The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Return Question's, Mike Dantoni Show & Coaches Running For Office

Episode Date: July 15, 2020

Much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas show. 12 o'clock at H-town. What's happening at lunchtimmers? Good afternoon to you. And welcome to a Wednesday edition of the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. I'm Matt.

Joe George is with me along the way as well as Ross finishes up a vacation. He'll be back with his for the first time in forever on Monday. Brendan Riley is our producer of the radio program, and we thank you for spending some time with us here this afternoon on the show. You may join us in a variety of ways. One, just you listening means a lot to us. Secondly, if you have something you would like to get off your chest today, you may do so at 713-212-5-790. That's 7-13-212-5-790. Or you can reach out to us through Twitter at SportsMT, at Joe George Radio, at Brendan Riley underscore.

Joe George the beard has made it to Orlando. He is. He's now eating airplane food for a couple of days. But he's there. And that's all that matters, Matt Thomas. Yep. He finally made. Got to get Luke Bamute there.

Got to get Russell Westbrook there. And then you get a full roster that will take on the rest of the teams in the NBA who are apparently snitching on each other. And I love it. Oh, I love that too. It was nice to see. It was crazy how it went from, like as soon as the A team was about to end, The video comes out of him at Toyota Center at 10.55 at night on the 13th, so two nights ago. Yeah.

And then, like, all of a sudden, he was in the bubble. And I was like, by the end of the night, he was in the bubble. It was, it came out of nowhere. They're really not sharing information with us, anyone. The Nuggets went through the same thing. It was, like, Nicole Yolkich can't get there. And then all of a sudden, the Nuggets are tweeting out videos that he's out of isolation already. So we're just kind of dependent on social media right now

because they're like hiding all this from us But it's awesome that he's there now Yeah, it's just a very personal thing I think some people are more forthcoming with stuff than other things The thing I was blown away by is that Where are all his suitcases? They must be getting stuff shipped to him Because I saw PJ Tucker

I brought 91 pairs of shoes with them There's no way he packed all those There's no way Southwest only gives you two bags right before they shirt charged you Exactly So, like, I mean, and private planes aren't that big. Like, so I know PJ can't get 91. I mean, how many suitcases is that, Matt?

I don't think I've ever owned 91 pairs of shoes in my life, much less to take on one trip. So I'm thinking like that's like four pairs of, like four shoes per suitcase to make sure they're nice and spread out. Maybe it's eight. But so I'm guessing they're getting all their clothes shipped to them at some point. And that's why you walked in with that one little back. if you have 91 pairs of shoes you're bringing with you you're putting that by the way each pair of shoes are in there in their box originally they didn't get he never gets rid of the boxes can't be and then you put those boxes into suitcases so you could probably get 10 pairs of shoes in a suitcase you know what you're probably right not that I've any experience on this whatsoever but I'm just telling you this is what I would think I would do um so yeah he's got the shoes James brought I mean James Sam didn't even bring a full suitcase. It was like a carry-on.

Yeah, I'm watching the video right now. Him and his bucket hat. Well, they are, they both are, he and Russ are both fashionistas. Well, for that matter, PJs, I think are, would you say are top, like top five in terms of not necessarily something you'd wear, but stuff that's just kind of out there a little bit? Number one? I'm struggling to think of it as someone else.

Because like before, it would have been the Oklahoma City Thunder or the Rockets. And now that Russ is here, I know Chris Paul is still there wearing his sheriff outfit in Orlando snitching on people. By the way, so I did do a Twitter Google search of NBA snitches. Guess whose name came up first? Chris Paul? Chris Paul. And I'm telling you, Joe, it wasn't even close. No, it was lengthy.

He was trending yesterday at one point. And by the way, Spencer did what he cannot tell people what they can and cannot do in the bubble when you're not in the bubble. Exactly. You cannot do that. No, you're kind of irrelevant, dude. You don't really matter right now. That's like a fat person telling somebody what to eat when they're 450 pounds. Like, hey, you should have a salad.

Yeah. You should have a salad for the next like two months. Yeah, I just, again, if you want to argue about whether or not you should snitch, that's one thing. frankly to me in this particular case, I think snitching is okay because you are trying to keep a league alive inside this bubble. Yeah. And anybody that doesn't want to behave themselves when the rules are clearly stated needs to be outed. I agree. Now, generally speaking, I like to let people do their own thing and mind their own business.

But in this particular case, when you have lives on the line and a season on the brink, you cannot Well, don't tell them going out. No, you can't. You're going to put yourself, your teammates, and the rest of people in the bubble in potential harm's way. Snitching in the bubble is not only allowed, but I will say Joe George, frankly encouraged. I think that's pretty fair. And the way Shams was talking about it yesterday in his tweets is it really does sound like it's social distancing and mask wearing that is prohibiting this. And we know that there's Disney staff, there's NBA staff that aren't affiliated with teams,

and they can be calling the snitch line. And honestly, these guys are snitching on themselves. Obama's tweeting out him playing Uno with his magic teammates, and like none of them are wearing masks. So, like, they're snitching on themselves. I think Chris Paul technically was in violation playing Cornhole with Rajan Rondo. So even then, like, it's probably not CP3 because I think he broke the rules like day one. Oh, again, I don't think it was CP.

but just doing a random Twitter search of who you think it is. Chris Paul, it's Chris Paul and LeBron James. Well, when you show up to an NBA game and a sheriff outfit, it's just the easy assumption that you're now the snitch. He's also the president of the players association. That's right. And he's been very boisterous. And he's also, he's been antagonistic towards a lot of current NX teammates over the years.

Right? Yeah. So, yeah, I can see it. I'm telling you, honestly, I had nothing but a great relationship with Chris Paul. Now, we didn't have much of one, but he was always very pleasant. Yeah, I like Chris. He's great. Very much. And you actually knock back some cocktails with Chris Paul.

Yeah, back a couple years ago in Vegas, I was at a charity ping pong tournament that he was hosting and ended up drinking a couple cocktails with Mr. Paul. So I'll never have anything bad to say about Chris. In fact, I will still think about the fact that if he had healthy hands, hamstrings in game six and seven, I would give the Rockets a better than a puncher's chance to win the Western Conference that year. He's like sneaky one of my all-time favorite basketball players. But I've played 2K if I'm trading for a guy, especially like back in the New Orleans days, right.

He was like a must-acquire. Well, when I was in Utah, when I lived there for a couple of years, the Utah Jazz had the top five pick. I don't remember a number. It was I think of number four. And they was either going to go with Chris Paul or Darren Williams. Hmm. And they went Darren Williams.

Not that Darren didn't have a nice NBA career, but Chris Paul's career as a Hall of Fame career. Yeah. And a lot of the reason why they were worried about whether or not it would be Chris Paul was A, his frame, you know, slide of build. And two, he had also, when he was at Wake Forest, punched the guy in the junk. And they were worried about whether or not this guy would be a panty ass on the court.

I forgot he did that. Yeah. And Darren was, again, when Darren was, good. He was a bigger kind of point guard. So you thought maybe durability would not be nearly of a bigger question. And honestly, and unfortunately, Chris's career, part of the resume for all the great things he's been able to do is he does get hurt a lot. Well, and I mean, for years, that was like one of the main conversation. Who's the best point guard in the NBA? Is it Darren Williams or is it Chris Paul? So yeah, both of them, I mean, for a time, you could go either way,

you can flip the coin and be happy with your decision. I think still to this day, probably in that, Probably Chris, it was the better call, but it wasn't like Darren was a bust, you know, a la. Anthony Bennett. Yeah, or Sam Bowie or something like that. Mike Dan Tony is going to join this radio show at 1 o'clock this afternoon. He will join us from the bubble, and he'll be with us on a weekly basis. We'll move the days around again, depending on what their schedule is and whatnot. But we are very excited about that, and he'll join us for about 10 or 15 minutes coming up at 1 o'clock this afternoon.

So have that to get to. If you missed the James Click conversation from the Sean Salsbury show earlier this morning, we will replace some of that for you as well. Also, did you see that Tommy Tuberville won a spot for the GOP in their race in Alabama? I did. I did. So what I've decided is I have five college current ones, pro, or not pro, five college coaches. Some are mostly our college football, some are college basketball.

And the three of us are going to give the electability, like a 1 to 10 scale of whether or not we can see this person ever running and more importantly winning for office. See, I think pro coaches don't have to worry about politicking. Like if you're a manager of a baseball team, you're going to worry about these 25 athletes of yours. If you're a basketball coach, you're worried about 15. If you get football, you're worried about 60. but if you're a college coach, guess what half of your job is? Selling your program. Kissing babies, hugging dads, high-fiving people,

getting money from people to help raise proceeds for your college campus. So that's why I think college coaches, that are ones that are tried and true college coaches, are the ones that could actually run for office. So we will run through a list of that. Also, did you see that Major League Baseball umpires? There's about over 10 of them that are not going to umpire this year because they're afraid of their health situation. Joe, maybe Joe West was right.

We need Joe West umpiring baseball games in 2020. Do we? No, we don't. I just wanted to see how that sounded. Like, that's one of those things, Matt, that I'm not sure I'd ever say again. No, yeah. If I was next year, you'd slap me right. down. I totally wouldn't understand that.

Yeah. Social distancing, though. Correct. All right. So we got Mike DeAntony at 1 o'clock. We have the replay of James. Click we'll get to today. I want to run through some different college coaches that I think would have a puncher's chance of winning a political election. And then the Astros, a little misinformation got out today concerning one of their players that's not there. We'll discuss what that is coming back from this short timeout. 713-212-5-790. 713212-570 is how you reach a show at Joe George Radio at Brendan Riley underscore

and I of course am at SportsMT with a message here for oops steam cleaning 281 8220561 is the number to reach oops steam cleaning for professional better cleaned looking and smelling their very best please call oops 281 8220561 they'll clean your carpets they'll take care of your upholstries if you have not had your air ducts cleaned ever or in a long period of time, guess what? Oops will do that for you as well. Plus, if you've had any water remediation issues in the past, oops can handle that too. But most importantly, they can take care of all the things you don't want to do,

and that's making your carpets look and smell their very best. 281, 8220561. That's 281, 8220561, and online, oops, steam.com. Matt Thomas continues. Find Sports Talk 719. Your rockets, your Astros, your voice. So in the chase to be first and accurate, and I got to get to my Twitter account so I can break some news,

Jim Bowden reported earlier today, and it may ultimately be true. But at this point, it's not true. Joe Smith was placed on the suspended list by the Astros. and so Jim Bowden took that as Joe Smith doesn't want to play for the Astros this year. Well, Jim Bowden had to go back and fix that because that wasn't necessarily completely accurate at the time. And you're going to hear this from James Click. We're going to play the conversation at the bottom of the hour here at some of the replay earlier today.

Joe's still trying to figure it out. my guess is Joe George he's not going to play this year I would think if he has not made up his mind by July 15th with the season starting up in 10 days that he's probably going to take the year off but there is a difference in putting getting put on the suspended list and also then telling the Astros that he's not playing this year yeah there's a huge difference

so again my gut tells me he's not going to play but my gut also says that well not my gut I mean when Biden had to go back and fix his tweet and then Bob Nightgale retweeted it I mean what has happened to accuracy in any sort of broad in in journalism

I'm sure this happens all the time in political stuff I just don't particularly care honestly I'm kind of at this point Matt where like Shams Sharania wodge when he's back from suspension Adam Schaefter Ken Rosenthal and Evandrelic

are probably the only sports reporters I fully trust anymore. Did you mention Schaefter? You said mentioned Shepter. I didn't mention Rappar. He's like right 99% of the time. 95.

And he's also very connected with a handful of coaches too. He's not going to break a whole lot of news, but when he does is probably accurate because he's getting it right from the coach's mouths. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, sometimes it's his other stuff that, that, like, clearly has, like, a Bill O'Brien told me slant that. Oh, for sure. That I'm not sure, like, it's not, since it's not news,

it's more, like, his reporting on a story that I'm just, like, kind of shaky about the way it's being portrayed. Yeah. When it comes to an actual story of, like, Miles Garrett's five-year $125 million contract, I know he's right on that. Yeah. All, yeah, Rappaport can be used. Hey, Bill O'Brien's on line three. Okay. Hey, what's up, coach? Hey, why don't you put out this? There's a difference in that as compared to what is being put out in terms of accuracy. Yeah, so I, yeah, there's a, it's different now, man.

