The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Take The Series Furthering Their Position As #1 In AL West, Is Isaac Parades On New Shortlist For Team MVP?

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

Astros Take The Series Furthering Their Position As #1 In AL West, Is Isaac Parades On New Shortlist For Team MVP? 

10-1 in H-town. Good morning and welcome to a Friday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. That might have been the most disturbing non-thal story we ever had. It'll be up to myself to find a more non- disturbing story today at 1.30. Hello, everybody. Hope you guys are, and ladies, I should say, are in for a good Friday show. If you are, maybe you can find something down the job.

We're going to be here anyway. Hey, Matt. How are you? God, how are you? Long time, no talk. It's been a couple days. Yeah. It's nice to get a little break sometimes.

Yeah, I wouldn't say I was lounging, put it that way. I had some family things to take care of, nothing serious. But those things are in the rear of your mirror. Great. And I'm here to spend a Friday with you, my friend. And the great people of Houston, Texas. Wonderful. For an anything goes Friday.

It is an anything goes Friday. And I feel kind of goosey, so let's do that. Let's really let you. just... Goosey? Lucy Goosey? That's fine. Let's just tear the bag open and let's just empty it all out right now. The bag of what? The bag of silliness.

Okay. Because we can break down Texans backup offensive linemen if you want to. I'm good. We can get into is Damien Pierce going to be a difference maker in 2025? He won't. Or we can get into Dana Brown trying to open up a can of whoop ass on the field before the game yesterday. He wasn't throwing hands. He didn't have brass knucks.

Come on, man. He had elbow pads on. He wasn't twirling a switch plate. I thought I saw num chunks. I don't know if it was me or maybe I was delirious. Okay, so let's get into what happened yesterday. First and foremost, Issoc Paredes. I would have to say the biggest surprise for me of the entire season has been him.

Okay. I thought he would be mid. He is mid-time. He's almost. almost exceptional. He's almost worthy of an All-Star knot. Now, he had it a little slump about a week ago. I think a lot of it's because he was playing almost every single inning.

And he hits two home runs yesterday. Fromber is becoming Mr. Quality Start after Quality Start after Quality Start. Give you seven more yesterday. The Astero is now the lead of a game and a half in the American League West. Because Seattle cut swept by Baltimore. At home. You think my buddy Softie is losing his mind today? Probably.

You probably slink. You know what? Think about this. If you're a Seattle fan, your Sonics are now in Oklahoma City Thunder. I'm about to win the championship. Well, I still think about to win this championship. I do too.

I do too. But that's the second time the Thunder ever been in the NBA finals since Seattle's lost in NBA teams. That's got to be painful, right? Yes. Then you have the fact that the Baltimore Freak and Orioles who fired their manager, who are like just dangling in the American League East,

go up there to Seattle, beautiful city. I haven't been in a long time, but it's a great place. And they swept the Mariners on their home field. Look, everybody hurts, as my good friends at R.E.M. would say. Yeah. And then your big headlining offseason acquisition for the Seahawks was Sam Darnold. Now, Cal Raleigh is still hitting the ball left and right all over the ballpark. Yes, he is. So that's good, but they're not getting a whole lot of it.

Is Hulio-Rig has been a disappointment since that big contract? He was hurt. Yeah, he had that big breakout season. And then he's had like a couple of hot months here and there where he's been slumping everywhere else. But he's still great in center field. He's still got a lot of value. But I don't know how he's doing now because wasn't it that Astros series where he had gotten, he had the back stiffness and he was missing some times. It feels like to me that he was supposed to be a dynamic player that we were supposed to talk about like as the replacement for Ken Griffey to be the face of Seattle. And it just hadn't turned out that way.

Yeah, he had a huge rookie season. And then he's just been, I don't want to say pedestrian, but he just hasn't lived up to it, especially at the plate since then. He's still spectacular in the field, but he hasn't been there at the plate. It does scare you when you sign these super contracts. Not that Julio has not working hard, not that Julio lost his passion for the game,

but sometimes things just don't work out. Yeah, he's great in the field still, but he's hitting right now 244 with a 720 OPS. It does have 10 homers. But that's not what you paid for. I mean, you paid for the entire package. All right, so you had that. So that's Seattle.

Let's get to Houston. So yesterday, no, I was watching the weather channel and I was looking at Astros Radio MLB's Twitter weather channel no it was on my phone oh okay

and they were like you know the skies are threatening so I went and looked to the radar at Pittsburgh I'm like there's some pretty heavy rain coming and they never started the game on time then about an hour

into the rain delay it did eventually start to rain and then it really rained and really rained and they're looking at this thing going when are we going to start this thing so then you had game officials, you had umpires, you had people and the Pittsburgh Pirates were on the field.

Joe Espada went on there and then Dana Brown comes out. And that's when Dana brought the Ginsoo knife and said, we're not playing this game. We got to get to Cleveland. We have a big series coming up. Cleveland's a playoff team at this point. We need to be ready to go. And they said, Dana, we're playing this game. Because my guess is they looked at the schedule and said, when can we squeeze this in somewhere? And my guess is there was, and again, they, they, they, They sat there and looked at their schedules. They can know one to squeeze something in. Yeah.

And it probably just didn't work out. So they said, we're going to, we have a window at 9 o'clock. That was central time, 10 o'clock in the east. So they played the game. It was a quick game, but they did play it. And I could hear everything. Yes, the crowd was sparse. Sparse.

But there was a lot of Astro's fans who probably made the trip up to Pittsburgh. A lot of Astro fans were there. I think the Astro fans were liquored up. Oh, of course. What else are you going to do where you're waiting around for three hours in the ballpark? drinking $18 beers, let's go. Do you think if you're the pirates, you cheap

them, those little beers up, or do you're like, you know, we got you now. You're not leaving the ballpark. They should do rain delay prices. I don't disagree. Because if you're going to stick around, because if you leave, then even though you got the tickets sold,

you're losing revenue because those people have left. And the crowd probably wasn't great to begin with. Yeah, even for Paul Skeens, it was like under 16,000. There's 15-something. Yeah. It's a city that has largely said, you don't care about winning

so we don't care about going, unless you just want to get out for a couple of hours. Which is fair on the part of Pittsburgh. So the Astros won that game. Dana Brown was very upset. They did play the game. Apparently, Dana got quite heated, didn't apologize for his remarks or what he said. And again, I think that maybe, and again, I don't know the conversation, maybe we'll never know. But Dana's probably thinking, we got to figure out a way to squeeze in this game somewhere else.

I've got to get my guys to Cleveland. Colton Gordon, who's pitching tonight, and they normally sometimes, and they did this yester years, they would sometimes send their advance pitcher to the city a day ahead, like fly him to pit to Cleveland to get to get a good night's sleep. I don't know if they did that or not. My guess is it was such a, that the game was, it's such a short flight between Cleveland and Pittsburgh that they probably said, yeah, you're still going to get to bed at midnight. He'd be still plenty of time, and that obviously didn't happen.

They got to Pittsburgh in their hotels about, I guess, 3.30 in the morning Eastern time. Well, you could have taken a car. I don't think it's that close I mean it's a couple hours but they're not gonna Uber You're gonna go to the Greyhound You're not You're not

What if it's Ryan Gusto What did Ryan Gusto? What did Ryan Gusto overdo to you? He's trying Not go five minutes He's a swing guy He's your Seth Martinez You didn't treat Seth Martinez

With this kind of disdain Sometimes they did Not me personally Looks like it's a two hour and six minute drive It's not bad That's not bad actually So it's about maybe 30 minute flight by the time you get up there.

He could have made it. They could have booked them something. I will say this. I was talking about this with the crew off air. You're going to see, I think, in a concerted effort by general managers to say, we're going to play less games back-to-back nights where you have to travel. Now, the Astros do it very rarely, but it's usually within the state in which they're in. Like the Astros have played a game at night here and have gone to Arlington.

If you're playing a game in Sacramento or in San Francisco, you can go to L.A. Anaheim hour flight, they do that. But those getaway days are for a reason. And that's to get away and get to the city that you can as soon as possible. Now, I don't know what the weather was like yesterday and say 1 o'clock Pittsburgh time, but it certainly wasn't good last night. And again, you can't forecast the rain, but they're going to be thinking about this kind of stuff, I'm sure, for the future.

And you can't put a roof on that beautiful ballpark. It looks great the way it is. No. There's a lot of ballparks you can't put roofs on. I mean, imagine what Dikin would look like without a roof. It looked beautiful. It would be amazing. Luckily, it's retractable.

Just never open it. We have two roofs in our city that never get used. Correct. Oh, they're used. They're just used in a stationary position. Yeah, they're just rusting. That's why, and I don't know, have we, are we seeing retractable roofs being built other places now?

I think so. Is Tennessee Buffalo? Wasn't the new Tampa place I think was supposed to have one? I'm not sure. Point being is this, if I'm going to build a new stadium, I'm just going to cover it up, period. I'm not going to waste the extra money. I'm sure it's an additional cost for sure.

What about in the Vegas ballpark? It's just having an overhang kind of Seattle style or something like that? Right, right. Well, you need it in Houston for sure. Most importantly, Astros win, game and a half in front of Seattle. Get your playoff tickets now. Okay. Let's go.

I mean, that's probably fair because the division sucks. Do I need to declare it right now? Uh-oh. I would love you too. I'm not going to do that. I'm not that nuts. You are. I am true. That's true.

All right. It's in anything goes Friday. What do you guys want to get into? And ladies, 713, 212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. On Twitter at SportsMT at SportsRV. We watch you here until 2 o'clock today. We have, I'm sorry, it's coming up at 1130 this morning.

And at 1.30, we have now in Florida stories. We have hell yeah or not at 150. 713-212-5-790 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90 1019 Sports Talk 790 You know what it is today, Ross? It isn't anything goes Friday I think it's a wish Matt Thomas a happy birthday Friday Yeah, it's funny.

Everybody who calls in, start your call with happy birthday, Matt. I got no gifts and the two people that I work with on this show more than anybody else. I know what you make. I'm not getting you anything. You do? Have I told you? I don't think I wanted to make that public, but that's a different issue for a different time. Yeah, I'm very upset.

All right. Real quick, we will get to the NBA. What a fantastic finish last night, Indiana, Oklahoma City. That was great. Full-blown coverage on the show today. Well, we're going to be minimal. But I will say this. And I thought about this as I was watching it,

but didn't realize that other people caught onto it. What's that? ABC and the NBA treated yesterday like it was a mid-January regular season game. Right, with the intros. I mean, there was a little bit of an intro to start the game. Not much. And the floor, you know, usually there's a, the Lawrence O'Brien trophy is in the middle of the floor. Yes.

And the very, those amazing little cursive graphics that say the finals. Even JJ Watt noticed that. And I was like, damn, JJ, you're right on this. Yeah, I saw that a lot of people were tweeting about it. And it doesn't, you're right. When it's the NBA finals, when your championship is on the line, when the entire season and offseason and trade deadline and everything that we

talk about and all the discourse year long about the NBA, it's for these moments, especially in the NBA when it's rings, rings, rings, rings, rings culture more than the other sports. Correct. So if it's rings, rings, rings, rings, you need to play this up. And you know why they don't have it? Because they had to get the four of those little computer animated

graphics with the sponsors on the floor. It's for revenues. I love the NBA, but man, they just don't. they can't get out of their own way in some things. I would think I would say that with a lot of sports. But damn, I mean, it was just so aggravating that it just looked like

a regular old game, nothing, no popping circumstance, nothing, no lineups, no big presentation, no, it was just there. And thankfully, that's such a small thing when it comes to the game, because the game is the most important thing. and the game, you could have turned it off multiple times last night,

especially after the first half. Indiana had 19 first half turnovers. I've never seen that high with a good team like that. But they came back, and Tyrese Halliburton has never used something that was a detriment to him more to his, you know, to his, what do he call it, trying to get himself fired up. Like when he was named the most overrated player, the NBA. Bullets and board material? Or chip on the shoulder. Whatever you want to call it.

Okay. Since that day that came out, he's been amazing. He was always amazing before then. But really amazing since then. It hits the game winning shot. I mean, boom. After Oklahoma City led 99.9% of the game. And stayed under his 14 and

half, which I appreciate it. But yes. Tarese Halliburton with a big shot. I mean, you look at the stat line and you're like, All right, 14, 10 rebounds, 6 assists. Not like he lit the world on fire, but a lot of it was the Oklahoma City Thunder. I mean, look, they tossed Lou Dort on him all game. Lou tort is his first team all in the year.

Can't shoot, but he's a really good defensive player. What are you talking about? He made five threes last night, but yeah, normally he can't shoot. One sun a blue moon. Yeah. And I think his three-point percentages were better this year. Actually, I just, every time he played the Rockets, I was never a factor. Well, but he's always been great defensively ever since he got.

of the leak. So, yeah, he did a good job really overall of slowing Tyre's Halliburton down, but it's just like the Pacers keep doing this. They keep on defying the odds. They keep on winning these. I saw somebody like added up there or basically compounded the win probabilities. It's like one and one and a half million or something that they would have won all these four games that they've won when they're down like seven points with a minute to go or whatever it's been. It's been crazy. Like the live betting on this has to be crazy. Yeah. All right. If somebody's been live betting the Pacers all postseason. They're doing pretty well. I'm just going to say this is

a blanket statement. Then we're going to talk to John and Sanofa Sanofa. If you would like to talk about last night's game. If you would. If you would. Want to talk hoops. We would be, if we want to talk rockets. Yeah. Lots of triage things out there. We are welcomed.

We would like you to do so. 713-212-5-7-9. Will not force it on you? No. We may casually bring it up. Mm-hmm. Like we did. It's anything goes Friday. It isn't anything goes Friday. Friday. Let's talk to John and Santa Fe on 790 at 1024. John, thank you for holding and good morning.

Hey, good morning and happy birthday, Matt Thomas. Thank you very much. So, man, look, yesterday I was just scrolling around on social media and on one of my Astros sites, one of the questions was, hey, which Astros should make the All-Star team? And there's probably 30, 40 people that replied. Of course, the obvious people, you know, Hunter Brown and Josh Hader and Jeremy Pena. And there was some other people throwing in Altuve, which personally I don't think

he's having an all-star season. He's having a decent season, but it's not a, you know what I'm saying? He's not having an all-star season, especially for an outfielder. But I decided I was going to comment, and this is exactly what I commented word for word.

If you're not listing, if you're not lifting Esok Paratus, you're not paying very close attention. I mean, that guy's played a stellar third base. Look, Pena's been great. great. Hunter Brown's been great. But Isok Paredes is our MVP so far this season. And that's all I wanted to say, man. I just think, I don't think Isok's getting the run that he needs. I mean,

look at the shoes or numbers. Then Bregman to this point, now I realize Breggman's gotten, it's hurt and had to slow it down. But I just want Esock to get the run that he needs. And let's get him in that All-Star game. And that's all I got to say. I'll hang up the list. Thank you for the phone call. Third base typically is, you know, those corner positions are loaded when it comes of talent.

I don't know exactly who's having a worse or better season than ESOC. His OPS is comfortably over 800 now. And again, he now has 14 home runs on the year. So he's kind of pacing for probably close to 30. His third base club, which was deemed, quote, unquote, average. We heard Ross and I did directly. The front office and the coaching staff say average their base. He's done a good job.

