 95% of the WMBA is pissed off of this is how they get headlines again? Well, a lot of them are pissed off about Kate and Cleveland. Clark and all the shine that she's getting, but I mean, they need to embrace it. She's a big star and she's the biggest star in the league already. And this is only her second year. And attendance has been way up. I was just kind of browsing at the first couple of seasons of the league.

This is, of course, before big expansion. Yeah, they were averaging about 10,000 a game throughout the league. Then those numbers went way down to like $6,000. Yeah, the question is, how do the teams, do that don't involve Caitlin Clark games? I don't know. Probably not great. But the league as a whole went from 6,600

before Caitlin Clark came to 9,800. And see, I think you could, how many teams are only going to about 14 or 15 somewhere in that range? Could you skew that because you are now taking every Caitlin Clark game instead of putting them in like Hinkle Fieldhouse, you're putting him in the main arena in Indianapolis? Yeah, I'm sure it helps. But so what?

The tickets are sold. whether Caitlin Clark is in the league, no matter how you want to slice it, every team's attendance went up, average attendance. Yeah, I don't know. One year from the other. It just feels like this was their opening weekend. It was? Yeah.

I mean, I know this. I don't know why I know this, because you know what I was, I didn't do squat this weekend. You're locked on WNBA, Matt. Maybe so. Maybe I'm watching it more than I ever thought I would. That's what we appreciate about you. And what did I see instead? I see them getting mad at each other again.

And then you get the racism claims coming. I mean, God. can we just play sports you need a little controversy you gotta mix it up Matt you need rivalries and stars well at this point they've got two I'm sure there's others but that's all I can't

Asia Wilson's a star Matt I guess you don't wait a mean you should say if you're gonna call her name it's she a star I think she's won MVP's and stuff and stuff what a sick man there she's retired I think she's been retired you can't go to Lisa Leslie don't drop a Rebecca Lobo on us Cynthia Cooper

Kelsey Plum is a star I don't know if she plays well She's a star There was one girl Recently drafted by TCU That was in the swimsuit model of A model in the SI Uh huh

And how you feel about that Oh is that the Yeah I know you're talking about But I don't remember The blonde from TCU Yeah I don't remember her name No either I'm sure she's fine

Great player Cameron Brink Mm-mm She said it I would know it No Cameron Was that that's a real tall one Cameron Brick Yeah she did

I think that's the one I saw her ACI think Yeah. Look at you. Are you a B-N-V-A-B guy? See? Look at you. I was college sports from there at college for.

That's the last, don't, you know, college women's basketball, I guess. Speaking of that, my son has... Yeah, Cameron Brink was in the S-I. She's super tall. Did you hear Matt gas? He does gas? I should turn my microphone off. That was terrible.

You okay over there? I want you, I want you coughing up a lung. All right. The news is... She's six foot four. Cameron Brink. What does she play college? No clue.

You see this picture of her next to Kevin Hart? Oh my God, look at that. I think she's got heels on there too, but... Yeah, I believe the word everyone uses with her was up east, like pick her up, she'll pick you up and swing you around. Who says that? The people on the internet. When do you pay attention to those people?

What do you mean? I'm just telling you what the streets are saying, Matt. So that's the Starlands we should be talking about the Debbie NBA. Not two girls that want to fight each other every other day. What? Hot six foot four women in the SI swimsuit edition? Just saying. That will, we give it four minutes, and I'm proud of us.

But I think the league has got to figure out a plan B. They can't be about these two young ladies fighting every time they play. Because look, the NBA had that for a while. Remember all the bad boys, they eventually had to get rid of that. They had to get rid of that. It hurt the NBA to have every time a Detroit Pissons game on was on a 1990 and somebody was throwing hands. I think you should bring it back.

I think you should do it like hockey fights. Explain. What do you mean? You want to square up, let's square up. First guy that goes down, you're up for five minutes. You want squaring up in professional basketball games? I don't know. It would ruin the game.

In what way? Blood, teeth, concussions. Everybody talks about how tough hockey guys are. Oh, it is tough. he's got his teeth are on the ground and he's still playing. Why can't we do it with NBA players?

Because I think NBA players would be afraid to do it. And by the way, take the hockey players out of the uniform, how many everyone want to throw hands at that point? Not many.

What? They put it on the uniform and all of a sudden they're ready? They got the pads on. Yeah, they'll be... Plus you're on the skis.

All right, you put gloves on. We'll get gloves at the, at the scores table. This is a regrettable segment. We'll put boxing gloves at the scores table.

I want to apologize for this last two minutes. He's already got a mouth guard in. he doesn't need one. I would watch. Okay, we got two hours left to go. What? We're not putting boxing gloves at scorers table at NBA games.

I would watch. No, you would because you're a sicko. All right, time for the news at noon. 1205 Sports Talk 790. We have got game number one of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals tonight. I don't think it'll be much of a conversation point, but nevertheless week.

You know what? It doesn't start until Wednesday. They don't start until Wednesday? Damn, they got a long-ass break. You know the Thunder

who played yesterday start their series before the Eastern teams do? That's rude. Gosh, all part of today's news at noon. And we will go with

the Bill Baezza of Houston Sports Journalism. The legendary. Ross Villariel. Bill Baessa, Matt, thank you for

making that comparison. Here, the news is a dude. Old Sports Talk 790, of course, headlined while your use at Astros. Scratching back and Klawn, no hit for seven innings. Jainer Diaz broke the no-hitter from Jack Leiter in the seventh. And then Isak Paredes really broke it up and for them after that.

Oh, this is, this is, this is the computer system. This is not anybody's fault, but mine, I guess. Here we go. 1-1. And that is line, deep down the left field line, going back on Atlanta. On the warning track, he leaps and it's gone! It's gone! A three-run homer for Isok Paredes! And the Astros take the lead! It's 4 to 3, Houston! Seventh home run of the year for Issoc Paredes, his first on the road, and boy, did he make it counts! He cracked him. He looked angry after that last take.

And man, did he take it out on that pitch? And once again, the Astros score with two outs. Thankfully, fortunately, Matt, the Astro is able to come away with two wins over the extended weekend in the four games Silver Boot Series. Most importantly, they improved a 24 and 22. Remain in the race tied with the Rangers, two and a half back of the Mariners in the American League West.

Mariners finishing off a big weekend in San Diego, knock out the ponderies. By the way, the Angels sweep up. in the Dodgers in Chavez Ravine over the weekend. How about that? Dodgers have been disappointed. I think they've had a lot of injuries. Do you think it was Let's Go Angels in the city?

Or was it, oh my God, what the hell of the Dodgers doing? I like the Angels are still here. This is unbelievable. I don't even count Orange County as part of L.A. right? Yeah, I don't think so. The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Astros continue on the road for three games against the Tampa Bay Rays before settling in for a 10-game homestand,

tied for the second longest homestand of the season. But also on everyone's mind when it comes to the use in Astros, what is going on with Yordon Alvarez? There was hope he would be activated over the weekend. Dana Brown on the Astros

Radio Network yesterday, what is it going to take? Oh, how did I fall for this again? This is my fault. The stupid ass broken, here we go. Yeah, I think the big thing is it's the bottom hand,

you know, it's the hand that's closest to the knob. It's the hand that takes on most of the pressure. I think the best thing to do is to let it totally heal. You don't want them to come back too soon and then lose them for three more weeks or a month, you know, six weeks from the day or three weeks from the day. You don't want that.

So let's let it really heal so we get him for the rest of the year. And he's feeling a lot better. You know, I think the ibuprofen is working. And so, you know, that's helping out a lot. So let's let this thing heal. And, you know, no shaking hands. So you don't re-injury that thing. Yeah, it's fist bumps.