Like, I don't, I don't think a lot of companies make you go through the two sources thing anymore. I think that's really kind of out the window in a lot of ways. And that's where we get these inaccurate reports and people just trying to fire up. up on Twitter and let it fly, and they're not accurate, and they've got to retract statements all the time. And here's the number one thing.

If Jim Bowden's ultimately accurate, which he probably, I mean, again, I don't think he intentionally, maliciously went out there and put that there because Joe Smith is not going to move the Major League Baseball Roy are. He's a nice middle reliever with a strange, funky

delivery, and we know his wife, she's lovely, I, Ale of LaFourre. But life in Major League Baseball will go on. If we never mentioned Joe Smith's name again, we'd be curious around these parts. But I guarantee you baseball fans in Boston and Cleveland and in Detroit in L.A. are like, man, what's going on with the Astros? Where's Joe Smith during this time? He's just me.

He basically is his name. Just Joe Smith. And he's one of my favorite players. I love talking to Joe Smith. I've gotten to know him a little bit. He's really, really a super guy. But it was just so weird that, you know, You wake up this morning and you check your Twitter to see what's going on,

and he's done for the season when in reality that is not accurate. Yeah, we haven't got a full accurate portrayal of what's happening yet. Yeah. So, yeah, my guess again is that, and you're going to hear James Click talk about him a little bit, Erkitti a little bit, and Yordon Alvarez. But, you know, I was like, TV yesterday, the irresponsible hot take. Are we expecting a lot from Erkiti and Yorda on this year? I'm at the point where I'm a no on our kitty.

And even though I think the Astros are for sure going to go to the bullpen day, I pretty much have come to terms with I think they are going to, I know, Click and Dusty. I've talked about it like in their media availability when asked about it that they're still open conversations. They're talking about it every day. At this point, I don't see how they don't. I think the indication that Josh James reported to camp two days ago and on next Tuesday when they playing an exhibition game versus the Royals, he's already going to be the guy on the mound.

I know he said he's at 75 to 80 pitches. He'll be at camp for less than a week. Like, I'm not going to say that it wreaks desperation, but it reeks of if he's ready to go, he's going to be in our plans. Well, when I saw that, it made me think of two things. That no one's pushing for the four or five spots, which is kind of what you're alluding to, or that Josh James has been working out like a fiend while he has been waiting for the birth of his child. Maybe that too.

But yeah, I think they're going to be, I think they're going to go with the, um, the opener spot to start. And I think the competition of who's the fifth starter is going to kind of be developed in that way of whether Orchiti gets back at some point or even once he is back using him as the opener or in that opener game to slowly build him up. You could see, and that's where I think we're going to see Whitley come into play. He could start, but really only go three innings. but if he's feeling it, you let it ride. So I think that's where we're kind of headed right now with the Astros. So I'll give you this on a positive note, the three players from the Astros who have done beautifully during this time off

in terms of the schedule sucks, it's an abbreviated season, a lot of uncertainty. One is Verlander. Here's a guy that had to stop what he was doing and have a procedure done early spring training. he i watched some of the game yesterday looked amazing uh number one number two would be lancel McCullors Lance McCullors is super super solid as the number three pitcher for this baseball team he looks like he is uh rare to go and shows absolutely no signs of slowing down from having the tommy john and then you mention the third one forest Whitley forest willis willis Please, finally.

Please, baseball gods. It is about time. Forrest Whitley. I know the general store in Jonesboro, Arkansas has kept you busy. You know, because Forrest Whitley owns a general store. As anybody named Forrest Whitley would. But Forrest Whitley is going to throw, I think, going to get some strikes for the Houston Astros. Because, Joe, he's needed.

Yep. He's absolutely needed. I'm telling you, I'm sure Framber Valdez is the sweetest kid in America. I'm over Framber Valdez. I just can't do it. I think I am, too. I mean, he is, I've seen him pitch once or twice in these games. They're televising in the ballpark.

By the way, it's really weird not being able to hear anything. And I know why they're doing that. Because these guys are talking and they're yammering a little bit, and they're saying some swear words. And look, the Astros are nice enough to put these things on a TV, feet. They don't have time to necessarily. Take it what you can get. Yeah, I'm not bothered that I can't hear anything.

But man, he looks like he's just throwing you know, these little can of corn pitches across the plane. These guys are just hitting him hard. And then he gets into control issues. I'm over. Mr. Valdez is a sweet man and I hope I'm wrong and I will absolutely eat Framber Valdez

plate of crow if he all of a sudden becomes a main go-to guy, a lead set-up guy, or maybe your fifth starter. But, man, every time I see him, I just go, this is just going to be an hour of my life. I'm not going to get back. Yeah, I mean, now more than ever this season, it's going to be so important that when you do have a starter, that they can go five, six eight, five, six innings consistently. And, like, if he can't give you that and he's going to get lit up and you're going to the bullpen early and you're going to rely on a bullpen day, that's a problem.

Like, that's not going to work. It's just you're going to gas your guys out. and the bullpen is the biggest question, more than the fourth and fifth starter, the bullpen, especially with Joe Smith potentially not being here, and it really feels like he's not going to be. Yep. Brat peacock, we haven't seen yet.

I mean, there's been a bunch of guys. We haven't seen Osuna yet. He hasn't pitched yet. Yeah. Like now, Dusty said he throws the best long toss I've ever seen is what he said yesterday, but we haven't seen Osuna. So where is he?

Like the Astros bullpen is by far the shakiest part of this baseball team. It is the shakiest part, and for the last couple of years, it has been one of the strongest parts. Yeah, that's why it's a little scary. I mean, any one time, Dibo was killing it,

Will Harris was killing it, Osuna was doing his job, and all these things can come into play. Obviously, Will Harris can't, because now he's wearing Washington gear, But you know what I'm saying? I mean, there wasn't a guy in the bullpen. I mean, the only guy that makes me nervous is, well, besides Valdez, is Joe B.

Eugenie. I just, I think he is all about talk and not enough about action. I think he'd rather tell jokes and throw strikes. I was so excited when he first came up. Me too, because he's a funny guy. He was like telling jokes, and it was pretty good. And then he's part of the no-hitter. And then it was a disaster.

Yeah, I mean, I don't, look, he can be. last comic standing all day long. I don't care. You got to get people out. That's it. Get people out and I'm cool. You can't tell jokes that have any area above six.

Nope. That's just the rule. Not allowed. More on the Astros. James Click visited with Shaw and we'll hear that for you guys have it for you next here on Sports Talk 790. Right now a message for Shaw's jury at the corner of West Graham Montrose

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This is Sports Talk 790. Proud home of your home teams. It is 1233 on the Matt Thomas show. Mike D'Antone's going to join us in 25 minutes. Very much looking forward to that. 713-212-5-790. If you would like to join us before Coach joins us from the bubble, 713-212-5-790 with a message right now from James Click the Astros general manager joined Sean

Salisbury every Wednesday at 930 and we get to you know what Joe I made a massive mistake I forgot how we leave the conversation in on this so if you if Brandon could help me out with how we leave this bad boy off oh okay let's yeah let's get to what we were talking about earlier that's exactly right it was about Joe Smith being placed today on the injure list. Here is the, not the injured, the reserve list. This is the conversation with Sean and with the Astros. GM.

Joe was put on the restricted list yesterday, but this is pretty much just a paper move for roster management purposes. So Joe is right now trying to decide what is that for him and his family, and we support him 100% in that. And if he decides to come join us, that'll be great. If he ultimately decides that, you know, for him, it's just not something he wants to do this. reason, that's great too. Our concern is for Joe and his family, and hopefully we see him here soon, but if we don't, he still has our full support.

Have you been, have you talked to him recently, James, and about kind of emotionally where he is right now? Yeah, I have, and, you know, certainly don't want to get into those kind of conversations. You know, where he is emotionally, that's totally his business. You know, this is obviously a tough situation for all of us, not just in baseball, but in the country. and, you know, there's obviously a lot of emotions. I mean, I have a lot of emotions about the whole thing and, you know, all the stuff do we overdose in our own way. How do you fill in for him? Well, that's one of the benefits of having some of the exciting young arms that we have

and that has been developed by our player development guys over the past few years. So we're looking at a lot of these guys in these sim games that we're having in these live BP's. And I've got to say, they've been really impressive. So we're going to let the players sort it out. Some guys are going to step up, and whoever steps up and earns that spot, you know, they'll be on the roster and they'll go help us try to win a championship. Your thoughts on a bray you, at least early returns about the future for this kid? Well, the future is bright based on everything that I know about him.

You know, he's only been out there, I think, off the mountain once that I've seen. So certainly don't want to react too much one way or the other to that. But if you talk to Stromi and Josh Miller and everybody around the organization about this kid, I mean, he's got some power stuff. And, you know, if we can harness it and then if you can keep developing, I think he has a chance to be somebody really impacts the roster. Thoughts on Val, I mean, we'd heard and talked that Framber, you know, got himself into shape and married and feeling good and maturing. Your thoughts on his outing the other day and what you can learn from that moving forward.

Yeah, I talked to some of the hitters about these guys. You know, they're going to have a better impression of what the pitcher is doing and how his stuff is working. And they were very complimentary. I mean, that goes all the way back to Stromie's favorite quote that, Mike Trout said that Prammer had the best stuff you'd seen. So, you know, similar to a lot of these guys, the raw natural talent is there. We saw it on display the other day. And, you know, if these guys can continue to develop and learn, you know, really command and control of the baseball, we could really have something here.

Update on Erkiti and Yorna. Yeah, they are still away from the club with, you know, a condition that prevents them from reporting. But, you know, we're keeping in close touch. with them and making sure they have everything they need. Should we be, as every day goes on, how much more should our concern rise that we may not see either one of them? I mean, it's really tough to tell these situations. You know, I don't want to put any kind of artificial timetables on them.

You know, we are obviously doing everything we can to get them on the field, but it's really good to say with these kind of things what we're looking at in terms of when we can expect them. You know, whenever they get here, they will obviously be big pieces of our team. team. But in the meantime, it's an opportunity for some of these young guys to step up and show what they can do. There's going to be a lot of opportunity on this team, not even just on opening day, but as we go through the season for young guys to step up and we're excited to see that. All right. We discussed with you about testing last week. I know George's testing from yesterday, delayed. How are you just personally feeling about the urgency or the protocol on the testing

and getting it back in the proper time right now? It's a constant conversation with our team doctors and with Major League Baseball. And it's obvious that we've had a couple days that we've had to shut down for various reasons. But it's better to have those happen during summer camp than during the regular season. And every time something else comes up, something new comes up, it's a chance for us to figure out how we will react in the regular season. And so that's just a constant conversation with baseball and with our doctors. But the more of these situations that come up, the more that we learn, and then the better that we can react when the season's actually going on. James, from what you know now, and we're all excited about next week and the start of Major League Baseball, is there anything in your belief that says we won't start next week?

I mean, given everything that's going on in the world right now, you know, it's obviously, we're optimistic. We're clearly optimistic. We're figuring this thing out. We're learning more every day, but I'd be lying if I said that, you know, there wasn't thought in the back of all of our minds that things out of our control might come up. I mean, with this virus, it's just impossible to know. But we're going to control what we can control. We're going to focus on what we can focus on.

And based on the procedures and protocols we have in place, we have every expectation of playing next Friday. So when you guys leave for Kansas City Monday and Tuesday, McCullors on Monday, Josh James on Tuesday, what should we look for from both as far as pitches and time spent on the mound? That's a question for Stromi and for those guys and just how they prepare. You know, by this time in the spring training or summer camp schedule, you want to start to be lengthening out and getting to that point where when you take the mound in a real game, that you can go and give us the length that we're going to need in order to compete.