He's had a little bit of a slump, but he's gotten past it. And he has been the power surge for this team. Because Janir Diaz's numbers are down. Christian Walker's numbers are down. Jose Al Tuvae's numbers are down. Whom else am I forgetting that would be significantly down? Pena's up, so that wouldn't count. But yeah, I mean, with this team that has had a difficult time slugged.

and driving and runs. He's done it. Yeah, he's been huge. The caller called him basically their MVP. He's, yeah, he's on the short list right now.

With Hunter Brown, we mentioned, talked about Josh Hader. I mean, he's a reliever, so it's tough to make him the MVP of the team. But Isok Paredes has been huge

couple of home runs yesterday. It's not like, you know, he needed them, but he's getting them, he's hitting power with power. He's driving everything to left field, continues to do that.

Everybody knows he's, about to pull the ball and then he still does it. That's impressive. Which makes me think why does anybody pitch him anything but inside? Make him just have an awkward stroke. I mean, if you're throwing outside corner, he is going to just rip to hell. Yeah, of course, our great guess that we have Brian Bogussevich talked about that a couple of weeks ago. It's basically he's not cheating and hanging over the plate.

It's just basically the natural plane of his swing. So it's you can pitch him however you want. He's still doing a really good job. Which is great because most left fields in Major League Baseball. I mean, there's a reason why they're short pokes. I mean, there's four or five ballparks. They're going to Cleveland, I don't think, is particularly easy. But there isn't a ballpark.

He can't hit a home run. Yeah. No. Certainly not to left field. No. All right. 1028, sports talk 7. And anything goes Friday.

I'm sorry, he's coming up at 1130. Did you need to apologize for anything you said in the last couple days? I don't think so. I mean, why are you looking at me like that? I just want to make sure you've been behaving yourself. Are you evil eye at me? I'm not evil eye. I don't think so.

I'm just being observant. Just to make sure. Give me the oh-ho, as they say. The what? Ojo. Oh, ho. Oh, he don't know. Wait a minute.

I know exactly what Ojo is. It's a chocolate cupcake with white filling in it. Sorry, I do know. It's hilarious. Wow, Matt. Wow. Oh, that's a ho-ho, right? All right.

On that note. And that's what Jonathan was dating before he met his girl. Folks, I would like to apologize on behalf of Matt Thomas. Jonathan dated a few. I'm not the second to that apology. Jonathan dated some ho-hoes back in the day. Never dated. Oh, just one-night stands.

All right, nice, actually. Good for you. One night on the pull-out couch. It was worse of Kentucky days. What else you can do in Kentucky? Never mind. 7-13. You stay right here.

7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. 7-1-3-2-1-2-5-7-90. And anything goes Friday, we spend some time here talking about the great folks. Matt Thomas is having a lot. I mean, he's, you know, after his birthday, he hit a little bit hard. one too many margaritas. Oh, down better. All right.

Drink some of that. What do you got? Coffee water? Drink whatever it is. You went down the wrong pipe. What was I go with this? 1029. Stop.

Stop. It is anything goes Friday here on Sports Talk 790. 1033 is our time. Matt Ross with you here until 2 o'clock. A couple other weird things in the NBA last night. Number one, Adam Silver always has his state of the NBA pre-game one press conference. And there were a variety of things that were brought up.

And he said something really weird about, and I'm just looking at Twitter about this, about he thinks that fans are really concerned about the television ratings. Now, I think I've acknowledged us many a times. I'm very intrigued by television ratings. I don't think generally speaking, a lot of our audience or sports fans that are.

But he says something was really weird, Ross, yesterday. He said that people come up to him and instead of talking about how great it is to have Indiana, Oklahoma City in the NBA finals or how things are going, people come up to him and ask him about the television ratings. I think he's flat out lying. Why would you go to the – if you're going to go up to the commissioner and say anything, that's the first thing you're going to bring up to him

when you're on the street seeing the commissioner of the NBA. How those TV ratings? I see a lot of discourse around the NBA and especially with these finals and it being – I mean, there was a lot of talk about the market size. I feel like there was more talk about the market size of these finals than the basketball. But that's not the fans. That's us media types. Okay. I do think there is a lot of people.

And then there's a certain contingent of a certain political leaning who likes to dunk on small NBA ratings. Yeah. I don't think it's, I mean, look. And all that is true. And I do believe that people in the industry do want to

watch market size or do want to see how the wokeness of the NBA has affected their league or whatever the case may be. But if you're, if, I mean, if, if, I guess here's the question. If, if you and I were walking the streets and we were, and we saw Rob Manfred, would we bring up automatic ball strike is the immediately first thing we'd bring up?

I'd bring up how he protected the Yankees and tried to keep their letter sealed for so long and then made the Ashros the fall guy in the whole big cheating scandal. I just, I can't believe that. an NBA fan. Again, we're not talking, this could be one of 20 people that came by. But his thought was, I don't know if Guido that's walking

38th Street in New York is like, you know, these TV ratings, how are they going to be? First of all, again, I don't think the average fan particularly cares. And secondly, he doesn't care. He can see all the political things he wants. He's got a big, fat, multi-billion-dollar deal coming from Amazon and NBC.

I think more so than other sports, there are, just in my observation, I be wrong. But it just seems like a lot of people do try to tear down the NBA and then they do that via ratings, which sometimes go up, sometimes go down. And when they're really bad in the bubble and nothing else was on and the ratings were bad, absolutely. I think it became a big talking point for a lot of people. And I think people who are into the, me personally, I don't really check the ratings or whatever, but I hope they're high. Just so people would talk about it as a dying sport or a boring sport, which I don't think it's either, can shut their bum ass up for a day or two.

Well, I'm just going to say this. Is there a segment of the population that does not watch the NBA? I get it. But it's funny. I will protect the person's identity because he's a friend of mine. But this friend of mine will ask me about rocket stuff. You know, are they going to make a move for Jalen Green or move Jailen? They're going to move Alpi?

They're going to go get Janus. So when someone brings it up to me, that wouldn't necessarily. necessarily in my mind, think that that's a lean towards. I do watch the NBA. I do pay attention. So I follow up this conversation I had with this friend of mine with, did you see last night's game between Oklahoma City and who they played in the Western finals?

They played Minnesota. He goes, no, I don't watch the NBA anymore. So I think there's a certain segment of the population that will tell you they don't do something, but yet they do it. I would agree with that as well. I'm not talking about the NBA. I'm talking about in life in general. Oh, like, for instance, I, I do not consider myself to be a very political person at all.

Mm-hmm. I tend to stay away from it. Certainly on this show and in the, uh, it was hard yesterday. Oh, my God. Yeah, that was hard. But I do watch meet the press every week. Okay. That's my one hour that I do like to kind of see what's going on.

Now, whether you like that show or just like it, no matter. I'm normally sleeping. It's my Sunday 9 o'clock. know, having coffee and breakfast. Yes, Bross. It's at 9 o'clock. There are things that happened prior to noon. I don't know if you're aware of this or not.

No, not really. So it's just funny. I think everybody's got a little bit of the, I don't do this, but yet you do it. Like, for instance, I'll give you another thing I do. Okay. I tell you folks, I don't watch the morning TV shows. But nine times out of ten, I want to watch them because I want something on.

And I'm not, I don't want to watch today's show. Yeah. And I'm watching Palsh. Or your lady's watching 90-day fiancé, and you're like, I don't watch trash television. And then you're in the- kitchen looking like, oh my God, did she say that? Like, Real Housewives of Sed City.

Did What's her name really say that about what's her name? And I'm like, what's the matter with me? I said, I don't watch that stuff. So, you know, I don't know if it translates to the NBA, but it was intriguing to me that this friend of mine was asking me about the Rockets future, but that when I said, hey, did you catch XYZ playoff game? No, I don't watch the NBA. Yeah, it feels like people can't tell you fast enough they don't watch the NBA.

I mean, it happens. I'll tweet something about the, if I make a thousand tweets about the Astros, nobody says anything. If I make a thousand tweets about the Rockets, I would say at least 30, 25 to 30 percent of them. Somebody's just like, oh, I don't watch the NBA. Why are you talking about this? No one cares. Well, it's because it's the most political of the sports.

There is no if-ans or buds. Well, it's political. What have we would have seen political lately? No, lately, but there has been a track record. I mean, we can't be naive to that. The NBA has made it way more political than the other sports. The NFL stays away from it for the most part. By saying Black Lives Matter or doing what?

Anything. I mean, we can't be not any need to this. I mean, the NBA is of, again, say what you will about how political it is or it should be less or more. They're athletes, their, Steve Kerr and Greg Popovich are the chairman of the board of that group. Yes, they are. You don't have, what NFL coach tells you how they feel about their politics? Feels like Bill Belichick would. Yeah. When he's meeting with.

So I can give you just Kerr and Popovich and be done. So the other weird thing that happened yesterday at the NBA is that regardless of, has his pregame media get together. And before he even starts saying questions about the finals, you know what the very first thing he brought up was? Which I thought was very intriguing. Interesting. How great Doris Burke is.

And how pissed off he was that Doris Burke's future with ABC as the number one broadcaster came into play. Just kind of an odd, randau thing. She's okay. She doesn't bother me. She doesn't bother me as much as, what's it, Richard Jefferson just provides nothing for me. ESPN and ABC

can't replicate Mark Jackson and Stambang and Jeff Angundee. He can't replicate chemistry, Matt. Like the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Yeah, I mean... He just can't replicate it. We've been trying for 15 years to build chemistry. We just can't do it. Brian and Pearland with us at 1041

on 790. Brian, good morning. Hey, good afternoon. Happy belated birthday. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. I hope you had a wonderful day. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, real quick on... When it comes the NBA, I don't follow the NBA as much as I follow the Rockets. I do tune into the Rockets games down, but to me

once the Rockets are out, I kind of tune out. But the one thing I did notice, and it just seems to me that the NBA schedule is just way too long, like two and a half weeks to get through just the finals from the fifth, if they make it all the way to game, like by this point

I have NBA fatigue. Like, I see clips at the end. Like I saw Halliburton's shot to win it. And so, I'm aware of kind of what is going on, but to sit there and watch that entire game, I have zero interest in it, but I will sit and watch the Rockets. So I'm a Rockets fan, not necessarily as much an NBA fan, but I just think their schedule is too long.

That was kind of my, you know, I know I know it's all money driven when they went from five games to seven games for the first round after the play-in, but I don't know if it's the number of teams or what. I mean, if baseball can get done in roughly six, six and a half months for 162 games, I get a different type of physicality and stuff like that. But for the NBA to not be able to get through 82 games in less than nine months, I mean, to me it's just a little too long. I know you'll probably disagree being an NBA guy and the voice of the Rock,

it's on the radio, but that's just my own personal. Well, I mean, think about it, they start playing in late October, and they're done in the second week of April. So that's November, December, January, February, March. It's about six months of a regular season. You can't play every day. I do believe three days, you know, like the next game of the NBA finals is not until Sunday night.

And that's not necessarily because the NBA, that television dictates those days. They want a higher viewing audience. Sunday nights are a higher TV viewing nights than Saturday nights. They always make sure a potential game seven will be on Sunday night. Yeah, always. And so it's not the NBA doing it. What's the NBA acquiescing to the TV partners of what it's doing? Yeah.

No, I get it. It's just I think by this point in the season, I'm like, okay, you know, if the Rockets were in it, obviously, it'd be engaged. Sure. By that point, I'm just like, okay, yeah, just get to the draft and let's move on to next year by now. But I don't know how much, it was a good win for the Astros last night in Pittsburgh and, hey, to take, to just keep winning series at this point. I'm not anticipating a bunch of sweeps.

I just think this offense is too inconsistent, but at this point, hey, when you get McCullors and Brown or Brown and Frumber throwing in a series, you've got a chance, a good chance to win two of three of those. Obviously, you know, and you're hoping Gordon just keeps you in it. But I just don't know how much longer you can continue this. I mean, you are just relying on the bullpen. And, you know, eventually, thankfully, Framber's getting you deep into games. And you need that out of him and Hunter Brown. And eventually it's just going to crack.

And I think you saw a little bit of that in the Tampa series where, you know, you've relied on these guys so long because the offense can't do. it and hey i think god you play in the a l west but you know i hope they can address something and i'm hoping maybe you know just getting jacob melting in there just not that he's a savior but just giving the lineup a different look with another left-handed bat and you know maybe when yoron comes back it just changes the way they work the roster and maybe bring some some life back into that offense but you know this pitching staff is going to crack after a while but uh another good win another good series hopefully they can take two out of three in cleveland

and get it done. But enjoy your birthday weekend, Matt. Thank you. Hopefully Ross spoils you and, you know, let you win a fantasy five sometime. Someday soon. You won the last one. I did win the last one. I have the belt.

No pitching staffs can. We'll get to this. I'll just say this. No pitching staff can be great for 26 weeks. That's just unrealistic. And if you're going back to Tampa Bay, as when the Astros were showing leakage, and they've been pretty good since then, right?

Yes. I mean, they were too often. also taking the pirates on, but Hey, people are, you're going to respect the pirates. Who? 76 year old, Andrew McCutcheon? God, how old is he? I was like, I thought Tommy fan was out of baseball. He's on the pirates?

Did he play with Willie Sarger? Was he part of we our family? I think he and Cap Anson were playing together back in the day. Stop. Who's another famous Pittsburgh Pirate back in the 50s? Willie Starger, Roberto Clemente. Give me somebody pre-1970. I don't know. I just put 19.

1550 Pittsburgh Pirates. Here you go, Matt. Anybody good? Clyde McLaugh. All right. We'll figure more of this out coming back. 1046. More of pirate history talks. Oh, Ralph Kiner. Man, you're a coach in sports.

You don't get a shelf life. You understand that? Did you see who just got fired today? Yes. That would be Tottenham Hotspur manager. Eng postigl. What? What? I don't understand a word you say. You were speaking Greek? Big Latin. Yeah. They won the Europa League and then he still got sacked, as they say in Europe.

I thought you hadn't heard this from your son yet? I am not. I'm sure I'll be getting text. Stars coach Pete DeBurr fired today. Pete DeBur! After three seasons with the Dallas Stars. They get to the Western Conference finals each of those three seasons. And they fire him. Wow. I mean, damn.

I have a very stupid question. Please. What kind of strategy goes into hockey coaching? I cannot answer that question. I am not the official hockey guru of 790. Okay. Well, we used to have, yeah. We did?

Yeah. Monterman Movern. His dad's Canadian? He's making real wages and guys health insurance. I don't know, whatever. That's fine. Monarm and Movern. What a jerk.

So if you're a Dallas Stars fan. Should we text him to call in? No, he's busy. Was he a Dallas fan or was he just an NHL fan? I think an NHL fan. No, he had one of the Canadian teams, right? Because his dad's from Toronto, eh? Yeah, so he hates, he hates USA and he hates the Dallas Stars.

He was a Maple Leafs thing, yeah, and he was rooting for Team Canada. Okay, so what does it take to be a good NHL coach? I mean, obviously it takes something. Well, this guy wasn't doing it. That's true. So three years, three finals, Yeah, you're good. Like, I'm still blown away that Tibado got let go.

Yeah. But, uh-oh, here comes your butt. I mean, people in NBA circles did think that he was a little bit too much of a dinosaur. Yeah, his not necessarily being cranky 24-7, he was cranking only 23-7. It was one hour a day he was pleasant, but you knew at some point playing seven guys on a regular basis was going to bite him in the ass. Mm-hmm. And by the way, did you see who is expected to, take an interview with them.

