The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Take 2/3 from Rays, FIFA Changes its Mind, Astros Trade Reports

Episode Date: July 6, 2026

Monday on The Matt Thomas Show with Ross, the guys discussed FIFA reversing course on a controversial suspension, the Astros winning a big series vs. the Rays, Houston's reported interest in making a trade before the deadline, and much more!

Let me start to the old Monday show. America 250. USA. So you're saying, do you grill some dogs, Maddie? What will you have played? Stay with me. Okay.

We would have played a two-run home run for Yaron Alvarez. We'll try this again at noon. Walk-off. Then we'll do the walk-off. Nah, we'll do it at noon. We'll save it there. Then we would have played a Balagan goal. Is that how he pronounced it?

A follower in Balogon? Balogoon? We'd have put a Balagoon goal from last week. Yes. Then we would have played yesterday's Christian Walker home run. All right. Nice. And then we would have played an Esauk Pradesh home run.

Yes. It had five hot eyes with the Great Ray Charles. But instead, I'm going to talk over instead. It's slug the other way. That's got a chance. And that is second row in right fill for Walker. And the Astros take the lead on his 20th home run of the season. That's five years in a row now.

And Alvester Walker has 20 or more home runs. Damn good song. One of the greats. And Alvarez smokes this one. Deep to left center field. And you can kiss that good bomb. Just below the community leader signs. A two-run shot for Yordon is 28th homer of the year.

And just like that, the Astros late 2 to 1. 1-2. And Alvarez hits it well. The center. Back is Bullens on the warning track. He leaps. His second homeowner of the game ends it as the Astros walk off the race 10 to 8 Team Ray, lonely man there, he'll steer it to Adams, sticks it along Tim, and he's got Balligan making a runoff and can he get around to that bet

He's got a chance and that is better than ever yes Thank you Ray thank you, Ray, make you America may you rest thank you Jamie Fox Thank you declaration of independence oh yeah Thomas Chami Jay, Thomas Jefferson. Yeah, and all that were involved with that. If you are an ancestor. And Ricardo Livingston or whatever that guy was. Yeah.

That was a real life person. Larry David actually played on his first episode. Yes. It was weird. The second episode came into play and Rob Reiner played George Washington. Oh, Rob Reiner's in the show. This week's episode. Okay.

And then Variety said that Rob Reiner got the last laugh on Trump because it basically was just a spoof of how bad Trump is. And I was like, man, last laugh, I don't think he got the last laugh. I don't think when you get killed by your son, you get the last laugh. It was this, it was a creepy headline. Where was this headline? And Variety. Oh, the Twitter account for Variety.

Oh, okay. It was in a four-you tab. Yeah, I didn't find a phone variety. I didn't check the variety. Ross, I had a great weekend. I went to an awesome wedding on Friday. It was so much fun. Oh, really?

I cannot give you many details of it, but it was excellent. Uh-huh. And then worked Astros on Saturday and Sunday. Wonderful. And Monday and today and tomorrow, I'll be doing it as well. Damn. You are Mr. 10th. I am Mr. It's almost like going back to circa Matt Thomas, 2010, 11, 12, 13, 14.

So. But yeah, a good weekend for the local nine against a really, really good race baseball team. Yes. They meet Lofted it, which is great. Yeah. And everybody knows what that is, obviously. Two out of three ain't bad. All they're doing is winning two or three except for Minnesota.

Maybe some people thought they were a bad out of hell, but I meant two out of three ain't bad. The repertoire in which you get to the Meatloaf music library is quite an impressive, I'll be honest with you on that. All right. And then we've got Battle Guns red card. Fuller in a Balogong. Yes. And then I guess the Prez gets in there and calls FIFA. and then FIFA saying

we were already reviewing it before the press called. Oh, yeah, I didn't have anything to do with that. That's cool. Now, I can't really speak to a whole lot of this because that would be somebody just dipping their toes in a water that I've never been in the pool before. Yeah, but I mean, I think there's an easy comparison. It would be like somebody accumulated enough flagrant foul points

for a suspension. And then all of a sudden out of nowhere, it was thought to be told as, you cannot review it, and then all of a sudden it was rescinded and the player can play. And oh, by the way, it's like a star player. Yeah. And apparently it happened to somebody else earlier in the tournament, Ronaldo, I think, right? That he had three-game suspension and he's got a year to serve.

Again, I don't get into the deep weeds of it. I'll just tell you, Rossi, that I am, I have watched more soccer in the last two weeks than I've watched in the first 54 years of my life. Beautiful, Matt. I'm proud of you. You're doing great. That's why you're earning your name, Matt Soccer Thomas. edition of To Tell the Truth, all four takes

are soccer related. Really? Yes. I love this. I figured you appreciated it. Gosh. I'm really happy. Tomorrow we got a game at 11 a.m. Argentina, Egypt. Should we carry it? We could. Yeah. I mean, it's Leo Messini. Leon O'Messi. The audio

is terrible. When you get Argentina and Egypt together, Matt, all bets are off. Absolutely. All right. So, I got to tell you this. A friend of the show, Hans, we'll just listen to us in Denver. Set me a I don't know if it was a tweet or some sort of post that compared countries in the World Cup to what their college football comp is.

Okay. Now, some of these teams obviously have been limited since I got this tweet, but I thought we'd still read them at 1230, and then I will tell you the country and the college football comp, and then you will say if that is indeed a good company. Okay.

Because I can't give you an answer to that. Yeah. All right. So we'll do that at 1230. At 1130, you got to tell the truth. 1230. And then at 1.30, got missing you. We're welcoming a brandy.

member to the missing your family because again he'su Sanchez on the 10-day injure list. Okay. So who were we bringing back? You'll be... Chad Qualls? We saw him this past week. Okay.

Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Okay. So that's it. 130 today. And then I would assume Belgium has got to be believing or not today, right? Can we do missing Jake Myers, even though he's still in the organization?

It is funny because let's, let's peel the curtain back a little bit. You were in Austin this weekend. Yes. And my guess is you were not spending a lot of time on the Twitter. universe because... Very little. Because people were sending numerous tweets about what did you say it was going to happen? I say he's going to heat up.

He was going to heat up. Within 30 days. And I could be right. And indeed, it could be accurate. Yes. He does be doing it wearing a space cowboy jersey. Yeah, that's okay. It's not okay.

That's fine. He's going to go down there. He's going to retool. He's going to reload and he's going to be called back up and he's going to be ready to fire on all cylinders. What are you talking about? So you just relax? You actually rather sound in courage. Yeah.

It's great. news. Every day A.Bs? You all don't believe that, do you? There's no chance. Y'all believe that. It should be no problem whatsoever. It's got to be great.

It's going to be great for Jake. And frankly, the only reason why Bryce Matthews probably isn't down there with him is because he has infill flexibility. He plays infield spots too. It's good. Who do Jake at 30 years old

that still had options? Good for him. Dude, you are 30. years old. You know, I'll say this. The AAA for the Astros is not like everybody else's AAA's. We were talking about this today at the ballpark.

AAA is like, you've got guys in the cusp. You got guys that are just ready to get up and become phenoms. We are phenom free in the Astros organization. Yes, we are. It's the it's 4A.

It's guys that have all tasted Astros uniforms? Yes. But can't stick around. Me, Miguel Uliola, who did a two good job. Oh, he got sent back down? You got sent back down. Damn. What happened? What do you do? Who did they activate? Christian Javier. Oh, I knew that. Who's going to be in the bullpen? Yes.

So we got that to get into. But yeah, the minor league system is yeah, it's not the breeding ground. It's the, you're waiting your turn to get your two-week stint. Okay. Which is part of the reason why the

story this weekend was so crazy. There is, and Bob Nightingale, I hate to build a curtain on Bob Nightingale. Really good dude. But the story that apparently was aggregated out there about the Astros being involved in a lot of big moves, according to Bob Nightingale, made me frankly chuckle. They're all in on Terrick Scoobble, baby. I would not normally spit my coffee out. Yes. But yesterday morning when I woke up and saw that the, we'll get into it, but it was, Terrick Scoobble's name is being brought up, and I spat my coffee out. It will be an utter shock. If they somehow trade for Terrick Scoop.

Utter shock. Yes. I think you're underselling it. It'd be an all-timer. For an Astros organization that has no top-hundred prospects, according to most articles. There's one, the kid that's 18 years old, that's number 70. It's playing in the future. Kevin Alvarez?

Yes. He's the closest thing. but everybody else is not in the top 100. For the Detroit Tigers who are going to have probably 15 teams calling them, maybe even 17. I think the Dodgers have like seven prospects in the top 100? Okay.

I think the rays have like five? It's just crazy to me. So we've got a lot to get to. We've got Astros. We've got this World Cup soccer. I'm going to lean on you on this because again, I lean on me, Matt, when you're not strong. I have several opinions about this.

Okay. So we'll get into that. The NBA season, offseason, officially gets underway today so everybody can announce. their signings coming up in an hour from now about who's going where, trades and acquisitions that kind of things. We'll get to that. Two good games yesterday, Norway over Brazil.

Yes. And again, Mexico and England? Yeah, I watched them both. Really? Oh, yeah. Oh, man. We are watching. Because, look, for those of you know, my oldest son's with us this summer, and he is... He's all in on England. He's all in everything. But we watch, but he loves Harry, what's his face?

Harry Kane. Harry Kane. That's my golden boot pick, by the way. Look at okay. looking all right All right. So we got that Beauty of Calci. You can trade out of that bad boy right now with a little profit. Are we doing that right? No, no, we're not. But we can still say it. Wait, actually we are. Oh, we are? This is complete coincidence.

Well, good. Very happy to have you with us today until 2 o'clock. A lot of little things going on. Not bad. I think all things considered, and we're sitting here in July 6, which I don't mean to jinx things, but we've had a pretty eventful summer so far. This World Club currently, and that's a huge talk show, Mark, a conversation piece, but

it's got sports fans going crazy. The Astros haven't fallen off the map. That makes me very happy. Yes. The fact the American League West sucks makes me very happy. The fact that the American League generally speaking sucks makes me very happy. And the Astros find themselves

one game on standing to watch 790 out of a long card spot. And two and a half behind Seattle, who's in first place in the division. Only two games above 500. I mean, below 500. Below 500. Multiple times two games under 500. It feels like.

They're making the charge. Yeah, they are consistent. They're 23 and 24 at home and 22 and 23 on the road. Starting a series against the Nationals today. The Nationals, by the way, are a team. It just shows you how crazy things are. They're in the National League East. They are actually a game above 500, but yet they are seven and a half games out of

first place in the National League. What a bunch of losers. Yeah. And in the Wild Card, they are three back with two teams in front of, three teams in front of them. But overall, it's a league that is dominated by the Yankees, by the devil, by the race, not the excuse me, and it's dominated by the Los Angeles Dodgers who I think have a 13 game lead or something like that, America in the National League West.

Dodgers are the evil empire. 59 wins. I was brought, we brought this up on the 10th inning show yesterday from a caller, and I was on sports Sunday last night. It was asked as well about this, about how active the Astros are going to be the trade deadline. and this is kind of going into what Bob Nightingale allegedly said, I just, I don't read Bob Nightingale because I've been burned too many times by Bob Nightingale. But I also know how Bob Nightingale goes.

Bob Nightingale, like every other baseball writer, has people that are in his circle of trust. Meaning that when somebody of high stature tells Bob Nightingale something, sometimes you can go, that's hogwash, and sometimes you can go, well, that had something to it. As far as the Astros are concerned, I know for a fact, just don't tell me, am I going to tell you how? I just know Bob Nightingale is a very good relationship

he did with Dusty Baker. So anytime there was Dusty Baker news with Bob Nightgale, I believed it. And I also believe that Bob Nightgill has a more than cordial relationship with Jim Crane. Owners will go run to various national reporters if they've got a good or poor. Maybe there was a good story

that Bob Nightingale wrote about him. Maybe there is a mutual friend. Maybe one agent said, hey, feed your stuff to Nightingale because he'll take care of you. Whatever the case would be. That's what sports has become. Not reporters digging in for the stories. It's how you're building a relationship through a general manager, an owner, or an agent. So with that being said, this was aggregated that the Astros are kicking the tires.

On Sunny Gray, 36-year-old Sunny Gray. Yes, that makes more sense. And they have actually been talking about Sunny Gray for quite a while. We've been here about Sunny Gray for quite some time, Matthew. By the way, apparently an All-Star snub, despite his really good record this year. But I think once somebody will beg out and say he can't play, that Sunday Gray will occupy that spot. So you got Sunny Gray in the mix, and you have Tarek's scuba in the mix. And that's the one that it may be spat my coffee out.

Yes. Because, honestly, why in the world would anybody... from the Astros take, I mean, why would anybody from the Tigers take the phone call? They don't, the Astros don't have anybody. You would have to probably, my guess, include Jeremy Payne and a target scoop. I got a hypothetical for you. If they offered every single minor leaguer in their system. Yes.

Could they land them? Like literally every team, like 25 deep? Yes. So here's how it would work. You would trade them approximately 100 players, and then they would all fly. up to Detroit for a tryout. And then from the hunt, it would be like American Idol. You go from all hunting down.

Widdle it down to three or four. For two months, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Because it feels close. Feels close. So basically what you're saying is the Astros would give up their

minor league entire minor league season. Yes. For the opportunity for them to whittle it down to a handful. Well, maybe get those guys back. That would be unprecedented. Yes. would. So I did pull up the article from Bob Nightingale.

So this is what he, this is, so he does like an around the league type of notebook or whatever with blurbs. It's called Around the Base Paths, this part of it. So he's got notes on this, notes on that. So here is his Astros blurb. The Houston Astros, badly needing an outfielder, are showing strong interest in Mickey Moniac and Jake McCarthy of the Colorado Rockies. They also plan to be in the-

I believe that, by the way. That makes plenty of sense. be in Terrick Scruble and Sunny Gray sweepstakes. So that's it. That's the whole thing. Okay. This is how I kind of think it would go. So yes, the second sentence gets ran around by everyone and then laughed at, of course. So the Bob Knight and Gil calls Jim Crane. Hey, I hear there's a couple of Rockies outfitters maybe you're interested.

Oh yeah, we are definitely interested. I'm just curious. I'm going to throw us against the wall, see if it sticks. Are you interested as well in Sunny Gray and Tarcq's school bowl? Yes, we are. And Bob took that. I mean, I would assume the Miami Marlins who are...

They plan to be in the sweepstakes? Do the Miami Marlins plan to be in the sweepsticks? I'm just saying that Miami... If the Astros are in, the Miami Marlins are certainly in the sweepsticks. Here's the reality of it. Some teams in baseball

can afford to take a chance on a rental. Your minor league system is so chalkful of players and you don't... My guess you wouldn't have to give up the farm because, again, Tarek has said over and over,

over and over again, he is not interested in signing a new deal with a new team. He wants to go through the free agent process. These players get one shot at this. Maybe not more than one shot, but at least, but their first shot. And he wants to be able to dictate where he wants to go. And he wants to obviously dictate how much money is being spent. He, whatever team he'd go to, there'd be no interest in them saying, you know, now that you're here, how much you like it, you want to stay here.

He's going to kick the tires whenever free agency comes into play. So you don't give up much. but somebody's much may be better with the, I don't know, the Dodgers or a team like Padres in a wild card or maybe a Cardinals team or a Cubs team than the much that the Astros could provide. And that's where I think the conversation frankly ends. The Astros would be in the sweepstakes if they were the only team interested, but they won't be. They can't win bidding wars. We've seen that the last couple years. They're not going to get in any kind of bidding wars for big names.

It's just not going to happen. And you're not going to try an active player. The days of the Zach Grinky trades and the Justin Verlander trades at this moment are over. They can come back at some point, but right now they're not here. Yeah. So I found it frankly amusing. Yes. But it does, to a much more macro standpoint, say, okay, then maybe we will see the Astros do something.