So that's something we're going to keep an eye on. But obviously, the last tune-up before the first start, you know, it's about length, but it's also maybe about polishing off changes to some pitches or working on, you know, a new sequence or just getting on the same page with your catchers. So there's obviously a lot that goes on there. But, you know, hopefully they're starting to get lengthened out to the point where they can give us some bulk. I guess should we be concerned about other injuries that aren't COVID-related, but are COVID-related because of the delay and because of the urgency and the restart to a training camp

that's not normal? Yeah, we're always concerned about injuries, but this is one of the benefits of having Dusty Baker on the staff. He has been through these kind of short ramp-ups before, and he can talk about, you know, what do you have to be aware of? You know, anytime you have a short ramp up, you'll have people talk about the presence of maybe soft tissue injuries, you know, hamstrings, obliques, those kind of things.

And our training staff has done an amazing job getting these guys in shape, keeping them in shape, keeping them healthy. So we're optimistic that we will be healthy during the season, but any time that you are in an unusual situation, like a short ramp up where guys may not have experienced this before, there's always going to be those concerns, but we can address those. With no minor league baseball and a deadline, how do you go about no one moves to make or is this? Obviously, it's a different year. What do you do you do without minor leaders playing when it comes to the deadline? How do you scout them and how do you make decisions with a situation like this? It's difficult. It's tricky. You have to rely on what you've seen of the players in the past. You have to rely on any and all resources that you can and whether that's, you know, talking to people around the game who might be able to let you know kind of what players have been up to. But for the most part, we're just making decisions with a lot more uncertainty than we normally have. Anytime you're trading for players and especially if you're trading for minor league players, there's a lot of different ways that that can go and these guys' careers can go. all sorts of different avenues.

This just adds another layer of complexity to it, but we'll put some processes in place and make sure that we do the best we can and make sure that the guys that we acquire if we do make some trades have the best chance to impact our team. That again was James Click. You can catch every Wednesday at 930 right here

on Sports Talk 790. Kenny Stills got arrested and then released today. We'll kind of give you update on what's going on there. And Mike Dan Tony joins us in 20 minutes. here on Sports Talk 790. 713212-5-790. 7-1-3-21-5-79. If you want to comment on anything that James Click had to say,

we are with you today until 3 o'clock with a message here for TGS Insurance. Hey, would you like to save some significant money on your home policy that I want you to get with TGS insurance right now, and I want you to text the word money, M-O-N-E-1 to 23-23-23. M-N-E-Y to 23-23-23, and get with the folks at T-G-E-E-E-E-E-1-2. and get with the folks at TGS Insurance, they will not disappoint you because they're going to offer you great rates and they're going to give you an outstanding customer service.

You text money to 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23. The last year address, you type it back in, you'll get a quote 15 seconds later. It's just that good. M-O-N-E-Y to 23-23-23, and you can start saving big on your home policy today with TGS Insurance. Text money to 23, 23, 23, 23. It's Matt, and he's... He's back.

The Matt Thomas Show on 790. Houston's home for Houston teams. 1246, Sports Talk, 790. Mike Dan Tony, to join us in 15 minutes. You know, we were talking this morning, Joe, about waking up. And you know, are you like me? Do you check Twitter with him about the first 15 minutes, see what anything happened news-wise while you were sleeping?

Definitely. It's probably the first thing I do, to be honest. I usually go to the bathroom first, but that's not here. No, you're a little bit older than I am. priorities. Okay, it's going to happen to you before you know it's a shut up. So I went and checked the news headlines of the day on Twitter and the story about Joe Smith saying he was done for the 2020 season, which at this point is not completely accurate, has been not declared. He's been on the suspended list, but he still could come back and

play for the team this year. The second headline that drew my attention was the fact that Kenny Stills was arrested outside of the Kentucky attorney. General's home last night as part of the Brianna Taylor rally they had in Louisville. He was charged with intimidating a participant in the legal process, which is a felony, criminal trespass, and disorderly conduct. So if you see that and you think to yourself, oh, no, this is not what the Texans needed. You do a little bit of digging. And I actually put on Twitter earlier in the day, I said, is this Texans worthy?

Because let's face it, if there is an organization in professional sports, especially in the NFL, that doesn't put up with anybody getting arrested or any sort of non-quireboy attitude, it's the Houston Texans, right? That's an easy one. Yeah, definitely. Well, so you do a little checking on this and come to find out he was also arrested with 86 other people. So I guess a total of what 87 people were arrested. Now, I don't know if each of the individual charges were the ones, but it doesn't sound good. I mean, when you are arrested on a felony charge,

I mean, that's not what rallies are supposed to be in protest, is for you to get a felony charge put against you. So, you know, once you do a little checking on that, you realize what the felony charge was. you don't know the circumstances. Maybe it was they had this protest and they were told to leave and they didn't leave and then it just kind of got ugly there. Again, we weren't privy to that and had not heard a whole lot of information. But it's come to find out in the last couple of hours that he has been released and basically was released on his own recognizance.

The court date for this will be October the 8th. So that's the very latest. It would be foolish for me to try to discuss whether or not he is guilty of such charges or that's just a way to get rid of 87 people that were trying to, you know, that were at the home of the Attorney General. I just wanted to say it was just an interesting early way to wake up to see that a Houston Texans player was involved in a protest, which that's not the weird part of it, was that he was arrested on multiple charges and how that is just so out of the norm,

which made me think Joe for a second, maybe this won't be the norm anymore. Because when you traded for Kenny Stills, Kenny Stills had had a track record of being very socially active. And that this would be something that wouldn't surprise in the organization if Kenny Stills was going to, to this protest yesterday. Definitely not. It's not like the Texans can punish him, and honestly, nor should they. Bill O'Brien has been talking a lot about this off-season

about supporting his players and kneeling with his players. And honestly, it's... He probably should be commended for this in a lot of ways. And I think it's going to be weird because, yeah, the Texans could technically, by week five of the NFL season, could have a player on their roster with a felony. Most times that player is not playing in the NFL anymore,

but this is such a different situation. Right. You know, like, if Muhammad Ali would have been charged with a felony, he wouldn't have stopped boxing. Yeah, the thing of it is, is the term felony is the star. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

If it was he got a, he got arrested because he didn't leave, or he got a warrant, not a warrant, but a citation for failing to break up a protest. I mean, from what I understand it was nothing overly dangerous. It was just a protest. And I think, and again, I'm just trying to read a little bit here and there as I've done so today. They were just trying to disperse this audience, and they were unsuccessful in doing that.

Yeah. But the word felony is pretty damn scary. It is because, I mean, who knows what this can lead to? And like you said, like we're not, we're not lawyers. We don't know. I mean, it's reckless to speculate on what this can mean for him. But regardless, it's just, you know, they're supportive of peaceful protest and everything going on as they should be. So no matter what happens, I think the worst case scenario here is Kenny's going to miss a game because he's in, he's somewhere else for court or he's going to miss some practices.

Like, and that's all it's going to, no, the Texans might say, hey, please don't do this again, because then you might spend some time in jail, like legit time. But even if he did, you stand up for what you believe in. And even if that means jail time, good for him. I just, I hope he didn't do something that ruined the message of him being there to begin. I feel like we would have, I feel like TMZ would have had that by now. Is that fair? Yeah. They don't have to have it right the second.

I just don't want it to be tomorrow either. Sure. Because here's the thing. If you've noticed anything about these protests, everybody is, there's a lot of protesting, and there's also a lot of people with their phones out. So part of me is encouraged that here we are at 1253 and nothing has come out. His agent says Kenny Stills, stood on a law and asked for justice, got arrested. So if his agent's portraying it accurately, then Kenny did nothing.

God, I hope he's right. But damn, when I saw the term, felony arrest, I'm like, oh, please let this not be bad. Please tell me he didn't try to hit somebody or push somebody in the ground or try to get into a person's house. I mean, there were all, I mean, again, that would be, and that regardless of it's Kenny Stills or a human being. You just don't want to hear the word felony attached to somebody that you halfway know, right? You know what I'm saying? Yeah, definitely.

So I just wanted to pass that along and that the headline, hopefully, doesn't match what really did have. happen. And again, he was released on his own recognizance. The court date is October the 8th. And hopefully it will not, I mean, I would hope at this point it wouldn't even get to that far. And by the way, the NFL will do nothing about this, especially if the agent is telling a true story. So I just wanted to make sure that anybody that had been trying to catch that on social media that the information was out there. All right, 713-212-5-790 is how you reach a show. 713-212-5-790. If you want to reach out through Twitter, you can certainly do that as well at SportsMT.

And just in a way that, you know, I've been very proud of our country, that there have been such few instances of anybody, you know, getting in serious trouble. And that makes me very, very happy because protesting is something we all should be doing, especially we believe in something, you just don't want other crimes on top of that thing. And that feels like to me that hopefully that this was just a massive miscommunication and that there was nothing that happened. And again, my guess is it wasn't much because of the fact that, you know,

he was out of on his own recognizance within hours of being arrested. Before we get to Mike D'Anton, our buddy Bunby is on the show with us here at 1255. Speaking of a man who can protest like and peacefully, I speak of Bunby. What's going on, Bun? Hey, what's going on, guys? Which up to? Not too much. Grabbing the Bunby sandwich for Mantos for lunch.

I've had it twice. It's delicious. Thank you. I appreciate it both times. Yeah, so Kenny didn't do anything really wrong. It was a planned protest at the Attorney General's house trying to get him to bring charges against the police officers that, are responsible for the death of Breonna Taylor. Right. They went knowing that it was going to be, that they were going to be arrested.

They knew ahead of time that they were going to be arrested for what they were. Well, they anticipated, I won't say they knew, they anticipated being arrested for what they were going to do. But the attorney general upgraded the charges. And that's why what should have been just a misdemeanor is now considered a felony. Why did they upgrade it? Because they knew that was going to happen? he upgraded because he i can't use the word of what he is okay fair enough he upgraded because he's upgraded because he's being difficult about it and um they upgraded it too i think they're

trying to say uh intimidation of someone so it's it's a BS charge you know what I'm saying well that's what I'm saying I want the headline today when I woke up at 730 this morning was like oh no please let us not be bad and coming to find out a couple of hours later when again I don't know anything about the legalities of anything but if he was out within hours of this happening usually people that commit felony charges

aren't out on their own within hours after so that's why I felt a lot better about discussing the story knowing that obviously the Louisville police don't think he's a threat to other people at this point yeah it's the equivalent of like a sit-in you know

Yeah. When guys go and occupy like City Hall or some kind of public space and then refuse to leave and get arrested, which is typically a misdemeanor under any other circumstances. But he found some very obscure law in order to get it upgraded. Well, like I said, hopefully this will be resolved that will not even be a court case involved with that. So you got your butt sandwich?

Go ahead. I'll say it won't be a big deal. The attorneys involved are working on it. They're getting everybody out, and they don't believe it will really stick in a court of level. Good. That's good to hear because that would overshadow what was the whole point of getting together yesterday. Bunn, I got a roll. I got Mike D. Antony standing by, my man.

I'll talk to you soon. Take care. All right, that's Bunby calling the show, checking in with us. I appreciate that. Let's get to Mike D'Antone. The Rockets coach from Orlando joins us from the bubble next. 1258 on Sports Talk 790. This is the Matt Thomas show.

101 on Sports Talk 790. It is our extreme pleasure to have the resumption of our weekly segments with Mike Dan Tony back after it has been a very, very, very long time. And coach joins us from the bubble where the Rockets are going to have three exhibition games. And then on the 31st, we'll resume the NBA season against the, Dallas Mavericks. Coach, it's Matt, long time, no talk friend. How are you and how's life in the bubble right now?

Who's this again? Oh, that's not nice. You're already starting. Oh, Matt. Oh, hey, Matt, what's up? You tell me you're the one is active in doing things. I'm just doing my radio show. I'm just in the bubbles.