You know, let it heal. Fis bumps. Fis bumps only, no shaking hands. Bro hugs are more than acceptable for Yorda. And look, I understand I want Yordaum back in the lineup as bad as anybody, but let this bad boy heal. No re-injuries. It is what it is?

How much ibuprofen should you take? Is there a much? Can you take too much ibuprofen every day? Yeah, you probably can. Maybe he's taking those big 600 milligram ones. Horse-sized pills. Yeah, that's the ones they give you for, you know, the doctor when you've been hurting, Matt. You got a bad hand, it hurts.

Got to heal it up. Get that ibuprofen going. Yeah, like it helps with inflammation. It feels like a drug. Potential Astros corporate sponsor on this bad boy. Yeah. Maybe they could go with that. Continue on.

I don't know. All right, Matt, elsewhere in the news at noon, Scotty Sheffler winning the PGA championship, Matt, your breakdown of his last 18 on Sunday. Ah, you got within a one stroke, a bunch of them folks. did and then he pulled away and won and congratulations. He hoist the trophy, won a lot of cash, and golf goes back to do it. Who cares

mode for about the next month or so. Where did he go to school? Well, he probably didn't finish. Most of the people that go to Texas don't finish. It happens to the best of us. I mean, I know one in particular. Don't want to out people. It's okay.

Okay, fine, man. Elsewhere in the news, since you wanted to bring up softball, I heard you were talking about how you couldn't wait to talk about softball. Oh, Lordy. Apparently, Liberty has beaten the number one overall seed, Texas A&M to reach softball super regionals. They're the first number one national seed to be eliminated in regionals since seating began in 2005. So congratulations to the Texas A&M Aggies program of athletics, making more history. So the spring sports, A&M gets bouncing in tournament, coach leaves it go to Maryland.

Baseball team is preseason number one, probably not going to make the NCAA tournament. A&M was the number one overall seat in the softball and they get bounced in the regional. And that's shame. My son graduated though. That's about the... You know what? That's a plus right there.

That's the best. That's a huge plus, Matthew. Thank you very much. He doesn't care much about the softball, does he? Oh, he was not happy. He went out in the backyard and yelled a bunch. No. Oh, yeah.

You know him. For the softball squad? Oh, yeah. Especially when they're number one? It's like a one-scene in the tournament losing. You know one-seeds don't take it well. Yeah. That's a shame.

I don't know. Longhorn's fully been a one-see like twice, so I don't really know about that much. All right, Matthew, keeping along the NBA draft, getting nearer and near. Of course, Cooper flagged out of as the number one overall pick. ESPN's Jonathan Givoni has been updating his mock draft still in his latest one.

Those are be good for you on the play-by-play, Matt. He's still got the rockets taking Kasparis Jacichionis. Oh, excuse me? Out of Illinois, the point guard. Say his name again? Kasparis Jachianus. Or might be a soft J.

Could be a yakka. What about... Do you think he cuts his name down like short? I'll have to go look at some YouTube highlights and see what the put I play guys in Illinois say. You're going, Casper? Don't go with friendly ghost mentions. Too easy. Low-hanging fruit.

Okay. True shooting percentage of 60% as a freshman at Illinois. He and Reed Sheper can battle it out. Six, four, and three quarters, so almost six, five with no shoes. Okay. She roll five. All right.

So he's not lean. He's physically fit. And he is a potential draft pick. Gut feeling Ross. Oh, we can't do it because we're going to do it tomorrow. Okay. Well, I'll give you one. We can write it down.

That's fine. All right it down. Rockets keep number 10. No matter what happens, do they keep 10 or do they move it? No matter what happens. No matter what happens, no matter what players they may go after. That feeling gets gone and that ties into my gut feeling that they will go for a complimentary slash rotational piece rather than big game hunting. By the way, Janice didn't ask me anything on Twitter yesterday.

We'll go through some of that. Okay. So I think it's kind of interesting to see what the Greek freak does when he goes on a rando Saturday and people ask him questions. All right. And do we read any in the context clues that he may be giving out? And that's your news at noon. It is. 1214, sports talk 790.

Yes, Yana spoke through Twitter. We'll give you some of his responses. Plus, the Astros split that series in Arlington. We'll get to all that. If you want to join us, you may do so at 713-212-5-790. That's 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Hi, Ross. I told you yesterday I didn't do much.

And I get into a rabbit hole that I shouldn't get into, but it's just because it just helps me kill time. So I went to Facebook and I got this direct message from this bot named Ullalia Thorn. She has seven friends, two of what you're common of mine. Okay. Don't you know when someone asks you to be a friend and you've never met them and they don't live here and they don't? You can also reject a friend request. No, I accept them all.

Well, that's not smart. Why not? What's dumb about it? Because they're bots. You don't need to. to have friend bots. So what? I don't care.

So this, this bot says, I get my numbers up. Influencer initiative. Hello, nice to meet you. I respond to her, go to hell, bitch.

Okay. That's aggressive. She responds later. It's such a pleasure to meet you. But I've been living in L.A. for almost eight years. Where are you from? I respond,

D's Nuts, Delaware. Okay. Go ahead. How stupid I am. I really have at the end of the day. That's fine. Good morning. Great to hear from you.

Hope you had a great night. Do you have any plans for today? And then she spends about an hour later. What are you doing now? I respond, doing the line of cocaine. She goes, that's very interesting to hear from you. By the way, where do you live? I'm not telling her where I live.

I thought you told her from Delaware. That's Delaware. Yeah. That's how I live my Sundays. So you know what I should do? I should go out and take a walk, maybe pick up art. Do something.

I spent an hour. Yesterday I spent binge watching you. I watched the Astros and I responded to a bot on Messenger. I have no life. And for that, I apologize. It shows you that I'm human. I'm glad you had a relaxing Sunday, Matt. All right.

While I was looking at my timeline yesterday, and we'll get to Gary once talking about A&M Lady Athletics. Is it anything else Monday? Clearly. I guess it is. So Yonis went on a Ask Me Any I don't know if he did it intentionally or just in the case of he was just responding to people. Somebody asked him what its favorite meal of all time is.

Euros with chicken. Wow. I like more euros with lamb, but each his own. Yeah. Okay. Favorite smoothie flavor? Caribbean Passion. That just sounds made up. Favorite video game of all time?

FIFA and God of War back when I used to play. Ooh. How about that? FIFA's great. I never played God of War, but people love it. the greatest NBA player of all time. Oh, he copped out, didn't he? MJ or Braun for now.

I like when he went with that. What about for now? Who's he trying to say? I think he's trying to himself. Your favorite movie of all time? He says, coming to America reminds him of his childhood. Oh, okay.

It's funny, funny. I wonder if he went to McDonald's for lunch. Best football player of all time, Rinaldo, Messi, Zadain, and Theory? Terry. Terry Henri. Yeah, what do you think? messy of that list

Zadon's great but I'm still going to go Rinaldo Zin Zadon that Henri Henri's great though Continuing But it's messy Messy's number one Thoughts on Steph Curry Him and Dame are the greatest shooters of all time

Hmm I don't go he and Kevin Durant I would take Steph for sure I'm not putting Dame second All right Favorite type of cheese Want to guess that one?

Guerrier Feda Okay Oh yeah Greek. That's easy. Who are the athletes that you admire growing up? AI, KD, and Magic. Huh. That's an interesting

mixed bag. Best late night snack, Yana says, fruits and yogurt. You sounded very Greek here. Now we're starting to get a little more interesting. All right. Favorite city to play in on the road. Houston. Nope. Oh. Atlanta.

Nope. Sacramento. Keep going. What is it? New York. Favorite all-time TV show, Game of Thrones. Let's see. The last two seasons weren't great, but they weren't as bad as people say. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Okay, favorite MLB team, the Brewers.