Tarc Schuble? Eh, sunny gray. Moniac? Sure. Mickey Moniac has another year of control. He is with Colorado right now. OPS plus of 138. Very good.

931 OPS. Of course you got inflate in Colorado. Now what is his home road splits on to be curious about you. That's what I'm doing OPS Plus is 138. That corrects for ballpark. OPS plus clerics for ballpark. So 138 is great. But even if you go get a guy like that with another year of control,

Ross, what do the asteros have? He's 20 years old with the year of control. Yeah. And then Jake McCarthy is having a career year. his career OPS Plus is 100. This year it's 123 in Colorado. He's been in Arizona and he's been kind of okay.

And he's got 27, 28 under control. So two more years of control. So that would cost you something as well. But probably less because it's just kind of looking like he's having a career year. But that's the kind of playoff. That makes more sense, frankly. That's a let. McCarthy, both of those guys hit left, are left-handed bats, outfield bats.

And that to me is, I mean, you can go get another bullpen arm if you want to, maybe kick the tires on a starter. If you can't get this left field situation figured out. I mean, my God, Ross, it is like a rotating group of 4A players trying to occupy that spot. McCarthy's played all three outfield positions this year, center left and right and center and right for Moniac. But my guess is they can make the adjustment. Oh, no, and some left. Okay, he's played all three. He's played all three.

Those to me are two names that I'll, we need to keep an eye on because that makes way more sense than joining. No, I don't know. I'm on scuba watch, Matt. I'm getting my hopes up. Bob Nightingale says they're in, I'm in. Okay, so if you're at a restaurant eating a meal and you're on Moniak watch or you are per se on a Terrick Scoobal watch, where would you do it at? What do you mean? Oh, but we're not getting out the phone numbers yet today.

I hope you got a memorized. And you guys know, and ladies, that you're always welcome. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-2-5-7-90. That's 7-13-21-2-5-7-90. So the Astros win a game. Three-game series of the Nationals. Adam Wexler will have the on-deck show all the 10th inning tonight.

Wonderful. 7 o'clock tonight. It's Belgium versus United States. In Seattle. It's a huge one, Maddie. It's a must-win game. Aren't they all at this point? Yes.

Okay. So we'll get back to the baseball chatter. for sure. So let me just give you the layers of my opinion about this situation with Battlegun. Is that all right? Following Battlegun, yes. Okay. If there's anything I'm wrong about in terms of the facts on this,

help me out. Okay. So he doesn't initially get a card at all. Then they go to the video. Yes. And they red card him. Yes. Where, I mean, if you play it in full speed, it looks like a regular play, but then, you know, when it's slowed down, you know, this happens in football.

It looks worse when they go. Right. Like, a lot of the hits were like targeting and stuff like that. Yeah. Where somebody slides under the guy and so technically he hits him in the helmet, but it wasn't his fault. It was one of those situations. Technically, he spiked the guy, he raked the guy on his Achilles with his spikes, but it kind of wasn't his fault. There was no intent. So very, not iffy, but probably an erroneous call, correct? I would say incorrect call, but not surprising. By the letter of the law, it was correct.

So let's say that way. Put it that way. So then I guess there is some review process on this? They said there wasn't. We were told there was no review process. This is it. He got the red card. There's no appeal. Normally you can appeal.

But that story is mixed because some are saying that even before the president allowed a phone call to the FIFA president, the review process was underway. Maybe they were making a special exception or something like that. But we don't know if we believe that. Okay. So how do I put this gently? I don't know if I want heads of state calling sports associations.

I mean, I think they're kind of, but this is a very special event. World Cup soccer, this is my own opinion, transcends sports. It just does. And if you're telling me that you really can't slow these down in order to justify a red card, then there should have been a review. And sometimes you've got to step in and say, you know, what can we do to, to make this right. Now here comes the other layer of this. FIFA's corrupt. Everything they do is corrupt. There isn't there isn't a solid core bone in anybody's body that if anybody can be influenced

if it's president Trump this year it could be the prime minister of said country the next year you're going to be president of other country. I mean I feel like you're potentially opening up a Pandora's box. So I'm going to just say this as my general statement. He should play. Now again, I'm on a soccer expert. It was a bad call. Really, really bad call. And because the rules of soccer are so detrimental to those that get a red card, maybe you do take another look at it. Maybe you do open up the appeals process. The right decision was made. It just looks murky from an international standpoint. You got other countries mad. You got other countries saying, well, why did my guy get this opportunity. And then you have other countries are saying, well, you did get this. It's opened up a

brand new Pandora's box of issues that has gone political lines. And I, you know, as you guys know, I don't like my politics and my sports mixed up. Yeah. Under any circumstances. Right. I mean, we, there's, it's not a secret that Donald Trump is a controversial figure. And it's not a secret that there also was this FIFA Peace Prize given away that 50 European leaders have called for an investigation into FIFA and their ethics over this like this is just a fact this has just been reported that there have been leaders

like hey what's going on with this FIFA Peace Prize that they're giving Donald Trump we want an investigation in this and you've had now Belgium's basically their their football federation is not upset their coach is like I thought this was a joke I thought this was April Fool's

day and when I heard this I thought people were messing with me this is kind of it's a very shocking and unprecedented move So I guess the argument is this. And like I said, I don't have a dog in this fight at all except for just like good competition. Does the ends justify the means? It feels dirty, but it is what it is. It's out of my hands, baby.

USA! USA! And if it really was a poor call, what's the end result? Is there proper justice? And if the answer is yes, which I believe it is, because again, I've watched it 100 times, and I'm not a judgeer of yellow card, right card or no card. justice the wrong way. Terriott Arnold was just robbing the folks that robbed him trying to get his money back.

I have no idea what that means. But he committed a crime. Yeah. So now does, I know Belgium is now trying to get it lifted again. So does this mean it, we're not going to really know what ultimately happens before, say, 7 o'clock local time tonight?

He's going to play. So then, so then you've got all these other countries saying that the United States has stained this thing. Nobody, I can pretty much guarantee that anybody that is a USA soccer fan could give two craps what any other country feels about USA soccer. Probably not. Also, I mean, last night, I mean, Mexico is a host country, and the red card they got called on England was very, very questionable. That was a play where you slow it down to, you know, one frame per second. It looks bad.

but in the real level of play, the player went in for a tackle and his leg bounced off the ball and then went into somebody else's leg. Like that shouldn't have been a red card on England. And then Mexico got a questionable penalty. So yeah, there's been some weird stuff going on. It just goes back to the central point. And I had this thought before that, and just like everybody does, if soccer is the world's game, it's also the world's most corrupt game. Yes, it is. It just is.

It's how it goes. NCAA corrupt. FIFA, corrupt. I mean, any kind of federal, it feels like a federation about anything is corrupt. Yeah. My guess is Fiba. You ain't, after your best behavior either.

Who knows what Fibba's doing? Yeah, I don't even know what I am. But, so I just, I don't know how I'm supposed to feel because if I go to the social media, I got half of America saying, just like in politics, half America is like, God bless this, a great decision. And their half is like, how dare they do this? This is now tainted. Like our buddy Brian Smith, who is now living in London.

Uh-huh. Who is Mr. Soccer writing 19 columns a day about this. is like this is ridiculous. This is going to stay in the World Cup. The reality is I don't think it's going to stay in it because Rossi, you've been telling me they're not a favorite to win this thing. But I mean, it could happen.

They're slight favorites against Belgium and this will be into the quarterfinal if they could win tonight. My favorite thing I saw on the social media streets was, well, Balligan is active, but they shouldn't play him. Okay. Which is like, come on.

Stop. That's ridiculous. You know what this is actually similar to? I can help you. Well, I don't know if this helps you, but I'm a Manchester City fan man. Okay. And Manchester City has all these financial fair play charges.

They're like been tied up in the courts for years. All right. Like that they were basically overspending a cap. Let's just put it that way to put it into American states. Sure. So people always come after me like, oh, Manchester City. Oh, what a bunch of cheaters. They're a bunch of cheaters.

150 charges. I'm like, guess what? I'm not in front of the spreadsheet. I'm not an accountant on the team. I watch what happens on the field. So that's all you got to do. You got to be like me, the Manchester City fan. Just watch what happens on the field.

Or what like a Dodgers fan. Dodgers fan is like, hey, I'm not. setting the payroll. I'm rooting for what happens on the field. So we just root for what happens on the field and we go from there. I'm not the one skirt in the rules. I'm not in the accountant's office. I'm not a lawyer. I'm watching

ball. So guess what? I don't care that following Balogoon maybe there was some kind of has. Maybe something happened. Maybe it didn't. I don't know. I don't care. The fact of the matter is he's going to play and I'm going to be rooting for USA. So the question is going to be not a matter of if but when this happens to another

team against a US team, maybe four years. Don't be a hypocrite. We've got to just be consistent about this. Right. So I think the easiest thing for us to do, again, being the novice soccer efficient out of that I am, is just remember at the end of the day, FIFA's corrupt. Yes.

And that nothing doesn't come without a price. And that means for the good of USA and maybe at some point down the road for the bad of USA. We all defended the Astros with the cheating scandal thing. Hey, hey, I wasn't banging a trash can. I'm sitting here watching baseball. Mm-hmm. So go Astros.

Go USA. They need to come up with a name, by the way. U.S. men's national team, the U.S.M.N. T, like, no. Can't we be like the Stars and Stripes or the Eagles or I think there's a lot of teams of the Eagles? Yeah, why don't you wearing your U.S. shirt today, by the way? I just, I woke up late. I'll wear it tomorrow. I'll wear it tonight.

I mean you're wearing the 2022 World Series. You know, you're going, you went old school with the logo. Yes. which is a beautiful Astrodome logo of the 80s and then you went with a 2002 World Series. That's like a red. You should put that shirt up and get some money off of eBay on that bad boy. I didn't make it.

I probably somebody, I probably had it for Christmas. Yeah. Is it washed improperly because it looks faded or is it was faded to begin with? It was bought like that. Which I hate, by the way. They do that on purpose. They know you buy stuff that's already faded and ripped

and then it gets more faded and more ripped and then you got to buy it again. I'm on to y'all. I'm not stupid. Yeah, you're not stupid. Planned obsolescence. All right. I hate these people.

There we go. All right. So that was just, again, I don't have any sort of incredible thoughts on it. I'm curious what the people feel. Do you feel dirty or is it play ball? That's pretty good. Does it go along political lines? Probably so.

Don't care. I can assume, and I shouldn't assume everything. but if you're if you're anti-Trump you think he's being dirty and if you are pro-Trump this is yet another reason why we want we love our guy because he's got our guys backs well good thing i don't care and i don't care just play i don't care let's go team USA 713 212 5279 if you want to join us on the radio show today 713 212 5 790 but here today is all soccer related at 1130 this is beautiful I'm going to cry. I think you're going to be mad at me. Oh, okay, that's fine. But you're always mad at me.

I'm mad at you every day, so it's fine. Yeah, so just giving you a new layer of aggravation. Excited. At 12.30, we're going to do the comps of college football teams to soccer programs. Now, some of the soccer programs that will be in it, like, you know, we're the only team left from North America. Mexico's out? Canada's out. Yeah, but also, I mean, that could change tonight.

They're only left, but he had in advance further. Yeah. So I will be reading the list that I was given of countries and their college football comps. And you have to tell me if they're fair or now. We'll have at 1230 today. 1.30, we got missing you with a new member of the missing your family, at least for this week. A former Astro that we saw this past week. And we have, believe it or not, today, 150 on Belgium.

Oh, it's all things Belgium. I think so, right? We've never done a Belgian, believe it or not. Yeah. I love Belgium. I actually think it might have. Look it up if you want to. It's fine.

But it's okay. The prize source are the prize source. Yeah, it's fine. I'll just reuse the ones. It might have been from last time when United States played them in 2010. Ooh, do you keep believing in us for 16 years? I don't think I used to, but I don't think I have them anymore. They were on a computer that has long since been retired.

Jimmy on 790. Jimmy, good morning to you. How's going to there, guys? Good. Yeah, I just, with the World Cup red card situation, people forget that Ronaldo was sitting on a red as well coming into the cup. And then FIFA went in and repealed it and waved it because they felt like it wasn't a correct red. So these people are crying and whining about the card being receded.

It does happen from time to time when the governing body believes that it was not an intentional, something that was not worthy of a red card. Yeah. So I guess, yeah, it was in a qualifier. He was supposed to get a three-match ban, and then he didn't get that. So that was rescinded. So it does happen. Yeah. Yeah.

And one last point about the Astros too. Hmm, with these outfield bats, sure would be nice to have DuBond and Sanchez around that we traded and got nothing for. Good job, Brad Brown. Who's Brad Brown? Oh, he's just talking about Dana Brown. Dana Brown did those, those were, he had to do that for cost-cutting measures. That wasn't Dana Brown like saying, oh, these guys are terrible.

I want to move on to make these moves. Instructions from Jim Crane were to shave payroll, and he had to do that. Well, not good. And I was making a shot of Brad, by the way. Oh, Brad is doing. Oh, I see. Dana Brown's way better than Brad. Come on.

Don't insult Dana like that. Yeah, come on, man. That's not nice. Well, where's the result from this off season? My lord's been very shaky. Just like... Mike Morrow's pitches tonight. Tatsu Emi is kind of okay.

Tatsu Iemi is like a horrific roller coaster. I mean, when you... get to the very top, you're like, oh my God, this is so good. And then you figure out you've got to come down eventually. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Maybe he's going to stabilize. Maybe he's going to smooth out.

He's working out the kinks. I would like some smooth. You know what? He's like a pilot on a rookie flight. He can't figure out where the good space is up, you know, at 31,000 feet is really comfortable up there. Yeah, he's going to stabilize. All right. Your word.

At some point. Your words, the baseball god's ears. I hope you're right about it. these things. Me too. Okay, so the Astros playoff series starts tonight. Oh, God. Hunter Brown, who did not look good on Friday. How are we feeling? Still your number

one. Now who's your number two? Go ahead. Fire away, please. Peter Lambert. Lambo. You go with Lambo Getty. Lambo, then Errede. Then Erie. Yeah.

And you need three for the wild card. You'll need four starters for the division series. And bullpen game. Play matchups. Got enough guys. Tatsuui Emai starts Division 1 of the Division Series. Game one of Division Series. Kaii Tong starts and then you go from there.

Get them back. Catwing in the starting rotation is an afterthought. Christian Javier's like, what can I do, bro? I'm out here. Lance Piccote was like, I'm here too. Renele Blanco is like, I'm here too. Yeah. And Wazesneski, I'm here too.

As Chandler Rome was talking about, it seems like there was just something in Javier's rehab. They were like, nah, we're good. he's not starter quality right now. No. And my guess is if he's going to get a shot at again, it won't be until they resume play in 2029. Velocity was ticked down,

even though the results were kind of good. So we'll see. All right. We'll get the final hour. Final hour. If we go to a two-hour show. No, no, no, no. They would make us work a five hours if they could.

No, we're going to go to hour number two of the Matt Thomas show, Ross coming up in a matter of moments. We have, to tell the truth, coming up at a half an hour. We have your phone calls Welcome. The NBA season starts in seven minutes. Yeah, that's when you can start announcing things here.

So you got that going for you. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-2-5-790. If you've been yawning a lot. 1101, I'm 7-90. Good morning, Houston, Texas. With Ross, I'm Matt. Triple E is our producer this hour, and it's good to have AAA in. Jonathan will be back tomorrow. Yes, Jonathan's back tomorrow.

He's not been to let go or anything. You just wanted this. We're going to ask about how the trip went with the girl's family. Okay. We just have to. And you can politely say, no, thank you. I've got no comment. And that's fine.

And we'll certainly interpret it that way. Okay. Or you can say we had a great time and they love me. That's good. I wish him the best. I will tell you this, the first time I ever went out with my in-laws. Mm-hmm. Or future in-laws.