It's good. We're doing a heck of a job of trying to keep everybody, you know, safe. and that's the most important thing and I think they're doing a good job so far so good I'll have to ask you did you have any preconceived notions about it and then you land and you get over there

or did you think about what it was going to be or is everything still kind of still a little bit of an adventure right now? Well you know no I kind of kind of imagine what's going to be like I was hoping they were going to be pretty strict

and keeping you know people And, you know, guys are following the guidelines, and everybody wants to get the job done. And, you know, days will get long. Then all you're doing is practicing. It's almost like being in playoffs sometimes where all you do is practice, go home, rest, watch film, eat, come back, do it again. And I think guys are kind of used to have a little bit longer than normal. But as soon as we get by these first three weeks and then we start playing games and then end in the playoffs, it's going to be great. Well, everything we've seen on video, and we're just seeing a little bit here and there,

it looks like the guys are, you know, relatively speaking, in really good shape. They're aggressive. You've been bragging a lot on a lot of the guys, especially Eric. Just what was it like grabbing the guys for the first time on this past Saturday and having a work on it? And what have they been like just since those last couple of days? Well, we've been going out methodically a lot of data. from the trainers and doctors that we had to be fairly know it was about about five months and they haven't paid

and really worked out a whole lot. They tried to stay in shape, but it's hard to do that. So our biggest fear was, you know, some soft tissue injuries or stuff that would sideline them from a week or two. So we're just trying to gradually build up and still might be injuries. You try to avoid them as much you can,

but the attitude is what is impressive, great. They're here on a mission, and I think most teams are. But practice has been good. And first year and four days, they're a little rusty and a lot. But they kind of got back, you know, into it pretty quick.

And pretty happy about where we are right now. You know, we've got to get James back in tomorrow or so, and then Russell will be coming down and in Bahamute and I've got to work them in somehow. But big job.

But it's fun. It's fun. Fun big guys. Mike Dan Tony with us here on the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 7 and 8. So coach, you add Luke. You've made the massive trades before all this started. It feels like to me this could be one of your deepest rosters in your entire coach of NBA coaching career. Are these eight games going to really, really try to help you a little bit, trying to figure out who can play where at what point? I mean, tell me what this is. I mean, I'm not to say embarrassment of riches,

because every team's going to have some positives and negatives, but it feels like with Luke coming back in and some other guys and Robert, you know, kind of getting more comfortable. You do realize. Yeah, to a certain extent, you do realize. I haven't seen Luke for two years. Yeah. It's not like, oh, yeah, come and play in playoffs.

You know, by the way, you haven't played in two years. You know, we'll see how that goes. I don't want to set the expectations up to how to look. He's great. if he can contribute great. If not, he's going to be good in the locker room, and his voice is very smart. And so he'll be another son of eyes.

So we'll see how that goes. And then, you know, you're going to play eight, nine, 10 guys max when you get to the playoffs. It'll help if there's injuries for sure. But, you know, James and Russ and PJ and Robert Cainton and Eric are going to take up a lot of minutes. So there's only some minutes. and if you play, you know, your eighth guy, 20 minutes, or you'd play your eighth and ninth guy, 10 each,

I don't know if that's beneficial not, be honest. Yeah. If the eight guys are really good. So you've got to make some decisions, but there are constants that will work from. Are you implementing a lot of new stuff, or is it just kind of keeping the guys refresh to what you were trying to accomplish before we all stop this thing? Well, we have some wrinkles that we want to try offensively, whether they stick or not. We'll see in the exhibition games in the last regular season.

We'll look at the concepts and see if you like them. The biggest thing is we're really getting, you know, play in mini-trainee camp, get back to basics and go over the defensive principles and make sure that we drill it. We have time to drill it and time to hopefully it will sink in. and keep them going. So, you know, as most teams, a nice refresher course, but we will use the time to add some concepts. Does the feel right now to you like a big AAU camp

where there are hundreds of teams in a small area, y'all are fighting for practice time and court time, and do you run into other teams as you go in and out of practice? Is that how it kind of feels to you right now? Well, you know, I've never played AAU. and A.U. It didn't want to say that, but I was just trying to be polite, coach. Well, thank you.

I appreciate it. I don't know what that feels like. It feels a little bit like USA basketball. And if you were, you know, USA basketball, we didn't live in the village, but we all, we spent some time over there. So if you were in the village, you run across other athletes and things. So a little bit like that, a little bit where, you know, you have kind of locked in and what you're doing. But, you know, the practice courts are great. We have good times, you know, good practice times.

And then just trying to, you know, it's like living in foreign country a little bit without going to explore. You're just kind of staying close to your hotel and hanging out. That's what we're going to be doing for the next couple months. Mike Dan, Tony, with us a few more minutes here on the Matt Thomas show. So there was a lot of people asking me, and I'm like, I don't know the answer to this, about James and his arrival, and he was shooting some video, and the next thing you know, he's arriving at your facility. Was this a surprise, or did you kind of have a feel of this was going to be this time of the week

and this time of the calendar that he was going to be able to get to Orlando? Well, you never know. I mean, certain protocols you have to go through. When you hit the protocols, then you can come in, and we just never know. We were hoping it would be like this and maybe even a little bit earlier. But this thing will run its course, and we follow what the NBA guidelines are. And when the rest of the guys get here, they get here. And I'm hoping that's real soon.

But we'll deal with whenever. And I know that Russell will be 100% ready when he comes in here. And those two guys and James are the least of our problems. that when the bug goes up, whatever we start those regular season games in the playoffs, they'll be ready to go. What do you want to accomplish in those three scrimmages?

I know they'll be against opponents you won't see probably, hopefully, to the NBA finals, but what's the goal of those things? To, you know, look at the roster and look at how far we want to go deep in it. Try to get, make sure the biggest thing, make sure everybody is,

in game shape. So we'll use the time to explain the minutes will go up and down. It'll vary depending on what the training staff tells me. But to make sure that guys are ready to play and get your season hits. And to be honest with you, you know, Matt, it's in those eight games also.

There's not an advantage, and there's not a big thing in seeding. Because to get to the finals, you've got to play the three best team or three best teams part of you. And so we will probably win every one of them, but we'd like to get out a long goal. But it's more important to protect the players and make sure that they individually are ready to go after we get through the 8 and start the playoffs. So that'll be our number one goal.

It's a goal. You know, as much as you can, if you move up great. If you don't, like I said, it's going to change. Still got those teams ahead of you and you've got to beat them. Yeah. Before I let you run, besides Laurel, what do you miss right now? Well, that's a big of the thing, just missing, you know, this home life. But nothing else, nothing else.

Nothing else. Everything here is good. It's just a lot of long time. There's a lot of reflection going on. We'll see how it goes when the game starts up. It might be a little tougher just being here, too tough and going crazy. But, you know, I'm kind of used to just a little bit all that time we spent together. having a meal room instead of around talking.

It's a little bit like that experience, so it's good. Now, they're letting you hang on the lobby, are they letting you do that at this point? I know you love your hotel lobbies. We don't have a lobby, man. Oh, no. In our hotel, no, our hotel is kind of, it's divided. So they have guests, I guess, you know, Disney World opened up Tuesdays Saturday. And on the other side of the blue fence is the main lobby.

And that's where the normal guests are. We're kind of over on a portion of the property. And, you know, it's huge, but it's nice, and they take care of us. But, no, there's no hanging out. Everybody, you know, everybody's got a mask on, everybody's walking around. You walk over to the middle room, which is outdoors, then you go back in there. So we're like in, I don't know, there's probably 30 homes in a building. There's like nine buildings that the whole D-6 or, or seven teams or six teams, or six teams

They're here. And, yeah, you pass them on the way of the middle room, and all the bell rooms are, you know, side by side. And it's pretty cool. All right. Well, selfishly, I hope you're there for a very long time. I think you guys are mentally and physically prepared for that. Thank you for resuming these conversations with us, and obviously it'll be fluid based on y'all's schedule. But it's good to hear your voice.

I'm glad you and the family are doing well. And we'll do the next thing. All right. We'll talk to you next week. Stay safe. Stay safe. You got it. We will, for sure.

Mike and Tony with us here on the Sports Talk 7. I appreciate him to spend it in a few minutes with us here, and he'll join us again next week, and it'll all depend on what the schedule is. I've got three exhibition games, warmups, tuneups, whatever you want to call them, and then the NBA regular season starts, resumes on July the 31st. And then you want to get to with Coach, anything he had to say?

And again, James Hart, if you do not know already, has made his way to the facility in Orlando, and is currently in quarantine. Hopefully we'll join his teammates later this week. 713-212-5-790, 7-1-3-212-5-790. And on Twitter at SportsMT, at Brendan Riley underscore, and also at Joe George Radio. Right now a message for what's happening over in Hoops, Basketball Goals, and Sporting Equipment.

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show continues. We have a little bit of quasi breaking news from HISD. Not that we spent a whole lot of time on the show breaking down calendars, but I do think it has something to do with a sign of something that's very important to a lot of our audience, and that's high school athletics.

HISD announcing a few minutes ago that the school year is going to start virtually on September 8th, 2020. Virtual instruction for all students will continue for a total of six weeks until and through Friday, October the 16th. On Monday, October the 19th, face-to-face instruction for all students will be again. However, this state is subject to change based on COVID-19 conditions across the city, Houston, and recommendations from local, state, and federal health officials. To me, Joe George, this does not preclude high school football from happening,

but what it does guarantee is there will be no high school football until at the very earliest the end of October. Yeah, and it's the one thing that how my life has changed so much since moving to Texas, Matt, is obviously they can play whatever they want in all honesty. And these guys are, it's not like Illinois or anything out east or in the Midwest where they're also working against the clock of weather. Like here, you can play football whenever you want. Anytime. So they can delay their season and get it together whenever they see fit. So yeah, I think this is

I think that makes a lot of sense. I'm guessing a lot of teachers are probably pretty happy. Parents, 50-50, but it just hopefully means these kids will get to play their sports because I feel for them. Like just personal experience, like not that I really played in high school football, but I broke my leg my last year.

And it sucked missing that whole last season. You didn't play, but yet you still broke your leg? Oh, JV. So, So it's like... You weren't a senior playing on a JV squad, were you? Huh? Yeah.

You were not. Madam, five, six. Wait, they can't put seniors on a JV's roster. Well, JV's different in Illinois. JV is... It's like a B squad. Were you the captain? I don't think so.

Maybe you don't think so. You were or you weren't? I don't think we had captains. I don't remember. Okay, then you weren't a captain there. It was 10 years ago. So you were five feet six, where you still are? Mm-hmm.

What position did you play? Defensive end. Five, six, defensive end? So I played defensive end, and the only time I played in varsity games, junior and senior year, was when there was a really fat kid at left tackle or right tackle, and on passing downs, my job was to run around them as fast as I could. So you had cat-like quickness is what you're trying to tell. Not really, but I was faster than fat kids.

Okay. All right, so I'm going to assume, gentlemen, that the other districts in the area are going to take the lead off of HISD on this. Agreed. So if you are a parent of a student that is involved in any extracurricular activities, and that would also include not only sports, but I'm assuming choirs, bands, drama, that kind of thing, speech, how do you all feel about this decision? First day of school, September the 8th, which is what?

About three or four weeks later than it normally would be? Because most schools in the Midwest and the North start usually the Monday after Labor or the Tuesday after Labor Day. Here we've always started in the month of August. Face to face, October the 19th, and the entire first semester would be September the 8th of 2020 to January 29th, 2021. and that it sounds like there will be extracurricular activities, i.e. football, but that would start no earlier than when the students are back on campus. They're not going to be able to let them have practices if the learning is done virtually. Which makes sense.

And that's happening a lot in college, too, to tell you the truth, right? Yeah, in college, I think there's an argument to where they should be allowed to play if learning is on. online. Like, I think there's an argument at USC that they should be allowed to play football and sports and extracurricular activities if they're on scholarship. If it's e-learning in high school, I don't know how you make that argument. Well, no, the argument you make on that is because it's for finances. USC wants to play football this year.

Yeah. USC wants to have 75,000 people at the L.A. Coliseum. That's the only argument, right? Yeah, definitely. Because in theory, it would make absolutely no sense that you would have all these extra things you would do if you don't even take the time to bring those kids to the campus to learn firsthand. Definitely. All right. So if you would like to tell me your reaction to this, there will be an HISD, no face-to-face learning until the middle of October.