Oh, naturally. Yeah. Greatest point guard of all time, Magic Steph or Isaiah Thomas. See, he's not making a pick in any of these. No John Stockton in that mix. No Chris Paul. Favorite wrestler of all time, Eddie Guerrero. That's a deep, that's a deep cut on the,

that one. He's dead, right? Yes. You like fruity pebbles. He says he likes fruit loops more and cinnamon toast crunch. Ooh, cinnamon toast crunch. The goat. Okay. And a couple more. All time starting five. Steph, MJ, Kobe, KD, and LeBron. Okay. That's a pretty good lineup. LeBron at center. KD. at Power Forward? Couple more before we go on to wrap this up. Of all the cities you've ever been to, Which city makes you the happiest to be there? Not counting your hometown.

Florida cities. Okay. He likes the warmth. Yeah, he grew up Mediterranean. Yep. And there was one more I wanted to run through. Okay. You and four other current NBA players have to fight a silverback gorilla.

Life or death situation in the middle of the jungle with no weapons. Nicola Yokic. Zach Eadie, which I think you can push Zach Eadie around. Evita Zubats himself Stephen Adams Hmm And that's part of the

Ask Me Anything from the tweets of one Janice Adentagumpo No reference to anything Houston related He brings up New York He brings up the Florida cities And by the way He is scheduled this week to speak with the Milwaukee Bucks

I think we'll know By the end of this week, Rossi where Janus would prefer to play. And there was an early theme. I don't know. It was somebody that was not a credited member of the media. It was some sort of celebrity that said that he thinks he's going to go to an Eastern Conference sitting. Because frankly, the path to a championship is significantly easier in the east than it would be in the West.

Especially with Jason Tatum having a ripped Achilles right now. And Jalen Brown's also her too. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And then you've got, look, if Indiana's doing it, You can be Indiana next year, wherever you may go. And hell, if the Knicks win the East, imagine adding Yonnas to the Knicks or the, I mean, the Nets could be coming in play. You got to go where the draft capital is highest.

And that's why the Rockets and the Spurs remain two of the teams on the top of the list, because, again, they've got plenty of draft capital to give Milwaukee. Because Milwaukee needs a bill through the draft. They need some salary reduction. And that takes care of both those situations if you make a move with, say, the Rockets of the Spurs. purrs. So just a little something that I wanted to bring up in terms

of anecdotal about what Yannis did on a rando Sunday morning. Well, he probably won't be doing anything in Houston. Is there any part of you that thinks he's going to stay with Milwaukee? The quote-unquote running back. No. I don't think so either. Dames, yeah. They're in cap hell.

I think Dane being hurt probably sealed the deal. Honestly, you could spin it as his best way to help the Milwaukee franchise is to get trade it away and let them have a bunch of assets and restock and rebuild. Yeah, it's fair. Let's go to Gary and Pearland at 1228. Gary, good afternoon.

Thank you for waiting. Good afternoon and thank you. I look forward to 10 o'clock all five days of the week, during the week. I really enjoy your show. Thank you very much. Thank you. Continue. I know you got an egg in your family now.

I do. Uh-oh. Whoa. Uh-oh. I got out and said, So I'm old. I understand. So,

then I got one that starts this year, just graduated from N. N.A.5 school, and one sophomore and one just graduated, and she's going back to Nish to be a teacher. Congratulations. Thank you. The Aggie sports,

I hate to rub salt in the womb, but he left out tennis. Oh, that's right. They lost a national championship this weekend in Waco. I forgot about that. Sorry. Your yard, that's a wayco. Yeah, that's a tough deal.

But anyway, you know, said that first number one to be eliminated that was in the regional what about LSU LSU women's softball was number one I believe and they got beat by

South Eastern Louisiana but there was only one number one team overall in the tournament it was one overall seed yeah yeah yeah that's what they're referring to yes I understand that I got it takes Aggies a little longer sometimes I understand

look I I I've got one in the family. I get you all like on a tape delay. Oh, I understand. Well, thank you, Gary, for the phone call. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. I always love an Aggie calls the show to pounce on the wounds of another Aggie.

My son's probably asleep and not listening, but that's okay. I'll send him a transcript. He's asleep? Oh, yeah. Since he's, yeah, he has been, he goes to bed at three or four o'clock in the morning. He pulls a Ross clock. I can respect that. I bet you can.

I like when they should. show started at 2 p.m. And you still were late occasionally. Only once. It was pretty profound, though. No, it wasn't. It looks good. You must be hungry. I am hungry. We have a birthday in the office

today, which means free lunch. If you're high enough on the payroll. And on the debt job. Yeah, we're low on the pecking order. We'll get the leavings. I got a, uh, the scraps. I got a birthday cake and lunch on my 40th birthday. That's cool. I got squad for 50. That's all right.

Would you get for 40? What's in mind's nothing. That's terrible. That's fine. Let me go. Let's go get you. Budgets tight. All right.

Very tight. 1230 on Sports Talk 790. 713-212-5-790. If you want to jump into the conversation. All right. Which linebacker do you expect the Texas to have the most success this year, Sports RV? Who's your call? You know what?

We don't care at this point. Aziz, I'll show you. Let's get the training camp that we can break that down like a mud. Are you not a Henry Toot-O guy? He's high effort. Probably going to take a step back. Let's move on, something else. All right, 713-212-5-790.

It is not a robust sports day. So it means if you want to get in about your local nine, we'll get to more of them in the eight minute. But I do want to talk about something that I brought up earlier today. Do you know, Ross, that there is going to be a new movie that begins production today in Buffalo, New York? Explain. It's called Holiday Towers. A Bill's love story.

Holiday touchdown, a Bill's love story. Yes. It'll be ready in time for this Christmas. Remember last year they did a movie about the Kansas City Chiefs and involved. Andy Ree was in it. I think the Kelsey boys were in it. The Kelsey Mom was in it. No, I had no idea.

Okay, well, I'm just telling you now. But there is a new production that begins today. The people that will be involved in it will feature. There will be cameos from Shaw McDermott. Demar Hamlin. Really? Jim Kelly. Steve Tasker, Thurman Thomas, Scott Norwood, Andre Reid.

Steve Tasker. And the voice of the bills, Chris Brown will also see some action. Hmm, makes me think. A basketball, a three-pointer, a Rockets' Christmas love story. Oh, where you're in it. I mean, I would do it. How's your acting skills? It's amazing.

I have to act every day for four hours with you. Point being is this. I don't know if there's a plot for this yet. So get your thinking caps on for a second. And if you would like to help us out with this, you are more than welcome to tell us what you think a touchdown, a holiday touchdown of Bill's love store could be about. Okay.

So let's, I'll start. Okay. One unattractive man. Why is it got to be unattractive? Stay with me. It's my movie, not yours. Mustache. 30 to 40 pounds overweight.

Okay. probably in between jobs he's been fired or end or laid off six times in the last three years all right but he keeps his buffalo bill season tickets for some reason he gets on top of a ladder and he wants to be a part of bills mafia so it's a big snowy day in buffalo temperatures are about 23 degrees there's ice there's snow and he slips on the ladder and he lands on the table full of food

there's a botchy girl going and he's set on fire the neighboring car runs over this woman now he's at a tailgate he's at a tailgate okay this woman comes over she's of course

wearing a barrel sweater yes she's got facial hair too it's kind of a it's unkept this movie sucks and she saves him she saves his life she saves his life

and they romance the love between the two of them. And they wind up getting married outside on a table. Thus, the name of the movie is Holiday Touchdown, a Bill's love story of an out-of-work guy, massively overweight, bad breath, kind of annoying. Well, how do they demonstrate his bad breath? Over the screen? Maybe she goes to...