Yeah. We went to Rortons. Galleria. Yeah. That's where you got in the fist fight with a waiter, right? I did not get in a fist fight with a waiter. Okay. I like when you add stories to my stories. And I ordered my steak medium well, and he said not on my dime.

Oh, wow. Yeah. So I had dropped a medium. Good. And I also asked for ketchup for the steak, and he's like, not on my dime. Are you serious? Yeah. How old were you seven? Well, see, I got married at 25, so probably 23.

Pallets change. It's good. I'm proud of you. You asked for medium well with ketchup. I didn't ask you had your way. I said if you could have the, I don't mind ketchup on my steak. Now, I have a friend of mine and I won't mention his name, Adrian Chavarillo. Oh, who also likes ketchup on steak?

Now, let me ask you this. Pat Mahomes likes that. Yeah. I will, I still do like, I do like the flavor of A1 sauce. Mm-hmm. Now, snake snobbery can run differently. levels. Yeah.

Most people get just turned aside when I say, I do enjoy putting a little A1 on there. Now, if it's a cooked steak, like you're going round two, like you're heating it up with the microwave, you've got to put the A1 on there. That's fine. But I would think if you are at a fine steakhouse, yeah, if you ask for A1 and you ask for A1, they're going to look at you. Everyone should stop and be like, what the hell's wrong with you? Yeah, I know.

So, yeah, yeah. I learned that, I remember when I was 12 years old and I was with my. godfather and my namesake Jeff Ross, shout out Jeff Ross. And he was grilling steaks and I asked for my well done and I asked for A1. And when I was putting A1 on my steak, I said, oh, you're not going to put any steak sauce on your steak?

And he goes, no, I like to taste it. Ooh, so that was a subtle jabby as well. Right. Right. I was like, oh, that was like the light bulb moment for me. My line was, I'm not paying for it. I'm like, okay, well, you realize I was making about $12,000 a year so I need you to pay for this.

I'm trying to impress you. and marry your daughter and do other, you know. Well, we all got to learn sometime. But I do enjoy A1. And I'm just, I don't want to, I don't want to A1 shame. Now, Heinz 57, you can have that. That's just, yeah, that's not my jam, but I do like A1. All right, tell the truth.

Bottom of the hour here on 7. All right, let's talk to our friend Biscuit, to open up the second hour with the show, Biscuit. Good morning to you. Can you hear me? Yes, sir. Hey, top of the morning, my brothers, hey, man. Matt, and I'm going to ask you this question, Ross.

We don't have a soccer entity that could have... Because look, we all know. We wouldn't have a president that would call somebody in strong-on-in-strong-arm to try to get him to change something, would we? You have a U.S. Soccer Federation? What do you mean? What do you mean? Yeah, there's a U.S. Soccer Federation.

Every country basically has their own soccer federation. Okay, so did they call it? Did the president call them, or did they call them? As far as we know, the president called him, I don't know what they were doing. See, that's where the mistake is. But here's the thing, Matt, and we live in this age and blame Bill Belichick. If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying. Right.

And so, yeah, of course, we went out of line to get the dude back here. And, of course, if we actually win the World Cup, it will be some kind of asterisk rounded bucks. Like you said earlier, Ross, who cares? Yeah. Slap on your asses. The history books. There's no astrog in the history books. Here's a thing, oh, biscuit, is that sometimes, and this is not, this transcends soccer.

But we in sports, we want things fixed sometimes. When someone gets kicked out of a game, we have endlessly talked about. I don't have an example right off top of my head, but I'm just going to say in a macro view, we have said that's an atrocity, how that referee called that foul, that needs to be investigated or that player did not commit the personal foul. We've got to, we've got to fix this wrong. So isn't there a little part of us that says, all right, we saw something that was such an egregious penalty that should not have been an incorrect call that somebody's got to step in and say, we've got to fix this for the good of the sport? And whether it's the president doing it or a governing body.

I mean, isn't there a small part of you that's like at the end of the day, it got murder? and it gets, you got international tension, but the call was right, he should be playing. Isn't there a little part of you that says that? Yes, but there's also a part of me this, there's rules and regulation you have to follow with steps he got to follow. So the problem is not in that he got reinstated, is how he got reinstated, right? It's like if it was the soccer entity that appealed through whatever process they have and said, hey, man, y'all need to check this again.

We think y'all made a mistake. And if it was reinstated, I don't think it would be such a big problem. But when you get to another level and we got somebody who, let's face it, and I'm not even playing positive. If it was George H.W. Bush would have been, no. But if it's Bill Clinton or Trump, like, man, he's so that's where the issue is, Matt. Well, let me ask you this. This is how I see it a little bit. One more thing on this before we get to some other things.

Let's say that Biscuit, you are the governing body, and I go to you and say, my guy got suspended for the wrong reason. And you are the, you're the administrator of this, and you hear the appeal, and you say, nope, we're keeping the call as is. Then the president goes around you to change it. I'd feel way dirtier about that than the appeal being not overturned originally. Does that make sense to you? And that's what I'm saying. That's what it appears to be what happened. We don't know for sure, but that's what the...

And then you know how it is, Matt? It appears to be everything. So that appears to be what happened. They may have tried to appeal it. He got turned down, and he went around them and went to a higher level, and now he's back in. That's where the issue comes. Okay. Well, again, I don't know if there was an appellate process that was denied and that the president went around it.

That I cannot tell you. Maybe there is or does. I've not seen anything. I have not seen that. So I don't want to put that into play. But that's where I think you really have government intervention going, come on, get out of this. But there was no appellant round. And so that's the reason why I think that there is a little bit more.

You can walk a final line on this. Yeah, but what I'm saying, you Matt, and you may be right. He may not have done that. But he gets no benefit of the doubt. And then that trickles down to the soccer team. Yeah, but 50% of America was not giving him the benefit of the doubt. I mean, you just know that from political ties. What else you got to know?

Right, right, right. But also, man, what's your take on the W, man? And Clark and the All-Star and pushback and Alicia Thomas and all? Man, I'm being retired now, Ross, so I got a lot of time. Clearly you got a lot of time. Clearly you do, Mr. Let me tell you what happened with Kay and Clark now. You're going to tell me out, I'm not fine.

I'm not paying it. Did she not make the All-Star game? Is that what you're telling me? No, that she made it. But they're mad that she made because she didn't, she didn't just make it. She made it as a starter. And I'm like, well, that's what I'm arguing with people. I'm like, that's what All-Star teams are.

Yeah, that's what All-Star teams are. Then she wasn't the best. You know, it's all about who got the most fans. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's exactly. You know, they're making an issue out of it. Well, whoever they is just, thank you for the phone call. Let me give you. I thought you was having a good season.

It's good. It's not great. Oh, really? Look, as I told you guys before, you've got me on WMBA reference. I haven't watched a game since the opening weekend. Truth be told. I mean, I'm involved with Astros. I've been watching a lot of those World Cup.

I was involved in the NBA playoffs. WMBA just not on the top of my calendar. But the little I've seen, it's a significantly better product than it was when I was watching on the regular when I was calling games, you know, 25, 30 years ago. I hate to be on the outside on the outside, but man, my outside of view of this is that there's just a lot of people that hate her. And I would think if you're doing whatever you can to hate on Caitlin Clark when she basically has put this league back on the map in terms of relevancy, and there are other stars, too, I'm not saying that's not, but she's the most recognizableable player in the WMBA. and if there's constant fighting and fouls called and throat slashing and choking and flagrant fouls and suspense.

I mean, the WMBA is getting in their own way on this. Again, I'm not watching it, so I haven't seen a game in a month. So if that's a dated viewpoint, I apologize. That's just how kind of how I see it. She's averaging 21 a game. Yeah, she's got to be pretty good. Who cares if, first of all-star games mean nothing to me. I've never cared about an all-star game.

Well, we need your full breakdown of the W&B All-Star voting, Matt. That's probably not going to happen. Oh. I mean, I'm busy with World Cup. Ross, I can't be to do two things at one time. She's fourth in the league and points per game. That's got to be deserving us all-star. But why do somebody, why do so many current players hate her?

Is it because she's a blank talker? Well, I think it was probably, I mean, jealousy. I mean, she got full buildings for the league. She got the ladies chartered planes, a new collective bar. Target agreement. I mean, everything has improved for the WMBA since Caitlin and Caitlin Clark has joined the WNBA. Oh, wow. Kelsey Plum is second in points per game. Who knew? I even got our boss talking about some girl named Sophie, is that right?

Sophie Cunningham, I'm at. Sophie Cunningham? And he's asking her, my thoughts about her. I don't know what does she do? She went viral for the little pointing thing. Oh, she's the pointer girl? Yes. Not a pointer sister. She's a pointer girl. Correct. Now, in the year from now, I'll probably have a greater feeling about the NBA. I believe has done some Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions as well.

Oh, she has. Yes. Maybe I should research. Oh, God. Okay. I mean, what I should do is a sportscaster, right? Is research? Sure, why not?

I think I'll do it Google right now on her. Should I do it on the computer around here at the office? I would just rather you'd not do it in here at all. Okay, that seems fair. Thank you. 1113 on Sports Talk 7.9. Frank and Mark will get to you. matter of moment. 713-212-5-790. To Tell the Truth

is coming up in the bottom of the R. Triple E, you ever played to tell the truth of us, by the way? Don't think so. Do you know what that is? Do you know what that is? I guess I'm going to find out. Hmm. Hmm. A constant Monday listener to the Matt Thomas Show at Ross, AAA. Man's busy. Okay. We're going to explain to you what to tell the truth is coming back. 1113 on Sports Talk 790. For the doubler in the break, Rossi.

And I have zero problem with her efforts. nice player helping out her team okay she's a pointer yes and now I'm on team Cunningham I figured that might happen

yeah so just WMBA y'all doing okay spanding use was back next year yeah they got a new CBA stop fighting with each other mm-hmm by the way

Sophie Cunningham's nickname is spicy Sophie and How did she get that? By being spicy, I guess. Maybe she likes to eat habanero peppers before the game. Yeah, maybe she puts jalapinos in her rubblee sandwich. Her what?

Dubway. He probably should have said Rubway. Okay. No, no, no. All right. What do you want to go from here? You know what? I feel like Rubway is like the, it's like the great value of sub shops.

Well, subs sandwich or the hill country fair. We're getting out of control with our subway sandwich. The prices. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Everybody sandwiches. That's what I'm saying. Look, are the ingredients the best?

No. Is the price affordable? Yes. Are you going to be full by the end of it? Absolutely. Do they have these daily deals where it's really cheap? Of course. Yeah.

So it's the great value of subsamishes. Like Nairnaus is probably going to give you a better sandwich, but it's twice as expensive. Exactly. So you know what? I don't want to spend $16 on a saking cheese. I just don't. Exactly. Someone do it.

You get the sub of the day with chips and a drink for $6.99. It's not bad. And do you like a 6 inch or a foot long? It depends on how I'm feeling. AAA, you like it 6 inches or a foot long? For the same one. What? What did he say?

Sorry, guys. I was talking to Shiri. Oh, it's okay. What's going on? What y'all say? We'll ask if you like the 6 inch or the foot long. I don't know how to answer this question. That's why I really don't want to answer right now.

Don't answer. Yeah, okay. It depends on your move. It depends on your mood and your appetite. Depends on how the day is going. Yes. If you can handle a foot long, man, you'll get a foot long. Yes. Or you can have half of it now and half of it later.

Yeah. Greatest line in the 1980s movie, Bachelor Party. She says, is that a foot long? And he goes, yes, and then some. I don't know what you're talking about. Good. Go look it up on YouTube. Okay.

713-212-790. 7-1-2-5-79. If you're out and about today, we'd like to call in. Now you're calling in and then you're hanging up as soon as you screen. That's okay. Is Triple E doesn't making you mad or something back there? No, he's not making anybody mad. That's fine.

It seems kind of weird. It's fine. Everybody's getting ready for to tell the truth coming up at 1130. Yes. Now again, four soccer takes. Wow. From a novice. I love this.

And you're not going to be happy with a result no matter what it is. I think I do. I mean, I could be indifferent. You're normally indifferent on the tell the truth. You're usually in full, Sometimes you have reasonable takes. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Quite often, actually. Thank you. I guess that makes it for better. Yeah, it's fine. Man, Matt, Soccer Thomas, four soccer takes coming up at 1130. Can't wait? Never in the history of my life, what I've ever thought. But I mean, last night, there were two games on.

We watched both of them. Yes. It is funny. The game went. Now, I always like to think of it as football terms. Three, two was the final score in the game yesterday. Yes. Which is 21 14.

2014. Yeah, 21 14. I like that. I can't see it anymore because it's going to ruin the tell the truth. I thought you might have when we talked about the Fuller and Balagoon stuff, but we'll see. I mean, what I want to, what I'll be curious to see is if Belgium's quote-unquote appeal will be heard before the kickoff. I don't, I think they're not going to have any recourse. Now, help me out again, help me decide who determine what city's got what games.

I don't know. It was pretty determined. that to where the round of 16 games would be and stuff like that? Right. Like we got a game Saturday that Canada was here and then they closed out. Canada and Morocco? Yeah, and that was it. Yes. That's it for Houston. Yeah. But why is Seattle getting a USA game? I don't know. Maybe they thought the facility was better. Lumenfield better than Houston Stadium. I'm sorry, Seattle Stadium. Seattle Stadium. Better than Houston Stadium. By the way, USA trading at 53% right now. That's on Cal She, correct? Mm-hmm. Okay. it was it flipped it went from basically 50 50 or 51 49 Belgium to 53 USA with the the balagoon news

look but I apologize for pregnant pausing so much I just don't know enough but I'll go back to my general statement this was a massive massive error and sometimes in sports Ross I've come to you over the years and said, we just can't allow things to happen just because an official made a call like that. That sometimes somebody's got to step in. And whether it's the head of state, whether it's a commissioner, whether it's a rules enforcer person,

or maybe it's sometimes the leader of the free world, the ultimate result is I don't think anybody that watched, even if you had international eyes on this, thought he was deserving of the red card. Yeah, the Belgium statement was like very angry. and they point out, like, basically all the rules that were violated with this reinstatement. Like, hey, you violated this rule, and you also violated this rule, and also you violated this rule. And by the way, is this going to create angst amongst people?

Like, next year, when we go to London to go watch, oh, you bloody Americans are here watching our game. You guys cheat us, and they call us a bunch of strange names. You know what? Go out there and win, Belgium. They can go out there and win. So here's what I've been doing at home the last couple days, and it's been irritating my son. Okay. I have been pretending that I'm a soccer announcer. Okay.

You know how everything is theatrical and what a strike? Yeah. So I've been doing this a lot. Okay. And I've been screaming at the top of my lungs. That with some allergy issues has given me a little bit of a horse throat the last couple days. Okay. So I've stopped for the last day or two.

Uh-huh. And my son has said, thanks, Dad, for stop doing it. So, okay, so he's going to open the fridge and you're like, and he opens up the fridge! No, I'm like, oh, that striker clubbed it with the force of a 14-gallon tank. He's like, Dad, shut up. It makes no sense. You're going full poet mode. Correct. That's what I love about the beautiful game and the announcers.

Yeah. They're like poets. Yeah. It's not like back to pass, goes Montana to Rice. Touchdown. Yes. What a fluid throw through the skies that only number 80 could grab with his two long hands. And England, like Sisyphus, pushing the rock up the hill, have finally made it to the mountain top. Like when... Where's King Tut and Cleopatra from? Egypt.

I said, King Tut appreciated the swat from the right foot of whatever. Oh, okay. You've been saying that kind of stuff. Yeah, you're like, Cleopatra clutch to pearls. You know what? You can do that tomorrow. 11 a.m. Argentina, Egypt. So hopefully my voice will be back to 100% tomorrow. How many King Tut references for Matt tomorrow between 11 and 1 o'clock?