713-212-5-790. 713-212-5-790. So let's put things in the counter. If face-to-face instruction starts October the 19th, how long would it take for a high school football team to get ready for a season? I think three weeks is reasonable. You could probably do two.

So let's think about this. We're thinking this outlaw. And again, I've not seen anything to the contrary. So if there's information out there that I don't know, please let me know. I think you probably play only your district schedule. there's no need to play out of district, right? So you're going from a 10-game slate of games to perhaps a 7 or 8.

Would that be fair? Yep. You need three weeks, so you would start November the 1st. You'd play every Friday, you'd play every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. You would skip Thanksgiving weekend, and you would essentially be done. You probably, I'll tell you what, I'm thinking about the calendar out loud here. You're probably done playing games by Christmas time or the Christmas break. but you are playing, if you're going to have it,

if there's going to be playoff games, you're playing during that Christmas break. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. Like first run of the playoffs, Christmas break? Yeah, I don't know. I don't even know if they've even thought of this. I'm sure they have. I bet you high school sports are going to handle this much more efficiently

than college sports. Well, they can also dumb it down too, right? I mean, they don't have to have a bunch. I mean, my guess is there's probably, not going to be freshman in JV football this year, right? Will there be non-varsity other sports? Will there be non-varsity volleyball? Will there be non-varsity tennis, non-varsity, whatever, you know,

what else has played soccer during this time of year? Which is really unfair to the young kids because, but we're just talking about sheer numbers. And selfishly, Joe, I'm thinking about my daughter. My daughter is in seventh grade this year. We'll be going into seventh grade. her first opportunity to compete in junior high athletics.

I think they all should play. I don't see why not. Well, I mean, I think they should, but if you're trying to keep the numbers down, that's how you do it. That's what I think you do. It makes sense, but that's just taking a lot away from kids.

I know. I know. I don't want to take any more from kids. We've all suffered quite a bit during this time. Yeah, and honestly, like, I just, I feel for those kids who lost out on prom and lost out on me on the walk of graduation and you know kids like your daughter who are going to get their first chance to really compete at this level

they should be granted that opportunity and this is still and I bet you the colleges want them all to play they're going to have to want to scout these kids at all sports student sporting events I'm reading off of the HISD website student sporting events are tentatively scheduled for the fall but HISD athletics will adjust plans

needed if COVID-19 conditions change. Fine arts will reduce class sizes and maintain guidelines for physical distancing. Students will not be allowed to share personal belongings, equipment, or other items, including computers and uniforms. Dance students must have their own water bottle, hand sanitizer, mask, dance shoes, and or dance bag. That goes really without saying, right? Yeah, a lot of that stuff is going to be permanent based.

Yeah, we're not sharing anything ever again. You know, like the one of the things that I think school is going to change the most about is I know how it was when you were growing up but when I was growing up we weren't allowed to only time we could get water was if we asked the teacher nicely and they would let us go to the water fountain. We weren't allowed to bring water bottles in the class. Everybody's bringing water bottles.

Yep, that's going to change forever now. No, matter of fact, you will never see a water, you will not see a water fountain open ever again. How are they going to fill their water? They're going to bring it. What about the founties that have the fillet? Like where you just put your water bottle under it and fill it. Will those be allowed?

Yeah, they'll turn into those so that way they can refill their water bottles. Yeah. Or you'll have water machine. Like all the schools that we go to when my son was in high school, they all had bottle bottle, you know, bottle water at 50 cents a dollar. I mean, that's just what it is. It is what it is. But no, drinking fountains are done.

Think about this when we go to break? When was the last time you went, you tasted water out of a drinking fountain? Because it's never going to happen again. Can you all think of it? Yeah, not that long ago, actually. Where? Before I moved in January, the gym I was a member of had drinking fountains. Like I wanted, I asked the athletic director at U of H when he was in charge.

I wanted all the water fountains at TDUCU Stadium to have my picture on them. Why? As an ode to as U of H graduate. That's what you wanted to be sponsored by Matt Thomas? Yeah. Not the radio booth. Not where the PA announcer sits. Nope.

Not the journalism school or the radio school. Correct. Correct. He wanted the water bottles. Water fountains. All right. And I think I, and he said not only no, but hell no. And now I'm winning.

because no one's ever going to drink out of water fountains ever again. Well, now he might say yes. Now he might put your face there to discourage it even more. That would be highly insulting. All right, bronze roofing. Let me tell you about bronze roof real quick. If you have not had your roof checked in a long period of time, high winds and rain and falling debris can cause some serious problems to your roof,

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Free estimates, too, within 24 hours in most cases. 281-480-9900, 281-480-990, and online, bronze roofing.com. B-R-A-U-N-S roofing. bronze roofing.com. Hey, this is Whitney Mercer's. The Texan this year. Listen to real Texan talk on your smart speaker.

Just say, hey, Google. Play Sports Talk 790 on IHeartRadio. All right, we're going to get some phone calls in here in a second. We got a member of the 790 staff that wants more Joe George football talk. I don't think that's true. The person that texted me, his name rhymes with Randy. Maloo. So if Rennie Maloo is still listening.

Oh, Andy Klu? Joe George. Matt, that took me a hard second to figure that one out. I was just, Brendan was looking at me like I was an idiot because I was struggling to figure it out. Well, I'll go on record and say I want more Joe George High School football time.

There's no more stories. Give us one more little nugget. I'm not talking about your body. I'm talking about just in general. All right. See, when I was in eighth grade, How tall were you in eighth grade? Probably like five three.

You know in the longest yard, the original, where they send the entire team out to the right except for the center and the quarterback? I think it's the longest yard. We did that play in eighth grade, but they kept me in at the running back spot, and I dropped my head like an idiot, and there's video footage of me out there somewhere

getting knocked unconscious on the field. Because I lowered my head and the kid with the helmet with me. You can literally see me holding my head in pain and then watching my whole body just go limp in the middle of a football field. What else do you want? I was a good football player for my size, but I'm tiny. There's just no other way around it. I'm 5'6. How many college scholarship offers did you get?

No, I played rugby in college. That didn't answer my question. I got a scholarship. To play rugby? Yeah, I played for two years on a scholarship. Somebody paid you to play rugby? I mean, it was like half academic, half athletic, but yeah. I didn't get paid.

But I got my school paid for it for two years. What school was this? It was a small, like, D3 school. It's called Elmhurst College. Elmhurst? Yeah, it's Elmhurst University now. They don't even have a team anymore, I don't think. So your team was so bad they disbanded the program.

No, they disbanded the program because they got a bunch of, once the NCAA violations with their football team and had to close a bunch of sports. Well, see, that they needed a five, six defensive end to keep things on the up and up. No, rugby's way more fun than football. That's not the true. From my size it is. Yeah, I was going to say rugby guys will say that, but that's not true. I love rugby.

I think it's a great sport. I wish it was more popular here in the United States. Like, it is a fun sport to play and watch. It wreaks of people getting concussions, correct? No, because you, if you tackle someone, above the numbers, you get a card. You get a penalty.

All right. So you have to tackle someone wrap them up and take them down to the ground. You're not allowed just to truck someone. So you can't go Ray Lewis on a running back. You have to grab someone

and bring them down to the ground. I mean, yeah, of course, like big hits happen. But for the most part, you're supposed to tackle below the numbers, wrap up, form tackle, take them down. It's like what they try to teach you in football, you have to do in rugby because you don't have pads on.

Or our helmet, right? Yeah, the only people who wear the helmets, it's for cauliflower at your, like, in wrestling. That's why they wear helmets. It's not for protection. I feel like, and look, Ross is back next week. I want, what do we, we had a new second we had introduced yesterday on the show. Reckless, uh, reckless speculation. Reckless speculation.

And I want Joe George football memories. I don't have anymore. Like, I think you being five, six, and playing junior varsity when you were a senior is a story in itself. I played like one game and broke my leg. Oh. Do the girls feel bad for you? No, I was, I don't know, probably.

Oh, they didn't sign your cast and stuff like that? Well, it was like a, it was like a break, but they put me in an air cast. So I didn't have a cast cast cast. You have to play the sympathy car when you break something. I had knee surgery in like sixth grade and had a cast on. I mentioned that yesterday, and they all signed it then. Man, it doesn't go over as well, though, when it's a practice injury. It was technically a game against another team.

Technically. Technically. I mean, I got killed by CJ Fedorowitz almost in high school on kickoff. There's that. In eighth grade, I watched CJ Fedorowitz dunk. It was awesome. Do you have uncomfortable man-love for CJ Fedorowitz? I think he's a great athlete, and I think concussions ruined his NFL career.

I wouldn't argue with you on that. And he could have been a very good tight end. Paul and Meyerland at 140 on 7.90. Hi, Paul. Hey, Matt, Joe. How y'all doing today? What's a while? Good, good, good.

Hey, I got online last night on your Facebook page there and watched your match game show, and I want to tell you it was entertainment gold. Good. Good. See Ross looking good. Yeah, that's nice you to call and say that. That means a lot to me. Thank you.

Yeah, do it again soon. we don't need MC on there sabotaging your guest, your players. He had one ridiculously bad answer. So bad. Thank you, Paul, for the nice words. Great.

I'm glad you had a good time. That means a lot. Yeah, we're going to have to probably move our Monday night meetings around a little bit because next Monday, the Astros are playing the Royals. Yes, they are. I know Monday night meetings, it's going to be tough. But you know what?

The one thing that's nice, Matt, is we have all these eight to clock games. We could try to squeeze them in. Oh, yeah. We'll do like at seven. We'll have to go right at seven o'clock on the nose. Yeah. And be done like by 7.30. But yeah, the Monday night meetings,

it was like I said, we did match game. We will try. We'll go back to sports next week. And then we'll see the Royals Astros game next week is radio only. There's no TV to the broadcast. So you could actually watch us while listen to the game at the same time. But I do know that I believe all of the Astros games are going to be on AT&T. So will the Rocket

games for that matter. Can I, do you think I can run at Astros game and be on the Monday Night Meeting at the same time? No, no. I only got to do like one thing an hour. Well, I mean, we could challenge you to it. I'd hate for Robert Ford to say, time now

for a message from our stations on the Astros network and then... That's not my job. All I got to do is play legal IDs. Oh, then you're not running the game itself. No, I'm running the local side. Oh, then you're fine. You can definitely do the Monday night meeting that. And we'll resume that on Monday at 7 o'clock.

All right, some news on the Astros roster that's good. Guys that were gone yesterday, back today. We'll tell you who they are in a minute. 142 Sports Talk 790 with a message for Oops, Steam Cleaning. To get your carpets clean the right way, 281, 822-0561. 281, 8220561. Getting with the folks at oops steam cleaning is cool because they're going to clean your carpets.

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Matt Thomas on Sports Talk 790. 147 on the Matt Thomas show. Joe George fell in for Ross. Ross back with us on Monday. Now Joe, you are off selling jerseys tomorrow. Is that correct? Correct. Back on Friday.

All right. Brandon Riley did a great job on non-flora stories. And that is a Thursday 230 staple. We'll have that tomorrow. I already had my story boys. It concerns, and I don't want to give away too much, but I got this from a friend of mine. Here's the thing.

You guys are sending me lots of Florida stories, which are awesome. Problem is, the segment's called non-Florida stories. Are you sure it's real? Because you've had that issue, too, when people send you stories. I know, I know. Don't bring that up. Fake news. This is a story about a woman who is an interesting way of making money on her only fans account.

That is a 24-hour TV. right there. I've already seen it. It's real, isn't it? It is real. See? Do you have an only fans account, Joe? No. I had somebody. Do you, Matt Thomas? No. Are you sure? Positive. I just found out

that I have a Matt Thomas page on Facebook. That's a show page. I didn't put it together. The guys of the office in our digital department did. So if you all are on Facebook and would like to follow the trials and tribulations of this radio show, I have my own personal, which is me, Matt Thomas, family guy. Wow. You get front page on Sports790.com, too. And then we have the Matt Thomas Facebook page that just started up.