It would be run our test. No, it was not a run our test. Jeff Van Gundy. It will not be Jeff Van Gundy. That'll think it's going to happen because I think Van Gundy and Thibito are good friends. It looks like Jason Kidd's going to talk

to the Knicks. Now, we had the report, I think it was maybe yesterday of the day before, that Mark Stein floated that the Knicks were, quote, intrigued, end quote, by Jason Kidd and EMA Udoca.

And Raffell Stone, and Tim and Fratito sent him a text and shut your bum ass up. It was a voice text. Yeah. They said it in unison. Yeah. Hey, Mark, no wonder you don't work for a major network

and shut your bum ass up, click. So yeah, that didn't get, that went nowhere. So Jason Kidd could be going there. Could be. Again, I just saw a few total reports. I don't know that for sure. I think they're in a good spot. Well, if Kyrie Evern comes back

and he's back ready by like January, February, you've got Anthony Davis. you're getting Cooper flag. And the reason why apparently Jason's won the least listen is that he was, I would say completely blindsided by the, probably. By the Lucidante trade? That makes sense.

And also the East, it's just easier to coach in the East. The West is just ridiculous. I think you have a more better, a better chance with the Knicks, especially with Jason Tatum out for a year plus. You have a better chance with the Knicks of getting to the finals than with the Mavericks in the West.

It's not even close. And you're not anticipating Indiana being a long-term dinosaur. They can be a threat. The calves will still be good as well. Bucks will see, but that's it. You get to play Washington and Charlotte a bunch of times. I mean, are the Luca LeBron Lakers going to be a threat? Eventually, if the team gets built better around them,

the thunder or juggernaut, nuggets are good. Wolves are up and coming. Do the Warriors have another run? And oh, by the way, the number two C rockets. Yeah, go to the heat. I would go to the east too now that I think say it out loud. And look, he's a custom. He's actually was a former.

coach the Nets so he knows what it's like to be a New York Metropolitan Team coach. Is that where he ran into somebody and knocked the drink all over the floor because he didn't have any timeouts left? Yes. What a pull from you. Was he Bucks coach or Nets coach then? I can't remember. It was one of those two obviously. It wasn't endowed.

But yeah, that was, that was ballsy. And then he got fined. They were like, you can't do that. Because they had him on microphone. Little did he know, there's cameras and microphones everywhere around in NBA court. Right. He was like, hit me, hit me, hit me. it just shows you that people do crazy stuff.

So, yeah, if it indeed is true, could Jason, again, I guess the question would be, do, does Dallas want something in return? But if I'm, boy, could you imagine trading a coach away who, I think it was pretty well, I mean, I think well regarded in Dallas played there, coached there, they seemed very happy with him. could Nico Harrison get rid of the best player and a really good coach that Dallas had just to fill the spot? And how does that even work? They're going to have to send draft picks or something? I don't know. I don't know if there's, you could also just let them out, period.

I mean, you know. That ain't happening. But, yeah, Eme Adoka being considered. I mean, again, did a couple of years ago, would he may have said absolutely? Of course he would have. But I think if I'm EMA and I'm a smart guy and EMEA smart, he's going to turn this into, let's talk renegotiation.

The Knicks are intrigued by EMA doka, and I'm intrigued by Scarlett Johansson. Isn't it funny? You and I share our intriguing thoughts about Scarlett. I think all of the planet does. She's aging well. She's very gracefully. Sophia Fagara, we're intrigued by.

Yes. Salma Hayek were intrigued by. Very intrigued. It doesn't mean it's happening. Nicks. Yeah, stay out. We ain't got time for you to be trying to poach our coach. 1059 on Sports Talk 790.

Second hour of the Matt Thomas show with Ross is coming up. Hey, 30 minutes from now, you need to say you're sorry. You've all said and done things this week. You apologize for. I guarantee you that the two of you said something derogatory about me while I was gone the last two days. No, it was mostly Adam Clanton. Hour number two of the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

Here on Sports Talk 790 coming up at 1130. We have. I'm sorry. sorry. Did you do? I just don't get it yesterday? What was your number? What was your best? I just don't get it. Let's see. I did. I just don't get it. The 10 guys that are following Livy Dunn around to airports and trying to get her to sign stacks of autographs and stalking her. What is a Livy Dunn autograph worth worth worth worth? I don't know. Zero dollars to me. Only has worth if you put worth on it, Matt. You should put that on the back of a t-shirt.

I'm looking forward to it. With your Twitter handle on there. And then what was my other Oh, it was the, it was ESPN We're reporting like One of their top headlines was Rick Petino Not interested in Nick's job Yeah, okay Cool Rick Petino, you're 72 years old

He needs to stay at St. John's and retire there. Yeah, I don't think they're interested in you either And then there was a Jeff Van Gundy story But it was like Jeff Van Gundy possibly interviewing Now I know he's a Clipper's assistant So at least he's back in the game Correct But I mean, come on

no way, no chance, no way, no how, as a Matt Thomas would say, that Jeff Van Gundy's going to be the next Knicks coach. There is a rumor. Rumors, again, it's just somebody throwing it out there. I think somebody on TV said that maybe Rick Brunson, Jalen's dad, who's a Knicks assistant coach, would be one of becoming the head coach there. Really? Yeah. I mean, it's just, again, we're in rumor season here. Oh.

There was some story about Rick Brunson getting involved in something I thought, like, not good. It was a clickbait headline, so I didn't click it. No, it was basically Rick Brunson's controlling a lot of things and they don't like it. So, again, it's just going to believe. Speaking of rumors, we'll keep it local on the rocket side. Wonderful. So Kelly, Ico. Eco, a couple days ago, was talking about how the Phoenix Suns

have amped up their conversations with a variety of teams about Kevin Durant and that they have dropped their asking price a little bit, which is probably smart on their part because they, you remember, these teams spent a lot of time with each other at the pre-draft workouts in Chicago. phone lines are open, you can text and all that. And so they're probably saying what we think Kevin Durand is worth is really not going to be worth it. I think they want a top 10 draft pick.

Guess who owns the son's pick? It's the Rockets at number 10. Ironically, it'd be nice. But there's other teams. They went to three or something. It'd be nice, but unfortunately didn't. So Kelly says that Phoenix has, and the Rockets have engaged a lot.

Well, there's a morning radio show in Phoenix, who I've gone on with occasionally, because they're one half of the team is a PA announcer for the sun. So we got to know each other over the years. PA bros. You guys got a union?

No, I'm not a PA guy anymore, but we, you know, the point being is this. The guy used to work for the Arizona Republic, the paper in Phoenix. So he's a newspaper guy now is in radio. And he's a PA guy? No, no, no.

His partner. I'm sorry. I didn't describe it. No, that's my fault. So that guy, not my friend, his partner said that is not a true story that there is no

amping up there is no several rocket phone calls he calls on 100% completely inaccurate so again this is a who did you hear it from take it with a grain of salt do you really believe this person or is this person sending you in a goose chase okay so I just throwing it out there

do I believe the rockets and sons have had a conversation I absolutely 100% believe it how deep those conversations are I don't know Ruffel's not giving me daily updates put it that way It's possible also that you can hear from two different sources. And if one source isn't aware of the conversations, they're saying that's not happening. Correct.

They could both be telling. They just don't know who you're short. Also, I mean, back in the day, there was something that Kelly Eco had reported that was refuted outright by Sam Amick. So it's not the first time something like this has happened. I'm just saying. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know who to side with. I don't particularly care.

It doesn't really matter. Just if you're going to do something, do something. But I do believe this. that Kevin Durant will be traded before the deadline, before the draft, which is in less than three weeks now. Okay. Well, gut feeling on a Friday. Yeah, I do.

I think because, again, if you're Phoenix and you're trying to gain draft capital, there must be something in the draft you like, and you're not looking for draft capital in 2026. You want to start this, if you're going to start it to rebuild, you need to get it started now. So why would you wait until after the draft to start thinking about it when you have a chance to get that, if you can get a top 10 pick,

be able to choose the guy that you actually want. That makes sense. So that's just my problem. Will he be heading to Houston then? And the, uh, the conversation about Devin Booker doesn't go away. And I feels like that's,

that's not happening. Yeah, I don't, I don't really get into it either. I mean, I would love Devin Booker here. I'm not going to, he's,

he is a quote-un-quote pride of his NBA career. Your whole core, basically. Yeah, but that would probably require much more of a, giving up more than probably the Rockets would like to do, though, so at this point, especially when it makes crazy,

amount of money. 28 years old. So you're basically getting his prime. You're getting his prime. Now, the question is, when you're 28, you still have a lot of wear and tear on the tires. I mean, I've called several Devin Booker games.

673 games he's already played. Yeah. 10 years in the league. He's not a child. I mean, there's a lot of tread on those times. He's a vet. But he's also led a team to an NBA finals. Yep. But also by himself, they've also

lost 60 games a year several times. It's true. Oh, he played 75 games last year. Good for us and him. I mean, good for them. 36 and 46? Hmm. But he's good.

I think he likes Phoenix. I think he likes whatever that direction is. And if it takes a step back to go two steps forward, I think he's probably binding to that. Yeah, they stayed the course with him, believed him as well,

believed in him as well. Right, when they could have very easily dispose of him very quickly. So yeah, yeah, I would be super surprised if Devin Booker's traded anywhere much less Houston. So that's it on that. It's anything goes Friday. 713,

212-5-7-90. Your Astros last night. Man, remember for the first month of the year, ladies and gentlemen, we were trying to balance between good Framber and bad Framber? Yes. He has been good to exceptionally good. He's been great shutdowns.

Sy Young Frommber. And he's only had one really bad blow-up game where he gave up like seven earned runs. I can't remember against who I can bring up his game was. But this run he's had as of late has been fantastic. One quality started after the other. Gave you seven yesterday. Through a complete game,

you know, eight and less than 90 pitches before that. He's, is he building value for his next city? Or are the Astros going, okay, maybe we should put something in front of him soon to see if there's any

interest. Because look, every pitcher is built differently. 99% of them Ross want to go get where the money is. But we have seen a lot, especially with the Astros, their players, the Javier's, the Alvarez, the Al-Tube, the foreign players typically like to have the security. Now, maybe Fromber's different because he's, look, he's like, look at how I pitched the last five or six years.

And by the way, you can't all of a sudden start talking contract with me when you've had years to get this resolved. So that's why I kind of lean towards, regardless of how this thing ends for Fromber, that the Astros will either put together a deal that will be, is this real or not really put together much deal at all? Which then the people that will call in and say, well, if that's the case, then let's Kyle Tucker the guy so we get something in return. Because think about this.

If you don't make that Kyle Tucker trade, you don't have Eastsideprided. You don't have Cam Smith. You don't have Wessniewski. You're sitting there holding a draft pick. And draft pick, that means basically six years down the road, give or take. She also have a gold glove right fielder who's capable of going 30 for 30. Yeah. 30 and 30.

But you never thought of it. You never thought of keeping up. Yeah, I think because the Astros' plan for the off season seemed to me to be kind of towing the line. And if you did sell from... And we talked about this in the Aussieus. Once Tucker got traded, I thought Framber might be the next dominole of fall. And they're saying, hey, we're going to do this.

But then they signed, once they signed Christian Walker, I can't remember which happened in which order. But once they signed Christian Walker, it was like, okay, they're actually going to try to win to a point. Last five starts for Frumber. Kansas City, win eight innings. Before, after that, at the Rangers, seven innings, win.

After that, Seattle, six innings, win. He's won five consecutive. gave decisions. Yeah, he's had one disaster start and then two pretty bad ones, but then everything else has been very good. Actually, he does not have decisions. He's only three and three. So they've won the games he's played, but he has not

had decisions on all of them. Last six starts, yeah, the team is six and oh and he's got a 184 ERA. It's pretty good. God, it's ridiculously good. Of course, it was the Pirates.

well it was also He beat the raise up and that Ray's team beat the Astros badly than I before 26 swings on his curveball and 18 whiffs That's insane And he's had no arm trouble correct Help me out

I'm saying I'm going off a past performance I'm from my future He had a little bit last year At the beginning of the year He had a little bit of elbows soreness Remember we all got super scared And then he came back and he was he missed like a month and he was fine, or however long it was.

The conversation about moving him before the deadline will still be around, no matter how big the lead is the answer. Yeah, but you're in first place. No, I think if you're in first place, it should never be around. But I'm talking, I'm not talking about Dana. I'm talking about astrophans. Well, then you shut their bumasses up. I'm sorry. We had Aggie Doug. I mean, I love Aggie Doug, but it was one of the dumbest callers ever had in his life, trading Frobber for two great pitchers. Why not three or four?

Yeah. go see if you meant the Dodgers need an extra pitcher. So I just, it's, it's to me very interesting that. And again, a lot of players, I would say most of them don't want to negotiate during the course of the season. And so the player, it's the agent too.

Because if you're a framer and you're pitching a way that you've done over the last two months, you're like, you know what, Astros, you could have had this for a while. Instead, I'm going to go find out what 20 other teams think of my value. Yeah, they're showing off. it's like a soft launch of their divorce he's losing weight

being more motivated eating healthier getting body enhancements going in therapy getting some body enhancements getting some enhancements hmm is that what is that is he is Framber Valdez the hot girl

that's thinking about going out with another bro and then she yeah if you're in a long-term marriage and she starts losing weight no no no not a marriage it's a long-term relationship you had a chance with the ring on the finger a long time ago. Yes. And you haven't done it.

And now you're thinking about going to purchase one. She's like, don't go to that jeweler. You're fine. That's exactly what it is. This is a five-year relationship. Yeah.

With no ring. And all of a sudden, that girl's looking a lot better. She's going to gym five times a week to see her personal trainer. Chad. His name is Blaine. Jonathan,

how long have you been going out with her girl? There will be one. Hold on. No, no, hold on. Say it again? Two years and what? Some change. Yeah, like six months, two years and six months, something like that.

That's that three year mark, huh? He's in what we call the danger zone. What's the danger zone? You're in it. That's a danger zone. If you don't know what it is, you're about to find out. I don't like this. Y'all didn't see Ross's face.

I said two years and his whole face has changed me. Oh, God. If you just said nine months and be like, oh, you're in a good spot. If I said a year, man, that's okay. You went to, you had to. Two years and change? Oh, hell no. You'll be single before you know it.

1114 on Sports Talk 790. 1119. I'm sorry, so coming up at the bottom of the hour. 713-212-5-790. If you want to jump in in our conversations and anything goes Friday, and if you were listening to our conversation off air, that would definitely be applicable

when it comes to anything goes. I haven't, I'm sorry, but I don't know if I want to admit it publicly. Then the answer is yes. I don't want you to get mad at me. Oh, that is the best tease ever. Ten minutes. You're leading off. I'm sorry.

Now, how mad will I get it? You won the ten. We'll see. Oh, I can't wait. This is perfect. How much... I'm nervous. How much of the Texas Tech, Texas

College Women's World Series did you watch yesterday? I had it on. I have multiple TVs in my living room, and with a massive rain delay, TV one was the finals. TV two was the softball game. Yeah. You know what?

Almost a furious comeback. It was fine to me. I enjoyed it. I mean, I think it's the best out there. How about that Texas Tech pitcher? Yes. They call her the... She makes a million dollars at the Texas Day.

Yeah, from UCLA? She can't remember or somewhere else? No, I can't remember. Point being is this. That is just a Texas Tech fan. That's just the guy that's the sold his oil and gas cap. I don't know what his name is. But if you said, I would know who it is.

Nizuri Kennedy, I believe, is... He's worth billions of dollars. And he's a Texas Tech alum. And I think Pat Mahomes made a sizable donation to their collective. Yeah. By the way, he was there with his wife. His wife had a lot of work done. Has had some work done. Not that I'm judging. No.