Will we play the King Tut's song? Oh, the Steve Martin one? Absolutely. We are playing King Tuck tomorrow. That is so Matt Thomas Wheelhouse. Yeah. How did you know? Raymond on 790, 1125.

Raymond, good morning to you. Hey, good morning, guys. Good to talk to you again. I had to move to Kansas City back in November. Oh, what the hell, man? The first time. I know, no, it's for a job. I know, I know.

Trust me, not by choice. But, yeah, so it's good to be back in Houston and good to talk to you guys. Just a couple things on Astros talk, obviously. Just one, people out there, I don't know if you understand what you're watching. I know with Yordon, but this is something special. He's a special player, obviously. Everybody knows that, but what he's doing this here so far, knock on wood here, could be unprecedented by the end of the season.

I know there's Miguel Cabrera who has steroids got the triple crown at one point in time, but this is so exciting to watch. And what an awesome thing just for your baseball fans just to watch somebody play every night. And the other thing I want to talk about, and like I said, I've just got back in town, it's been in what minutes since I was able to listen to you guys live. Just some trade talks.

So I think we're all in consensus kind of that outfield bat is what we're looking for. You know, if I had a wish list, you know, someone, a guy like Mike Rissie Yistrimski, I don't know, I know it's with Atlanta. I don't know how they're doing over there or how he's doing. But that's how they're doing great. And then, yeah, so he's not going anywhere, I guess.

But then, you know, what about old Lubbop, right? Lubov in New York. Now, I know he was signed a big deal, but we know how the Mets operate when they do poorly. But something like that, I don't think either those are possible. Just those are the kind of players I'm looking at. And I just want to get y'all's sake. And I appreciate it. And, yeah, go aster.

Thanks, Raymond, for the phone call. Glad you're back in town. Remember, you can always listen. to us on the IHeart radio app, no matter where you are in this country of ours. From C to shining C. Iheart radio app. Uh, you're Strimski's batting 225. We got plenty

of that on this squad. What's his OPS? I mean, yeah, he's, I imagine he's not getting off the Braves at any point this time. You're right over there? A little worried about you. Okay, 664 OPS. Yeah, we got plenty of that already. Career 11 OPS plus,

but he's having a down year. Looks say he's played 80 games for them and they've won 52 games. So I don't think that I don't know that Mike O'Stremsky's going to be coming off the way. We mentioned it was Mickey Moniac and who is the other guy? Also Colorado. McCarthy? Yeah.

Jake McCarthy. Jake McCarthy is an enterprise man. Jacob McCarthy. Mickey Moniac, that's who Bob Nightingale mentioned. So, I mean, we'll see. I don't even know how attainable those guys are. No, but again, you have to give up active players. That's why AJ Blue Ball's name makes a lot of sense.

And I would dangle Peter Lambert. I would. I like Blue Bowl. You'd dangle Peter Lambert? Absolutely, I would. What? Yeah. They need them in the starting rotation right now.

It's got to have to hurt. Who's your second guy? We just mentioned earlier. We're going to playoffs here. We're going to playoff war tonight. We got Lambert as your two guys. But the problem is we're not going to playoff war tonight. We're not in the playoffs.

I know. Of course, on the backup center fielder. Okay. Well, if we waived a magic wand, I don't know. I don't think you can piece. Look, unfortunately, I'm with you that Lambert, Lambert should be a tradable guy.

You should have Arrogati, Emi, Burroughs, and Javier as guys you can fill out your rotation with, but right now you need Peter Lambert. You need a left fielder. You need Lambert on that wall.

You want Lambert on that wall. He's got more value you right now as your second best starter. I'm not encouraging. It's not off the table. I understand it's got to hurt. And Blue Ball is going to hurt, but it's also,

I mean, gosh, he's good. I like that he goes out there with stirrups with the high socks. with high knees. I like the fact that he has got controllable years. Got a little bit of red ass. Can start and can relieve. We've seen in both cases in the last couple of years. All right.

Triple E loses his To Tell the Truth for Genity next. Now does he count towards how Jonathan does or is Jonathan's own man? Why would he count for Jonathan's place? Maybe Jonathan doesn't make any sense. I'm just saying maybe he wants it. It doesn't make sense.

It's all four soccer-related takes on To Tell the Truth. It's up next here at 1129 on Sports Talk 790 with a while you listen to the Matt Thomas show with Ross weekdays 10 to 2 here on Sports Talk 790. All right. Here's how it works. This week is a special all soccer week edition of The Tell the Truth. I have four takes.

I believe three of them. So, Triple E, I'm lying to you about one of these opinions, okay? Okay. You got to figure out which one I'm lying. And I will read all four of them twice. You and Ross will decipher and you each will make your own decision. as to which one you think I'm lying. This will be difficult because I don't really know

how much we've talked about you formulating soccer opinions. That's why you're going to request me for these things. A lot of times I can go off a history and be like, you know what, Matt said that before. You know, that would be a change of course for Matt. I got no context, I don't think, for most of this. Okay, here we go. So it should be fun.

Number one. Yes, I am enjoying soccer more, but I still need more scoring. case and point yesterday, the first half of the first doubleheader game, in the first 45 minutes there were four shots taken, in four shots in 45 minutes. The second game, which involved England and Mexico, two of the goals were on PKs,

which was not a normal play. It was mono-e-mono-goly versus... Not an open play, Matthew. Okay? So if you take away those two P-Ks, it's a low-scoring game. Most of the games are typically low-scoring. They're exciting.

But for me, just staying with me on this, I need more scoring in the sport. First of all, I believe you believe that. Second of all, not every game is going to be electric. That's not every baseball game's electric. No, I could be lying about that. Not every football games electric. Because I'm maturing, maybe I don't need this so much scoring. I don't think you're maturing.

Number two. I am enjoying soccer more, but... Oh, here we go. The flopping is out of control. It's just embarrassing. Look, I call a sport in the NBA that is a social. I'm sure a flopping. Soccer levels of flopping is unbelievable.

Every penalty is, oh my, not a penalty. Every time a guy goes down, he can't get up, and then 30 seconds after the official says, I'm not calling a foul, he gets back up. The flopping is ridiculous, and it hurts a sport. Okay? Number three, I am enjoying soccer more, but I hate the way they time.

I don't know these were all hater opinions. I hate the way they time the game. This whole extra time thing and extra minutes, and stoppage time where you don't really know when the final gun or the whistle, whatever, it's annoying as hell. Give us a clock, stop it with injuries, and just so we all know exactly how much time is left. And number four, I'm enjoying soccer more, but I hate everything about the officiating from the fact there's only one dude having to worry about 22 different people.

I know he's got some help down the sidelines with the little flag dudes. and I know there's the instant replay center, but no sport. Basketball has 10 players. They've got three officials. Football's got 22 players on the field. They've got like six or seven guys out there. You've got four guys doing baseball.

To have one guy have that much control is ridiculous. You need to add a second on-field official. So let me recap here. Okay. I'm sorry. get nobody that's cold. Damn allergies. All right.

So, I am enjoying soccer more, but why believe three of these four? Which one do I'm lying about? One, I need more scoring. Two, I hate the flopping. Three, I hate the way they time the game. Four, I hate everything about the officiating. Which one of those four? Hmm. Am I not telling you

the truth? I think it's that third one, Matt. You, uh, okay, so, I believe three of those four. So one of these, these are all honestly valid criticism of the game. I don't like the way they score it. The flopping is a lot. I mean, more scoring doesn't really bother

me that much. Because that's because the goals matter that much more. I'm sure they do. Hate everything about of the officiating. So you're going with number three? Yeah. I'm going with number three. You can go with him if you want to. I'm not going to go

with him. Because I think that's a valid criticism too. I'm going to go with, and it's very It's very easy to make that connection as an American sports fan that this is like, what the hell is this? It's so ridiculous. I will go with number one. All right. Excellent choice.

Is it? You about to find out. They do need another official on the field. You said that before. Yeah, I just, it feels like to me that guy is on a power trip. and sometimes you need somebody to kind of say, I'm seeing it different than you are. I can't imagine that field as big as it is

with 22 bodies in the field at one time that one dude is having to cover that much territory and watch every single thing. You're tend to make sakes. Again, I'm an outsider. This isn't going to change. There's not normally end to action. I understood.

But still, I think there's some things that are missed because you don't have a second official out there. Number two, I hate the flopping. Who doesn't hate the flopping, right? I mean, everybody thinks floppy is to guys. You guys did a good job on these. These were the two that I didn't worry about.

At the end of the day, Rossi, I need more scoring. If not for the penalty kicks, would have incredibly lower scoring games. And what happens to me is I sit and I watch these games and I'm watching back and forth for 25, 30 minutes at a time

with no scores and no shot on it, and I fall asleep, and then I wake up and I miss a goal. So congratulations. is Tripoli. Good job, AAA. Losing your virginity on to tell the truth and you've got it absolutely right.

The way they time the game is kind of goofy, but it's not one of those things. I'm like, oh, this is ridiculous. It's kind of ridiculous, I think. And I get the scoring criticism, but it's like, you just have to kind of watch it in a different way.

And as I said, it's like 21 to 14. If you want to make it seven, then that's fine. But also, not every game's good. There's going to be bad games. There are going to be some of it. Not every NFL game is good. Not every baseball game is good.

But if you've got me, the novice, jumping in on this for the world's greatest action for three or four weeks, there's just, and I went back and looked. I mean, yesterday's game again, we watched the entire game between Mexico and England. If not for the PKs, it was a 2-1 game. But it was a 3-2 game. But it was because here comes the analogy. Stay with me on this. Uh-oh.

You got, you allowed Nico Collins. Oh, here we go. Maybe you should might even eject from this one. Go ahead. It was corner versus corner. There were no linebackers in the field. There were no safety as it was just one quarterback throwing the ball at the corner and if he caught the ball, it's a touchdown.

That's the PK versus the penalty kick for the player versus the goalie. Sometimes the NFL game's zero at half and you're like, what the hell am I watching? And there's been like, it's just every sport. It's what you can handle or what you're used to or what you're socialized to. So Jonathan? I'm not going to tell you that every single game is a back and forth banger. But there's been a

lot of great games. Jonathan not here. He does not get credit for AAA success. But I want you to rub it into Triple E to Jonathan tomorrow or Tripoli because he's terrible at this game and you came in one week and you crushed. So I applaud you for that. But I'll say that overall, gentlemen,

I'm really enjoying it. Way more than I ever thought I was. That's a good man. Saying that, yeah. Well, hopefully there's some good games along the way. And what's all we're going to go with tomorrow on 7 o'clock? For what? Well, it depends. If they win or they lose. They win. It's where take me home country roads. Okay. If they lose,

it's the end of the world as we know it? Sure, why not? Or time... Life goes on. Oh, life goes on. It's good. It's funny, though. If USA wins, obviously, it'll get America going, but generally speaking, we don't need

a USA to be in this thing for people to be watching this thing. I mean, the ratings for every... I mean, I watched London versus Mexico. When's the last time I watched the sporting event involving those two countries for two I don't know. Zero. But this is, yeah, this is where they're supposed to be. They're supposed to make, this, they made it to the baseline.

You made it to the round of 16. That's what we wanted. Anything after this will be a plus. Anything short of this would have been a minus. So this is where the expectation was. Make it to the round of 16. Hopefully they can win tomorrow. They are slight favorites.

Trading at 53% to advance on Kalshi. And hopefully they can get that done. And use that promo code 7-90, by the way. Coin flip gang. In Seattle. That's a great spot for soccer fans. Let's walk in price right now. I have no idea.

You want to get in price? Remember getting in price like when it first came out? You said it was $3,300. Yeah. By the way, one of our salespeople here, Courtney, we were a big fan of hers and her husband Rich, and listened to show, they went and bought tickets for Canada versus, was it Morocco Saturday at Houston Stadium?

Mm-hmm. Got in for a reasonable price. They waited until, like, again, thinking kicked off at noon. They waited until like 1115. there you go. Get in right now, $1,500. So it's gone down. $1,500.

Wow. You want like a D, you want like middle, middle lower bowl? Sure, why not? 3,100. Okay. I always tell that to my wife.

Let's go spend, let's just go do it. And then at least it's 3,100 for flyer miles. That's good. That's almost a flight. Yeah, there you go. A little value on that.

That's for one ticket, man. So you're spending $6,200 for two tickets. I don't think I'm going to do that now. Oh, you're not going to fly to Seattle? And you're not going to make the flight to Seattle? Yeah, I don't think if I leave now, right, you can get there. I get you a Seattle-style dog with cream cheese. Oh, this cough.

I'm going to let me in the plane. Yeah. I wouldn't want to be the guy sitting next to you on the plane. Oh, my God, I'd be wretched. Yeah, that's fine. Instead, I sit next to you in the office. But it's okay. I'm trying to separate you.

Thank you, Matt. We'll put up a wall. It was in my throat. Now it's in my chest, and now it's coughing. Like what a normal allergic cough does. Makes my life of living hell. I'm doing four hours. Plus him to the 10th inning show tonight.

A proud of you. Want to hear me cough during the 10th ending show? I will be watching. There will not be a sole call on my show. There will not be a soul call. USA. Except to say the Joe Espada should be fired. Yeah, of course.

Even if they went. Sunday lineup guy hates it too. Oh, no. Well, they won with the Sunday lineup. They did. That's two straight Sundays they won, by the way. So shut your bum ass up. Sunday lineup guy is having a tough go things.

Yeah. All right. The number one thing to do is they say, arrest your voice. Well, when you do 20 hours a week on radio, It's not good possible, so I apologize for the coughing attacks that I'm going to have the next day or half or so. I'm trying to get over this. Sorry.

Let's get you some hot tea with honey. I think I'm going to do that after the show. Some aromatherapies. I don't know. Lavender, Camer meal. Let's just throw every kind of herb and spice we can at you. Some like some vapor rub in your coffee. No.

A couple spoonfuls. Put some in your chest. It's good for you. I do swallow it. Swallowing vapo rub? People do that. I don't think that's safe. It's fine.

All right. So what we got going on? We mentioned a little bit of the Astros, which we'll get at the top of the hour. We've got soccer tonight. I got a lot of mixed opinions about whether or not the president's, what do you, how do you want to say? Influence? Thought process behind trying to get involved. Wasn't it an influence? I don't know. I don't care. He's on the field, baby. It is crazy how FIFA. You know, back to, I guess 2015, the whole guitar thing. was basically a bribe for them to get the games to begin with, right? Yes.

And they're like, oh, yeah, we're going to have beer. And then like a couple weeks before the term, they're like, nope, no beer, guys, sorry. Muslim country, we don't drink. It's like, well, okay. Guess what? You can drink in America. And we always tell you this. We always tell you this.

Advertising works. Yes, it does. On this show, yes it does. And I'll tell you this. I went and bought a bag of days potato chips yesterday. Oh, why? Because they're on the boards. Oh, okay.

I got you. Have you not seen those? You even seen it? I guess it's, no, I'm watching the action, Matt. Well, I'm watching the action, too, but there's sometimes not a lot of action. I know there's been some, uh, some, Leo Messi, um, Lace potato chips. Right? Doesn't he be doing some of those?

I'm sure he does. Yeah, they're a huge sponsor. Every match I've seen so far. He's on, like, uh, he was like on a Spider-Man teaser commercial, too. Messy. He's everywhere. We've never done a fancy five of a potato chip flavors, have we? I saw him.

That would be bad, but at least it would be better than Don't you say it. Don't you say it? Don't you say it? Don't you say it? And in the sixth round, I'm going to take bean and bacon. Oh, no, you've got to go clam chowder for the winner now. See, but that's a chowder.

It's not a soup. No, chowder is a soup. No, it's not. It's a chowder. It's not its own category. It's not a soup. When you go to a restaurant. They say, what is today's soup to the day?

Clam chowder. They go clam chowder. It's under the umbrella, but it's chowder. It's different. It's creamier. False. Such a liar. This is why it's stupid.