They put a little CGI green. Maybe smoke coming out, green fog coming out of. She goes to kiss him and she's like, you know, why don't you get some gum? Yeah. You got some dead teeth in there? That is how I build the plot for holiday touchdown at Bill's love story. How do you see your story? Well, you already stole the breaking table thing.

That was like the easiest low-hanging fruit. I'm sorry. Yeah, Matt, they're meeting at tailgate. First of all, they're both attracted because this is TV. I don't know why you have a woman with facial hair on there. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I mean, it's not preferred. I don't think there's a lot of women bump around and listen to show the one

facial hair. What if you like the bearded lady? That's up to you. I'm not saying like full beard. I'm just saying like a little patch. Okay. Well, nobody has facial hair in my scenario. Okay. But yes, there's a woman eating a trash plate at a tailgate. Okay. Okay. And the young man, he lights himself on fire and he jumps and breaks a table and half. You're stealing my story. I know. I had this story. I came over this story two hours ago. No, that's not true. You said he caught on fire I said he lit himself on fire That's completely different I got you okay

What are you talking about All right continue on And then yeah Mid the ruckus He gets she gets some gravy on her face And he walks over And real slyly And he wipes it off of her face

And then uh licks it Off of his finger They wink at each other And they start getting after In the porta potty They have relations Yeah

They don't have relations in a Hallmark movie. I'm sorry. Oh, they don't? No. Okay, well, it's insinuated. If this porta potty's a rocking, you mean? If this Porta John's a rocking, don't come a knocking.

I have another scenario for you. Okay. Bills are playing a home playoff game in the playoffs. Okay. And they're playing the Los Angeles Chargers. Okay. And Justin Herbert throws three touchdown passes in the first half. Hmm.

This is a real. really a scenario of this fantasy. This guy will call him Bob is screaming you effing suck Bills.

I thought you said they don't curse in Hallmark movies. Well, this is effing. Okay. He says like that. The woman comes over

to him with her child and says, what are you doing yelling and swearing at a Buffalo Bills game? Okay. He then calls her

a name and says, get your brighted kid out of here. Wow. Meanwhile, a guy two rows back sees this, breaks up their altercation. Come to find out that guy and that woman went to high school together. Oh, it's a reconciliation. Then come to find out the very last moment that that kid is his. And she never told him.

They hooked up in high school and never told them. Wait, is this from a real movie? This sounds like straight-hot-hard. Wait a minute. No, no, no, no. This is no. Stay with me. This is my plot, not yours.

Your plot sucks. They wind up all getting together. It's a great love story. They get married at the 50-yard line. Marv Levy is there to give away the bride. He did. The ghost of Mar-V-Levy is there. The ghost of Mar-V-levy?

And thus, it yet again is a holiday touchdown. a Bill's love story. He is alive, actually. Okay, well, then he was definitely there then. Sorry, folks. He's 99. That's a good alive or dead. I would have said he would go long past.

Can you beat that story? No, Matt. Feels like you stole from a movie or TV show. That is completely 100% organic. Jonathan, do you have a story that you could see? You can see the Buffalo Bill's love story? I'm not beating the random some child was his and they'd get married

You watch a lot of soap operas. Isn't that nice that he breaks up the fight and the kid that he never knew it was his was his at a Buffalo builds game? It's kind of heartwarming. Sounds great, Matt. Looking forward to not watching that movie on the Hallmark Channel.

It'll be ready in time for December. Can't wait. All right. So, if any of you have a story, a plot for this. Oh, this is a bad idea. Let me tell you some. really bad idea. It's not that bad. Our audience is smart. They'll figure it out. Some of you. Send us a tweet if you'd like at SportsMT or call us at 713212-5-790. If you have a storyline

that you think would fit the football love story of the Buffalo Bills, let us know. 7-13-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Again, they're starting production day, Ross. They need our help. It's called Holiday Touchdown, a Bill's love story. and it features former bills past and present and the radio voice of the buffalo bills wow my friend chuck says you've completely lost it yeah well we knew that um i don't think it i don't think these are terrible i'll come up with one more when we come back no we're good are you sure are you sure i can't do one more yeah very sure are you on it okay i won't do it then i don't know one more sure one more thanks for all right thanks seven one three two one two five seven

790. 713, 2,1, 2, 5, 7.90. All right, we got an hour and 10 minutes left to go on this Monday edition of the program. Normally, Brian Bogussevick with us on Thursdays. We'll move him to tomorrow at 11 o'clock because of the fact that he'll be doing television Wednesday. So we'll have Brian Bogusovic with us tomorrow. We'll also have Joe Espada with us tomorrow. I don't know if we're getting a player or not, but that could be either us or the A team, one of the two. Okay.

And we'll have gut feelings on the show tomorrow. and hopefully something more newsy than what we've had today, which is an astro? I mean, is the Astro split just, I mean, maybe, are we caught up in this world of 500 baseball just doesn't necessarily get us fired up one way or the other? Are we in that stretch right now? Yeah. Because I don't remember being this quiet a year ago at this point.

Tenants was down last homestand. Remember, this team was so much worse. last year than it was right now. They're going to be fine. All right. Brian and Pearland is going to help us with this movie here. Oh, great. We're going to help this Buffalo Bill's love story along here.

Brian, good morning to you. Or good afternoon. Hey, good afternoon, Matt. I got a point on the Astros after I fill in analog color to this Buffalo Bill's love story. So you forgot about how the Buffalo Bill's fan and his wife met after he got drunk and jumped into a table, creating a public and talk. He met his wife who happened to be his probation officer. Oh, the probation officer.

I forgot about that part. That's a good one. You know, after he smashes us through the table and gets, you know, arrested for public intoxication, she's there to be his probation officer. So basically, it's a holiday touchdown a Buffalo Bills prison love story. Not necessarily prison. You know, it gets released on his own recovery. Oh, county jail.

I get it. get it. I got you. Yeah, yay. I spent a night in the drunk tank. They found love in a hopeless place. You know what we're going to do, Brian. When the Texans play the Cowboys, we're going to do this with the Cowboys. Because I don't think Buffalo, we can't make fun of Buffalo Bills. We don't have a relation with them because we don't have anything with them. Poor guys.

We do. We hate them for the bills in the 90s. We do. That's true. We don't know. We still hate it for 1993. That still hurts. That's fair. All right. What's your Astros point? Yeah, what I find is disturbing, but, you know, actually, I think the Astros are in a better spot compared to last year, considering they're doing, they're in a better spot record-wise, more of a subpar offense. I think they've been living dangerously, but I think they've gotten more clutch hits this year with runners in scoring position than they did most of last year. I know last year that number was anemically bad, and I don't like the slow start to know, what, nine runs in the first inning all year, but considering you have,

have, what, two left-handed bats in this entire lineup, and that's only if you're putting Karatini in to either pinch-fit or, you know, DH or catch for a day, it could be a lot worse, and to be two or three games over 500 and actually be,

what, second place in the division, actually isn't bad, but I think this proves the point that they have to go out and do something to get a left-handed bat, get rid of Chaz McCormick, he's not going to get you a left-handed bat, but he's not playing, get rid of let him go somewhere else where he can play

and be more full-time, whether it's the White Sox or Pittsburgh or wherever, just let him go about his way. But the fact that Yordon isn't taking questions is rather concerning, and to me it's starting to harken back a lot more to the Kyle Tucker situation. And the fact that we have heard nothing about Luis Garcia

in the last two or three weeks is also concerning that we haven't heard that he's starting to ramp up a little bit or throw bullpins or side sessions or anything like that. He played toss on flat ground like three weeks ago. I think this could be bigger than the Lance McCuller's delay

and it makes me think something else is wrong that they're not telling you. But that's all I guy, guys. Thank you, Brian. Don't don't discount the probation. Probation officer. Yeah, yeah, that's not a bad call. Not a bad call at all.