And for those of you that have subscribed to that, thank you very much. I appreciate that. I get little notifications on my phone then. Somebody's joined in. So if you are a Facebooker and would like to find out, what's happening with the show. Go to, is it at SportsMT on the Facebook? Is that what that is?

It looks like it, yeah. Yeah, I don't know anything about it. And all you have to do is you have to do is sports790.com. At the very top of the page, there's a giant blue bar, and it says follow Matt Thomas on Facebook. Click here. Perfect. So do that. Sports79.com. All right.

Back to the A team will get up there. Do you guys have a page? Actually, yeah, I created one for us. How's it going so far? We don't really use it. We're going to start. Okay. Back to this only fans thing.

I had a friend of mine. Not great friend, but just a friend. Said, hey, I'm having some difficulties financially. It would be a big help if you join my only fans page. Shut up. That's not real. I'm not lying to you. And I'm thinking to myself, are you kidding me?

you want me to be your friend, well, we're friends, but you want me to pay extra to know things about you that you wouldn't normally put on your social media accounts? I'm not sure really people are using it to know things about a person. What is the only fans account ready to be used for? To see things about another person. Oh, so you're telling me this person would have shown me things and only fans that I would not normally have seen. Yeah. Man, it's porn. Only fans is porn?

Yes. Does that change your view on the story you're telling at all? Okay. George Springer, Miles Straw, and Abraham Toro are all at the ballpark today. The three missed yesterday because of the COVID tests were delayed. Do you see what Justin Vernander said yesterday? He was pissed. Yeah, they're all pissed, and they should be.

And the reason why he was mad, obviously, was because of the fact that these results are so schizophrenic in their timing. And he said exactly something Joe the other day that I think I said a handful of days ago, which means I believe that Justin Verlenders listened to show. What if it's a day where he's supposed to pitch and start a game? And you don't have a result, say, 2 or 3 o'clock for 6 o'clock first pitch. That's not fair to that guy, I guess he's been preparing all week for it. it's not fair to the team

and then it's going to have the team scrambling for a starting pitcher that day. I'd like to be able to say, you go get them, JV, but the reality, Joe, is this. There's going to be some issues, right? We've had them already. There are going to be some hiccups

during the course of their regular season, especially when teams jump on a plane and get testing done in areas they're not familiar with because they're not in Houston, Texas. Yeah, and they're not going to be able to cancel games if it's like one player. No. You're just going to have to play on. They're only going to cancel games in tournament of doubleheaders.

It feels like when it's a whole team issue. But if it's this one-off person randomly, then that person's just going to miss. So my feeling, and I, Sager and I talked about this on the nightcap last night, I think they need to fire who's ever in charge of these tests because it's like the Cardinals, the Cubs, the Angels, and the Astros are the only teams having this problem. So whoever's in charge of those teams' tests, I think they suck at their job.

Do we know that every team is going to Salt Lake City or is it just a handful of teams? They're all going to Salt Lake City. So like you're talking about two teams in the state of Texas. One team's having a problem. two teams in the state of Illinois. One team's having a problem. Two teams, multiple teams, and the state of California. One team's having a problem.

It honestly feels like one person is in charge of this group of tests, and they're terrible at their job. And they're being told, you have to test every Astros player, and they're forgetting to do one. That's how it feels. It's like they're being told to fill out a report, and they're forgetting to fill out one page. All right, so if we're not going to stop a game on one player,

What's the magic number? Is there going to be such a thing? Unless the entire team's test results don't come back. There has to be a magic number. What if there's 15? What if there are 15 test? 10, 8. I'm trying to think because...

Here's a thing. 60 game schedule. Every game means three times as much as it normally does. You cannot throw in the towel in a game if the Astros are playing the Rangers and it's first place on the line of American League West, and your starting infield doesn't have their results, and you need them out there because you want to win the American League West.

Yeah, I'm trying to think what the magic number would be. It's got to be based on availability, right? Like, you've got to have – because they're going to have a traveling taxi squad, right? I don't even know. Or is the taxi squad just in, like, Corpus Christi? I also wonder about a positive percentage, because, I mean, I don't know the numbers, but my understanding is that's almost a better indication of how it's spreading.

And you'd be shutting down games to stop an outbreak from happening. Otherwise, yeah, you lean on the taxi squad. God, how, how, what are going to travel? How many guys, they can travel 30 to start the season, right? Yeah, and then it drops to 28 and then it drops to 26, like normal. So it's going to be all about, like, just, I think it's going to be up to the teams. Let's say it's JV and three bullpen pitchers. The Astros could make the argument of, well, we don't have enough pitchers to play this game.

So you have to cancel today's game so we can get guys here from Corpus Christi and to make sure that we can play a doubleheader tomorrow, but hopefully these results are back in and these guys can just play anyways. And if you're, let's say here in Seattle, though, Corpus Christi to Seattle's going to be a pain in the ass to get there. I'll make a small prediction. This roster reduction is going to be fooey. They're going to allow these rosters to stay at a pretty good number of the entire season.

They're going to have to. Just to make sure what we just said doesn't happen. Because what you don't want is you don't want these teams backlog with doubleheaders, especially if you're trying to talk about maybe playing two doubleheaders in a week. You're really going to ruin your roster at that point. Final hour of the Matt Thomas show. starts with you at 713-212-5-790. Congratulations to Tommy Tuberville.

We'll explain why, and then I've got a list of coaches that might be following in a similar path, at least as I think so. 7-13-212-5-7-19-157. Matt Thomas Show, Sports Talk, 790. KBMEE Houston, My Heart Radio Station, the Astros,

Astros, Baseball, the Rockets. Basketball. For your home teams. This is Sports Talk 790 from the classic Chevy Sugar Land Studios. Find New Roads. Is the Matt Thomas Show. All right, it is 201 on Sports Talk 790, the Matt Thomas show with you until 3 o'clock. If you would like to join us, you may do so.

713-212-5-790. 713-212-5-790. If you want to reach out through Twitter, you can do that as well. At SportsMT, at Joe George Radio, at Brendan Riley underscore. And Joe, I wouldn't look. You cannot search for people's only fans accounts for some reason. Not that I know this. I don't think you can.

They have a direct link? I think they have to direct link you. Say, hey, if you want to be a fan of mine, come pay. to be a fan. I would pay for serious money for a Joe George only fan. No, you would. High school football highlights. So I'm working on, my wife's busy at work right now.

She's got a photo of like a high school football card, I think, or it might have been from like middle school. Yeah. I'm trying to get her to set it to me so I can tweet it out to you. I will get you 100 retweets. I'm, hopefully it's going to give me more follows. Hey, at least you're not dropping like flies like mine are. No, we're growing pretty strong thanks to the Matt Thomas show.

Really? I think people like me. That's good. I was comfortably over 21, 251, and then I'm dropped, I'm like not even a 25 now. I'm like I've lost like 125 followers. I think they're, you know what they're doing? So. Cleansing.

They're cleansing. And what they're doing, the inactive accounts, they're unfollowing people. So you don't even know that you're doing, you're unfollowed people because you've stepped on your account? So I literally like. I, like, texted my wife the other day. I'm like, why the hell did you follow me on Twitter? Oh. And she's like, I don't use it.

And I looked, and it said she followed zero people. So what they're doing now, it seems like is if your account is, like, completely inactive, they're just, you're not going to follow on anyone anymore. So I shouldn't be offended. I've lost over 100 followers. I don't think so. I think they're doing, like, another purge and cleanse. Okay. Because I've given up on the 30,000 Twitter party.

That's just not going to happen. I just want to get back to my normal number. But if you drop below $25,000, does that mean we get to have another $25,000 party? We never had a $25,000 to begin with. Well, then maybe we should get you below $25,000. So start to me. Oh, I'm already comfortably below. I don't want to go any further down.

I'm down. I'm sad. I'm like, what did I do wrong? Oh, you're at 24-9. Yeah. Hmm. So let's have a $25,000 Twitter party. But then again, we can't party with people right now.

What was I saying? Where are we going to do this? Every bar is closed. I mean, I don't want to do a Zoom party. I'm out on that. Yeah, one Zoom party a week is plenty. By the way, have you ever been invited to a happy hour Zoom yet? No. I don't think that really even counts.

I think it just is giving people a reason to drink during the day so they don't feel bad about themselves. I don't feel bad about myself. I know someone who has been invited to a happy hour Zoom. and the person that did the inviting sent over booze to those people. Ooh, that's different. Now that is classy. See, like that would be, like, you get a group of friends that you're really close with. You rotate it.

Someone buys the booze each week. See, that I'm on board with. Yeah, I think if you're going to, if you're going to host a happy hour Zoom party, the least you can do is buy the booze for the people at the party. party. But having just a Zoom party and not offering up any or maybe maybe you're buying snacks or something. Maybe if the booze is too much, at least you can send somebody some pizza over or something like that. You know what I'm saying? That's what you do. You make it so you're doing, you're offering a gesture of kindness. So, so Joe, if I ever get to 30,000, we may never go to Vegas because Vegas won't be able to handle 100 people going.

but maybe I'll have a happy hour Zoom party for my 30,000 Twitters. No, I mean, no, don't worry, man. By the time you get to 30,000, we're definitely going to be able to go back to Vegas. Let me tell you something. By the time I get to 30,000, there'll be an asteroid that hits somewhere in the country, and half the country will be gone. I just hope it's not Southeast Texas. I agree.

All right, headlines. James Hartons with the Rockets. He got there last night. He'll be in quarantine for a couple days. We mentioned the Astros. Some of the players are back after getting into test results. Joe Smith placed on the restricted list. It does not mean he doesn't want to play.

The thought probably is that he's not going to, but that is not a foregone conclusion. Jabout of ESPN had to retract a statement saying that he was done for the year after the decision was made to put him on the list, but it doesn't mean he's done for the year. Joe is obviously worried about some family issues there, so we had that. If you missed my Mike-Dantony conversation, that will be on our blog shortly on the

the what's on Matchmind Show page at Sports790.com. One thing we've not mentioned, and I want to do this here, did you see that 10 different umpires have said thanks, but no thanks to umpiring this year? I thought it was 15. Well, that's, I saw 15%. Sorry, you're right. Yeah, that's not too surprising.

Let me ask you this. Forgetting about what we generally think of umpires. If I tell you 10 umpires are not umpiring this year, what is your nervous? Nelly list. Like one being, I don't care, five, this is really going to screw up baseball this year. I don't know. How bad are the umpires in AAA?

Well, we see them all the time. These guys that are old and crotchety get like six weeks of vacation during the normal season. So these replacement guys, these AAA guys, are up with the major leggers all the time. Yeah, honestly, like, you know who should be nervous? Joe West, Angel Hernandez, the guys who suck at their job. They suck at their job. If a AAA umpire comes up and is good for 60 games. In position.

These guys are getting Wally pipped. Like, you're done. Is there not a bigger crime in sports than the most hated umpire? I'm not even counting Joe S. I'm talking about Angel Hernandez. The most hated umpire in baseball who has been in trouble multiple times. he filed a lawsuit against Major League Baseball for not getting plum assignments

he still has a job Joe George how does this happen I think the lawsuit he knew it would keep him protected because how are you going to fire a guy when he's suing you for discrimination when in reality he sucks at his job but right now he's suing you for discrimination you fire a man that's going to make his case stronger potentially you could go down a rabbit

a YouTube rabbit hole and find Angel Hernandez strike calls. And some of the things he's called a strike and some of the things he called balls would get any other umpire fired immediately. You know the term

where he's got the pictures or he knows where the skeletons are buried? Angel Hernandez knows where the skeletons are buried. Because I got news for you. This is an unpopular take. Here's an unpopular take. Scott Foster grades out very highly as an NBA official.

I don't think he grades out very highly as a human being or as a guy that's willing to listen and communicating and have a communication between the players and the coaches and the officials. But I think from a calling the game standpoint, I think he grades out very well. I can't imagine that Angel Hernandez grades out as an umpire very well. and the only way he was able to get postseason assignments was for him to basically sue Major League Baseball.