Yeah. My answer is sour cream and onion for the win, by the way. Chips? Yes. Number one? I'm going to let you folks know. Now, I'm going to go off the board. Now, these would be later round picks.

The greatest chips right now are the flaming hot sour cream and cheddar ruffles. There you go, Ross. Thank you. See? Tripoli knows what I'm talking about. We didn't ask your opinion. Oh, I'm sorry. No, thank you.

No, don't worry, Tripoli. If you'd agreed with him, he would be like, yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Since you agreed with me, he's like, no, I didn't do I don't want you to talk. So it's okay. And the flaming hot, cool ranch Doritos. Wow. Flaming hot, cool ranch. I know.

It's dichotomous, Matt. But it's delicious. It's like sweet and savory. It's dichotomously delicious. You know, and I don't know if they get them in the United States or not. but there is a flavor of chips that I've only had in my life in Canada. Okay. Do you know what they are?

That would be the Poutine Lays. The Poutine Lays. No. ketchup flavor. Oh, those are decent. Now, my guess is you can get them here now, but for the longest time, they were only served in Canada. Well, I'll tell you the lays that I only found in Korea.

The steak lays, they're delicious. Really like steak flavoring? Yeah, steak-flavored lays. Oh, that sounds really good. Oh, they're so good. Everywhere we were, I stopped and bought them. You bring some back for me? No.

That seems fine. Oh, yeah, the bags in my car. You've been gone for two years. You've been gone for two years since that trip. It's about 18 months, 19 months. It's fine. It's okay. You know what?

What? 2-2. And Alvarez smokes this one. Deep to left center field. You can kiss that goodbye. Oh, beautiful, far. It was proved in. Oh, one, two.

Alvarez hits as well to center. Back is Mullins on the warning track. He leaves. See you later! This is his second homeowner to the game. Ends it. As the Astros walk off the race, 10 to 8.

Team Marine, Moldy Mandar, a little steward to Adams, flicks to the long team, and he's got Bally and making a run off again. He can make it a runoff. Got to get it. Success. He's not a list.

It's slug the other way. That's got a chance. And that is second row in Wrightville for Walker. And the Astros take the lead on his 20th home run of the season. Far spacious skies. Far amber waves of rain. And that's hit high in the air. and deep to left center field.

Back is BASA looking up. See you later. Off the community leader signs for Essoc Perrinas. It is 12th of the season. 2-0-0 Houston. Wait a minute. What a good weekend for the Astros.

Good weekend for America. You know, the Astros are America's team. They are? Yeah. Okay. Cheated. Apologized. Okay.

Reformed. Yes. And now the Dom is America. Yeah. All right. could be said for about, I don't know, 90% of human beings. With like the, what, ninth best record in the American League? Hey, hey, hey.

I'm asking. I don't know. I'm asking. Standing. By the way, I had our imaging department put together. I'm sorry, seventh. My bad. It's apologize.

I apologize. Seventh best record in the AL. Oof, don't go by run differential. No, nobody needs to. Oof. It's like everybody calls and it's like on the 10th inning last night. guy that get to 500, now you don't have to get to anywhere.

You got to get to the top of the division. Well, they got to get to 500. Top of the division's over 500. That's true. A robust three above 500 are the Seattle Mariners at 47 and 44. Wild card. One back, baby. Yeah, Rangers are 45 and 45.

Woof. Now, the Astros play the Nationals tonight. I don't mean to get into your news at noon here. Oh, that's okay. Let's see here. The Rangers do not play until. till tomorrow. They're off.

They open up a series. Oh, with the Angels. Oh, Jesus. That's not good. By way, thank you, Detroit for beating the Rangers yesterday, 6 to 3. Yeah, shout out Detroit. Appreciate you. Shout out. Tariq Scoobal and his new home in Houston, Texas. Have you a lot of rooting for the Astros?

At that right. All right. 12.7 on Sports Talk 7. Anytime now for the news at noon. Yes, Matthew. We do have the Astros taking two out of three against the raise. be settling in for a three-game set in Washington. Starting tonight, our nation's capital, just off the heels of our nation's 250th birthday. 545 first pitch here on Sports Talk 790.

Mike Burroughs versus Miles Micolus, who is having a horrible year. So hopefully the Astros can get the win today. Then tomorrow you got Tatu, you eat my back on the hill. How are you feeling? It's fine. and then Spence Erigetta the day after that. So three games set, your Astros are getting ready. As you mentioned, a game behind in the wildcard,

two and a half games behind the Mariners and a game behind the Rangers. So let's go Astros. Let's root for the Angels against the Rangers. This is too much. Just win their games. Just win your games and then everything else will find itself. Hey, Mariners are on the other end of the country

taking on the Marlins this week. Okay. Marlins are actually kind of good. They're at 49 and 42 on the year. Yeah. And their National League East is pretty tough. And they're looking for a wild card spot. Except for the Mets.

The Mets suck. So they're looking for a wild card spot. So let's go Marlins, as you said. Yes. Sure, why not? We are your official home of the fish. Or how about the Astros take care of their business? It'd be cool to get above 500.

You know, we are into July at this point. We're coming to the All-Star break. Let's go. Speaking of that, congratulations. This is Jordan Alvarez over the weekend being named the American League D.H for the All-Star Mid-Summer Classic. All-time season he's having right now. If he can just keep it up. How many games played is he at, by the way? You can ask for a friend. Tell that friend he's going to win the ultimate bet.

Well, we'll see. A lot of time left. Got a bubble wrap him is all I'm saying. Come down. Well, you know what? Let's let him get him really rested for that All-Star week. I'm glad he's not doing the derby. 29 home runs on the year. 1,065 OPS, 194 OPS plus, 90 games played. By the way, Junior Cabanero, who has had like 11 home runs in his last 12 games,

he will be at the All-Star game, and he says he is doing the home run derby because he looks forward to it. Good for him. And he also, I think, he might have done it last year too, but there was no significant drop off. Yeah, it's not a drop. But also, I mean, if we remember a couple of weeks back, Yordon was dealing with backspasm.

So, I mean, if that's something he'll see, He's still fighting through. I like him to skip the entire weekend. Yeah, exactly. Skip it all, baby. Rest that backup. His back is hurting because he's been carrying this team on his back. We could do a go-fummy.

Would you rather go to Philadelphia for the All-Star break or a warm tropical island? Yes. Courtesy of your Astro fan base. Absolutely. Let's get him in Galvison Island for you, Matt. Hey. It's close. Yes.

Put him in a beautiful hotel spot at the Ran Ruiz. You know, I got one bone to pick, though, with Galvest. You know what? You think I hate Galveston, but you know, I love it for what it is. What's your bone? A little bit of a little pricey these days. A little price of these hotel prices. It's called summertime.

It's going up a little bit. Why don't you go up there in November? I would love to go in November. It's pricing that too. You know I'm not wrong. No, I know. Look, I used, huh, I'll admit it. I use 90,000 Marriott points.

That's a lot, isn't it? See, that's a lot. That's a lot. I'm saying, so you see where I'm coming from. It's not a night just don't get it. But I do love us some gabas. Okay. Also tonight, USA, USA, USA.

United States striker, Follaron Balagon, Folleran Balogon has been reinstated. He's from the United States. Born in Brooklyn. Really? Yeah, but he grew up in England. Okay, that's okay, though.

It's fine. He scored, yeah, he plays. for AS Monaco in the French Ligue-e-e-un. Yeah, I believe he, yeah, he's born in Brooklyn. Then he grew up in New, then he grew up in London. Actually, his parents were living in London,

visited New York when his mother was pregnant. Airline staff did not allow her to board the family's return flight to London due to safety concerns of the advanced state of her pregnancy and that he was born in New York. Interesting. That's a very interesting story. So that's how he gets to be an American. on the unit U.S. men's national team.

Does he have an accent? Yes, he does. He's an English accent. And he plays for Monaco. And he's playing for the United States against Belgium. United States trading at 53%. But you also have Portugal versus Spain. Hey, well you, okay, we always been joking about throw the record books out. Portugal, Spain, that's a rivalry, baby.

You do throw the record books out when you get those two teams together. Portugal versus Spain. So the winners of today's games will play each other in the next. round Portugal and Spain and then you have United States versus Belgium. 7 o'clock tonight. United States going for glory and the quarter final. All right. One NBA note, Ruya Tumura, who was a rocket killer last year in the playoffs. Yes, he was.

You know what you got to do sometimes if you can't beat him? You join him like Marcus Martin did for the rockets. Okay. The beat us. Rui Acha Mare is going to stay in Los Angeles. But going to the Clippers. Two years, $28 million. That's a good deal.

Yeah, Mark is smart. He's been shooting over 40% last couple years. Logged on Bondanovitch should be official today. Yes. And Rocket Summer League starts Friday in lost wages against, I don't know who, but it'll be basically Bruce Thornton and Deshaun Nix and that's about it. Bruce Thurton and the boys. Yeah.

J.D. Davidson's no longer with the team, right? No, he's back. He's back. Okay, sorry. I'm mind bad to the Davidson family. Davis and family. Yeah. The two guys that are not under contract at this point are J. Sean Tate and Jeff Green.

Okay. And I guess I should mention there is some controversy. Belgium is not happy that Fuller and Balagoon was reinstated. President Donald Trump saying that he called FIFA President Gianni Infantino to review the red card given to him to Balagoon. And FIFA is claiming they were already looking into it. And there is no funny business. That makes you feel better. Infantino saying FIFA's judicial bodies are independent.

they operate autonomously, apply the FIFA disciplinary code, and decide cases based on the applicable, full regulations, and the specific apps before them. Well, then we got it all resolved then. So it's all aboveboard with FIFA, which we know, not corrupt at all. No, not at all. They're like a charity. That's how nice they are.

Yes. All right, that is the news of noon. All right, there was a report over the weekend from a guest, Bob Nightingale that says the asteros are kicking the tires on Tarek Scouble. We're going to roll play that for a second. Okay. You be Detroit. I'll be Houston. And we'll try to figure out how Dana Brown's going to convince the front office of Detroit Tigers that Target's Scoobo should be an astro for two months. All right.

713212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5790. Also, bottom of the hour, how the World Cup's countries are college football comps. We'll explain that as well. If you want to join us right now, 7-13-212-5-790. We have some breaking news here on the Matt Thomas Show at Ross. 1220. I'm going to give it a second one. Whoa.

The Astros have traded for Tarek Scruble. Oh, that wouldn't be two. By the way, playing Beatles in the show, that'd be a 15. We would just like play the Breaking News Center for the rest of the show. Okay. It involves your favorite soccer team. FIFA appellate committee has rendered the request by Belgium as, quote, inadmissible.

Suck it, Belgium! So Balagoon is going to play. and they're saying basically you can't appeal something you weren't involved with. Ah, okay, because they're not involved. Quote it, quote, not a party to the proceedings as such has no standing to appeal a decision. Okay. Yeah. They said, go suck it and go eat some waffles.

When it comes crashing down and it hurts inside. We're going to play Real American tomorrow, right? Aren't we? That's fine. It's not my jam. No, it's fine. Just because it's not my jam. Exactly.

People love that song. Rick Derringer, may you rest? Yes. Mm-hmm. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, within the last year, I want to say. No, I didn't know Rick Derringer did that song. It sounds like it was recorded in somebody's garage.

It might have been. Can we just now get a good copy of that or something? We didn't get that bad boy at high-fi? You know what? I bet you Josh Jordan will get us a better version of it. Really? Look for real American. Okay, yeah, sure.

People want to hear it. He's got the original LP, maybe. Okay, so we're going to do the role play here real quick. Sure. So we're going to do some World Cup country college football games. You love role playing. So I am the Astros. Okay.

You are the Detroit Tigers. Ring, ring, ring. Hold on. Who is a Detroit Tigers? Let's just look it up. GM. I should know his name. You can call me DB.

I put Jeff Greenberg. All right. Hey, Jeff. Jeff Dana here. I'm sorry. Dana who? Dana Brown, General Manager Houston Astros. Oh, the Astros?

Okay. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, what did you need? Dana? It's everything all right? Well, sorry we beat you all two straight series. It happens. We're not good. I got to ask you something. Can we talk about Tark Scoobel?

Yeah, he's a good player, man. What about him? Well, we would like to have him and it's on a rental. Okay, I don't know why you're laughing. Stop. Don't laugh. I'm sorry, this is Dana Brown. Yes, Dana Brown. Houston Astros? May I give you some people. Yordon?

Okay, Yorna is not available. Okay. Okay. Let me give you the list. Sure. Well, hold on. Okay, go ahead. We have a gold glove-esque type center fielder.

His name is Jake Myers. Oh, okay. And hold on, stop laughing. We know that your ballpark is ample in the outfield. You need somebody to carry a lot of territory. And Jake Myers would be a great start for you to sure up your defense. Dana. Dan?

Is this a prank call? No, this is not. I'm trying to be serious here. Steve, is this you, Steve? You're always messing me, Steve. This is a serious business. Trade deadlines, Steve. This is not prank calling me, Steve.

This is not Steve in the company cafeteria. Dan, we'd like to offer you some more. Okay. I don't know if you know this guy named Lance McCullors. Okay. He helped us win a World Series. I'm sorry. Are we in a time machine?

All right. Let me, let me, let me, let me, let me add some things to the stew pot. All right. Kevin Alvarez. he's unavailable, sorry Xavier Nions No, don't think he's even a part of our organization Ethan Pecco? Nope, can't have him either

But We can give you Bryce Matthews He not only can occupy Stay with me on this, the outfield But it can also do the infield as well So let me put this together You're getting A gold glove-esque type player in Jake Myers

Oh Where's Jake right now? He is, we're keeping him warm down at AAA. Keeping him warm? Yes. He's like in the oven at 175? We're saving him for you. Okay.

We're going to give you a curb ball machine in Glantz McCullers. Okay. And then we're going to throw you a multi-defensive player in Bryce Matthews who is good infielder and learning the outfield and has made some really nice throws. Well, Dana, are you under the impression that I'm like a Nebraska alum? You're giving me all your Nebraska players. You know, I haven't been keeping up with you guys. the last couple of weeks. Is Bryce Matthews? He's been heating up?

What's his OPS? His defensive metrics are quite good. Okay. What's his OPS? Maybe we're getting a bad connection, Dana. What's his OPS? Oh, I've got his OPS for you. Oh, you know what? We are getting OPA. You know what? I just looked it up.

This says 564. Yeah, but that OPS doesn't tell the whole story. Oh, okay. His OPS plus is 57? Okay, but that's a high number. That's close to 100. No, no, it's not, Dana. What kind of idiot do you take me for? Okay, the role playing comes in and then now.

Okay. Literally, we were asking earlier, Josh, if the Astros offered every single prospect in their system, could they get Terrick Scoobble? Every single one. Could they get them? And see, my philosophy, Josh, and this wasn't because you like the minor league stuff too,

is you literally give them every player in your organization. Then you invite them to an open workout at Comerica Park in Detroit. And then it's like American Idol. You just pick and choose the four. or five that you want to keep around? Is scoble just a rental? Because then maybe, then you do have enough. Maybe he gave him Alvarez and Nions.

Maybe you would have enough. How about this? If there's 100 players in the Astros and minor league organization, you get to choose 98, we get to hold on to two. Yes. By the way, we got a first round pick who's a defensive catcher. He's ready to go. Oh, okay, yeah.

Okay. If you keep Alvarez and Nions, then you offer from the rest of your system. Yes. What would they say? You can even have Walker Yannick, too. former's first round pick. Is that a threat?

Yeah. What's he hitting 157? In double A? You guys aren't helping my cause here. Poor Dana. Do you really think that the Tigers like giggle when they caught when the Astros called?

Because the Tigers know what every minor league system's got and doesn't have? Of course. They got guys on it. It's got to be active players. But why would you want active players when the Tigers are not involved in a penit?