To Luis Garcia, and I think what we've, here's the problem. This is what Major League Baseball has done that's wrong. there are too many people think that you can get back. I always say 12 to 16 months, Ross, on these Tommy Johns. How many guys come back in 12? I think it's an unfair calendar search.

And when it's 16, that usually means it's deep into the season of that other second year. And by the time you're thinking about that, like, bringing him back August 15th doesn't do you any good. I'm not expecting anything from Louis Garcia this year. I am expecting zero from Christian Javier. I'm expecting zero from J.P. France. I'm expecting zero from Luis Garcia. I would just say when you have those types of serious, serious injuries, like Hayden Wisniewski is going to have Tommy John here this week.

Realistically? I mean, is he going to be ready to go by June of next year? Probably not. We can go ahead and wipe out this year and in our minds. In our minds. But then we've heard that Luis Garcia was ahead of schedule. and he got shut down. Lansmacolars Jr. got shut down multiple times when he was battling back.

I think my philosophy on significant Tommy John S-type injuries is, I'll see you in two years. That's what I mean. And that may not be fair because obviously you want guys back, but there has never been a thought in my mind that had me thinking Luis Garcia was going to pitch anytime soon. So when you get him back, if you do get him back at any point this year, it's encouraging but the silence is

pretty profound and I wish you know and I would say hey man I'm close that's fine Matt maybe he's not close what do you want him to come out and say I'm six weeks away so he would

so you're saying if he said that that would spread widespread panic throughout the organization I don't know I don't know I just I think the player can say hey I'm I'm as anxious as you all are again

you could ask these questions it's Like you got, you got, what are one of them, Bernstein chasing you down on this? You got largely friendly people that want to just give you an update for its listeners and viewers, whatever. Except, I mean, unfortunately, it puts Joe a spot on the corner. Or Dana, it's close. You know, give him a lot of ibuprofen. Yeah, that's what Dana said. Ibuprofen's got him feeling good.

Hopefully he'll be back soon. I wonder how many milligrams you take him, though. $600? I think it's the right amount. Okay. All right. There you go. Dr. Villarreal helping the cause here. I'm here for you folks. 1257 on the Matt Tabby show with Ross. We've got an hour left to go. I mean, the time is just flown by, Ross. Has it not? Oh, my goodness. Wait. We've done three hours of the show.

Yes. We got one hour left. There's only one hour left. Yes. You're right. Breezed. You know what we're going to do? Breezed by, like the Irishman. We're going to get, let's do our 10 o'clock open here at one o'clock, get people fired up. Okay. Because you know what Mama said? There'll be days like this? They also said don't call it a what? Come back. Mama told me not to come? No.

I'm mixing my songs up. Oh. I'm sorry. Don't call it a comeback. That's what we didn't call. Mama said knock you out. And don't call it a comeback. We knocked out the Rangers week as of course on the backup left fielder.

713-212-5 at 7-9. Cannot knock you out. What the Astros did. Took four innings of baseball, this 36 of the 30s. 36 that were played. That's not ideal, but we got two wins out of it. It would have been nice to get three or four. Yeah, that's fine.

Score two runs on Thursday. It would have been cool. All right, let's celebrate. I'll take a series split in Arlington. Are you kidding me? I'd rather have a series win. Yeah, but so would they? Yeah.

It's supposed to be better. It's like kissing your sister. No, no, no, they're exact same record. I think the Rangers have played two less games. They Astros have played two more, but they're exactly the same team. Yeah, but they're supposed to be better. Why? The Astros.

Why? Fract, the Rangers are supposed to be better. You're supposed to win your home games. Who did you pick to win this division? The Astros. Okay. Well, then they're supposed to be better than them. Astros have owned global life field.

It is true. It's like they're home away from home. Yes. But I'll take a series split. It's fine. Keep them a couple of games above 500. And the Astros will go to warm Tampa where they're already sweating bullets. Hot.

90 degrees at first pitch. Ooh, Lordy. good luck that's why Tampa needs to just get rid of baseball it's a good sports town just not a good baseball town is it a good sports town Buckingiers do well

the lightning they love the lightning yeah they really well because they win well I mean I think they do very well I mean those some bells cities don't do real well in hockey Tampa's the exception now granted they've also won a lot but mm-hmm they do better in Atlanta who's lost two different teams

and Phoenix has lost they want a third they do want a third in fact Gary Bettman last week said probably Atlanta's going to get a spot before Houston does. Why? Why would they get a third shot before Houston gets one? Must be because the investment is... Which I don't care. Somebody's ponying up the money. That's fine. Yeah. All right. So the Astros get two out of four, three games with the Tampa Bay

Ray's. And then the Seattle Mariners will be in for four games. That's when you start going. All right, you want to go tackle first place America League West? Guess what you get to do? You go head to head against a team that's right in front of you. You can't slip up. By the way, we didn't talk about this before. We'll talk about this with Joe Spotted tomorrow. Did you see him get tossed? Yes.

It didn't take long. He put his hands out wide and obviously discussed on some horrific. Ross, the umpiring is so bad again. How bad is it? It's almost like I can come to your side and I'm kind of feeling like I'm going to know that way. Let's go. What if you had the technology to get every single call right? Imagine a world.

For the nine millionth time, you say this every time and you're right. So give me the answer to your own question. Why don't they do it? Are they protecting the human element? The answer is 100% yes. Yes. They just signed a new deal with the umpires union. You would have to negotiate with them.

and some of the players like it the old way, but that's just because baseball of more than any of the other sports is more traditionalist. More of this is how we always done it. This is the way we're always going to do it. And thus, it's never going to change. Rossi, we couldn't even get players

and you'd be universally agreeing on this. And there were, I mean, the umpiring on Saturday was atrocious. Yesterday was bad. Yeah. The call that got a spot to ejector was atrocious. It was way off. And it wasn't because, you know what it was, Ross? It wasn't because the pitch, well, the pitch was low,

but these catchers are full in the umpires. That's another counter argument. People like that catchers framing has value. It's like, okay, so your value is tricking an umpire. That's like saying the players in the NBA, they have great value because they sell foul calls. It's something we want out of the game. Can I ask you a really stupid question? question. Yes. Now back, way, way, way back in the day before any of us were born and our parents

were born. Didn't the unplanned umpillar next to the pitcher? Was he next to the pitcher? Maybe. I don't know. But let me, in theory, again, here comes the stupid question of the day and I apologize for this. Okay. Put the plate umpire next to the pitcher's mound. Uh, well, you need somebody at home plate. Okay. Well, then he... Boles of the catcher, dust off the plate. call out and save at home. Okay, but he can race to that. He can run to that position. He can waddle. Have you seen these umpires?

No, no, no. They're actually physically fit. Some of them are. Joe West disagrees. If you see the view, the umpires see the view that we see as baseball fans, they would know the pitch framing is grabbing the ball almost at the shoe legs and pulling it up with the zone.

You wouldn't be able to hide that. Yeah, umpires work behind the bat. I'm sorry, or behind the pitcher. They didn't always have a set position. That was in the 1880s. Yeah, so just the other day. Because if you looked at the center field view, which is what will you get?

You know who's circumventing the system. It's the crafty catchers that are doing it. Yes. Okay, so let's go over to things you were worried about. Handing the, given the catch of the foul ball. No, you just get a foul ball. this in your bag and you handed the pitcher. That's true, I guess.

That's solved on that. What else you got? What are there hindrances we got? I got a dust plate off when it gets dirty. You can run down there and do that. Again, these are things that will never happen. Got a call out and safe over there. Okay, the only time you'd really miss a call or potentially miss a call is if a player is trying to steal home.