Not that you should. No. But Pat Mahomes also wasn't with the people. He was in his, I didn't realize they had luxury boxes at the Oklahoma City softball stadium. Well, you want to be insulated. I get it. Stanford, she came from, not UCLA. Sorry. But a million dollars. Millie for a softball pitcher. Great for her.

You tell me this is a bad. thing. This is awesome. You have to know, though, you're not getting that back. And I guess if you're a fan of a particular person or player or team, you should never think of the NIL as a good investment. Yes. Because let me tell you something. I love the University of Houston.

And University of Houston has to play along everybody else in the NIA game. Our basketball program is funded pretty well. Yeah. Well, there's some five-star quarterback coming next year. Yes. Yeah. I'm, you guarantee him T. He's getting good money.

But if he told me to go some more to do, I mean, I wouldn't, why would I trust a 19 year old about where to get my auto work done? I mean, you have to, you have to have a skin in the game. You have to have a little bit of build the credibility. It's in exact. I mean, there's been a ton of guys who've made millions of dollars in NIL, five star players and not panned out and or transferred. Yeah. So it's, it's, yeah. But paying up for, I don't know, Arch Manning?

Seems like it might pay off. We'll see. One year or two, you think it for him? Oh, I think he's going to stay. I think it was made very It's a great quarterback draft apparently coming out next year. I think he's going to go. Remember when everybody thought Andrew Luck was going to come out

and then he didn't. I think he likes school. I also think the reason that he stayed, I think that it's kind of parent-famil slash family-driven to where they sat him down and said, hey, you're not going to play this transfer portal game. You're picking a school. You're going to get your degree.

You're going to spend at least four years at the college. I think the Manning family is kind of, I don't want to say guiding along, curating, whatever you want to say. his career and advising him to kind of not be like everyone else who hits a transfer portal every five seconds. Except he can say, what, Grandpa Archie? And Grandpa Archie said, yes, little Cooper.

What can I do for you? Why does he talk like he's 103 from West Virginia? I don't know. But didn't you, didn't Uncle Eli get drafted by the Chargers that you told the Chargers that he's strong armed him? He said you can't play there? I don't know what you're talking about. There's no history of that.

There's no history of whatsoever. I have no basis for this. It just feels like, and that's why I did think that he would be trained. If anybody doesn't have to worry about money, it's the Manning family. Well, it's Ars Manning. He's made millions of dollars and he's thrown like 20 passes. So he's doing okay. He can keep making money and it would be up to him if he felt like,

if I had to venture a guess, it will be multiple years. But also, we don't know how good he's going to be. There's a lot of hype, but I keep pointing back to last year, and some people, fellow Longhorn Brethren, keep getting mad at me, that I'm like, okay, well, if he's so good, if he's this nonstop phenom, then how come he, he, Quinn Ewers gets benched for him

and then he never comes back? Can I give you what you want him to be? Okay. A husband winner. A younger version of Josh Allen. Greatest capability, can use his legs, and also can throw the ball a ton. I think of them as more bulky

and maybe not as big of an arm. I'm trying to think of, but he is extremely fast. And they brought him in a running place last year. I mean, you didn't, They didn't hide the fact that Arch Manning was coming in. He was going, the read option was a part of it, and he could obviously take off and run if he wanted to.

I would say I would like for him, especially in the college comparison, Josh Allen wasn't extremely accurate. I want him to be, I want him to be more of a pocket guy, but they can run. He was running a little too quick and trying to make the big plays last year. And Sark wanted somebody who was going to stay within the structure of the offense

and make the right play, which Quinn Ewers did. or well some of the time so if Quinn says I want to stay in college because I've got money he had gone somewhere else

I mean there's no doubt on my mind that Quinn Ewers could have gotten some decent NIL money if he had stayed I think probably behind the scenes Sark and whoever was like we love you Quinn we're going with Arch next year

do with that information what you'd like does that if you want to get the portal in the big world of college athletics and football you cannot pussyfoot around this. You have to tell him the truth. Yes. That's Coach Sark and other coaches have talked about that.

The second you lie to a player, they're hitting the portal. Yeah. And you're going to either make him mad or you're going to make the guy who's been waiting his turn mad. And that would have been, I mean, if Quinn Ewers goes back to Austin Arches out, which would have given me a gut feeling hit. But you lost. But I lost. And that's fine.

I believe you put your name on that. We got to, no. I'll check the archives. I'll check the archives. I put my name on a lot of things. things that not would have been one of them. You do put your name on a lot of things. But Connor Wegman has come to rescue the University of Houston.

What? Nobody's talking about that. A lot of people are. Buzz on the streets is incredible right now. Okay. Is it? Which streets? You know, they don't have to tell us NIA on my right.

Goddard Wegman getting paid. Oh, he, of course. I imagine. Come on. I don't know how big of a check Tillman cut. Well, the problem is I don't think Tillman's doing a lot of the check cutting. I think I think Tillman, and again, I don't want to put words anybody at his mouth, and he's obviously contributed a lot.

I think Tillman's biggest contribution was to the Fertina Center. And he said, this is my big donation. Do with what you wish. Do with it what you wish for, right? Wish? Yeah. Do with it what you wish? Yeah, you go.

But don't keep bothering me. Oh, yeah. He's been the shadow AD for a while, haven't he? How dare you see that. He didn't sign out. Come on now. He didn't sign off on the Willie Fritz sign. Well, I don't sign up.

He definitely wanted Dana Holgerson. Oh, yeah. Go Coogs, man. By way, congratulations of my friend Chris Pezman. Now the athletic director at Arkansas. Arkansas State. Not a terrible job.

How much of money is making next year? It's a soft landing spot. I don't know how much. $400,000 a year. That's $400,000. You can spend that pretty well in Jonesboro, right? I've never been to Jonesboro, but I'm assuming it pays well. That's okay for there.

Cost of living can't be very high. Yeah, by the way, I checked the archives. Yeah, 2022 and 23, you said Arch Manning would transfer out. But that was just gut feeling. Thank you. And it would have been true. That was wrong.

It was wrong. 100% wrong. But again, I'll say this again. If Quinn comes back, Arch is out. Well, yeah. If you're on head balls, he'd be your uncle. That's a terrible analogy. If something that didn't happen and wasn't close to happening,

it would have happened, you would have been right. I'm with you. Ross is going to apologize for something that apparently is going to get me mad. I can't wait to find... What is it? I would apologize for that. Jonathan, do you know what this thing is? He's feel sorry for himself? I'm ready for it too.

I don't know. Oh, okay. I'm nervous. I'm going to go get some water. All right, you have one half hour Houston, Texas, to apologize for something you've done this week. Although if Ross's I'm sorry, is terrible. You may not get time to get in here because I may just rip the crap out of him for the next 30 minutes. 713.

212.570. 713.2.570. 1128. Call in and apologize. You've done terrible things. Time to make restitution here on Sports Talk 790. All right, let's go. You know what you need to do.

Call 713-21-2-5-790 and say these easy words. I'm sorry. So sorry. All right, Ross. You open this can. You must have empty the contents. All right, fine. So yesterday, Matt, was your birthday.

Yes. And one Adam Clanton Yep. Was sitting in and during a break. He was talking about getting revenge on you. Yeah. Before, I think you said happy birthday to him and you put a picture of James Click. I did.

On Twitter. And it was genius. And so he said, who does, who could I use for Matt Thomas? So you're behind Master Roll guy? Six Flies guy. I'm sorry. So I was like, you know what? I know one that bothers him is when people say he looks like the Six Flags Astro World guy.

There are two of them, two of these different people. The guy that sells the vacuum cleaners and the infomercials overnight. Yes. And the Asterold guy or the Six Flags guy. So I gave Adam Clinton the idea for his revenge, happy birthday video to you. Oh, okay. And you know what? I'm sorry, Matt.

Yeah, you're fine. It was mean, it was rude. I'm so sorry. I knew it was something that would, I don't know how much it bothered you, but I knew it would be something that you have a history of not caring for. And I gave that material to Adam Clinton. I actually. Wait, I just.

I actually, when I saw it, I chuckled. So I was not bothered at all by it. Well, I'm sorry. I was frankly more bothered that you didn't wish me a happy birthday until about 7 o'clock last night. When was I supposed to call you? Any point. Good morning. 930.

All right now. No, it's too late. I want to know. No, don't send me anything. Hold on. We got the, we get the work email a day late. Why can I be a day late? Because those people, I never see. I see you every day. Happy birthday, Matt. I was waiting to tell you in person. That's a lie. That is a flat out lie.

Okay, fine. I'm sorry I didn't tell you happy birthday earlier. Well, make up for me by me lunch here in about 15 minutes. Well, if it makes you feel any better, I forgot to call my own father last month. You forgot your father's birthday? No, I didn't forget because we were going to have dinner later on. I mentioned it on air, but I had gotten busy and I'm very forgetful, so I didn't call him. But I did call him later in the week when we were doing his celebration. And how did he take it?

I think he's a little better. I think he was a little upset. But I'm sorry. So I'm saying if that makes you feel better. It should. It should. I'm closer with my father than I am to you. Even though I see you more.

I've been different to it. I see more. You know what? That's actually disturbing to say out loud meaning it's true. I see you more than any other person I see on the planet. We're 20 hours a week usually. Oh, I'm going to throw up. And then we go to Lake Charles occasionally. It's definitely

more than that. We're in the car. Well, yeah. We're watching people hit on 14s. You know what? You know what? I'm sorry for bringing that up. Yeah, don't bring that anymore. You're upset again. That pissed me off more than having six flights guy. Exactly. Oh, you're just seeing the video Jonathan, you said?

Yeah, I didn't even know I was like, what does he look like? And that's messed up. And you know what? I remember him out like the guy of his legs. It's not bothersome. It really is. Okay.

Yeah. So it's good job by you to give him. It's my fault. I'm sorry. It just shows you, Adam doesn't have an original bone on his body. Somebody's got to feed him some good material. Yeah. I mean, he has to feed off a wax for two to six every day or two to four 30,

depending on when there's an East Coast Astros game. Matt, you should apologize. For what? For taking shots at Adam Clinton. All right, I'm sorry, Adam. I got another one. It's sports related. That was kind of harsh. Please do.

I'm sorry for continuing to doubt the Indiana Pacers. They keep on doing it. Jonathan Allen's called it from the start. He also said Indiana Pacers in seven, which I thought was just out of, I'm sorry, six. I'm sorry, six. I'm sorry. He said that in six. Actually, I think someone tweeted a deal. thought was insane.

But you know what? The Pacers and Tyrese Halliburton keep surprising. And I'm sorry for doubting them. I'm sorry. I'm sorry Astro fans that Framber Valdez will not be an Astro after this season. It's really the worst kept secret, right? Sorry. He's going to make somebody very happy for a few years.

And that compensatory draft pick won't do much for people, except that maybe if that compensatory draft pick in six years is a 30 home run guy, it's fine. Or maybe he's the next great left-handed Astro starting pitcher. He passed up, I think he's second all-time Astro's lefties strikeouts now. They're shown on the broadcast. Wagner first? Nope.

Bob Nepper? Starting pitcher. Good guess. Bob Nepper was second, but Frumber passed him. Who was all-time lefty strikeout guy? It was in this. Oh, my Campton. No, but I think Campton was somewhere on the list.

He was a starter this century. This century? Okay. Part of the tail end of the good times and a lot of the dark times. Lefty. Oh, Wondi? Yes, Wondi Rodriguez. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. I got you. I liked Wandi. He was fine. He was terrible when he first came up. Correct. And he really rounded in a form and became a solid starter. Yeah, like where did you a dog go?

And he's got a great name. Wandi Rodriguez. Is there any other Wondi's in sports? Uh, yeah. Wondie Clifford. What does he do? He's a bowler. Wondie Clifford on the PBA tour.

Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah, three-time champ. All right. So now that you know what we have to do, 713-212-5-790, 7-1-3-212-5-7-90, I'm sorry for Ron Manfred yesterday said that they're going to think about trying to get the ball-strike challenge system into place for Major League Baseball, and they're not going to go full-throttle on it. It's at least something.

We're going to go to this system. Sorry. We're going to spend the capital and resources and manpower to install this in every ballpark to where we can get every call right with a touch of a button. Yep. And we're not going to use it. Well, they're going to use it three times. Yeah. They're going to use it a couple times a game.

And that Tampa Bay hitter, Taylor, whatever his name was. Taylor Walls. Taylor Walls will have zero problem. When tapping has happened, not getting ejected from a game. Probably not either when he's back in AAA. No. They do it in Durham, North Carolina. I don't do it in Tampa Bay that often.

Yeah, I was encouraged by that. It's a step in the right direction. It's better than nothing. I will agree with that. I'll say this. If it's seamless, then they'll eventually go to it. You've got to fight with the union. But the union, you're going to fight with the umpires union.

You're going to be fighting with the players union, frankly. They just re-upped with the, yeah, I think you can probably get it smoothed over with the players union rather easily. Probably, like I said, a small recalibration of the, strikes on, make it a little bit bigger to make pitchers happier. But also, I think they just did a five-year deal with the umpire union. So. So we're looking at five years at least. I would think so.

Or they can play hardball with the umpires union. I mean, and lock them out? Can you lock out of them? You're an umpire more of an expert than I am. Am I stupid to say if they don't have called balls and strikes that literally you or I can, for the most part, go out there and be an umpire? Well, that's what they're saying is that what are we doing?

What are we doing out there, period? What separates them the union umpires, who are the best of the best? Correct. From college umpires or AAA or AAA? They do their jobs in theory when evaluated better than anybody else does. When you take out balls and strikes, what is it they're doing better? I'm literally, I'm asking. I don't know.

I don't, I mean, that's an open. They're better at out and safe on the base paths, I guess. Handling the tenor of a game, maybe? Handling manager? You're not going to argue with managers to my. much anymore if you go full aBS. I think you're just, you're adding just more computers and more robots and more things to take the human element in baseball more so than any other sport believes in the human element.

It just does. A euphemism for bad calls. 1142. Your turn is next. If you want to apologize, Corey is first up. 713-212-5-7-9. If you want to apologize for something you've said or done this week, I want to apologize. I was going the wrong direction in the entrance to race to Brescis.

We had steak dinner night and he was going the wrong direction. And I honked at him, rolled my window down and gave him a two-finger salute. You did? And he started yelling back at me and I'm like, why? I'm going the right way. You're going to the wrong way. Don't do that, man. You're going to get shot.

That's probably fairly accurate. Sorry. People are packing up in H-town. But I'm just, he had our lives in our hands. He was going the wrong way down the street. I had to call him out on it. That's good. Sometimes you just got to do what you got to do.

With the two-finger salute. The two-finger salute. One knee on the wheel and two in the air. That was one of the most dangerous thing that happened the whole night. 713-212-5-7-90. A two-two in H-town. And walk over the third hour. The Matt Thomas Show at Ross.

This is Sports Talk, 7-9. I'm obsessed with organizers. I go to ruffus racks just to go. I don't buy anything. I just like to go window shopping there. Office racks. Raw office racks, yeah. Or rapels. Don't do, no.

No, no. No, no. You got it. You got it? I had that problem. I squish in there like a yeast roll. So. You did that you see you secure?

Yeah. I ain't falling down. I might be bogging down the whole coaster. But I... If you're an attractive woman with large breasts come to shoot videos for us? No, no, don't clip that. If you feel about these college baseball players with like four buttons undone, that has some hair in the chest.