If you have to sue your job in order to get those jobs, then you're not very good at what you do. And I can't believe that that, and Joe West too. Joe West has been bad for a long period of time. Why is Major League Baseball so interested in making sure Joe West gets to have the record for most games? I'm fired. Joe, he's been out of shape since I was in school.

He's always been portly. He's always been slow on the uptick. He's always the last one in the outfield to make sure there's a call. I'm still pissed about the home run, the fan interference call that was made in the playoffs. It's still going to very much bother me against the Red Sox in 2018. I'm not going to change my notion on that. Not only was he out of position, he just frankly guessed. and because the video technology did not have enough

conclusive evidence to overturn the call, they kept with the on-field call for a guy that was way behind the play. Not saying that was the reason why the Astros lost the series, but it was definitely a factor. Am I bitter Houston guy on that? Yep, I certainly am. 211 on the Matt Thomas show. 713-212-5-790 is how you reach our show if you would like to get in.

713-212-5-790 if you'd like to visit with us on Twitter you can do that as well at sportsMT at Brendan Riley underscore and at Joe George Radio what I just tweet out a gift to you Matt Thomas just soon Brian Harder by the time sports empty gets a 30,000 Twitter followers will mean you need to know the visitor scheduled the assisted living facility oh there it is oh Brian you're my favorite No. Look at Joe George.

What a handsome five-foot person you were back in the day. I think that's middle school. I think that's like seventh grade, but. You were a linebacker's number. That's good. I respect that. Yeah. I liked killers back in the day.

It's up, Ray Lewis. All right. Congratulations to Tommy Tuberville. No, he's not going back to A&M. We'll explain what he's doing and how there can be some other people in his industry, or at least was his industry, that can be doing the, exact same thing down the road. We'll judge that out in a minute. 212 with the Matt Thomas show.

713, 2.12. 5.790. Matt Thomas returns on Sports Talk 790. All right. It is 216 on Sports Talk 790. The Matt Thomas show continues until 3 o'clock. And then the A team will be on. If you missed my visit with Mike Dan, Tony. It's available. It will be shortly on the podcast at Sports790.com. The what's on Matt's Mine show page.

congratulations if you so choose to former college football coach Tommy Tuberville Let's go over some of the places he's been Alabama No Yeah he was in Alabama right

Auburn Texas Tech Cincinnati and a lukewarm Stay in A&M So he ran yesterday against U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a runoff for the Republican Senate seat in the state of Alabama.

Now, he's going to have to go against Democrat in the November regular elections, but they had to decide who was going to represent the Republican Party. So he beats out some guy named Jeff Sessions, and he got the endorsement of Donald Trump, and so he's going to run, which made me think who out there in coaching, would be a guy that you could see running for office. I think obviously, gentlemen, Tommy Tuberville's name in the state of Alabama helps out tremendously for him.

Yeah, definitely. I think his job, kissing babies, high-fiving people, while fist-bumping, shaking hands, talking to people. I think running for political office is very similar to running a college football or basketball program. Do you guys agree or disagree? I think it's pretty similar in just getting support behind you. As far as running for office, I agree.

Doing anything after that, not so much. Yeah. Okay. Point being is this. I don't think Aaron Boone is a guy that would be running for political office. Okay. He's a manager. He's a baseball guy.

I don't think Bill O'Brien wants to run for office. He's a football guy. But I do believe that college coaches have to spend as much time, you know, doing the other stuff and less time as the X's and O's. I've always thought the best college coaches were more like CEOs of companies. Sure. Like Matt Brown ran the Texas program like it was a Fortune 500 company. And he was running North Carolina the same way. The exact same way.

Now, is he involved in XS and O? Sure. Is he involved in calling plays? Yeah. Does he have a pretty good grasp of what's happening in recruiting? Yeah, absolutely. Got top five class right now. But he's got more to it.

He's making sure donors come in. He's making sure his facilities are good. He's making sure that he's getting as much attention as anybody out there. So, Matt Brown to me, is a CEO. I think Nick Saban has turned into a CEO at Alabama. I think Nick's probably way more involved in the X's and O's in coaching. But when you're running Alabama football, it is a Fortune 500 company. It is something that is huge, that is bigger than life.

It's not just winning football games on Saturday. It's a lifestyle. So I'm going to give you guys five coaches. and you tell me how electable they are one to five one being no chance no way no how or five an absolute cinch if this person ran for office and all the people i've chosen are people in college athletics because again it's not just about the job it's the other parts of the job so without any further ado one to five gentlemen what kind of politician would Tom Herman be

All right based on Tom Herman's track record I'm going to give him a seven of electability but he's not going to make it to his second term because he's never as promising as you hoped Whoa Yikes So you think he wins an election

But doesn't get to maintain it because he's not Because they're going to have They'll have the record of what he said he was going do and he didn't do it. Yep. Sorry, sports review. Is he the one that was the great small town mayor? And then when he became lieutenant governor, it was just too big of a job.

I don't know if he's there yet, but. I think, look, you guys know, I like Tom. I mean, I'm not again, I'm not, I'm pro Tom, Herman. I am not, I don't begrudge him for leaving. I mean, there was just too much political pressure at University, Texas, you know, threat of life, that kind of thing. He had to take the job. I get it.

Okay. So you say highly electable, but only a single term. Yeah, highly electable, but not reelectable. Okay. I don't have the same experience with you guys as Tom Herman, but he seems like a likable guy. He seems like he could sell himself. I think he'd have zero problem guys winning an election. Definitely would mock the other candidates, though, too, which would be highly entertaining, like he did the Drew Locke.

And he wouldn't do it in a, he would do it in a very sly way. but very publicly. We know it can work. Okay. I got three more college football coaches. Jim Harbaugh. I don't know. No BS.

Although there could be some BS. I think he's the kind of guy. I'm coming home like he did at Michigan. I'm going to run this state. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. and because I am 100% state of Michigan. I don't think Jim Harbaugh would have a chance in hell anywhere.

Really? Not anymore. I think old Jim Harbaugh, yes, but new Jim Harbaugh? So you're telling me he can't win office because it can't be to Ohio State? I don't know. I mean, I'm guessing that means he would be what? Pitching up a tent and sleeping next to the polls to get people to vote for him. See, that's the thing.

He does either really, really crazy stuff or he disappears. He doesn't have the ability to turn off his craziness. without turning it off all the way. And he knows how to pander to his audience. That's what politicians do. Okay, I think, yeah, Harbaugh would win. I mean, I think all these guys have a certain level of electability. I really do.

Let me give you two more college football coaches, and I've got a couple of college basketball. Nick Saban. He could win president with this Coca-Cola in his hand. Hmm. I actually think hire of Tom Herman as an electable member of a political, vent than I do Nick Saban. Because Nick Saban's going to want his way or the highway, and you have to play nice in politics, don't you?

That's true. He would have a high turnover in his cabinet. People would be, he'd be firing people left and right. Yeah, because as soon as someone went against, he, what he wanted, he'd get rid of him. Sounds early familiar. If you put Nick Saban on the ballot in Alabama and he didn't campaign, I still think he'd win. That's good. That's very true. Okay, so as long as he stays in Alabama. Okay, fair enough.

Now, here is the wild card. Mike Leach. Sometimes really quirky people get elected to office, i.e. Jesse Ventura. Could Mike Leach go to the state of Mississippi and say, I know what you've had around here in these parts? And I know that I was in Washington State. I know it was a Texas Tech. But I'm ready to bring you a new, refreshing, different angle on these things. Vote for me, Governor, Mississippi.

Yeah, I think he might be able to pull it off. It might be a tough sell, though, to some people. I don't think Mike Leach could run for office in the East. I think he definitely could win something in Lubbock right now still. Oh, let me tell you something. With going there once or twice a year like I do, he's still a rock star in that city. Yeah. In fact, no disrespect to the new coach there, but if Mike Leach wanted to get the job back at Texas Tech, then hire him back.

It's just the perfect spot for him. So Mike Leach, mayor of Lubbock. Honestly, he probably could win in Washington, and I bet you within two years of being at Mississippi State, they're going to love him too. He's just a lovable guy. People love him. He's a character.

He's different. He's definitely different. All right. A couple of college basketball ones real quick. Roy Williams, Spoksy, down home. You can trust me. I won for you in the past, and I won for you again. Vote for me, Governor, North Carolina.

People would challenge him on the fact that he doesn't really care about academics, but I think he could win. Oh, so he would be one of those guys that would be all about road construction but wouldn't care about education. He don't care if his students go to class. Well, he's also got one that winning his coaches in college basketball history. Now, the $64,000 question. John Calipari. Zero chance. You sure?

What's you going to do? Strong corporate background. Got friends in low places. I mean, I know he turns out first round picks, but I'm not sure how that relates to politics. You couldn't see John Calipari running for a Senate spot in Kentucky? Yeah, okay. I'm not trying to convince you.

I'm just trying to say. I think he's as sly as sly gets. If you had to pick one coach in all of sports who would run eventually, I actually think John Calipari might be the way I'd go. I like that one a lot. See, I'll go Tom Herman. I mean, Tom Herman's rise in the last decade. It's been pretty, I mean, from Iowa State to Ohio State to getting his first head coaching job,

to becoming a Peach Bowl winning coach in his first year, to then getting the dream job at Texas and always being talked about as maybe going to Ohio State someday. You know, it's funny, too, is like he would just use Texas his back as his slogan. What would it say? Texas is back. Oh, I see what you're saying. If I win, Texas is back. Vote for me and Texas is back.

Have you seen the Alabama Democrats Twitter account, though? No. Oh, it's so good, Matt. How good is it? At AL Democrats. He lost his last Iron Bowl, 36 to 0, collects millions of dollars in pension money from hardworking Alabamians and biked investors based on their children. trust and investment advice.

Tubbs. Doug's going to run through you like Fred Talley, Taley, at 11 a.m. Jefferson Pilot game. Number two, Tommy Tuberville said he leave Ole Miss in a pine box. Days later, he left for Auburn. Never told his players goodbye.

At Auburn, he had a wondering eye every year. At Texas Tech, he ditched a recruit during dinner to leave for Cincinnati. Wonder who's lying now. Damn. They're using, like, his actual football stuff. They're using his resume against him. You scared of our own shadow? Can an incumbent Democrat

Senator win a red state? Us. Ready to storm hell with a super soaker. Tuberville couldn't score a touchdown for two weeks with four first routers on offense. He also lost the Vanderbilt. You know what? Politics and sports are ugly, my man. They just are. All right, so we've given you some names. Do you have a name of someone that is currently a coach? And I would presume it would be college that you think would be a perfect political candidate. My list includes Leach, Harbaugh, Sabin, Williams, Herman Calapari. Am I missing one?

713212-5-790? 7-1-3-212-5-790 with a message here for Corrie's Light. Here in Texas, chilling is our DNA. Corey's Light's going to help keep Texas chill because we know that a good brisket is smoked over mesquite but a great brisket sits next to a course line sports talk 790 713 21225790 if you want to get in 713 212 5 790 on Twitter at sports mt at brenden riley underscore and at joe george radio uh joe here's one buddy stevens head coach at emcc last chance you could he run from political office i think he would have no part of that. I think he'd have a hard time. He wouldn't want to play by anybody's rules,

right? Matt, I have one for you, and I think you left it out because I think you always want to make sure you're not being accused of being biased, so I'm going to say it for you, if that's the case you're okay? All right, go ahead. Who is it? I would vote for Kelvin Sampson. I think he is an incredible leader, and even though a little shaky pass to Indiana, it don't matter. By the way, that rule has been changed, so it's now completely legal to do what he got? trouble for. Exactly. I think Kelvin Samson is a one-of-a-kind basketball coach, and the fact that he's still here and staying at the

University of Houston is awesome, because he is a great basketball coach and seems like an even better person. Well, I am a huge fan of Kelvin. That's just, I did not, not mean to put him out there, but part of me thinks you've got to be super slick. and I would describe Kelvin Samson is super slick So he's not going to play dirty

That's the problem He's going to shake hands He's going to kiss babies But he's also going to be very realistic With you And I think when you're running an election Nobody wants to hear the truth That's why I'm generally speaking

I'm so distant franchise with politics Because if you hear the ads if you see the things. I mean, I'll give you a case and point. You know this judge nail, not judge, sheriff nails. Did you see those commercials that were, that woman, Kathleen Wall that was going against for that, for that Republican spot in that distance, like the south part of Houston? Yeah. Did you see those ads and how nasty they were?