Yeah. Which happens, what, once a... Or sometimes, what if a player's getting a stop sign? Jeremy Payne is getting a stop sign. You don't think you've got to go over there and then you run through it. And you've got to run home too. Oh, I think What about a fifth official? I think you run home as soon as the pitch is thrown.

Or what if you have technology that can get every single call right? And you could just use that. Whoa! Crazy! My mind is blown! There is a disconnect from your logical argument to the umpires union for sure. Yeah, the umpun. These are all these umpires.

And a percentage of players. I don't know what percentage that is, but it's not 100% of... We complain about it. But they're really good. They're a lot better than they were even 10 or 15 years ago. And that's one of the reasons they want to keep it is keep this as a skill, because that's a skill on which they are judged and they are the best on the planet. But I got something for you.

When your deal's over with the union, if you're getting all balls and strikes, can't you get a bunch of jokers from college or whatever and they can do just as good as a job? how much better when we when we take out calling balls and strikes how much better are these umpires than the best college umpires who are not in the union well forget about the college how about the minor league guys yeah or minors i mean most of the heavy lifting is done behind the plate because even on the base pass you have challenges and you have crew reviews you don't even need guys who have good temperaments and who are going to have good relationships with players and coach because, I mean, 90% of the arguments that start are because of balls and strikes.

Mm-hmm. And there is no leash for conversation with balls and strikes. Going back before the insert replay. Guys humming him and haunt, but it ain't much. And you can get a little, hey, what's going on from the dugout and then gets, let's it get, they let it slide. And then the umpire takes his mask off and then it becomes a little. Yeah. Yeah.

Keep it down. Take all that out of the game. I don't know. There must be somebody in the big league offices that can say, well, all right, you're a little foolproof plans, got some errors with it. And here's what it is. Let me know. Because I'm all ears. I'm open to logic and arguments. But Joe Espada was absolutely right. He did not have any time. You know, I ain't nobody got time for something. He had no time for a ball at the shoelaces, got pulled up, and got called a strike.

Mm-hmm. You know, if I was in the union, you know, the first thing I would do? I'd tell Major League Baseball to get rid of the box in the graphics. That is causing as much animosity of anything else because now fans are running up there going, do you miss that? I wouldn't allow all this technology to show the ball where it landed. I mean, look at all the TV replays you see at games. And I'll get another thing.

We call, we are talking about a ball, spinning 3,000 times per minute, thrown 95 miles an hour or whatever. And when it's an inch off or a core or a half inch off, we're like, these guys are idiots. Look at these blind umpire. This is very hard. It's very difficult to call these pitches with all this movement and spin and velocity. And then it's barely off and we call them idiots.

It's a tough job. Because if you and I behind the dish, Ross, we would be doing the exact same thing. I'd be getting maybe 75% right, not 95%. When I was in high school, I was an umpire for a little league baseball. It's tough. It's not easy. I'm not saying no one's saying it is. No one's calling these people idiots or incompetent or un.

But today's pitch framers are fooling umpires at a higher clip than ever before. It's a very hard job. Guess what? Let me make it easier on you. We'll just let the technology take care of it. And you'll still have a job. But isn't that part of the problems in business together? Is you're taking away?

Is technology is helping everybody's business, but guess what? It's eliminating jobs, and people don't like that either. That's so you're not going to eliminate their job. They're still going to have their jobs. They're not going away. You'll still have a home plate. But maybe they don't,

maybe they think they are going to lose the job. Well, they won't. They'll say, eventually they'll lose a base umpire over this. No, I don't think they should or would. There's no reason to. Like I said, the umpire at home plate has jobs. It has things to do.

And you're taking away the hardest job. And guess what? what, you're also helping the integrity of the game because there are people out there who are missing their parlays on calls and strikes and saying these games are being rigged. Of course, they're idiots and crackpots. But we have the technology.

But if we ask Joe about it tomorrow, which we will, and we're running later, we're going to ask him, he's going to say these guys have a hard, tough job to do. They do. And that's been the common defense of 99% of anybody's ever been asked about home plan on firing. Is they him and haul and get mad,

and then they go, well, you know, look, it's uneasy. And I respect them. That's a hard job, but they still need to do it right. But we've had this argument for a long time. And there is no, no, not even a real, we can't even get, we've had instant replay at the modeling level for quite some time. And it's still not any of them. I think it's coming either next year. And I think in the next two years, they'll have the challenge system.

I will take the challenge system because it begins. It's one step closer to what we need. And that is better accuracy. 713212-570. 7-1-3-212-5-790. 123. Sports Talk 790. It is Matt and Ross with you until 2 o'clock. We believe it or not coming up in about 35 minutes from now. It is going to be Googlerable and it concerns umpiring. Right? What are we going with?

Yes. All right. I want to make sure. Okay. And what else we got going on? What else do we got going on, Matt? Got Astros tonight. Yes. We have no basketball tonight.

Got some hockey. won't be watching. Yeah, I lived to Minneapolis for three years, and I was just talking my kids about it yesterday. We had really fun going to the games, but, man, TV does not do any service. I've been trying to go to Las Vegas Golden Knights game with you, but you won't go.

Expenses, right? Very rude. I thought you were going to pick up tickets. No, no, I wanted you to be able to say, Matt, you fly, we buy, or I buy. I don't. Well, maybe if the blackjack table goes well. It's true.

Are they still in the playoffs? I don't even, I couldn't even, I have no idea. I think the Dallas Stars are still in it. Sure, why not? I'll take your word for it. They eliminated the Winnipeg Jets. Are they still in the playoffs? That will be today's, believe it or not.

Don't do that. I don't think they do that. Let's go to a Jay and Sugarline at 124. Jay, thanks for holding. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Matt, Ross, and the producer, guys. I was just morn my lawn and they came in, and here's the discussion about the umpire thing again.

why don't we, why don't the umpire wear a pair of Google glasses with a special app that shows the strike zone? That's a genius idea. The same thing can be seen by the audience. So what the audience is seeing is what the umpire is seeing. No, I mean, there's no controversy there, right? So, well, they say it's too much technology. then let's go to Home Depot or Los. Let's get one of those protective glasses

and let's draw a square, a temporary or permanent square right there on that. Well, I don't think drawing on the glass is going to work, Jay. Probably because different guys have different, you know, Jose Altoouet and Aaron Judge have a different strike zone. There you go. That's right. I'll just tell the Empire. Just squat a little bit if it's on Tuvee, okay?

Yeah, but then it's going to go down. Then it's going to go down to his face. It's going to go from his knees to his face. It'll be a little different. Okay. Let's go for the Google Glass. Yeah, that Google Glass. Let's stick with that one.

I like that. That's less of a crazy idea, Jay. Thank you. Did some of that grass hit your nose or something? Thank you for the phone call. Are you smoking grass or cutting grass? You're smoking or cutting it. That's good.

It's a good line. You beat me to it. 126 on Sports Talk 790. Yeah, I like that idea. Give them a little Google Glass. They can watch it, and then they'll know the strikes on. Boom. almost instantaneous.

I like that a lot. Like body cam for the cops? But let me ask you this. Less beating so. Did we spend? We'll just conveniently turn off. Okay. You have been a fan of baseball.

I'm not a diehard, but a fan of baseball since what? You're 10 years old. Would that be fair to say? So between the ages of 10 and 25, when you weren't in the industry, didn't watch six games a week like you do now. Okay.

Did you complain about umpiring when you were 16 years old? We complain about umpiring, yes. in every sport refereeing, umpiring. I think as we get older, we get more grumpier towards game officials. Do you think so? I don't think so. I mean, I think it's universally...