Jose Habre used to that. It's disgusting. You think that guy shaves his chest? Absolutely. That's cool. Unless he's just a hairless he's got alopecia. If y'all shave your chest, let us know. 713, 21, 2, 2, 5, 790.

It was Cardi B. Yes. Three other women. Stefan Diggs on a boat. What could go wrong? Nothing for Stefan. That sounds like a good time to me. Four women, Stefan on a boat.

I think he was doing all right that weekend. Have you seen the video, Ross? Yeah, you haven't. Wait, which video? Which video? Blue gas and he had reached into her nose, and she got a coli through that. and has had the

No, that is, no. This doesn't add up. I don't believe it. I need a, we need a medical doctor to break this down. I mean, I'm Florida stories. Every Friday guys. Every Friday, once they're up the show.

I'm telling you, you think those non-Flority stories are good. We got more coming up in 90 minutes. It is a Friday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. I almost forgot to wait the strippers up. I have, I've never been that late to think about that. I was literally, I was like, oh my God, I got to wake the strippers up. Well, you did it, Matt. Now they're awake.

They are awake. All right, 1205 Sports Talk 790, the most controversial fan bases in college football on Twitter in 15 minutes. But first, we present to you the news at noon. And we'll do that with the Justin Stapleton of sports. He's a weather guy, isn't he? Yeah, perfectly. Ross Villarreal, the Justin Stapleton of Sports News. Okay.

I guess I can, I can handle that. I will be the Justin Stapleton of Sports Talk 7. And as we start the news at noon, Matt. We'll get a lot of other things to go, uh, get to here on the segment. Let's go ahead and start with the Houston Astros and, well, some controversy before the game. But during the game, the Astros crushing them pirates. Oh, one. That's drill deep down the left field line.

If it stays fair, it's gone. It's fair. and it's gone. Second home run of the night for Essoc Parades. This one, a two-run shot, and the Astros lead is 8-2. A-Soc hits his 14th of the year. Esok Parade is 14 home runs.

821 OPS on the season. He continues to hit well. As does Jeremy Pena. He had three hits and a run batted in. In route to an 8-2 victory for the Houston Astros. Frumber was great. great. Seven innings pitched. Two earned runs given up three walks, but 11 strikeouts lowering a season ERA to 3.07. Do we have two top ten? Now, Framber's win loss numbers aren't great, but the ERA is really good.

I don't care about win-loss numbers. All right, so are we got two top ten Sion candidates in the same team? I would say so. Framber's finished in the top ten, I think each of the last three years. You can talk about how up and down and blah, blah, blah he's been. If you finish in the top ten and three of Siong for three straight years, probably four as long as he stays healthy. you're pretty darn good and he going to get paid. Anyway, speaking of getting paid, Dana Brown signs the contracts for the Houston Astros, but he was none too happy before the game getting into an argument for,

with, what's his name, Don Kelly? Don Kelly, I think. Interim manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, yeah. The interim manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates and things getting heated down on the field. Dana Brown speaking with Chandler-Rome after the game, talking about how he's frustrated, wanted to protect the boys.

Also said he preferred to bang the game for people who don't know. Bang means just get done with it. Get rid of it. Move on to the next. Game's done. So you cancel the game. How did that term originate, by the way? I don't know.

It's funny because... It's only a baseball term. No. That I know of. Referees can bang a coach with a technical foul. I banged him with one. That is accurate. 100% to the news.

1208. Write that one down. Yeah. Anyways. Bang. Dang. Technical. Dana Browns.

Bang, bang. Yeah, okay. You can bang, bang a gun and bang, bang, bang a home run. But it's just a little bit different to bang a game, meaning canceling it. But those are Dana Brown's quotes. And it is a baseball term. I've heard it before. I would have preferred to bang it, said Dana Brown.

Bang it good. Just arguing that the team wasn't getting it. until like 3.30 in the morning at the earliest to take on the Cleveland Guardians for a weekend set. So things getting a little heated and it looked like some of the Pirates Brass was like, hey, what's going on with Dana Brown coming at us like this, bro? But Dana Brown says he was trying to protect the boys. And they protected him because fact is it was in Cleveland going to Pittsburgh. It may have been a different story.

But Cleveland's a team that's a playoff contender and you want to have as much rest as possible because the competition playing the Guardians is significantly going to be better than playing the Pirates. Well, there you go. The game went on Astros win 8 to 2. They're a game and a half up on the Seattle Mariners in the Western Conference. Elsewhere in sports, Matt, the NBA finals.

Smallmoire flight time last night for the flight was 29 minutes. Okay. They landed at 252 in the morning. So get your stuff off. Get to the hotel. That's 4 o'clock. How long does it take you to D-plane on a private jet? Quicker, right?

There's 60 people, though. Still, all the equipment and stuff? What equipment? I thought somebody was handling that. I thought they had guys who were good. You said, didn't you say guys bring you your bag and stuff like that? I'm talking about the bats and the balls and the uniforms. It's way more intense than a basketball.

Yeah, but Jose Altovay is not picking up bags of balls. What was they? Get them off the plane. You don't have time to eat. You're into a two shrimp into your. a shrimp cocktail, Matt, and you're landing. That's why you eat before the flame takes off. I got these things down to the science.

I'm sure you do. All right. Well, elsewhere in the sports world, Pacers and Thunder getting after it in the NBA finals. Thunder, nine and a half to ten and a half point favorites. They were keeping the Pacers at arms length, but yet again, the Pacers with a late comeback.

Oh, one. What? That's not it. No. It stays fair. It turns off. Robert Ford was at the NBA finals, too. can't do two games at one time. Now, do we have the Indiana call? There we go. It's Indiana.

It has it with three, driving with two, pulling up, and hitting with three tenths of a second to go. How many more times can this team do that? Well, grade the call. I thought it was great. Okay. Will you grade the call, professional? It's good. Very good.

One to ten. Ten. You're such a liar. You know that guy or something? I knew. I know all the 30 guys. Okay, so you're just trying to be nice. I don't call it a 10 out of 10.

It was like 8. I liked it. Yep. I thought it was good. Okay. Pacers up 1-0 on the Thunder. I might have to recalibrate, but I had Thunder and 5. I'm staying with Thunder.

It's too easy. It's too easy. I'm going to say it's Thunder and 5. Okay. Let's see. The line already out for game number 2 that will be on Sunday. It's 10 and a half. Basically holding strong from where it was previously.

Series price? They are still, last I looked, they started the series like seven to one favorites. They moved down to three to one favorites. So you lose home court advantage. You're down one nothing in the series and you're still over three to one favorites, which means about 75% to win the series. So basically, again, if you're three and a half, that means you've got to spend 350 to win 100.

Yes. Doesn't fair nearly as bad. Yeah, I think you want to head to Lake Charles after the show? 350 to one. That's not terrible value sports. I don't think it is. Is this going to jump up once they win this game on Sunday night? You're right.

Hmm. Hmm. Is Sunday a must-win game for the Oklahoma City Thunder? Can I go off of history? The answer is yes. Indiana won two games in New York, and guess who won that series in six games? Indiana Pacers, so I would say absolutely it's a must-win. For sure, yes.

Sure, why not? Let's go for it. Why not? Didn't the Rockets lose two games at home and then they beat the Phoenix Suns? Yeah. That was also 32 years ago. I'm sure there's some more recent examples. Anyways, that's your news and new, Matt.

The Rays are playing the Marlins for a day game. The pitcher, Zach Little, is that any pronounced that guy's name. Little, I think. Little in it. L-I-T-E-L-L-L. He is already sweating profusely. There's nobody in the stands. That place seats 12,000 people.

Nobody's there. Lattel. Lattel. It's balls the wall hot there. I'm sure it's quite stealing. And then the Marlins are wearing dark black uniforms. What is wrong with these people? Oh man.

This guy almost got hit and he kind of swung the bat and gets strikes out. Oh, no, that's a one. Never mind. It's a defensive swing. Hot weather, day game. Nobody there. It's the Sunshine Series. Look at all those empty seats.

That's play seats 12. There's 4,000 people there. How are the race making money? Oh, because they don't spend any. They don't spend any. They keep it all. And they still make the big team. contracts that benefit everyone.

All right. 1214, it is the Matt Thomas show with Ross when we return. All right. We're bringing in Gordon to help us out with this next segment because this is going to be a little bit of a kind of segment. All right. They're according to CFBSelect.com.

Are you familiar with this website, Ross? They have 17,000. It's one of the big Heritage College of all websites. I mean, everybody's all over there. This has got to be something this guys. You know what CFBselect.com is, Gordy? I've never heard of that. They're not part of the lockdown network, are they?

No, never heard of them. They have 17,000 followers, and they follow 18,700 people. Sounds like a Dan Matthews account. All right, let's move forward now. These are the 12 most controversial fan bases on Twitter, and we'll go in no particular order, but we'll save the two Texas schools for last.

Now, it's up to us. to figure out why they're controversial. Gordy, Tennessee, why are they one of the 12 most controversial fan bases on Twitter? They're pretty rabid fan base. They talk a lot of trash. They do a lot of... Oh, my God, this is the best. Wow. Matt's lunch and everything.

The big boss is running you food? Yes. You get the Michael Berry treatment? Lunch. Goodness gracious. All right, perfect. Tennessee, they're pretty, they are pretty spicy on social media. I mean, they are us against the world. You're going to see it this weekend when they play their Super Regional at Arkansas.

hate each other. But this is football, though. This is football. Oh, you know, that's not true. Most controversial fan bases on Twitter. Okay. So, okay, that makes sense. I will go with the next one.

I'll take Nebraska. Nebraska, they're living off of what they did 25 years ago, and they think they're on the cusp of being what they were 25 years ago, when in reality, Nebraska hasn't done jack squat in the Big Ten, and frankly, it wasn't very good the last few years in the Big 12. They think their one was it Tommy Frazier? They think they're one Tommy. Frazier away from getting back to national championships.

Yeah, kind of thing. The ghost of Tom Osborne is coming around in time now. Ross, I'm going to let you handle this next one. UCF, Central Florida. I think I know the answer to this. I don't know the answer to this. I'm going to go with a little brother to Florida, Florida State, Miami. Well, let me add on to it. Remember a few years

ago they went undefeated and they didn't get the play for a championship. So their coach had them rings made. So that's when they really started. That was with Frost when he was, Scott Frost was still there. All right. This one, I have no idea on, except I'm going to go with the universe. This is University of South Florida that they didn't get invited the Big 12th.

Shout out to my niece. She's a cheerleader there. Okay. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know what USF has to be, to be angry about. I think it's that UCF got in and USF.

Oh, remember that time you brought me to a UCF basketball game and there was 10 people there when you have H played there years ago? Now it's 7,500 strong, so shut up. Gosh, that was, that was depressing. All right. We're going back to the essence. Dickie Times. We're going back to the SEC here. Alabama is a controversial fan base. No, no, no.

Auburn. Why is Auburn of controversial fan base? Again, same thing. They live in Bamah's shadow. They think that they're, they live off Cam Newton's success from, you know, over a decade ago. And they, they've been down-drawn. I mean, it has been bad under Hugh Free so far. Ross, why is Florida State a controversial fan base on Twitter? I don't know. Well, you've provided nothing so far in this. I'm sorry. Let's get the college expert in it. another one. I'm deferring to the experts. They went undefeated and got left out of the

playoff because their quarterback was a Jordan Travis got hurt and the committee decided we can't put you in with a hurt quarterback. And they're always defending Tallahassee PD. They come after Kirk Herbstree. Remember because Herb Street defended was like they didn't belong in and they're like I hate you. Yeah, that was a whole

thing. That's true. All right, few more. This is the most controversial fan base on Twitter according to something called CFBSelect.com. North Carolina is because they're being made fun of for hiring Belichick? Maybe. Probably that. After having Mac Brown.

Jordan Hudson running everything over there? If you're in your 70s, they want you as coach at UNC. Yeah, Lou Holtz apparently wanted that job. I think he was a finalist. University of Miami. Another one of a team of yesterday, still living in the past. I've noticed a trend on this.

These are schools that were once amazing. Like Tennessee football, 20 years ago, was Philip Fulmer leading that team and T. Martin and Payton Manning and all that kind of stuff. They're irrelevant. Well, we're going to get to some that have really never had any kind of run. You shut your brother. All right. Two more. We're going out west.

The Oregon Ducks. Why are they a controversial fan base? Always the bridesmaid never the bride. I mean, they have been one of the football powers the last decade, yet they have absolutely nothing to show for it other than a Marcus Marriota, Heisman. And the fact that Phil Knight has spent upteen amounts of money and basically said, I want to win a national championship before I die,

and I will spend any amount of money necessary. laugh every time I see a recruit pick organ. I'm like, there's no way in hell. You know anything about what they do. It's all money. All right. I'm going to take a guess on this, the next one, California, University of Cal Berkeley. I'm going to go, we should have been a part of the big 10. We weren't. I'm going to go with, we are one of the most prestigious public schools in the country and we don't get any run. Stanford is thought of in a higher than Cal is. Yes. And Cal more known for their on-campus' protests than they are

success on the football and unisex bathrooms ironically everywhere you go there that's a school that had Marshawn Lynch and Aaron Rogers and couldn't achieve ultimate success there

that's a shame all right or down to the last two and they're from Texas coming in as one of the most controversial fan bases on Twitter

Texas A&M I bet Ross you got a couple of comments there's a great fan base they're not delusional at all they don't actually like they know their place. They certainly wouldn't act like they have won a championship every single year of the last 20 years.

Rather than not since Hitler invaded. You hear this hatred. Oh, my God. Not Gordy is singing, embarrassing himself. They get their coach stolen. And their basketball coach goes to Maryland. Did you know, do you hear that story a few weeks ago where they're like, we got to cut back on, you know, office expenses.

pens and papers and office notes. You know, the whole Jimbo buyout, we're really having to cut corners here. Did that really happen? Do you know that people got laid off because of the Jimbo thing? Yes. I have a friend of mine that got laid off on A&M is like we have to start trimming the fat. What do you think revenue share is going to start doing on these campuses? Wait, we have to pay the players now?

Jim, sorry, we've got to cut the fat. Video coordinator, you're out. The last one on this list, I completely 100% disagree with, and I find this to be an atrocity. Uh-huh. The University of Houston has a controversial fan base. Speaking of fan bases who aren't nearly as big as they think they are. The only thing I can see from that is the run to the champion, losing the title game and the reaction afterwards. What was so crazy about the reaction?

Oh, blaming the refs, blaming this, blaming that. Yes, I agree. I agree. I agree. I agree. Terrible officiating. We should have been handed the championship like everybody else gets handed their championships. Well, it was handed, then did it got dropped by who was that guy?

What was his name that dropped the ball? See, I could make the jokes. There was a good nugget from U of H last night. Did you see that big news? Yeah, the five stars staying in there. Kishon Henderson shuts down his recruitment. He, everybody's after this kid. So that is a huge get for Willie Fritz, the heir apparent.

Because of excellent academics. No. Great facilities. Not really. A warm environment. Sweet people. Dangerous. Tremant Fretta checkbook.

Yeah, there you go. You don't know that. You don't know. You don't know. Calais, furniture endorsement. You don't know. All right, before I let you go, Gordy, let's go, let's add one. Each of you at a school,

we'll eat to all three of us. Let's add a controversial fan base on Twitter group. What do you want to add? It's Alabama for me. It's, they are still, they still believe they are Alabama. The Nick Saban dynasty died.