They're not getting, you know what? We're wasting our breath. Well, I want to at least bring it up in conversation. I'm not a no chance, No way, no how guy. Wait a minute. Bob Nightgale brings it up.

There's at least a chance. No chance. No way. No how. I don't want to go a full radio guy. Like, you know what, Matt? Yeah, you should threaten to like streak down Texas Avenue if they trade for Tarek Schuble. You should go old school radio bet.

Now I want them to get him. I don't know what they could possibly offer. We kind of went through the list. It's the entire system. What could you do really that would be so funny that they really got him? No, you know, I don't want to make you walk the dowels or something stupid like that. I'm not doing a radio gimmick. I'm just not.

It just doesn't make sense. I'll show up on time for a week. How about 9.30? I did that once when I had that doctor's appointment at 8. They said it was just a rash. Nothing to worry about. Okay. All right.

So, yeah, Bob Nightingale, probably doing a little bit of heavy lifting for the owner, right? Okay. Don't you think that kind of worked that's how it sounds? Bob Nightingale has seemed to have been. a Jim Crane mouthpiece in the past. I will just put it that way. I don't know over that. For a fact, I'm just reading my own tea leaves. All right. Well, I'm reading your tea leaves as well.

That doesn't sound very sanitary, but I'm going to do it anyway. Okay. All right, when we return, I'm going to give you some World Cup countries and their college football comp. Okay. And it'll be up to you to decide whether or not these are good applicable ones. Yeah, only eight countries have won the World Cup. So it kind of feels like college football in a sense.

Yeah, that's true. There's a haves and there's a have-nots. 713-212-5-7-9 if you want to join our conversation. 7-1-3-21-2-5. It's the Rutgers-Carlet Knights against the Minnesota Golden Gophers. That's because we here at CBS get the fourth best Big Ten game of the week. Hell, Peacock gets better games than we do.

Money. Money. Well, I mean, CBS paid. They said we can't pay USC. And we're good. ESPN, Disney, stepped up big. Illinois, Wisconsin on CBS. I wonder Charles Davidson's such a professional depression.

It's bumped off NFL on CBS to go to number one on CBS college football. He's doing... He's doing a couple games. He's doing Washington versus Washington State in a non-conference matchup. The Apple Bowl on CBS. The Apple Cup. Apple Cup, not Apple, that's right. That's true.

It's funny. I can turn into CBS announcer by just having this music on. Like I'm talking to you regularly. Yes, and then all of a sudden it's like, watch this. Indiana playing for the national championship. They open up their tenure in Big Kent 10 play against the final line on. It's the national champions on CBS. That's good.

I can turn it on and off. You could fire somebody. Oh, how? Your performances have been horrible for the last six months, and you haven't been making your quotas. We're letting you go on CBS. May I try one more? Go ahead.

Honey, you look good tonight. You look so good tonight that we should make sweet love on CBS. Let's do that thing we've been talking about on CBS. We find ourselves amusing. Yes, we do.

I don't think anybody else finds it amusing. Josh is like, what the hell are you guys talking about. That's why Josh is our producer for the next two hours, early hour. Thank you. He's been probably scarred. Yeah. All right, here we go.

Does he want us to start bick? so he feels at home. Josh, you want us to bicker about semantics or do you want us to do some normal show? Oh, God, no. He's like, I got enough of that. Coming up at 2 o'clock. On CBS.

On 7.90. All right, here we go. Is Italy still in? Italy never made it. Okay. Italy. A legend, this is a World Cup Teams. As college football programs. Yeah.

A legendary Blue Blood That has won championships Across multiple generations Including this century Fair or foe I mean they have But they've missed the last couple of World Cups So who is the program

Italy is Alabama Is what they're saying? Oh, you didn't say Alabama I'm sorry Is Italy Alabama yes or no I guess because they didn't make The last couple of World Cups though I don't know that they're Alabama

Okay I wouldn't normally bring up Belgium But we're playing U.S. I'll do it The comp on Belgium is Auburn. Capable of elite chaotic peaks, but currently struggling through a major transitional phase. I was going to say Texas A&M. A lot of hype, but doesn't get it done.

Stay with me on this. Okay. Stay with the schools I'm giving you. Okay. Belgium, Auburn. Good comp or no. It's not bad, but they've never won a World Cup. Auburn's at least won a couple.

All right, we saw Mexico yesterday lose. Yes. Mexico, the comp is Tennessee. good enough to consistently make the postseason knockout stage, but usually bows out early once they get there. That's not bad. That's a good cop. That's not bad because Mexico has never won it.

And they are, but their fans are nuts. You know what? Maybe they're Texas A&M too. Argentina is still in? Yes. Their comp is Georgia. Ooh. Good run in the 80s and they're back.

Excuse me. One of the top big dogs right now, backed by an elite historical tradition. That's not bad. Because Georgia, where the dogs are big in the 80s. That's when Maradonna was doing his thing. They've got three World Cups. Yeah, I like that one.

Georgia and Argentina. It works. England. The cop? Ooh. The University of Texas. Excuse me? Always burdened with massive media hype, but historically tends to under-deliver when it matters most.

Hold on now. Hold on. England hasn't won since 1966. So you're saying unfair. UT has won four since, well, three since 1966. And all the Closing cross-country, Tennis, Roe, absolutely. Yeah, this is BS. I'm not going with it.

France, is France still in? Yeah, France is, yeah. Here's the comp. LSU. Hmm. Boast incredible modern success and elite talent pools, but prone to baffling chaotic down years. I guess.

I mean, they made the final on 22 and they won it in 18. And they're the best team right now. I guess they're more, hmm. Fair or not? It's okay. It's not bad. Is Japan still in?

No. They're in Compass Iowa. Nobody cares. That's kind of funny. Brazil's still in? They got knocked out by Norway yesterday. They're USC. Aconic history, elite uniforms,

an unmatched swagger, but hasn't won the big one in over 20 years. That feels fair, right? too. Yeah, but they have it only once every four years. Okay. Just stay with a college football comp. Just think about it that way. It's not bad. All right, Germany. They have a billion championships. Germany's still in?

Germany is out. They're Ohio State. A relentless machine that wins titles across multiple decades and enters every single year as a favorite. They've been kind of trashed the last couple. Since the 14thal, they haven't been good. Okay.

Netherlands, are they still in? No. No. The Dutch are out. They're Ole Miss. Portugal. Portugal's still in. Portugal's still in it.

Flashy, highly talented, and always in the national conversation, but still chasing that elusive first championship. That's pretty good. The answer to that school of the comp? Oregon. That's not bad. That's a good one. I like that one.

USA. The comp? I'll read the description first. Can I, before even looking? Please. Texas Tech. Peak historic success dates back. in the 1930s.

Oh. Possesses unlimited money, talent, and resources, but yet struggles to put it all together. So they went with Texas A&M. Texas A&M. Yeah, but at least A&M won in 39 when Hitler was invading Poland. Spain's still in?

Yes. Historic powerhouse with a highly distinct identity. After enduring a long championship dry spell, they finally broke through to climb back to the absolute mountain top. Their comp, the University of Michigan. Hmm. That's not bad.

I like that one. Because Michigan doesn't have as many championships as you think for all the hype they get. Same thing for Spain. But they're 2010 teams an all-timer. Uruguay is not in. Yorahui is not in, but they won a bunch back in the day. And now they haven't been good for like the last, I don't know, 30 years. Their description, a deeply respected historical giant with multiple championship stars on their chess from a bygone era.

They command massive global. They command massive global respect, but are still chasing modern playoff glory. Can I guess? Please. Notre Dame. Notre Dame is right on the mark. That's good. That's perfect.

Dominated in like the 30s and they're still huffing off the fumes of that glory. Yeah, that's your right. Notre Dame is perfect. Morocco. Morocco? Okay. The ultimate modern Cinderella story captured the hearts of fans everywhere with an unexpected and crazy run. Who's their college football com?

Indiana? Indiana is correct. Yeah, but Indiana won at all. Okay. Switzerland still in. France is about to slap up Morocco, I think. Switzerland out. The Swiss are out. Okay, they are Penn State. Nobody cares. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Swiss and Columbia tomorrow.

That's my bad. Oops. The definition of consistency, they can practically guarantee they will look sharp and win their early matchups, but they will reliably hit a hard ceiling against Tier 1 opponents. That is Penn State. It's not bad. All right. What about Columbia? Is that in there?

It's in there. Stay with me. Saudi Arabia. They are way out. I want you to guess the school. Here comes a description. Saudi Arabia. Fuel by an immense amount of oil money. Oh, my God. And rapidly buying their way into the national spotlight.

A flashy program fully capable of pulling off a massive shocking upset. Okay. Texas Tech. Texas Tech. That's exactly right. Now, Columbia. They went with the full. Here we go. Columbia. Incredible swag.

Beautiful colors and a fiery, passionate fan bag. Yes. They sit on a gold mine of local town and looked like world beaters on their best day, but remain highly volatile. Who is the college football comp? Think about this for a little bit. Florida State. You're close, Miami. Okay. Sweden's still in? Sweden got destroyed. They're out by France, I believe.

Okay. Since OU is close to us. The model of high-level consistency, they boast a top-tier historical record and our safe bet to dominate their regional schedule. but they are still fighting to cross the finish line for a modern championship. Chile? Okay. Still in or no? Chile is, I don't even know if they made it.

Clemson. Clemson? Hungary? Out? This is tough. Hungary? Yeah. Hungary is out.

Hungary is Nebraska. What about the Democratic Republic of Congo? Not in there. Nigeria? They're out, right? Yeah. I don't think they made it. They're Florida.

Oh, wow. All right. So let's recap here. USA is Texas A&M in football. You've got Belgium, who the USA's playing, is Auburn. Okay. England is Texas. And Germany's Ohio State.

Portugal's Oregon. My favorite one is Saudi Arabia's Texas Tech. That's pretty funny. That cracks me. I think the most... The most perfect one was Uruguay, Notre Dame. Yeah. That's it.

All right, so there's your comps on college football and how they do. See, this is helping you? It's giving you some context. I think gave us a segment of the show. Okay. Just say yes, man. Okay, yes. I feel like I'm way ahead of the curve now.

Good. 1244 on Sports Talk 7. We got missing you coming up in 45 minutes. We welcome a brand new member to do the missing your family in 45 minutes on Astro players that are gone. And the one, the new player this week, hurt the Astros this past week. So think about that coming up at 131. We have, believe it or not today, all things about Belgium. Is that correct?

Yes. Does Belgian waffle, did they get the waffle bit, the thicker waffle? Is that how they get it? I don't know. What is the difference? What is the... Well, I mean, you have the Lego my Agoes that are thin, and you get the thicker waffle that's Belgian. That waffle house is pretty thin.

Thicker, larger, and deeper. That's how I like my waffle. You? Deeper pockets, I guess, though, for more butter. You like it deeper in your waffle there? Josh? Sure. Not a big waffle guy.

You get yeast in your batter? Might want to get that checked out. Yeah, not a big waffle guy. Are you pancake guy? Ommlet. Neither? I'm not with the car bloating for breakfast. You can have an omelet and pancakes.

Yeah. I literally did that like a week ago. For $12, you get a big ass waffle at Waffle House. By the way, I've been working on my omelet making. And? It's getting better. It's tough. It's tough or do you think?

No, you know? You think it's easy to just flip an egg onto itself? No, no. It's hard. The key is constantly stirring the egg. That's the key. Low and slow. You're Mr. Omla guy?

I'm a damn good omelet. You flip the omelet? Absolutely. Now you do a double flip or a half flip? Double flip. Okay, you do the ingredients in the egg or on top of the egg? The only problem is my daughter puts ketchup on the omelet and it's gross. Oh, come on.

Let's put a little tobacco on there. It's the only way she eats it. It's gross. But I'm a damn good almond maker. Thanks for asking. Maybe I can learn from you. Yeah, I mean, you're cooking the cast iron steak for me. I'm cooking, like I'm just making a decent omit.

No, I told Josh. He's on it. Josh, I'm sorry. You worked the show at three days a year and I throw all these curveballs at you. I'm sorry. Let's hit it again. Why not? Again?

One more time. Oh. Something called the RBFA. Now, it's not the resting bitch face association. That's not it. Okay. Wow. That's pretty good for a...

Uh-huh. Yeah. Proud of you. You were the vice president, correct? I live with having a resting bitch face. It's at the blackjack table. Got that right. By the way, I am low-key obsessed with watching people play blackjack on Instagram

Rails. What? Yeah, I'm... Don't do that. All weekend long. Guys putting down 5,000, 10,000. Again, I don't know if it's a bit or what, but... I've been this one I'm watching, but that's move on.

Okay. The Royal Belgian Football Association received the decision from the FIFA Appeal Committee. Remember they said, this isn't involved. You shut your bum ass up. Get out. Okay? Well, the RBFA has still not received any grounds for this decision,

which is contrary to what the reports are, the saying that you weren't involved, so get out of the way. Nor is it received the information it has been requesting since the start of the procedure, i.e. a copy of the decision and the motivation declaring the players eligible, as well as a referee's report, which is a, breach of FIFA regulations. Excuse me. The RBFA

has informed the United States Soccer Federation that a contest the eligibility of the player should the player be listing on the referee's team sheet. Quote unquote, this leaves all further actions open.

Meaning, if he plays and he's on the sheet, they could protest the end result of the game. Now they may lose, this may just be formatics. but this is way, way out of my comfort zone. Okay? So essentially, they got the appeal today, and the appeals like,

it didn't involve you go away. And now this royal Belgian football association is now saying, we're going to protest this if you plivoli place today. RBFA has still not received any grounds for this decision, nor has it received the information. It has been requesting since the start of this procedure. Yeah, so I just said, yeah.

Crazy. But they just, they, in the previous, release we said an hour ago. They said, it didn't involve you, so get out of the business. This is a breach of FIFA regulations, they say. This to me is more just protocol here.

We're going to appeal this until we can't appeal anymore until somebody says we're done appealing. I don't know any enough about the ins and outs of FIFA and how it works and what all these, what does this protest mean? Royal Belgian Football Association.

Who knew we'd be talking about them today? The RBFers. We've talked about RBF on this show. It's not in this context. All right. By the way, our listener, Jay, said, we didn't mention Norway. His comp, this is Jay's comp, a comp, is TCU. Wins every year when they finally make the playoffs, they get destroyed.

They just beat Brazil. But, I mean, has Norway had a history getting destroyed? No, but yeah, they're a small country. Okay, well, I'm just, how many people live in Norway? Like a 20 million or something? Yeah, but TCU's not a big, football. Oh my God. 5.6 million people in Norway. Oh, man. And they're in the final eight. And they have beautiful women there too.

They're like a Cinderella. Yeah. Okay. So you know what? They can be a TCU. I guess so. Is there a comp for the University of Houston? And be polite when you do it. If you don't have one, don't do it. Who's made the most quarterfinals? Who's made the most semifinals without winning it all? Why are you making a face at me? I'm not the one that failed you. I'm not the one that watched the ball dribble What a time was running out in the middle of the floor That wasn't me Don't look at me

You weren't the one that got COVID right after the game either No I wasn't That was you That was me Travel them streets Let's see Ooh it looks like you're Croatia Is that what AI says

Croatian no I just put Who has the most Croatia's never won at all Territ And that They've made five semifinals. So, yeah, why are you making eyes in me again? Because it's easier to give you eye looks than talk to you.

You're giving me a resting evil eye. You're giving me the re. I give you RBF. You're giving me the evil eye. And I mean, I'm just, I'm sorry. They didn't win at all. What do you want me to do? How do you feel about USA's comp being Texas A&M?

Fair? I guess. It's kind of funny. One of our listeners went to AI to give us a tarx Scouble to the Astros trade. Okay. Trevor. Chat GPT light at him, I imagine, right?

Well, it was Trevor that just sent it to us. Oh, okay. You already shot that down. Yeah, go ahead. You want to read the trade? We'll read the trade to open up the final hour of the show. Look at this guy. Professional Radio Tees.