I mean, I'll give you an example. This weekend, Manchester City and the F.A. Cup, they got screwed. They should have got on a red card to Dean Henderson, the goalkeeper. He touched the ball in a goal scarring opportunity. They video reviewed it and didn't call it right. Yeah, you can play it. about fissiating everywhere.

Well, I'm not saying that people don't complain on fishing. I'm saying that as this generation of, say, 25-year-old's north done more bitching about it than baseball, 25-year-old did it in 1977. I think baseball, yeah, baseball has gotten worse because we have this technology, like you mentioned, with the boxes up there, now we can go to MLB. The second it happens, boom, we go to the MLB app. And look, people in the stands here, you know, sometimes we'll be in playoff games. It'll be a little press build-out that'll be near-fing.

fans and people will look at us. When they see a bad call, we will be checking on our laptops to see if that call was right or not. And then, yeah, we're like, oh, that was a right call. We're giving people in the stands, thumbs up or thumbs down if the call was correct.

It's like that what is that video thing they always show? I mean, TV shows, every game I've ever seen always shows the, well, let's go back at our, whatever it's called replay, and they show the ball landing. It usually has a sponsor on it. But yeah, the K-Zone or whatever. That's the one thing we don't.

Didn't see when you were watching the game of the week in 1982. No, but what you did, remember what you would do is they would have the, they would have the above the plate angle and they would show that to see if it was outside. You could at least see if it was outside or inside. Low and high, it was harder, but yeah. So more technology has created more anger. I think it's been for baseball. I think refereeing and basketball, we've always complained about Joey Crawford.

11-year-olds complained about, yeah. By the way, the conference officials have been announced for the, the NBA Eastern Western Conference playoffs. All your favorites are going to be there. Okay. They don't ever really shift things, change things up, give somebody new. It's usually the guys that's most experience.

Scott Foster's back. He's healthy as, whatever. Yeah, Scott Foster is back. Bill Kennedy's there, but he doesn't get to talk on the mic. It's not normally a crew chief. It makes me sad. He's a good guy. Okay.

I'll take your word for it. And who else? Can you name one other official besides... Zach Zarbah. Oh, Zach's on the list, too. See? There we go. Pressed.

Can you name five baseball umpires? Pat Hoburg's gone. Yeah, he's definitely gone. Ron Culpa. That's good. CB Bucknor. Yep. Angel Hernandez is gone.

I'm sure if I... Rob Drake. The Drake? Sure, why not? Yeah. And Dan Castellanetta. No hit. That's the voice on the Simpsons.

How did you know that? There's no way. M.T.1. Ross 0-229 on Sports Talks. No, actually, you're down like 3 to 1. Shout out to the Indiana Pacers, Tyrese Halliburton. He happened to see someone in New York wearing a Pacer's jersey and Nick fans were chasing him, Ross, and throwing trash at him. He found out who that person was.

He found out this guy's a lifelong Pacers fan. Wow. He's a police officer. And he's going to see the Pacers and the Knicks play in Indianapolis. Indianapolis. Good for him. Nix fans get a little wild. By the way, there's a lot of hate on Tyrese Halliburton. It was named listed as the most overrated player in the NBA, and all he did was win game winning shots and playoff series.

And then screaming A today, he was just ripping on him a little bit. All right, he needs to, no, you got to start throwing hands if they're hitting you with trash cans like this. This is ridiculous. Yeah. These people are conducting themselves like animals. almost up to them, really. It's New York. What do you expect?

Because you're wearing a Pacer's jersey? Grow up. This is horrible. Although you're kind of looking for a confrontation if you're going out there in a Tyrese Halliburton jersey. This was Nick's because this was while they're playing. No wait, when was this? Well, it had to be something during the regular season, I think.

Oh, okay, it was from the regular season. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you wouldn't wear a Pacer's jersey to do it. But Knicks versus Celtics game. Yeah, that's what I'm wondering. Was this after the Celtics game? Maybe he was boastful. Like, hey, you thought you had it easy with Boston?

Guess what? We're going to take you down. I have worn, now when I travel around the NBA, I wear rockets gear to my games that I call. I very thankfully, can I knock on whatever this is made of? Nine years of doing on the road stuff. And Ross, I've never had anybody come up to me with any sort of you trash or your team sucks or that kind of stuff.

Yeah, this is assault. What the heck? See how many people are chasing after him? It's like an entire gang of people. Yeah. I need to know how this started. If he went out and he was a Pacer's fan and he went out among the crowd and looking to start something, that's one thing.

Don't you think that Tyrese would have probably vetted that out a little bit though? I don't know. Brian Winhorse got ambushed by a bunch of Nick fans too. They were throwing trash at him. That's ridiculous. Why are New Yorkers throwing so much trash? I mean, at some point, it's sports. They are throwing a ball into the hoop on a wooden floor.

And you're throwing trash at people about it. I grow up. Come on, man. Well, it's because the Knicks have not been to this late in the playoffs in a long time. And then you've got all the celebrities out there. And then you've got the national talk show host. They're all of a sudden these re-juvenated Knicks fans. You know what's going to cost you that?

I think I saw this yesterday. He's a firefighter. This says. Oh, fire not a police officer. Firefighter. That's right. I knew it was something of service. Cheapest ticket to go see game one between the Knicks and the Pacers?

$570 to get you into game one of the Western finals tomorrow night in Oklahoma City, $170. You know what? If you get you in the building for 170, that's not terrible. I feel like it could be a lot worse. Now, granted, that's probably the top role of the arena in their OKC, but yeah, it's still a good venue. I mean, just to be in the building, get you a t-shirt out of the mix? Yeah, you're deducting the free t-shirt from your calculations? Yeah.

At least they all wear it in Oklahoma City. They don't wear it in every city. Why, you're rolling your eyes, Ross. At least they're all there in their seats, wearing their jersey and creating a great home environment. What if you can't wear the jersey because the size is? is not appropriate for you. Well, that's one thing. It's good for most of it.

90% of people, 95. What's the default size? Extra large? I think that's what they go with you. Yeah. I think it's a good one. Mm-hmm. Because you can still buy the T, you can get the T-shirt produced.

We used to do T-shirts around here. You give the double X level, and it would cost you significantly more than the X. Oh, more material. Yeah. The X-L, you can get it at a reasonable rate. That's good. Plus, the girls wear X-L. They wear a sleep shirt.

It's kind of sexy in some respects. What do you think? A little extra large sleep shirt. Yeah, but that's not happening in the arena. They're not going to sleep, Matt. We're talking about a basketball game. Yeah, but if you're bringing home to your girl, she wears that at night. It's good.

She's a sports fan. She's wearing something like that. It's good. Win, win, win. Everybody. Win, win. 713, 21, 2, 1, 5, 790. 713, 212.

I'm just trying to build a conversation here, Ross. Great job. Why don't you get her a triple X? No. You don't want to, you don't want your girl wearing a triple X. You just said you wanted to wear an X, L. Jonathan, would you want to let your girl wear a triple X shirt? Would that be sexy for you going to bed with her at night?

Triple X? Yeah. Make it a, one X, maybe. See, he's back at my point. There's no point. You're not making a point. Now, if you really want to get romantic, you just wear an extra small, then it's really good. But don't want to make sex or small shirts.

Too tight. It's true. when I made my Chris City shirts and my WhatsApp and the Good Morning Shipper shirts. Large was more popular I thought it was going to be. Okay.

All right, we can move on to something else. I don't want to go to T-shirt sizes here. Help me out, Ross. You're watching something. Focus on me. I'm not watching anything. Okay.

Just reading up on the news. Anything juicy in the last three hours and 40 minutes? No. We didn't talk about Hayden Wiseneski getting Tommy John much. Okay. The worst kept secret of baseball. Yeah, that was kind of a little, I think actually, you know, reported that was Todd Callis during a game broadcast, like a week ago.