You have nine and four DeBore. That's who you have as your head coach now. Oh, is that what you're calling them? And they are thinking they are, oh, we are in the playoff, brother. We're going to win the SEC this year. Okay, let's see Alabama.

Let's see. I would say Texas, but none of Texas fans actually care about Texas. I wouldn't add it to my group. I'm going to go with... What? Yeah. You guys are apathetic most of the time. Apathetic?

There's 100,000 in the stadium every single week. I'm talking about in general. I'm going to add Notre Dame. I think Notre Dame fan loses its mind. They've been walking from their slumbers. I'm going to go back to the Baylor fan. Are you really? Controversial.

Baylor, why is Barrows? They're the worst. They don't still defend our brows this day. Some of them do? Well, who would that be? No comment. Can I tell you guys Friday night

of opening weekend of college football, Auburn is at Baylor? That game's on Fox, Big Fox. That is a monumental game for both sides. If you freeze loses that one, he's dead man walking at Auburn. If Dave Iranda loses that one at Baylor,

I think he hadn't fired Dave Aransas. did he yes no wow it must be a big buyout you and I interviewed Dave a few years ago of Big 12 yeah that's right he spit in your face

very cerebral I mean it was almost like what do you call those things when you get the when you have a heart attack and you're trying to resuscate somebody of those little tabribrillator those paddles

he needed some paddles do you know who his college roommate was give us a hint he was a U of H head coach Dana Holgerson Tom Herman Oh. So both,

what do you call them the really smart guys? What's the word? Magna cum laude. Oh, you're talking about the Minsa? Mensa. Both Mensa.

Of course. Everybody goes to U of H as a Mensa. All right. How are we spending our weekend? Mr. Gordy. Well, I was clean. So I've got a little entertainment room upstairs. I have a little mini fridge

and I was cleaning it out the other night because it got a little frozen over. And I realized I may have too many Crawford box in there. I may have to start drinking some of those this weekend. So make sure you guys, while you're watching the Astros, listening to the Astros at 790.

Make sure you load up on playing a Crawford Bach. Goes perfectly with Astros baseball. Astros out on the road. They'll be home next week. You can get back out to the ballpark there, Dikin, get you an ice cold Crawford Bach from Carbock Brewing. And, of course, if you're looking to get out and about, beautiful weather these next couple days, a little hot,

but you can get out there to Carbock brewing. They got the beer garden. They got the new pizza and pints. They got the restaurant. Ross and I were just out there two weeks ago. I had a lot of fun. Great food, great brews. And make sure you subscribe to the Crawford Boxcast.

We got a new episode dropping every week. they're talking all things Astros, presented by the Crawfordbach. Thank you very much. Hey, so if you're an Aggie and you're a Houston Cougar fan, do you consider yourself controversial on Twitter? Yes. I do not. I do not. 713. No, 713.

Well, you don't. No. I'm not going to put controversial things on my Twitter. You're a Cougar and you're a cougar, so I get it. Homer. 713-212-5-7-0. 1235, Sports Talk 790. How dare this CFB whatever.

call us controversial. We ain't controversial. We're perfect. It's true. People got to care about you to be controversial. Stop. Jones says OSU. You think Ohio State or is that Oklahoma State? I imagine. She's a Longhorn fan. Those fans are kind of weird. They're in the OU shadow. They're also living off of what they did back in the yesterday. They didn't even

do anything. They would go to bowl games. Okay. They were winning championship. Good job. The basketball team used to be good. Now it sucks. Did they win a big 12 championship? Maybe one? He's gone to games, right? They go to like

They go to the Nashville bowl and the Birmingham Bowl And the You know Cedar Rapids Bowl And stuff like that Cedar Rapids Bowl It's the Cedar Point Bowl

I don't know They go to the bowl games That are put in football And baseball stadiums By the way I'm obsessed with that 2011 Mike Gundy has won

One Conference Championship Since he's been there Ever? He's been there since 2005 20 years and one title? Yes. I haven't got the rocket schedule yet,

but the Cougars play in Stillwater. I've never been to Stillwater for a game. I don't know if it's good or not. I'm sure it's fine. Probably casinos nearby. He'd be all right. Casinos actually close to University of Oklahoma. It's a matter of about 10 minutes from the campus. You better watch out on that Annie on the blackjack, though.

That's got to rack up on you. Six dollars to win five. Shut your bum ass up, Oklahoma. That's what they do. People keep going. Yeah, because it's close. Idiots. Somebody told me that they got rid of that. I don't know if that's accurate. Oh, is that true?

Yeah. I thought somebody confirmed to us recently that it was still there. You know, maybe it was just the opposite. Yeah. Have you been to an Oklahoma casino recently? Send a tweet. There's a question. To add sports RV.

Later on in this early in July, my daughter's playing her national volleyball tournament in Dallas. It's your. Well, I'd be able to get the kitchen pass to go up and go up to that. It's only an hour away. Yeah, but if I miss volleyball for a casino, that means I got a problem. You're going to miss anything, are you? I can go out. You live stream it.

Live stream at the table. My daughter's played for a championship, but I'm at the casino. Betting $6 and win five. That won't work very well. Tim and Katie at 1237 on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Tim, what's going on? Hey, guys, I got a question. Is it controversial or is it whiny?

The phrase that was used in what we're talking about has been controversial. descriptions all sound like it's different colleges or whining because they don't win. If that's it, USC, Shonsbury, Salisbury's ex-Alma mater. They expect to win every year and half the time they're not worth a day. I can't argue with that. USC, I mean, last year was massively underperforming. But Lincoln Riley, is that the worst money spent for a big-time coach? Yes.

I think he left because he thought the PAC 12 was going to be an easy path to the playoff. And then as soon as it gets there, they go to the Big Ten where it was even a more difficult path. They've been getting some big recruits over there. They've had, of course, Caleb Williams, some good quarterback play. They've also got endless amounts of money too, right? I mean, Sean's making great money from us. At least he can just get some of that to use alma mater. Yeah.

I think they said somehow, like, yeah, he's one of the highest paid coaches in football. if not the I'll have to look it up but because he's a it's a private institution so they don't have to release the numbers but I think there was some kind of lawsuit or something and so somebody dug the numbers up

and the first year he was there he made like $20 million. You know I've been obviously been to L.A. lots of times I wonder if L.A. is more of a UCLA town or a USC town. Are they both? I've got to be. I would say USC probably, right?

Isn't U.S. private though? But U.S.C. has got a much more of a distinctive football back past than UCLA does. Going back to OJ Simpson and all the championships they won. And Carson Palmer. Yes. Matt Linerd.

Marcus Allen. The greatest team of all time losing two of the Texas Longhorns. By the way, weren't you getting to watch that game anymore? They used to be on Longhorn Network like five times a day. You're saying you don't think I have the DVD? I'm saying how often do you watch that

DVD? It's still a little bit... You don't even have any DVD operating in your home? Yes, I do. Do you really? You are? Yes, I have a Blu-ray player that I keep near my bedroom TV. You know why? I'm very curious.

Anytime there's a major flood or a cable goes out for like a couple of weeks. Or if the internet goes down, whenever we have one of these major storms, it seems to be these 400-year storms that are hitting us every six months. And the cable slash internet goes down, you got to put something on. So I keep the DVDs handy. All right. Time to dial up from Pulp Fiction. Here we go. What?

I don't have any DVDs in my house at all. I have a Blu-ray player and a bunch of Blu-rays, but I literally only watch it when the internet or cable or something is gone down. So what are your five DVD go-toes? That game is one. So you got four more left. Um, I have a, uh, I have a Blu-Rae. It's the best of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.

I watch that. Can I get that from you? You'll let you borrow it. You better bring it back. And it better not be scratched up. There's no chance of that. You said you don't even have a Blu-ray player. I'll go buy them just for that.

I got it at Math Mice Mux for like two bucks. And it's the best two bucks I ever spent. It was the easy. Oh, that was the easiest purchase of my life. I'm like, I'm buying this. I like that. And so I have that. I have basically all every Quentin Tarantino movie.

What else do I like? I mean, glorious bastards, saving private Ryan. You know the classic, the hits, Gladiator. Yeah, and I just watch some movies whenever the Internet goes down after one of the latest hurricanes hits. Yeah, unfortunately, where Ross lives or has lived, the Internet goes down almost on the daily. It's like working here. No. Yeah, great job, Exfinity.

You're doing fantastic. Let's talk to Travis on line 1 on 7.99-1241. Hi, Travis. Hey, how's it going, y'all? Good. You? Good, good. Y'all are talking about the Oklahoma City.

You know, that's called River One. It's still live and active. Oh, okay. We were wondering if they still had the blackjack anties. Unfortunately, that is the case. Oh, suck it. Sucket. Sucket, Chalktaw.

Whatever they call it. Yeah, there's Riverwind, Chalktah, and then the one on the border, Winstar. My friend Vanessa, who's working for ESPN Mobile or ESPN 3 or whatever it is, she was hanging, having dinner with some people from the ESPN production. They asked me if there was a casino. Oklahoma City. And the answer is no, there's not, but a half hour due south and Norman, there is. So if you need to get your Oklahoma fix, there you can go. About 10 minutes from campus, a little too easy sometimes, so that's the way we like it.

Hey, did you go to OU? I did, but more sooner. So I was there last year, and the first of all, landing in Oklahoma City Airport, then driving down there and seeing the casinos made me happy. And then there was a bunch of CBD places around the campus. You all did quite well for yourself. They got some things to keep you entertained. Yeah, and then the once around through, Norman's not bad. I congratulate you on that as well.

Appreciate that. Yeah, boomer sooner. Hopefully, it'll be a better year this year. It's been a little rough recently. Who are your home games? You got any decent home games? I don't know if it's home. I think it's Michigan to start the year.

I don't know if it's in Ann Arbor or Norman, though. It is in Norman, September 6th. Ooh, that's a good. You got to get to that one. Who's their best... Yeah, scheming some tickets already. We'll see if it happens. Who's their Ross?

Who's their best SEC home game? Of course, Texas is neutral site. Yeah, Texas is neutral. I think we play LSU at home to do. Auburn? LSU, yeah. Auburn or LSU? You know if you want to come back to the Big 12,

you're always welcome. You know that, right? I wish we were still there. Yeah, that's what they all say. Thank you, Travis, to the phone call. Yeah, the 80s wanted more money. I wasn't care. I didn't care about what conference.

So Zane, it's easier to win the Big 12th. Got a bunch of slapies like U of H in there now, too. I would invite you back. Because I can put the beat down on you during basketball season. And baseball and then fall short in the tournament. That's fine. We'll ride the corner. And then you'll keep your mediocre baseball coach.

Keep getting beat up. Okay, that is a friend of mine. Shut your bum ass up. I'm not letting that happen. Stop. You're just, you know, the thing that people don't understand is really how awful you are. Wow. What am I awful about?

You just took a pot shot of a guy that you don't even know. Oh, I'm sorry, he's a great head coach. That's much better. The embarrassment of riches in the trophy case with U of H baseball. That's my bad. We used to be there.

713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. I am fascinated by this Ray's Marlins game. There's maybe 2,000 people in the building. Rob Manfred, what are you doing? I mean, granted, Tampa's a little different, but Like, we're going to, the Astros play the A's later this month in Sacramento,

four game series. Yes. They're going to draw flies. Yeah, two of your 30 franchises are playing in minorly parks all year. And neither one are full. Look at them in empty seats. Now, granted, it's also probably 150 degrees there, but you know what? I will put this on, Manfred.

The race should have been moved out years ago. Remember whatever happened and they were going to do half in Montreal, half in Tampa Bay? That was goofy. They should have gone all. Yeah, I know. That was goofy as well. Yeah. But everybody knows that nobody cares about the Tampa Bay raise.

They don't spend money. The fan base doesn't care. Why are they there? You know what's crazy? I don't know if this has changed. They have some of the highest TV and radio ratings for Major League Baseball team in Tampa. Really? Yeah.

That doesn't make any sense. That's right. That's what I'm saying. I wonder if it was somebody just giving me some phone information or not. Okay. I'm more concerned about these Marlins. They're going to get a heat exhaustion. problems. They're wearing dark black uniforms on a hot

day in Tampa Florida. They're still reeling from the embarrassment of getting swept by the Rockies. How'd that happen? I don't know. It's time to fold up shop. You have to nuke the franchise if you're getting swept by the Rockies. Now, we drive by Marlins Park, I don't know what it's called. It's some corporate sponsor name. It's a

dome stadium. It's really nice. It's right by the Miami airport. But I don't know if I want to sit through two hours and 30 minutes of a team that I couldn't name two players from. I mean, of all the things, I mean, Miami is such a beautiful place to hang on and be outside. What do you want to be indoors to watch a team

full of major league minimum players? Let's name Marlins. I'll start. Sandy Alcantara. I'm done. You win. I'm done too. The manager's arguing right now. I don't even know the manager's name. His last name is McCullough. Oh, Clayton. Are you sure? You're not even 100% sure.

I'm like 75% sure. Just give yourself credit. Is it Clayton McCullough? Clayton McCullough. What's his background? I don't have any idea. I don't have any idea. I don't let you answer that question.

EZ 1252 on Sports Talk 790. Easy. Good afternoon to you. Good afternoon, Matt. Happy birthday, by the way, sir. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Hey, I'm with Ross with having a DVD player,

but I know you guys are old enough to know the DVD and VHS combined. Oh, you get the combo, bro? I got the combo. classic. Top movie was Harlem Knights Weeking at Bernie's Major League and I bought the

VHS when the Rockets won their first championship when that VHS was 24-95. That was 24-95 gentlemen. Love it. Do you have any CDs left by the way? What's on your CD count in your car right there? Hooty and the Blowfish.

Oh. Who's in the Blowfish? and Pearl Jam 10 that CD was the best one. My wife and I argue about our favorite hooting the blowfish song. I still think Hold My Hand is my favorite. And she says, I only want to be with you is her favorite. Let her cry.

Let her cry. Let her cry. I can listen to some hooting the ball. I'm going to a concert tonight as a matter of fact. You are? Yeah, I'm going to see sticks. Crack, crack, rearview mirror. What's left of sticks.

Isn't it sticks and rents? Random spare parts from other bands. Well, here's the thing about sticks. Sorry to get off the conversation easy. But they don't sing lady because the lead singer of that who sang that song is not a part of the band. And this band that currently sticks hates that song so they don't play lady. Ladies like the number one song of all time. No, I thought sailing away was.

But I'm in my mind, it's a lady. I'm not a big Sticks fan, but it is. I'm going because my son wants to go. So I'm going with him. Because I'm a good dad. Or CD would be blues traveler. Oh, my God. Oh, blues traveler.

Do you get any R.M. In your CD player either? What do you got there? Yes, sir. You play the 90s. That also happens. Yeah, that's early 90s, right? R.m.

That was creep, right? Was it creep? Yeah. Yeah. Happy Sunshine Day or whatever the hell of that song was called? Shiny happy people. All right. What's your Tommy John question?

I've been going over every song of the 1990s. No, the question was, I don't know if it's a coincidence right now with the Astros or is it, is it the pitch clock? But, I mean, it seems like it's an epidemic now because you're rushing these. guys and it seems like more of a coincidence with the Astros, how do we fix that? How do we change that to where some of these guys don't get hurt? You know, I mean, they're blowing out their elbows because they're rushing fishes. They have to get to that point. I'll hang up a listen, gentlemen.