Why? Seriously, Ross. Why did anybody in the Astros organization put Tar Scubel's name attached to the Astros? Maybe it's going to happen, Matt. Maybe they're going to blow us all the way. I thought that Josh Hates. thing was fluff and then they signed. I don't think it was

fluff because the streets said that they were going to Astros were going to try to trade for him. They just could not there was something that was going to hold them up. I thought the tax was going to hold up for the Josh Hader signing. If you want to put out

outfooner names, I can live with that until the cows come home. I can't live with Tar Skobl coming to the Astros. I can live with it. On a rental for two months and give up whatever, whatever. Dylan Cise. They were reportedly near the finish line with him last track deadline. Okay. Well, I thought they wanted Arrogatti and four prospects,

and then that was, so that wasn't near the deadline, near the deadline. Near the, uh, yeah, they didn't want to give up Spencer. And I believe they also wanted the real estate where currently Rutter Ruger is at Dikin Park. Mm-hmm. All right, Josh. So AI from one of our listeners has the trade completed for Tark's Kooble. We'll evaluate that next with the rest of you. If you'd like to join us, 713, 212, 2, 5, 790.

713-212-5-790. It's Matt and Ross. Josh is filling in as our producer today. Jonathan's back with us tomorrow. We have Missing You coming up in a half an hour here on. Josh, 790, final hour of the program. We got Missing You coming up at 130, where we will take a look at five Astros that are out wearing different uniforms. And we welcome a brand new member to the Missing Your family coming up at 1.30 because, again, Hesu Sanchez is still on the injured list for the Toronto Blue Jays. missing you at 130 and believe it or not today at 150. Belgium, have you thought of any questions yet? No. All right. We were going to give away a little one o'clock heads up, but...

Yeah, we're working on it. So you don't want to give a freebie away at this point? Sure, why not? The waffles are deeper and thicker. That's not, I believe it or not topic or a question. Why not? Because that's... It just doesn't work on that.

It's the birthplace of french fries. Believe that or not. It is. All right. Here we go. So our friend of the show, Trevor Mock, listened to show. His brother used to play football at the University of Texas back in the day. Trevor says, I asked AI what a legit package would look like, and this is what I got. Would you guys do this? I would definitely think about it.

Go on. Here we go. The Astros, according to AI, would give up. Well, let's do the Astros receive first. Tarek Scubal. and then it put in parentheses, Tigers might eat a bit of the money or include a minor piece.

Scoobel makes good money, obviously, for being an arbitration guy. It's like $32 million. It's like an arbitration record. Yeah, so maybe they eat some of it. In return, the Tigers would give up, or would receive, I should say,

from the Astros. A.J. Blue Ball. Okay. Or a comparable player like Ethan Pecco, Ryan for Cucci, or Bryce Mayer. Ryan what? For Coochee? Okay.

Or it could be for Succi. I don't know. For Cucci sounds better. If it's not a major league, I don't care. If Wayne's a major league, I'll get it right. Xavier Nions. Yes. One of Houston's highest upside bats, big raw,

power, physical frame, young lefty bat with real star potential. Okay. And if that's not enough, the Tigers would receive Kevin Alvarez, the Astros' top prospect. He is, I believe, number 70 in MLB.com's list. of top 100. No chance. Hold on.

I'm not done. AI says he's toolsy. He has a high upside outfielder. Exactly the profile of Houston has been developing. He's also 18 years old. No way. No how. No chance.

I ain't doing it. No. AI ain't doing it. And the Astros ain't doing it. But to answer AI's question, would that be enough for Tark's school? Well, the answer to that would be. Yes, it would be.

I'm sure it would be enough. I think for two months. Are you kidding me? Yes. I don't know. I don't know how crazy people are going to get. How much? Because you're talking about the impact arm.

This is, yeah, this is like a rainy Johnson in 1998 stuff. The trade in line is August 4th. The season ends before October 1st. You're talking about eight weeks. I know. You cannot give up. Well, it's eight weeks in the playoffs. You're not getting him just to, you're not getting him to just hang out.

The, yeah. The Colorado Rockies aren't trade. for Tarek Scruble. You're not doing this for a September to remember and then forget everything else. Okay, that's fair. It's to win the World Series. That's why you're doing this. I'll say it again. You'll back me up. No chance. No way.

No how. That makes zero sense for the Astros. So then you would leave the Astros who are depending, depending on who you believe, either the 28th to 29th or the 30th rank monol league system with their two prospects gone for a two-month rental or a three-month rental.

So bad. it's not happening that's why you can't trust AI dude you need these guys to come up and be good when Yordon's like 34 or 33 by the way if you were to layer

the out the off season for the Astros once we do have a season again because December 1st they're going to stop talking to each other you can't so let's assume there's a new CBA or whenever it is

I know Jeremy Pena is going to be high on the list of talking to in terms of what you're going to do. But I think we kind of know the end result. I think we kind of do. You mean thanks for everything. Jeremy Pena, social media post.

Thank you, Jeremy. World Series MVP. Phenom. Do you go lock up? Selling mid-Mexican food? Do you add five years to your own's contract? I'd add 10 right now. I'm not even kidding. The 10-year thing is gone.

But you could have five years at super big pay. Would he sign that? Yeah. He's up for two more years. He get a free agent at 31. He can get like a seven, eight year deal. He's underpaid right now. That's why I think you could add the extra years at like whatever, 40 million plus.

Because if you average that out with the 27 or whatever you're paying in the next two years, it doesn't hurt as much. I could see them. Because you're getting great value on him right now, right? This is like the best contract in baseball in terms of guys who aren't an arbitration. Yeah. I could see you overpaying for five and saying, hey, we can't do seven. and we don't do seven, but I'm going to make sure that we have,

we're going to make sure we took, we're going to take care of you for the years that you gave us great value. He's one of the three best hitters on the planet. Right now, he's the one best hitter on the planet right now. Mm-hmm. He's worth it. He's worth it.

Legitimate Triple Crown candidate. Seriously. He is the favorite in the clubhouse for the MVP. Do it, Jim. Let's go, James. Sign him up. Lock him up. Lock him up.

You can have conversations about more than one thing at one time, clearly. But to me, I think the offseason is for the following. McCullors are going to come off the books. Thank God. You'll have that money to spend on some sort of starter. I don't know who that's going to be, and I don't even want to get into speculation on that. Okay. You've got to figure out what Kai Wei Tong is going to do.

Not Kawee-I-Mai. He's opting in. I'm going to presume he's going to opt in. He hasn't done enough to necessarily deserve a new country. contract somewhere else. No, he hasn't. Okay? So you've got that. You never know. You think guys are an opt-in and they don't when it comes to Boris clients.

If Scottie B thinks he can get... But he would really have to round it for him to opt out. He would have to have... He'd have to lead a major Astros post-season charge. Honestly, you're in a neat... If we're talking about post-season charge and making the post-season, tattoo you might have got to be part of this. I wouldn't presume so.

I mean, again, if he's got the stuff... Look, Lambert's been good. and Arrogati's been good, but Emai is making a lot of money. If Arrogati's going to regress some, if Lambert can hold it on, I mean, you're getting inconsistent Hunter Brown. If you're making the play,

if we're talking about them making the playoffs and doing anything, Burroughs EMI, like the, I don't even know. Javier, who else? I don't know who's going to have to be a part of this, but somebody's going to have to be better. You can't have the EMI and the Burroughs roller coasters

and you're making the playoffs. You're going to be hovering around 500. No, so maybe if it's not necessarily EMI, it could be Burroughs that could be a little more consistent. Okay. Somebody's got to step up. The status quo is there are two games that are 500. They are what their record says they are. So the two things for me, offseason-wise,

when there is a legit off-season would be heart-to-heart to Jeremy. Are you going to be? Do you want to sign here? Do we want you back as part of it as well? And at what dollar value do we want you back? Because, again, I don't know the pipeline of the shortstop position for the Astros, but it ain't Carlos Correa. Carl's Correa's days is a shortstop for this team for even a part-time basis

should not even be in consideration. 32 million for Correa next year, 31 million the year after that. Then he's off the books. He needs to be a third baseman. McCullors are coming off the books. Pena's going to hit arbitration. Isak Paredes

is... If you move on... Arbitration, you got one year of ESOC? Ross, if you move on from Jeremy Pena, you're not getting a... shortstop back in return. Paredes, you have a club option for $13 million next year, which I did not

know that. You picked that up. Probably, yes. Got one more year, Christian Walker. Brian Abrayu's a free agent, that's $6 million off the books. Stephen Okert. Oh, keep him. Two and a half million. Well, unless somebody wants to give him more money. A left-hand of relievers, I mean good season.

Daniel Delos Santos, thank you everything. Thank you for everything. And yeah, he's off the books. But all your outfielders don't make any money. Cam Smith makes no money. Jake Myers is a little. make great money. Lamont-Way doesn't make great money. You got about 65, not counting arbitration,

because some of that will come back, via Jeremy Payne, especially. You got about 60 million come off the books. Pay. Yard on. Pay Yord on. And if you're going to move, Payne you, who's this?

You're going to spend free and see money on shortstop, so you could get pricey, and you're going to have to go get an outfielder's part of it, unless you make a deal at the deadline here for a guy that's going to have some service time left. and we just figured out the Astros offseason for you folks. Boom. Nobody else does that.

We'll play that all offseason. Oh, we're going to play it like in December. We're going to play it with our drops. Both sides need to make concessions here, Matt. We'll do that, by the way. Next week is the slowest week in sports. Okay. We're going to create a special

strike or lockout edition of the Matt Thomas show. We'll do that. All right. 713-212-5-790. If you want to join us, 7-1-3-212-5-790. So let's put things in perspective. Astros have the national. for three days, then an off day Thursday, then the Rangers. If they

come back 500 Rossi, do they have a wild card spot? I would say yes, because if you're coming back 500, that means oh, excuse me, yeah, it means you're going to four and two on the trip. And you're going to presume you want at least two of them against the Rangers, right?

Yeah, that's a presumption. That's who you're chasing. And you're only a game back right now. That is correct. All, you know what we're looking for? What? Another series win. all we want the local nine to do is get series wins series after series after series

they've been piling them up and when they lose I don't want you running to your Twitter account dumbass Astros Twitter and saying that Joe Espada should be fired you don't look very bright some of you are bright but there's more of you that are not it's okay that's life

I don't know I think of how dumb the average person is and realize half the people are number than that What's the dumbest thing for Texans' Twitter? C.J. Strata's a league quarterback? C.J. Stroud has a league quarterback. Every Bobby Sloak is footballing genius. Bobby Sloak. We can't have Bobby Sloak being fired.

Now Bobby Sloak's causing them is he's sinking the ship. Bobby Sloak's fault. I'm just going to say they're the least offensive of the group in town. They just are. Rocket Swetters losing its damn mind right now with Kevin Durant. Oregon, Detroit Tigers. Terrible. It's gotten worse. Detroit Tigers' cap today. now there's more that Brett Siegel dude is always now he's got him attached to

going to Detroit eventually that guy that fan side it or something. He's got a bunch of followers. People listen to him as gospel. He's the one that had the three-way trade involving the rockets, the pistons, and the Celtics that had Jaylon Brown coming to Houston. How'd that work out? It didn't happen. Okay. But now apparently Kevin Durant's wearing a Detroit cap today and everyone was in her mind. Okay. Because he wants to play with Kate Cunningham. 1.15 on Sports Talk, 790.

713-212-5-790. Bottom of the hour, missing you right here on 790. I love when our fill-ins play music that just hits. Banger. I'm still waiting for that. It's a yacht rock summer on the mat on the show, Ross.

This is it. Did you request this or something? No. Josh just knows me. Josh and we've known each other for a long time. He knows. Over 10 years. You know what? Since this song is so good, I'm going to give you a chance to promote your little podcast, but your podcast.

It's very rude. It's a big one. Big podcast. I appreciate that. Yeah, it's Stone Cold Stroes podcast with Charlie Polillo, Brandon Strange. And then we also have the Texans on Tap podcast. You can find them on YouTube, Stone Cold Stroes channel and Texans on Tap channel. Stone Cold Stroes.

You don't do a Rockets podcast? It's rude. No, only so many hours in the day. You want to do a Rockets podcast? Not right now. Not for free. I'm going to tell you something right now. There are so many Gibroni rocket podcasts out there that just throw crap against the wall and think it sticks.

It's embarrassing. If I don't, I'll just say this. Y'all don't roll your head from your asses. You're getting incredibly bad information. All I do is every time I see something, I go to my sources and are like, that dude's making crap up. Got to make waves in this world somehow, Matt. well it's embarrassing people it's you know it's funny because I always say that

when I when young people ask how do I get in the business and I'm like well you do have the opportunity to do podcast but the problem is there are now so many podcast yeah it's a good way to get reps it's a great way to get reps but it's also a dangerous way to say things that stick and then if you're wrong

because you come across as this know it all then you have no you build a terrible rip reputation. Yeah. So the first thing when people ask how to get into the business, I tell them don't. First thing I would say is, do not get into business. We got in at the very last second. We're lucky.

We are very lucky. We are blessed. But I would not recommend this to anybody. It's more difficult than ever to crack in. Tom and downtown wants a Copa, Copa Verdi comparison to Camp? Cape Verde? Cape Verde? Cape Verde.

He said Copa. Cape Verdy. He's wrong. Kate Verdy, okay Wasn't playing competitive football until a few years ago Yeah Up and coming first taste

Of post season's success And knows how to party The comp on that is Texas State That's not bad That's actually really good I don't even know Surprise because didn't Cape Verdy I mean didn't Texas State

They beat you of H right Once A few years ago Yeah I believe it was Was it Tony Levine's first game As a coach Or something

Oh God Thanks Where's that major Applewhite era No Tony Levine Tony's doing very well. Tony's selling a lot of chicken.

Yes. Doing very well for himself. Shout out for him. Shout out for Coach Levine. Good dude. Really, really good dude. Lovely. Best part about Tony Levine.

What's the best part about Tony Levine? When he was the interim coach, and I think he filled in a year after that or whatever it was, I did a couple of games on play-by-play for filling in for Kevin Eschenfelder, and I would always, when I was doing games for other schools like Utah and Rice, and say, hey, can you give me a heads up on fake punts, fate field goals, what the scenario would be?

I said, how about your first 10 plays? And he would, so I'd go to his suite at his hotel the night before the game, and we'd talk for about 20 minutes. Wow. Things to anticipate. Oh, that's beautiful. Yeah. And then you'd get to the other side and bet against you of H.

That's not true at all. You're just the worst. Apologize right now. I'm just kidding. We didn't do sorries last Friday as we were off. You got about two weeks worth of a lot of stories. That's not true. All right.

We will get to a couple of phone calls here in a second. You guys are dialing in it. 713, 2.1. 1-2-5-7-90, 7-13-21-2-5-7-90. We have missing you coming up at the bottom of the hour. Vince, we'll get to you in just a couple of seconds. All right, so tonight, honestly, U.S. can win this game, correct? Yeah, they're favored.

They're trading at 53%. So it's about a coin flip. And a lot of this is because of the home field advantage, correct? I would say probably. In Seattle, should be a rabid crowd. It's like $1,500 to get in. That's a big, I mean, that's built in. They have, what is it, the Seattle Sounders?

Yes, FCT. Yeah, they get like 40,000 a game there. It's a big soccer fan base. So it should be good. Whether it be an issue at all? Let's take a look at the Seattle Metro forecast. I don't know. They can get some heatways every now and then.

Yeah, but man, it just feels like it rains there all the time. And it does. It's funny, though. It rains almost like 200 days a year there, but more rain will actually drop in New York City that will drop in Seattle. just get more of the misty stuff every day. I'm looking up the forecast for Seattle. You do that?