And then I ran Astros today, is this true? We'll get back to you. I don't blame them for trying to get second and third opinion. It's not like delaying a week on the news information. It's all of a sudden going to make him feel any better. Terrible. So the trade so far is this. Was Neske, T.J., probably done for, William,

we know for the rest of this year for sure and what's going to happen for all of next year. Paredes has been a win. Yes. Cam Smith. I'm still going to say to be determined. Okay. But I feel like the upside is good.

Anybody else is part of that trade? Kyle Tucker. Well, I'm talking about it from the Astor side of things. Kyle Tucker, he's cooled off. He's hitting 264 with an 897 OPS. the worst numbers than last year. The OPS is still strong. In today's world, I feel like there's very few players, at least on the Astros,

I can see hitting the OPS of 800 above. Oh, 897 would be far and away. The Astros leader, but that's a different discussion. But, you know, in all honesty, though, and I know this is going to sound crazy. Yeah, you sound crazy. If he goes and plays somewhere else, it will be a massive win for the Astros.

Because it will once again to show you that, just because you got sent to the Chicago Cubs doesn't necessarily mean that all of a sudden Kyle Tucker became this warm and affable, I want to be a Chicago Cup for life. He was going to be, I was going to go to the highest bidder. And if the Los Angeles Dodgers get into a bidding war with the Chicago Cubs, the Los Angeles Dodgers will win that billing war.

That's fine. Yeah, no, it doesn't matter where he signs now. The Astros already won. Now, it hurts with Wesnesey, but with Paredes and what you get, K. Mists' whole career, that's giving you more than one year of Kyle Tucker. And that's why Dana had to do it. Whole career as far as pre-arbitration, or pre-free agency, I should say.

So why do we have this philosophy of it was painful for Tucker to say goodbye, but we're letting him go? And why haven't we thought more about that with Framber Valdez? Because Framber's not going to be here next year. It's about the same chances of Kyle signing a long-term deal. I think you had to still keep that balance. if you're trading away from or then you're completely selling the team, which is what I thought they were going to do. And that would be hard to bring back.

It'd be hard to sell we want to win when you're three of your five most recognizable players are no longer with the team. So yeah, I understand the balance on that. But at least in Tucker's case, you got a really good haul. Frankly, you probably got a better haul than you should have gotten because of the fact that Kyle Tucker will be a free agent at the end of this year. 144 on Sports Talk 790. Let's get ready to play

Believe it or not, which is what? All things, highly Googledable about your shit. That's it. Just say holly Googledable. You don't have to give hints. You always want to give hints and you give the Googlers a head. I don't care what they're playing for. We can be playing for a box of celery, dried celery. That's true.

Not right. So today, let's do this. I want you to say, Jonathan, let's do a little test here. say we're playing for a box of dried celery three years old or tickets to whatever we have tickets to give away. We'll see what people want to play for. 713-212-5-790.

7-13-212-5-7-90. Well, this is a good one today, I'm believing or not. You didn't. Very, very, very well. Thank you, man. It's highly Googledable, so you're going to have about one and a half seconds

to answer the question. Yeah, you prize whore and Googling jerks. Well, you know we got to start doing better job up and it's my fault. We need to start doing, believe it or not, earlier in the show. Oh, yeah, we were supposed to do that. We're going to start doing it once a week, next week. We're going to just pop it up when you're not expecting it. The same four people are playing every day.

Which we appreciate you. I mean, yeah, but when I always say, which favorite part of the 10-2 show they bring up all of it. or that time you're talking about the Astros. Come on, folks. We're here every single day, 10 o'clock until 2. We're trying our best. Look, I know the Astros aren't making you go crazy.

I know you're not in for the NBA playoffs. We'll get through this. Football's not too far around. You know, we can do some more schedule breakdown if you want to. I mean, I don't think anybody in the marketplace has broke the Texan schedule down. No, I'm good. Okay, that's fine.

Five minutes left to go on the show. What should we do? We should play America's fastest growing sports radio game show. We simply call it B. Believe it or not, and here's how it works. You call 713212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. Today's edition of Believe it or not is a fun one. It is, is this person a current Major League umpire or is he a hallmark movie character?

If he's a current majorling umpire, you'll say this. Believe it. If he's a hallmark character, you'll say this. Two believe it or not in a row, win your prize. What are you playing for today, Jonathan? SportsStock 790 T-shirt, like always, a pair of tickets to see the big three basketball on August 2nd at Toyota Center. And one more.

We've got a pair of tickets to see Simple Minds Live on their concert, a live and kicking tour, 2025 with special guests, soft sale and modern English on May 31st at Willis Pavilion. That's a lot of great prizes. Wow. So much for you to choose from. So come in and play. Believe it or not.

713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. Felipe on 7-90. Felipe, what was your favorite part of today's 10-2 radio show? It's like everybody else. All of it. Jeff Knight is a major league umpire. Believe it or not.

Yeah, he's a character in the Hallmark movie, Flower Shop Mysteries. Duh. Name number two for the win, Felipe. Bruce Dreckman is a major league umpire. Believe it or not. Not. He is.

Very good one, by the way, too. Sorry. Joe and Deer Park on 790, Joe. You're ready to play, believe it or not? I'm trying to. Yes, Matt. Mark Wickham is a major league umpire. Believe it or not?

Believe it? No, he's a character in Father Christmas. It's one of my favorites. I have watched way too many of them. You could play a plot trivia game with me, and I'd probably get 50% of them right. That's weird. It's embarrassing. Ken on 790, Ken, you're ready to play, believe it or not?

Believe it. Brian Knight is a Major League Baseball umpire. Believe it or not? Believe it? That's right. Believe it. Name number two for the win. Alan Porter is a current Major League Baseball umpire.

Believe it or not? Not. He is. Oh, sorry. Duh. We've got quite a few people that are watching Hallmark movies, just like me. Jimmy in the Woodlands on 790.

Jimmy, you ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Quinn Walcott is a Major League Baseball Empire. Believe it or not? Not. He is. Believe it. Man, y'all get the list ready.

Josh on 790, Josh, your favorite part of today's 10-2 radio show. So I feel terrible, man, because I've been on the golf course all morning and usually I catch you guys all the time and I always engage with you guys on X2. You're brutal honesty. Let me tell you something, Josh.

Your brutal honesty is amazing. I really want you to win. Are you ready? I want to win too, man. I want a T-shirt and I want to go to the big three. Here we go. Sean Castleberry is a major league baseball umpire. Believe it or not?

Believe it. He was a character in Stop the Wedding. How'd you like that one, Matt? I'm very impressed. I've got to be honest. Trey on 790, ready to play, believe it or not? Trey. Mick Turner is a major league baseball umpire. Believe it or not?

Believe it. No, he's a character in the movie The Wedding March. How was that movie, Matt? Four stars. Scott on 790. Scott, you're right. to play, believe it or not? Yes, sir.

Henry Ross is a major league baseball umpire. Believe it or not. Henry Ross. No. Believe, no, no. Believe it. Not. He's a character in Gourmet detective. Duh.

Statement number two for the win. Jordan Baker is a major league baseball umpire. Believe it or not. Believe it. There you go. Finally got a winner. Oh, my God. Woo! I was a little nervous here for a minute.

We got one. That's good. All right. Tomorrow, Brian Bogasemik. Joe Espada. Got feelings. Wow. News at noon. Believe it or not. Oh, my goodness. Maybe an Astro player.

You never know. What a show. I can steal one from the Adams. That's fine. They're going to do a full show today. And then they have Astros coverage. Oh, they know it's Astros. They're off early today a little bit.

They'll put a three and a half hour day, and I'm proud of them. Waxler and Clant next with the A. team on Sports Talk 790.