Thank you, Z, for the phone call. Yeah, this has been much talked about. Yeah, first question is, is it coincidental that all this is happening with one team? or is it just happens to be a situation that you happen to get two major league pitchers among 200 major league pitchers that happen to have it on the same team? You know what I mean? I feel like this could be with any team. I feel like this, that spin rate usage, types of pitchers are being thrown is being discussed by the Astros, just like it is discussed by the Marlins by the Expo. by the Raes, by the Giants, by the Dodgers.

I choose to believe that they're not doing anything outside the ordinary that would cause greater injuries than any of the other 29 teams. I think it's just purely coincidence that we've got two guys on the same team in about the same time. Yeah, I would agree with that. I think it's just the nature of the game. And while the Astros put an emphasis on spin rate and breaking stuff, that's basically every organization in baseball does that now.

If the Astros created this, hey everybody, we do things here differently. In the reality, they don't do things differently. They're still teaching off speed. Everybody in Major League Baseball can hit a 98-hour-hour fastball, give or take. How do you make your money? Your curveballs, your sliders, your slurves, your change-ups, the stupid sweeper thing. I mean, hey, hey, why is it stupid? Because somebody called it a sweeper five years ago.

Start making up metrics. Got to move on. Point being is this. Everybody uses the different types of pitches. They just do. Are the Astros rushing people? That wouldn't be in their best interest to do that. It has been a lot of setbacks.

When we could talk about that, I mean, Lance McCullors Jr. had multiple setbacks. Now, are there issues with diagnosis in rehabilitation? That's very fair. We could argue all of those things. And the Astros, I mean, they are operating different than other teams. If we remember Justin Verlander talking about the Mets and how their analytics are behind the times and stuff like that, but I don't know how much that would translate to actual injuries.

That's a question for him or someone else to answer. But I think it's just the nature of the game. We've talked about it. And, you know, the kids playing baseball year-round now where it used to be you'd play football, baseball, basketball, and throwing basically from age nine all the way year-round. and with a huge emphasis on velocity and spin rates and all that type of stuff, and perhaps the pitch clock, but you add all of it up, whatever you want to balance, what percentage of it is,

you add it all up, there's going to be a rash of arm injuries, and I don't think it's going to stop. Let me ask you this. There may be no correlation to it. The guys that are getting hurt are not considered phenoms. Spencer Strider just had Tommy John. I'm talking about it on the Astrosite. On the Astros.

Javier was, what would you call Christian Javier, not a phenom? Justin Verlander had Tommy John. Lance McCullors Jr. was... Was Lance ever a phenom? First round pick? Yes. Very highly first round. When he's breaking off 24 straight curveballs in the 2017 playoffs, we were calling him a phenom.

We weren't calling him a phenom when he got lit up in Arizona and complained that the roof was open. I don't know. I'm just saying, do guys that are more highly regarded not have to worry about this kind of of stuff less than the guys that are just mid-level pitchers that are just trying to to try to elevate themselves to become higher level like Gary Cole's getting top got Tommy John okay so I well first of all there's fewer higher profile guys right so if there's 10 phenoms and a hundred out of a however many hundred pitchers there are yeah it's gonna be fewer guys but there are some that I

can think of all right non-flora stories in half an hour what's your non-floor story from uh it's from uh outside of flora Thank you for that. It's always appreciate the honesty that you bring to the table with those non-Florida stories. I need to confirm. It was Tommy John that Spencer Strider had, right? Well, you brought it up. I didn't bring him up.

I don't make mistakes. Oh, yeah. In a UCL, yeah, repaired UCL in April of 2024. All right. Stephen, what's the name, Stephen Strider? Sammy Schroeder. Spencer? All right, we'll get to him, deep conversation on him.

NBA playoffs last night and was Dano Brown? out of line or ride-in-line for yelling at people in Pittsburgh yesterday. We'll give you a thought on that. One o'clock, Sports Talk 790. Here's today's betting tip of the day. Anytime there is a day game in Tampa, take the over. It's in the top of the fourth, and it's 3-1 Tampa Bay. We just saw a ball that was barely at the end of the bat,

and it just went about 380 feet to left center field. Rossi, we got to get in on this. We're going to be rich. My bad. We did the under with Hunter Brown. We did the under. We were in Lake Charles and we had to tear our ticket up. And we were made fun of.

Mr. Fetita got some of his money back. That he paid me and I gave him back to him. All right. What are you going to do? So last night, the Astros went, by the way, that guy in the left field caught it on the fly. Good for him. He had a frothy beer. too.

I mean, you want a frothy beer when it's 95 degrees outside. What you got them to shave in the middle of the game? Well, I mean, I would say shave before the game. Games at 1 o'clock. You can shave at 1130. Okay. All right, let's get to it. The Astros win yesterday.

How about this, ladies and gentlemen, are you ready for how wacky this baseball season has been? How wacky has it been? I'm so glad you asked. The Baltimore Sucky Orioles. Hey, that's not their name. that's not on their their official crest

it's no it says Orioles at home and says sucky on the road you don't sign a contract with them and it says Baltimore sucky Orioles

how about Uber disappointing okay sure fire their manager Brandon Hyde playoff appearances back to back years got up to an awful start

they won 100 games last year right with Brandon Hyde whew two first run exits by the way which probably didn't help his cause

two years ago it was 100 games so This year, the Baltimore Orioles. I mean, look at the quickstatings, are in last place at 25 and 36. How are they 25 and 36? They suck. Geez, they are the Baltimore sucking Orioles.

I stand in my statement. They have won six in a row. So at one point they were 19 and 36. See, they're on a heater. Thanks to the Seattle Mariners. They're 13 games out behind the Yankees in for first place. Let me check and see how they are on the wild card. And the wallet card, they are seven and a half out.

I mean, that's not terrible. But point being is this, they're out. They beat the Seattle Mariners three times in Seattle. Meanwhile, your beloved Astros took two out of three against Pittsburgh. Love it. They beat Paul Skeens and then some Gibroni the next day I'd never heard of. They lost two. They won yesterday after the game started.

Some jabroney nobody had heard of. Mike Burroughs is his third major league start and he threw five in a third of shutout. So you're calling him, what's the name, Cyboro? Is that what you're calling him now? If he's facing the Astros lineup, whenever some guy has two major league starts and an 860RA, it's about time to shut down the Astros for six. They beat Skeens.

Well, Christian Walker beats Skeens. By the way, I cannot, and I love all of you death dearly. I should have him since I love all of you. I at least tolerate some of you and some of you. I do love a lot of you. I cannot accept anymore the Astros should give up the farm for Paul Skeens. The Astros don't have a farm. They could still give it up.

They can give it up, but the pirates could laugh at them. They would. The pirates could do an intelligence report on the Astros Minor League organization and say there is absolutely nothing. You want to give us Bryce Matthews? You want to give us Hunter Brown. You want to give us Carlos Pena. And then we'll continue to talk later. Jeremy, what did I say?

Carlos Pena. You know, Carlos Pena. Some dark times that Carlos Pena was out there. Didn't clean up. You get former Pittsburgh pirate, I believe, short-term Astro, Tony Payne. I don't know, did Tony Payne ever play for the Astros? Point being is this, you give up any pain you want. Alejandro, you can do any of them.

Geronimo. Yeah. I think we're done on Pena's. Probably. The Pirates are not training him to the Houston Astros. There are many other teams that are more flush with players in the Houston Astros. So the Astros went two out of three. They don't start the game until 10 o'clock Eastern time.

Dana Brown's out there. they're yelling at people. And I don't, and I completely understand it. The problem is, he might have been yelling at people, but if they went and got their count, you know, you have the little pocket schedules you have, they probably got, they brought their pocket schedules out and said, do you get an off day here? Get an off day here? Can we play this?

My guess is that if we did a deep dive on this, it would take us 15 minutes. Either there was no off days that made sense or the Astros were probably on the West Coast and have to travel all the way east. Or the pirates could be the same situation. They could be in the West Coast, have to travel all the way east. They're at the middle. Neutral set game. Like in Des Moines?

Somewhere around there. St. Louis. By the way, I mentioned this last hour. I forgot to finish up. I love these themed to games. The Field of Dreams game. They're playing a baseball game

at, I think, Bristol Motor Speedway or something like that. A Motor Speedway baseball game. Yeah. They're playing on an auto racing track. They'll change things up, make things interesting. That's dumb.

It's not dumb. I mean, Field of Dreams I get. But I don't know. on a motor speedway? Yeah. I'm going to look it up when you talk for a second. Sure.

Follow at Sports RV on Instagram. I would appreciate it. I'm trying to build it up. I'll be posting more as I get settled into the account. At Sports RV.

You've had the account for a decade. Yeah, but I haven't been using it. I'm trying to build it back up. All right. Here it is. It's August 2nd. It's called the MLB Speedway Classic. Okay.

Atlanta and Cincinnati are playing there. I could give two craps about the Braves and Reds playing a game on August 2nd. You're playing the game at Bristol Motor Speedway? Oh, hell yeah, I'm watching the game. This seems ridiculous. They're going to use the infield grass?

Yeah. Huh. How are they going to clear up all the Coors vomit from inside of NASCAR? And the tobacco. Yeah. Tobacco is all the spatoons. And the cracklings are going to be on the field.

I thought you were going to say and the crack pipes. It depends on, well. Maybe not in Bristol. Not in Bristol. Maybe in Talladega. So they play in the middle of a cornfield. Yes.

They're going to play in an auto track. Sure. Why not? What's next? Submarine? No. Let's be realistic here for a second. Okay.

You can't plan a ship. Not big enough. No. You get a sandlot game? Broken glass out in left field? Now, you could go to football stadiums and play and have just a really walking. Well, yeah. It's called the Raiders in the Oakland.

But I'm talking about like true football You could have really wonky like 430 to left and then 265 to right I mean you could do that but that would seem kind of chintzy How about you remake historic Well you can't have to build them out of nowhere Like construct How about a game with like the Polo Grounds

Configuration? It was like 450 feet to center But I think it was like too well you don't want to do it It was like 200 feet to right field or something No you don't want that I mean pesky pole is embarrassing as it is in Boston I'm just trying to think If you're doing the Bristol And you're doing the field of dreams Where else could you legitimately put a baseball field?

I mean Yeah, polo grounds, how about this? Right field was 258 feet. Joke. Left field 279 feet. You'd have a 25-23 game. Center field 483 feet.

You know who has zero problem with that? Jake Myers. I was going to say Dyken Park. You know, that's a kind of game you don't want to have two centerfielders. You play with 10, like if they do an outfield with four off-fitters and softball. Like softball. I got you.

Okay, maybe not exactly Polo Grounds dimensions, but I don't know. I'm just coming up with ideas. Okay. You can't play it at a U.S. Open, like Arthur Ash Jady. We couldn't do that. A tennis court? Uh-uh. Hmm.

Okay. How about a batting cage with simulated? You're a terrible example maker. Well, I think these are dumb. You don't think, you won't watch Bristol. I guarantee you'll watch some of it. I don't have no idea when it is. August 2nd.

It's my brother's birthday. I'm busy. You'll watch it on the... Happy birthday, Ray. MLB highlights. Extended highlights are your friend. I'll check out the highlights. MLB Network is your friend, by the way, too.

Yes. Yes. We've got a lot of friends on MLB Network. What about in a rodeo arena? When a rodeo... You get the dirt infield already locked and loaded. Okay, and then you can release

Bulls in the fourth inning? I don't think so. I don't think so. All right, this is a terrible idea gone worse. I apologize. You should. Back to Dana Brown.

Yeah. When we come back? We okay with Dana saying what he said? I think so. I just think they were hands were tied. This is my feeling. Yeah, I get it. That's not an I just don't get it.

That's an I get it. 114 on Sports Talk 790. 713-212-790. The end goal on this is, friends, Your Astros have a game and a half lead now with the Mariners in the American League West. You know, I like my GM is spicy. I'll tell you that. Dana Brown, you'll go to fight for you.

You went down on the field. He's like, I'm sick of sitting in this rain. I want to play ball or get the hell out team I get my guys to Cleveland. Or, by the way, not play on terrible field because you know what? Fluke injuries can happen all the time. If any team that needs to stay healthy right now, it's Houston Astros. So good for him. They did play the game.

granted, it didn't go super long, but still, they didn't even arrive to their hotel at 4 o'clock in the morning. So they're going to be asleep at yet. That's fine. Sleep till noon? Get a good 8 hours? Games not till 6? So if you were a betting man on 3.3 time?

So they got in at 3.R time? Or at their hotel at 4 their time, 3R time? Yeah. Okay. And they get 4 their time and the game is at 7 there. Now, they're an hour later with batting practice, so they don't have to batting practice until about 4 o'clock. Yeah, it'd be fine.

Get some coffee and a donut. So guess what they get to figure out? The life of an NBA player. We travel crazy-ass hours. Yeah, they're going to make it. Yeah. Also, I mean, for most of the players, the game also not as strenuous as an NBA game.

That's why you play 162 in six months rather than 80-82. They'll be all right. By the way, Adams will be ready to go. Adam Silver yesterday on that meeting of the media, but a conversation about reduction in games, no, there'll be no talk of that. They're playing 82. I know.

And you said it's never going to happen. No way, no how. I was right. No, you said 40 minutes. Yeah, still not happening. Could happen. Was there in a conversation about 40 minutes? I didn't see that.

No. They're not playing. No chance. They're not going to play fewer games. They have to figure something out to get players a little bit more rest. make the season long, even longer, it's already so long, especially for teams that go into the NBA finals. No, they're not going to cut, they're not cutting eight minutes at game.

That's not happening. They're not going to lose inventory, commercial inventory. And it's also eight less minutes for people to go buy drinks. No chance. Okay. If I'm the commissioner, if I'm the commissioner of any sport, do I, is it my job? I mean, I know they get paid obscene amounts of money. But there, there's nothing about their job that's a piece of cake.

you've got people Everyone's always going to complain Right Who is a commissioner that's beloved? There isn't one The last beloved commissioner I would think Haggnebu really wasn't

No Bud Seelig wasn't for sure People hated Bud Seelich I think people respected David Stern There's people that still hated him though Yeah but I mean no one's going to be universally beloved That's what I'm saying In terms of the least amount of hate

Probably David Stern Because think about it, Under Stern's watch, granted, you had Michael and Bird and Jordan. They came in. The league did grow to astronomical amounts in terms of television, interest, full buildings, better buildings. Adam Sover is probably his greatest accomplishment was basically when he took the job over. The Clippers owner, Donald Sterling, was saying all those racial insensitive things, bigotry. And they said, you're selling the team. You don't get a choice.

So that's, you know. but I mean if you're if you're if you're and I don't think I can't find here's what I can't find I can't find a sports owner

or group people that have been generally speaking dissatisfied with their commissioners everyone of these commissioners and all these sports the last 20 years have raised their money and their value of their leagues you know what three or four fold right think about when the McNair's bought the Texans what the league was worth

at that point. Did they get it for $700 million or something like that? Was it a billion? It's now worth four to five times that amount. I mean, that's crazy. Every NFL team has done better, even with Roger Goodell in there. Every NBA team has done better. They just signed a hilariously big television contract.

They're going to expand the two new teams, and they're going to get expansion money off of that. Major League Baseball, they, I mean, their attendance growth is good. They are. All three leagues are. doing their best to grow the game internationally. That's the next best avenue for revenues.

And then you kind of have to wonder where it goes from there. Because everything keeps on going up and up and up and up and up. Well, I think you're going to see it in streaming. What's the term? Fat pigs get slaughtered. Who says that? That's just a phrase. I've never heard about it.