Yeah, they're about him. Brutal. Now she got her ass kicked I mean she there was though they didn't work but they were brutally I mean just awful I don't know if Kelvin

Samson can play by that where if John Kalapari needs to put an ad out to talk about this his candidate and his opponent in a bad way he'll pull that trigger that's fair now you have to market yourself

if you're in college coaching because you have only a handful of really, really awesome kids and you've got lots of different great places to go. So he can get on the pulpit. He can go run around town. But I think you have to have a little bit of that. What am I going to do to dispel my opponent? Now, I'm not saying that every campaign has to have it,

but frankly, most of them do, do they not? I feel like most of the winners do. You feel like if you try to play too nice or I'm a hard time winning. Yeah. that if you're strictly issues and you don't kiss and you don't go on TV shows, you don't go on radio shows, you don't sign autographs, that kind of thing. I'm not saying that Kevin wouldn't do those things, but I just think you got to have a little bit of a nasty streak in you.

Does Nick Saban have that? I don't know. See, Nick would be different because all he would say is, look what I've done in the past. I've turned around Alabama become the number one program in the college football when it was basically dormant for 20 years. I can do that with Alabama football. I can do that with the state of Alabama.

Or I can do that in whatever job he wants to do. I guess guys that turned things around would be, I mean, look, Kelvin turned around U of H. That's how Calvin Samson runs for mayor. Look what I did at U of H basketball. We were drawn 2,000 people at Hoffiance Pavilion. We sucked. We were terrible. not only we have new facilities,

but we're a perennial top 20 program. Vote for me, Calvin Sampson. That's how you sell it, right, Joe? Yeah, and you say, I fight the man. When I step up from my community during Hurricane Harvey and get tons of shoes and clothing items, and the NCAA says, you can't do that, I fight the man and get it done.

You help my community. You may say, we can't build you a practice facility. Yeah, we can. I'll find the money. U of H says, well, we can't build a new Fortita Center because we can't, you know, we can't afford it. We've got a lot of things going on campus. Kelvin said, I'll figure out a way to make it happen, and we made it happen. He's got a pretty big financial backer.

Tillman would have his back. Timmer Woods could spend good money. You never know. I think we've just made Calvin Samson a candidate for at least what, mayor or senator? At least. I don't think he knows this yet, but we've just done it. Coding in Baytown at 2.40 on the Matt Thomas Show. Cody.

Hi, Matt. My candidate for you is Ed Orgeron. He could run for a dog catcher to governor in Louisiana. They're the only people that can understand him, and he would win by literally finishing every sentence with Go Tigers. Yep. Why did we miss on that one? I have no idea.

That is 100% my fault. Ed Ogeron could run for anything he wanted in the state of Louisiana. I got news for you, Joe. If Ed Ogeron and LSU lose 10 games a year for the next five years, it doesn't matter. Edo's going to be an elected official there. He'll be, I feel like he's going to be the Tigers coach until the day he dies. But then after that, he can do anything he wants.

He can run for city council. He can do anything. He looks pretty good up there next to Mr. Pence. He just ends it with Go Tigers. Go Tigers. By the way, did you see that Kanye's dropped out of the political race? Yep, now he's an electoral college dropout, and so just a college dropout. Well, let me ask you this.

I mean, how many electoral colleges, college votes did he have at this point? Zero. Okay. So it's on a huge loss. He sucks. I miss the old Kanye. He's got an album coming out.

That's why he did it? Yeah, he's following the Kardashian marketing train. He's got an album coming out soon. Will you buy it? No, I haven't listened to Kanye in a while. I like his old music, but I think his new stuff sucks. So yesterday, I took the kids to dinner. And my oldest, my 20-year-old,

he and I could not have more opposite music selections. So I said, hey, who are your favorite three hip-hop artist right now? And he told me Don Tolliver, Travis Scott, and Gunna. I am familiar with Travis Scott. I am not familiar with Don Tolliver or Gunna. So I put a poll question up yesterday. What should I listen to tonight? Oh, is that why you put it up?

Okay. Yes. My options were, Don Tolliver. Tolliver, Travis Scott, Gunna, or Elton John. We're going to say Elton John won in the landslide. 50% Elton John. He was so excited that my son was that

Travis Scott was leading the poll question for a while. But you know, the early entries are different than what they are in the end, right? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I think if you just did Travis Scott versus Elton John, it would have been close. You skewed the results by having, I actually

don't know. I'm just guessing Don Tolliver is a rapper and Gunna. Yeah. What's your favorite Gunna song, Joe? I don't know. You've never, have you ever heard of Gunna? No. Don Tolliver? I know Don Tolliver. He only got 7% of the vote, by the way.

Not a lot of Don't know. I think Matt, I think Brennan's on to something because if you take away Don Don't Oliver 7% and Gunna's 9.3% it means Travis Scott and the other hip hop artist got 50% point two percent of the votes versus Elton John's 49.8 so

I'm guessing most of those votes would have gone to Travis Scott. All right, well then you know what? It is worthy of trying again. I won't do it today, but I will do another poll. Travis Scott or I'll put like Give me Bunn versus Elton. Give me Bunn versus the Beatles.

That's a good one. How about shout up Bun Bundy for calling. How about Bunn versus is the Carpenters. What are the Carpenters? Sing for me. I don't know the Carpenters.

We've only just begun. Close to you? No, don't know. You know, one of the Carpenter's biggest hits was a huge part of Tommy Boy. Great movie. And The Carpenters were in that movie. Well, let's see. How popular are the Carpenters?

When I type in Carpenter's on Google, the first movie. thing that comes up is the Carpenters Wikipedia page, and then the next thing that comes out is Yelp.com, the best 10 carpenters in Houston, Texas. So, I don't know this at all. Yeah, this is one of their early hits.

How do you not fall asleep when you, like, drive listening to this music? I don't listen to this all. I'm just telling you. That was just throwing a band out there. No, you definitely listen to them. This is like your number two behind the Beatles, right? No, no, no, no. Elton John's number two behind the Beatles.

Did you like the Elton John movie? No. I told you this before. Huge Elton John fan thought the movie was PA. Not a super big queen fan fell in love of the band after watching Bohemian Rhapsody. That's right. I completely agree. And the movie yesterday was just about as average of a movie as you could find.

It just... It doesn't... It was so improbable. It doesn't compare to across the universe. Yeah, I get you. All right, 245. Final segment, Matt Thomas Show next on Sports Talk 790. The Matt Thomas Show continues on Sports Talk 790.

249 of the Matt Thomas Show. Thanks again to Mike D. Antonio for joining us earlier. If you missed that, come on into the show on the podcast at Sports790.com. We also replayed some of the conversation that James Click had. with Sean Salsbury, which you hear every Wednesday at 930. We hope to get Dusty Baker started up in the next week or so. They're going to play a spring training game Monday in Kansas City. That'll be a Monday night game, a Tuesday day game.

And then they start for real one week from Friday against the Seattle Mariners. A lot of the game time starts, at least. Frankly, there's no game that starts, I think, after 8-10. And then a lot of the home. Astro games, there's only 30, but quite a few of them are 8-10 first pitches. So they're trying to make sure the Western time zone gets as many primetime games as possible. That's the reason why they're backing up the Astros game an hour. So I would say, what, Joe, of the 60 Astros games, probably at least half of them are starting at 8-10 or that exact spot.

It feels like it, yeah. Yeah. Only a handful of day games, like four or five total, so at least during the week. They'll be some weekend day games too. But quite a bit of national television. ESPN will be broadcasting some games. Fox will have some games as well, and of course, all the action right here on Sports Talk 790. Rockets will have three exhibition games in the bubble in the next week or a half,

and then they will get underway for sure in 16 days when they take on the Dallas Mavericks. Eight games to finish out the seating. They end this season on a Friday, the 14th. they start the playoffs on Monday the 17th. They're not messing around. And again, nobody has worried about traveling anywhere because they're going to be in the bubble. But they're going to,

you know, nice little sample size, and then we go to figure out who's going to win an NBA championship. I am beyond excited because obviously with my response to those the Rockets, it gets me fired up. But this will be the most intriguing NBA playoffs, Joe, I think, will ever be a part of.

I, honestly, I agree. I think it's going to be fascinating to see how this whole plays out. Even the seating games. Are they going to try? Are they not going to try? Which teams are going to try to improve their matchups? Which teams are just going to play it out because they know they're locked in?

Even just the moments leading up to the playoffs should be really exciting. And I wonder how many of them are going to try to wiggle around who they want to play in the second round. Like, would you rather put the Lakers in a second round? or the clippers in the second round. Knowing that you probably have to beat one, if not both of them, to win the Western Conference. Honestly, I want the Clippers first. I think they're the tougher matchup.

So the faster I can get to that game without them getting to full strength and really maybe catching them early, like that's what I'm kind of... I think I would take the Clippers first. I've seen the Rockets beat both of them. Matter of fact, did the Rockets beat the Clippers three out of four? I don't know.

Or at least two. It's been so long. But they got beat down pretty bad, right? Well, I remember one time the Clippers came to Houston and won. But I remember being in Los Angeles with the Rockets. The Rockets definitely beat the Lakers the first time they went to Los Angeles. I was there for that. Yeah, it doesn't matter because they're both insanely talented teams.

And secondly, it was forever a day ago when they were playing. But Kawhi Leonard is saying all the right things? He's like, I'm more determined than ever. The time off did me well. There are two and two against the clippers. Okay, two and two and then they were what? One-on-one against the Lakers? Yeah.

Thanks to my statistician in here. Oh, Wex. Hi, Wex. Tom. How did I know? I'm not. Tom and West Houston on 7.90. Hi, Tom.

Hi. I think Pete Carroll made a great politician. He's smooth with people. We know he likes to cheat. He cuts your throat for a victory. Damn, mic drop. The only problem with Pete Carroll is if he gets to something that resembles a one-yard play, you know he's going to choke.

He's done that twice. So essentially, is he Hillary Clinton the day before the election with Donald Trump? So the one-yard lines the day before the election. So Pete's winning, Pete's winning, Pete's winning. That's what all the polls are saying. That's what I felt like. I felt like Hillary was going to win up until 24 hours prior to the election. Yeah.

And then election day gets. shorter than that. An election day gets here and Pete Carroll says something puts his foot in his mouth, like he's at the one-yard line. Like, oh, yeah, I'm the best coach out there. I'm the best coach. Oh, by the way, the reason why I was the best coach is because I kept

stealing the playbook from other teams. Or you would just say, yeah, I know. I should have thrown the ball, but I wouldn't change anything. I give it to Marshal. Or no, I know I should have run the ball, but I'd throw it again. Okay. I like the comparison on that. It wasn't Reggie Bush's fault that we lost. I like the lateral.

Man, you brought up a great rundown of Pete Carroll's life as a coach. He's a great coach, but he's got some flubs. But he's the most politician-esque type coach in the NFL. Yeah. And obviously the one-y Reid's not running for office. The one pro coach, it's Pop and Steve Kerr. They're definitely, I mean, Steve Kerr is 110% going to be a state senator one day. Okay. So we got Pop, Steve Kerr. These are pro coaches only. Pete Carroll.

No one, Andy Reid. Brian Flores in Miami? No. I don't think, who's Tampa's coach? Bruce Ariens. He's not running for office. How do you think Bill O'Brien does an election? No chance. What do you mean? I want to be the governor. I want to be the mayor. I want to be the senator.

Just feel it. I want to be the president. It's going to be all of them. He wants to run for every office possible. And of course, you know who his campaign manager is. Comic Manor? Jack used to me. On that note, more politics with Adam Clanton, Adam Wexon, together,

known as the A team. And they will entertain you between three and six. Talk to you guys tomorrow at noon here on Sports Talk, 7.