I'm looking up, Seattle's draw, a Sounders draw about $31,000 a match. It's pretty good. And how do the Dynamo draw? The dynamo, hold on, I'm scrolling. Scrolling, about 17. Ooh, by the way, 5 o'clock,

which is the tip of the kickoff time in Seattle. 81 degrees. A little warm. Good is that. A little home field advantage. Yeah. I guess America's warmer than best. Belgium, sure. Had a weather delay in Mexico City yesterday. That's right. And then Harry,

what's his name, came over there and just... Kane, Harry Kane. That's my oldest son's favorite player. Yeah, because he used to play for the Tottenham Hotspah. What's he played for now? He's with the Byron Munich. And he left because of... I'm sure money. He wanted to go win. I'm sorry. Tottenham sucks. They're the worst big six team. Would that be the case a year for now when we go there? Maybe. I will call you from Europe because I think that's the least I can do. Give you a firm soccer report. Yeah, I'm good.

Oh, you're going to call the show? Yeah. Okay. That sounds good. I'm going to do the show. You're kidding me? No, I thought you might call me like off air. I'm like, no, I'm good. No, I don't know. I don't mean to talk to you. No. Love you. But we're good. We see each other enough. Hi, Vince. You're on 790. Good afternoon. Hey, guys. Good afternoon. Hey, I'm just

curious. So I'm not really all this, all that up on heads of states trying to intervene on something as big as a World Cup and get there in a way. So just curious, how do you think this would have played out if Infantania,

whatever his name is, that look, look, look, we've already made our decision. This is the way it is. Sorry. How do you think that would have gone? I don't know. I think we would have probably went about our days.

I mean, it seems like that was the No, really. Come on now. What do you mean? I'm talking about just in terms of his reaction if Infantani would have told him, hey, no, we can't do anything about it. Whose reaction? Infant, the president. I don't know.

I mean, what would you think he would, what do you think he would bar the game or? Yeah, I don't know. You think he would have done something? Wait, wait a minute, wait, wait. Who knows what he would have done? I mean, I'm just my point. He's kind of like, he kind of flies off the handle and does some crazy stuff. I don't think he would cause it.

This is me personally. Hi, my name is Ross. I don't think he would cause an international incident over the guy getting a red card and not playing. But I don't know. Well, it's not so much about him getting the red card not playing. It's about him asking, intervening on the situation that he has no part of. And then not getting his way. But he did.

I don't know. But we know we know who we're talking about, right? Obviously. Volatile personality, yeah. But I don't. Now, maybe you would have fired off some mean tweets, I don't know. Or mean truths. As my argument was a couple of hours ago, Vince, we in sports,

we sometimes get super upset at the governing bodies making bad calls. We want somebody to defend our honor. Okay, so this is a case of that here. The argument I would have had against it is if FIFA, would have said President Trump stay out of this and then President Trump

would have done something beyond that going around FIFA to do that that would have that to me would have been a much bigger injustice than him lobbing a phone call

to FIFA and saying hey can you help us out not help us out but can you re-evaluate this that to me is it would have been the greater crime I disagree with you on that

because to me it's not he has no he has no role in this situation at all he has zero role in the situation but Vince as I said before He should have no sway.

But he didn't. He didn't call FIFA and say, you got to change it. They said, do you need to look at this? And that's what they did. I mean, you know. The way FIFA says that they were already looking at it, so I don't know. Do you really know that's how that conversation was? No, but you don't either.

I mean, we don't, there's a lot of, there's 15 different stories. Vince, there's 15 stories out there. I don't know what the hell to believe, honestly. I'm just telling you, I would have been way more offended is if FIFA would have said, we've already made our ruling and then the president comes around and says well, oh, you did, huh? Well, this is what's going to happen to you next. That would have been way

more offensive to me than him loving a phone call to FIFA. That's in my opinion. Well, my point is, you don't know if that's the way it went because we don't really know. Well, as you don't either. Nobody knows. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Okay, well, that's cool. I appreciate you guys. Always taking my call.

Thanks, love. All right. See you, Vince. Thank you, Vince. Thanks. I don't know what happened. know who called who. I don't know how much influence there was, if any, but he's playing and I'm happy. Yeah. And like I said, two hours ago, and I don't mean to repeat myself here, but sometimes, I'm not saying this is the case to do it, but we've always said sometimes there's such an injustice in sports, somebody's going to stand up and say, fix this. And I don't want to speak universally for every soccer fan. Okay. But it feels like universally everybody said, that was a horrific call.

Horific call that you used instant replay to help determine a red car when you're not supposed to do that. I would call it a bad call, not horrific. Okay. By the letter of the law, it was he spiked the dude's Achilles. I mean, but it wasn't intentional. Maybe if you had more officials on the field. They shouldn't have been, they slowed it down. They had enough officials, Matt.

Yeah. You're not supposed to slow it down, though, right? They called it nothing. Now, of course they're going to slow it down. That's what happened to England shouldn't have got a red card yesterday either. Yeah. Yeah, this is so curious. Yeah, these host countries getting a lot of calls going in their way.

That's why we love it. Blake, here on 790. Good afternoon. Sports guys, how are you on, man? No, I'm just calling pretty much about the President Trump intervening thing. All he did was ask for a review because, I mean, if I know about soccer and I'm American, so I don't blame to, I love baseball. So my thing is that you can't go to a review like that. get a red card. So all he did was ask them

to review their own rules and then apparently under their own articles they was able to do it. So I'm all for it. I don't think it's out of pocket to have the president of the hosting country to ask the FIFA guy whenever the FIFA guys is buddy. So I'm not mad

at it. So I'll hang up by something here, which I'd say. Yeah, that last call was kind of wild. That's just people like thinking it politics in my sports and I hate it. Yeah, yeah, that's why and thank you, Blake, for the phone call. I mean, because got involved in sports. Yeah.

In this particular case, it did. It just happened. But I like to separate mine. Well, sometimes they go together. Look at my, look at me extending my arms out like that. Are you okay?

I got politics way over here and I got sports way over here. Well, sometimes you're jamming together. Sometimes they intertwined. Yeah, it happened here. And they should have done. They should have. We don't know. Yeah.

They don't know. But he's playing. Belgium's like, uh, the resting bitch faces over there. Like, we're going to, we're going to appeal this again.

It's the Royal Belgian Federation. And then we're going to file protests. and it's getting super political. Belgium's not very happy. No, they're not. They got RBS. FIFA gave Donald the Peace Prize. And some comptuaries were very upset about that.

So there has been some intertwining of politics and sports. I would just presume that if we did a deep dive on FIFA meetings and phone calls, if we got their call records, we would be astonished on how bad a lot of those things are, right? Because, I mean, it's the least, what would you say, Rossi? The least ethical governing body in sports today, by far. He's playing. Go USA.

Missing you next, 134 on Sports Talk 790. Former Houston athletes during the spring and summer. We are focusing on the local nine. Are we doing this with the NBA in the fall? Sure, why not? NFL, well, we'll check on Joe Mixon once it gets a spot in the NFL. Well, but, okay. Gunshot wound probably is precluding that from happening.

He didn't get a gunshot wound. Such a fraud. I agree with that. All right, let's go. And you know what, since you're a good baseball mind, Josh Jordan, we'll ask you if you're missing these players, all right? I'll read the stats and I simply ask you how you're missing them. Okay.

We'll start with Alex Breggman. Last week, you went six for 27 with a home run. Good God. Five ribbies. did draw five walks Bregman on the year seven home runs 32 RBIs for the Chicago Cubs

at a OPS of 685 Ross are you missing Alex Bregman What the hell's going on over there I mean we're used to him struggling but we're into July pal 32 rippies I'm not missing him

almost in 100 games seven home runs and 88 games that's brutal not missing him Josh you're missing him not missing him also because where would he play you got isaq paredes who's cost a fraction of the price and's playing better and then korek couldn't be back next year you don't have to be practical about this you can say you're missing shut up with your practical takes next Kyle Tucker Los Angeles Dodger right fielder

seven hits for out of 20 this past week oh that's good no home runs that's not good one ribby okay eight walks and you slap a bunch of singles well he's the Icho Suzuki now the Dodger lineup. I see that. Did draw eight walks struck out three times. On the year, seven home runs, 45 RBIs.

Seven homers for him, too? Yes. And an OPS of 733. Josh, are you missing Kyle Tucker? Was he at least stealing a bunch of bases? No, he has six on the year. I am missing him because Astros' outfit stinks.

So I would at least have taken over 700 OPS. Yeah. But if we were going with the practical matter, you do get Esok and Cam Smith out of the deal. But if we're not doing practical, we're waving a magic wand, I would take Kyle Tucker. Yeah, it's our second. We can wave a one.

104 OPS Plus is brutal for $60 million. That's way too much. Only six stolen bases, huh? No caught. It's a 30-30 guy. He's got six stolen bases. What is he doing over there? He's not getting on base, I guess. Watching Freddie Freeman and Mukie Bez do all the heavy lifting. I guess you can't steal bases if you don't get on base.

Can't steal first. All right, here we go. Framber Valdez. July 2nd, his last start. five innings. Frumber. Okay. Five runs.

Oh, nine hits. Oof. Two walks. One K. Oh. His record now, four and six. Ernie of four point two nine.

By the way, that was against the Rangers of all teams. Four point two nine, huh? Yeah. Whip is one point three eight. Ross,

are you missing Framber Valdez? What's Tatsu of Yemise? I don't know. I don't know. You're all right? It's over six. It's over six. Oh, yeah.

Burroughs is like 588-ish. Yeah, I'm missing. We miss him. Sorry. I'm not missing him because he's great I'm missing him because I'm lonely You don't miss her because she's the best You miss her just because you're kind of lonely

I'm missing him because every fourth start He doesn't leave the game in the second or first inning That also helps your bullpen Is he the free piece? Is that what you're saying? The what? The free piece. The free piece explain Matt You don't have to work for it very hard It's always there and ready for you

May not be the best but it's always there It's going to cost you, though. But it did cost you more. It's not cheap. Yeah, it's not cheap anymore. La Graza's not free. I would say we're not missing them. I'm going with it.

I'm sending right now. We're not missing them. Okay. Might have to sit through dinner with their kids or something. Maricio Dubon. Eight for 24. Shush. Eight for 24 with a home run and five ribbies.

Draw six walks and two K's of the Braves this week. He's up to nine home runs, 48 RBIs. OPS of 756. Josh Jordan, are you missing Mauricio Dubon? I am missing him. That flexibility. He's swinging a bat.

So, yeah, I'm missing Dubon. How does he have a higher OPS than Bregman and Tucker? And more home runs, right? You say nine home runs? Nine. Nine. Forty-eight ribbyes. You got seven a piece for Bregs and Tucker.

He's got a better OPS and a better slugging numbers. And you moved away from him as a penny-pinching move to shave a little payroll, missing them big time. And Pena's missed so much time that it'd be nice to have DuPont. Yeah, that's right. All right, our last one, boys, we would like to welcome a new member to the Missingya Club. We're ticking Hesu Sanchez

Hopkins on the intro list. Victor Caratini of the Minnesota Twins. I'm going to say yes without even hearing the numbers. Go ahead. Five for 24 this past week with a home run against the Astros. Four ribbies. Drew four walks did strike out six times.

On the year, Caratini is seven home runs, 34 RBI, is an OPS of 704. Rossi, are you missing? 704? 704. Victor Caratine. What's yiners?

I'm pulling this up right now. Don't look at Christian Vasquez. Ooh, 624? Yes, I'm missing him. Another penny pinching move. Just saying, I understand you don't want to sign a 10-year deals. Victor Caratini's not a 10-year deal. Marisou de Mont, not a 10-year deal.

Josh, you're missing Victor Caratini? I'm missing him. He can swing the bat from the left side of the plate since she's a switch. You mentioned left-ed-ed-ass bat. He was the greatest pinch hit. He was the greatest pinch-hitter, like, I don't know, since Orlando Palmero. That was a random pull. All right, since Marwin-Gonzalez.

Let's go there. That. You the Gurriel? Sure, why not? That's it, boys. So let's recap. We are missing Caratini. Gosh, we've got to keep Caratini in there.

That's when that one pisses me off. We are missing Dubon. I think it was like a two-year-14 million-old. I am not missing Valdez. Tugger. And Breggman, no. And that's this week's edition of missing you here on the Matt Thomas Showcross. Appreciate it.

All right, we're going to play Believe It or Not next. It's all things about Belgium. 713212. Yes. 713-212-57. I was like, you're setting us up for something really special there. No, we're good. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90.

We are playing Believe it or Not today. Now, Josh has never performed the production on Believe It or Not, which means it's going to be a blank storm. He knows it. Ross and I know it. and now you guys know it. 713-212-5-7-90. 7-1-3-2-7-9.

Ross and I can go to the country bars tonight to the dance of this song. Line dancing. You up? All right. I'll say that as a no. Nobody's line-dancing to chic. They did it back in the 70s.

Did they? Or maybe to some chic songs. Shout out Nile Rogers. I feel like you're... You're going to hurt yourself. That's right. Five minutes left to go on the show. What should we do? All right, step one. So far, so good. We're going to play America's fastest growing sports radio game.

Shall we simply call it B, believe it or not? And here's how it works. You call 713212-570. 7-1-3-2-1-2-790. Today's edition of Belvoir not, it's all things about Belgium. You can turn down just a little bit. I don't want to fight the music there. Joshel, there you. Thank you very much. I'll read your statement about Belgium. Statements is completely and utterly accurate. You'll say this.

Bally there you go. That's close. That's not bad. Not bad. Statements, Your Honor is for the bunkum end up. You will say this. Not. Two believer in a roll.

We're going to win your prize. You get a pair of tickets to see Motley Crew on their return of the Carnival of Sins tour with Tesla and Extreme. September the 11th at the Woodlands Pavilion. Tickets are on sale now at Ticketmaster.com. Again, Motley Crew tickets, September the 11th at the Woodlands Pavilion. 713-212-5-790. Bill on 790. Bill, what is your favorite Tesla song, please?

Nothing but nylon. All right. Belgium has never won the World Cup and has also never reached the semifinals. Believe it or not. Could you repeat that? You broke up. Belgium has never won the World Cup and has also never reached the semifinals. Believe it or not.

Not. They reached it. Not. That's right. They reached it in in 1986 in 2018. Statement number two for the win. The Belgian national team are nicknamed the Legionaires. Believe it or not. Oh, fat, dog it. That.

They're called the Red Devils. Oh, geez. There's no... There's no chances going to Motley crew. Lily on 790. Lily, what was your favorite part of today? 10 to 2 radio show. In you Monday.

The what? Missing you. Oh, missing you Monday. Okay. Someone must have told you that. Thank you. The Belgian language is in the Indo-European language family along with Dutch and German. Believe it or not.

Believe it. No, there's no such thing as a Belgian language. But thank you for playing, Lily. Let's go to John on 790. John, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Although they are known as French fries, the delicious fried treat was invented in Belgium back in the late 1600s.

Believe it or not? Believe it. Statement number two for the win. Although the Belgian football team has never won a World Cup, they won the Olympic gold medal in 1920. Believe it or not? Believe it. There you go.

Congratulations. I hope you enjoy seeing the mountaine crew. One more here. John on 790. John, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. The Belgian national team's all-time winning score is Eden Hazard. Believe it or not.

Not. That's right. It's Romelu cuckoo. Number two, the Smurfs were invented in Belgium in 1958. Believe it or not. Believe it. Yay, your winner. Congratulations.

There it is. Before I get you out of here, let's talk about uptown appliance repair. You want to win with your life. if you want to win with good appliances in your home, 281-758-9978. 281-78-9-9-78. Every one of their repairs, whether it's a washer, a dryer, a stove, whether it's a ice maker, whether it's a refrigerator,

whether it's a wine cooler's area, wine cellar, it all comes on exclusive to your warranty. 281-758-9978. That's 281-78-98 or online at Uptown Appliance Repair. That's it for the radio program tomorrow. Joe Espada will join us tomorrow from Washington. I'll have the 10th inning show.