Okay. I'm just wondering. Not even anytime imminently. but yeah but we've talked about this though putting everything on a streaming service it makes it more difficult to get more eyeballs and grow the game long term

so are you going for the short term is it a short term fix right to hurt yourself long term how many more cliches can we add in one segment I don't know are they robbing Peter to pay Paul damn it's my turn are they searching for the forest

through the trees what I just made that one up If a tree, are they not, are they looking at the trees? Are they not seeing the trees for the forest? That's what I meant to say. I want credit for that. Sure, we'll give you credit.

Half credit. No. So, yeah, I'm just thinking out loud. Well, I think the next for all the leagues would be expansion. That's how you get the huge expansion. Yes, which Adam Silver talked about that yesterday. And then what you do at that point is you minimize their TV rights. You don't let them enjoy the suck off the teat of the brand-new TV deals.

Who, the new NBA teams? Like they shouldn't get full money for the Amazon NBC deals until they're probably been in the league four or five years. Right? And get, why not? Because the other teams have put their money in? Because the other teams are going to be like, you better pay, why should you get the money of the new television deals

when you have been around yet? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think the NBA is being cool. I think we're going to get two new NBA. teams. It's been a while, so we've had this expansion 2,000, but 4, 5 somewhere in that range with Charlotte coming back. Yes. So I think it's, I think it's time.

Well, Adam Silver was talking about it. He thinks the owners are going to push for expansion. Owners are going to push for expansion. The NFL's going to expand to international waters. And by the time everybody plays one game over there, they're going to add two more teams. One of them may be in London.

Man, I don't know. Could be. But if you put a team in London, Does that all of a sudden make those international games not nearly as popular? Or at least if you live in London or Scotland or Brazil, you're getting different teams every year to come in your building? Yeah, novelty wears off.

And in this day and age, it wears off even faster. Yeah. All right, hey, let's get some non-flora stories. Are you ready? Yes. I know you are. I could not be more ready. Remember mine last week was about the woman who got the...

No, I wasn't here. Yeah. Mine was a woman that, unfortunately got flage loans from her ex-boyfriend and she had her nasal virus for several months because of it. Called BS on that. I kind of am too. I got to be honest with you on that. But I've got a, not a similar story, but a similar themes to it.

And we'll get to that. Oh, looks like I had it wrong. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. It's close enough. Collar just told me that. You know what, Jonathan, you have the cart blanche to interrupt the show when something Ross gets wrong. He interrupted. As I'm about to press the button, Ross had said it.

Like, I was about the time. I just got the phone with him just now. Thank you. I think we butcher more cliche phrases than any of the radio show in the marketplace. It's four hours to fill. I was going to say, we're doing 20 hours a week here. Nobody's going to bat a thousand. No, we're lucky to bat $7.50.

Got you at the Mendoza line. Hey, my OPS is growing, though. 14 Maldonado-esque. Non-Flority stories next, 128 on 790. interesting stories that occur outside the state of Florida and share them with the people of Hugh. It's time for non. Time now for the non-Florida stories.

One requirement every Friday at 1.30 here on the Matt Thomas show, Ross. We bring you bizarre stories as long as they don't come from the state of Florida because every other market has radio shows, wacky radio shows that give you stories from the state of Florida. We don't do that here on this show. All right, Ross. Jonathan, we're going to go to Pennsylvania. A man in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, is facing charges.

You're saying what could he possibly have done? According to the Wilkes Bar Bar, I think I don't have it was Barry or Bar, Wilkes Bar, Township Police. There was an incident that took place, May 16th at the CSL Plasma at the East End Center. I don't know if it's a place you drop plasma off or whatever. Okay. Okay. Okay. Jimmon by the name of Chas Pearson, 39 years of age.

And he also uses two Zs at the end of his name, Chaz. Chaz. Oh, come on. He reportedly got into an argument with someone. And this person, this Chas Pearson, attacked a man who farted and didn't apologize. Attacked him? Yes. He accused the victim of passing.

gas and not apologizing. When another patron offered an apology and not the victim, Pearson then did not accept it and physically assaulted the victim, causing him to fall to the ground and sustain a bleeding head wound. Pearson

fled the scene before police arrival, but was identified after reviewing video of the incident. Pearson was charged with simple assault, harassment, and disorderly conduct. Courts indicating a schedule is hearing a schedule for July 7th at Luzerne County Central Court.

So the question I have for you, boys, is if the three of us are together, Jonathan, you pass gas. Ross, you're mad about it, but I apologize on behalf on Jonathan's behalf. Do you accept my apology on Jonathan's behalf? No. Why not? I need to hear from Jonathan. And I let Luke that Ross and say, keep listening. I spend my whole life apologizing for things you've said.

done. So Jonathan, I want you to apologize if you pass any gas in front of Ross the last six months you've been here. I bet they called you the crop duster. They call them the duster. It's projection, I see.

Dusty Thomas. The following things you've just said are all inaccurate. Oh, you know what I want to apologize. I want to apologize for both of you right now as you say, I'm sorry. Thank you. So,

if you're in line, you just, you just just can't get away with it, especially I think everybody knows their own abilities, right? Mm-hmm. Don't you think, Ross, you know how powerful your wind is on occasion? And when you can get away with them when you can't? Like, if you've had some of your amazing chili, you know you can't get away with it. You've had a nice salary and maybe a bowl of soup, you could probably get away with it.

You know, it's the worst, but y'all are gambling man. You gamble up the silent thing. That is true. That is true. You got to be careful in the gambling. What is worse? The worst is when you're really getting hit with about. and you're getting on a plane.

Nah, I let it fly. Oh, you're sick. I don't care. Now, I will say this. Have I let one go in first class as I'm walking to the coach? Absolutely. See? Any regrets?

That's where they call you the duster. They call me Economy Plus Duster. That's the plus Duster. And that, my friends, is my non-Florida story. All right. Let me get mine out of the way. Matt, are you aware of the trial that it? is ongoing with Sean Diddy Combs?

No, I do not. It is in New York, of course, and the trial is ongoing for sex trafficking charges, which of course Mr. Combs has pled not guilty to five criminal courts counts of sex trafficking and racketeering. Have you seen any of the court sketches that have been put out? I have not. sketchroom artist Jane Rosenberg

was apparently confronted by Sean Diddy Combs during a lunch break yesterday during the trial. Sean Diddy Combs said, quote, soften me up a bit. You're making me look like a koala bear. And she reported this immediately

right after he said this. I imagine so, yes. She has a, she's a well-known sketch artist. she's been documenting the proceedings for Reuters in Manhattan Federal Court, where of course photography and video recording are prohibited. Earlier this year, Rosenberg was also told by Rudy Giuliani, quote, she made him look like his dog. So she was upset about that.

As he was in a civil case stemming from his false accusations that two election workers helped steal the 2020 presidential election. And in 2023, when Donald Trump Jr., was in court for, I don't know why, because his father was in court there in New York, not sure. He said, quote, make me look sexy. Here's what I don't understand. Why are all these people that are under severe penalty

and under prosecution? Why do they worry about what the sketch artist makes them look like? Pictures just gets over. That's a question for Diddy, Giuliani, and Donald Trump, Jr. But there you go. Diddy Combs upset that he felt like, She was making him look like a koala bear. I went to a party about 18 months ago and had some sketchings done of me.

I was very pleased with their work. You did? Yeah. Like one of those cartoons. That's one of those. Cartoon sketchers parties where they sketch you. Upside down pineapple and stuff. It was a Rockets party and I want you both to apologize.

I didn't find. You said you said pineapple's upside down. Hey. What does that mean? Hey. Yeah, man. Why don't you educate us, man? I don't want you shame and seeing a plantation people.

Come on now. you know what I'm talking about Sienna. Wink, wink, wink. And that's your non-Florist story. And thank you for that. Any more, too, you want to add? You done. I'm good.

Okay. Jonathan, you're not in Florida story, please. All right, mine comes from China. No, it's a Chinese guy from this is in Japan. Let me. Oh, Chinese guy in Japan. Okay, okay. All right.

So a Chinese student, it was reported by Sky News, that he was a 27-year-old climber, and he had a made a number. his call as he was climbing the Japan's Mount Fuji. At the getting altitude sickness on the mountain's trail, about 3,000 meters, nearly 10,000 feet above sea level, they had hit the call for help. And it was a peak off season.

They say, do not go, because the off season is very harsh up there. But four days later, police said they received another call to the mountain after the student who had said, who didn't want to be named, returned to look for his phone and other belongings left behind. So this student, this college student, went to go hike on one of the biggest mountains in the world. Yes. Couldn't do it.

Called for her up and using tax dollars to get the helicopter to get him. Four days later goes back to get it. Try to see if he can get his belongings, everything he left in there. You know what? If you have claiming motion sickness, you have to take the loss on that. So it was his phone in his wallet, basically, right? They just said other belongings. I'm guessing like his backpack or whatever he was camped up there with.

So does he eventually go back and get it? He got up there and had the call for help again because he couldn't get back down. Oh my God. He went twice and they had to get him twice. Shame on him. 10,000 feet in the air. Imagine, imagine that's who taxed us. All your paycheck going to waste because some guy just, you know, can't make the trip.

You know what? Yeah. Shame, Happens once Shame on No, it's not a shame situation It's not a good shame.

Fool me once. Shame on me. Shame on you. Ful me twice. You can't get fooled again. No. Shame on me. Oh, that's what

George W said. Now there's a saying in Tennessee. Please don't come with Correct what they said guys. There's a saying in Texas in Tennessee. I think they got it in Tennessee. You fool me twice.

Fool me once. You can't get fooled again. Thanks, George. I have a phrase I use. I think I can find that, actually. You got to know one to hold him. All right. And no one to go on all in.

Oh, you got to know when to go to break. Have we butchered every cliche possible to man? No, I was quoting George W. Bush. He said you can't get fooled again. Okay. I'm just telling I'm still getting text and tweets about the hog. And how you want to slaughter that hog. Oh, whatever.

It's close enough. All people want on this show is Fat Hogs get slaughtered, whatever All people want on this show is accuracy. All right, 143 is the time. It is time now for hell yeah or not. Ross, what is today's category in hell yeah or not? Googled.

Quick answers. What sport? I don't have to give a hint. How quick the answers? What? How quick are the answers? We need quick answers. Three seconds.

Three seconds. Three seconds, Matt. You know what I'm saying? Three seconds, Matt. Okay. No, one second. No, give them three. It's a believe it or it's a not.

It ain't rocket science. All right. I'm kicking you a lot. Yeah. Quick trigger. Let me call you quick trigger. Fire off all cylinders quickly. 144 Sports Talk 790.

It is about Todd was show with Ross. Let's play a hell yeah or not. 713212.5.7. All right. Astros on deck today. I think is it five? Who's done the 10th inning show? Are you?

I'm working tomorrow Prudy Matt Gordy's working Sunday Love it Check the Adam Wexor And Adam Clanton post games They're doing pre-games They did yesterday

Within their own time show No they didn't do yesterday actually Who did? No they didn't have to do it Yeah they worked till six I'm so sick and tired of lazy people we work with So damn tired of it God

It's ridiculous Now Wex goes a Texan So we give them the benefit of the doubt on that But Klan's got no excuses none whatsoever. It's just terrible. He also wishes you a happy birthday. Yeah.

I saw that happy birthday he gave me. All right. I apologize. That's fine. I'm not that upset. Five minutes left to go on the show. What should we do? We should play

America's fastest growing sports radio game show. We simply call it B. Believe it or not, and here's how it works. You'll call it. 713-212-5-790. By the way, it's Monday through Thursdays, believe it or not. On Fridays, we call it a hell yeah or not. And remember, here's how it works.

You're call 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. Topic today is whether or not this person is in the woman's college world series or she's a U.S. Congresswoman. If she's in the college world's... Congresswoman! Congresswoman! If she is a member of the College World Series team, you'll say this.

Hell yeah! If she's a U.S. Congresswoman, you'll say this. Not two hell yeah or nots win your prize. Jonathan, what are you playing for today? Of course, the 790 T-shirt and a pair of tickets to psychedelic furs live on July 12th at House of Blues. Tigger are on sale now at Ticketmaster.com. And as well as we have a four pack of tickets to the 2025 Sugar Land Space Cowboys game, courtesy our friends at Talley Brewing. Talyer Brewing, thank you very much.

we're going to hook you up. Tired brewing. Those four passes are for any game you want to go to. You don't have to go to a position. Can you give me some of a little Skype? Hook you up. Get you a brew at tired. I will go get smashed at that brewery and then go to the game.

Yes, you will. It's right stone's throw from the stadium. John on 790 John, you're ready to play, hell yeah or not? Hell yeah. Latifah Simons is a pitcher for Texas. Hell yeah or not. Not.

Yeah, yeah. She works representative for the city of California. Name number two. for the win. Katie Brits, a pitcher at Texas Tech. Hell yeah or not. Hell yeah. No, she's a U.S. Senator from Alabama. Frank on 790. Frank, your favorite part of today's 10 to 2 radio show.

Howdy Matt here? You celebrated your birthday at the Race of Rex's. Race of Rex's. Oh, so good. So good. Lauren Alred, First Baseman, Texas Tech. Hell yeah or not. Hell yeah. There you go. Number two for the win.

Alana Johnson, right field, Texas Tech. Hell yeah or not. Hell yeah. There it is. Hell yeah. I like when a listener glins and listens to show. It makes me very happy. 713-212-5-790.

Corey on 790, ready to play. Hell yeah or not. Let's do we. Maisie Horanos, the catcher for Texas Tech. Hell yeah or not. No, she's a senator from Hawaii. Matt on 790, Matt, your favorite part of today's 10-2 radio show. Matt, I was just glad to have you back.

Thank you very much. Katie Stewart, left field or Texas? Hell yeah or not? Hell yeah. There it is. Hell yeah. Number two for the win. Bailey Lindermuth, third base, Texas Tech.

Hell yeah, or not? Not. Oh, she is. Oh, I'm sorry. Hell yeah. You say such night things make sure you want you to win. Roger on. 790, ready to play. Hell yeah or not.

Hell yeah. Victoria Hunter's left fielder for Texas. Hell yeah or not. Hell yeah. There it is. Hell yeah. Name number two for the win. Johanna Hayes, third baseman, Texas.

Hell yeah or not? Hell yeah. No, she's a representative from Connecticut. Last one belongs to Mike on 790. Mike. You're ready to play hell yeah or not? Hell yeah. Alyssa Slotkin, right fielder, Texas. Hell yeah or not?

Hell yeah. No, she's a U.S. Senator from Michigan. Come on. We got a minute to kill. That went nicely. We can't leave that early. We want those guys working any extra time possible. You don't want them getting overtaxed?

Ross, we're off at five. So here's my big plans. I'm going to see sticks tonight with friends. Huge. There's like three bands there. So it's at 645. I've got to get there early. It sticks and then it's pieces of like rush and something else, right?

Eagle Singer, too, if I'm not mistaken. Don Felder, not Don Henley. I don't know. Tomorrow I got Astros and Sunday I'm not going to leave my house. Okay. Beat that. I'm not doing anything this weekend. You're not going to leave your house entire weekend.

I'm working tonight. Are you? Yeah. Postgame. Thank you for that. Thank you for your service. I appreciate it. Thanks we can't say it.

Hopefully it's a short win, no rain. Hey, everybody, let's hope for a 10. Hey, what? First shut up. 13 inning game that goes three hours and 46 minutes. There's no 13 inning games generally these days. So shut your bum ass up. Until tonight, let's go 13.

It's the A team next on Sports Talk 790.