The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Brian T Smith On Belief Sports Will Play Out As Hoped

Episode Date: June 26, 2020

is the Matt Thomas show. 202 on Sports Talk 790. Busy final hour, the Matt Thomas show, Fantasy 5, bottom of the hour. Hellier or not, 252. And after a little getaway last Friday, we are happy to have back with us our friend from the Chronicle of Brian T. Smith on Sports Talk 790. BTS, I don't know if you know Nancy Armour.

Don't need you to necessarily comment on her column because everybody's got their own opinions, just like I have mine, you have yours. I didn't take Jim Crane's comments during the Zoom call as she replied to it in terms of, she called it nakedly craven about trying to bring fans in. I think he was just talking about what a lot of owners are saying. He'd love to have fans back in the stadium as long as the states and the coronavirus allow it. I'm sorry, Matt. Who wrote what?

Yeah, exactly. Okay. Just a... No, no, I'm not being a smart bleep. I'm not familiar with what you're referring to. I was on the conference call. I don't know. Nancy Armour wrote a skating article in USA Today saying that Jim Crane and the Astros

are the worst in sports because he was trying to push the agenda of we need to have fans in the stadium when Houston coronavirus numbers are spiking. Well, I'll say this. Number one, I'm not sure. I'm not saying she wasn't. I'm not sure if she's on the conference call. or not. I know for a fact she doesn't regularly cover the Astros

or in general Major League Baseball. Much more importantly, and not taking any shots at her, I know of her, I respect what she does. Jim Crane's a businessman. He's a billionaire for a reason. I was on the

conference call. It's not like he was begging Major League Baseball for fans to be back in the stadium, and if he didn't see, you know, have them and he would go broke. It's not like he said that, hey, Rob Manfred and Fauci and the president of the United States and Tomlin-Pretita, et cetera,

are saying there's no way in the world we can have fans, but damn it, I'm going to do everything I can to get fans in that stadium, and I don't care about their health. It's not like he went out of his way to say every other team in Major League Baseball isn't going to have fans, but we're going to have fans as soon as we can. He didn't say any of that.

All he said was, and it was a bit of an aside, was the plan at some point to have fans. Well, Matt, up until basically this week, Greg Abbott, governor of Texas, I believe it had come out that if you were the Rangers or you're the Astros, you could eventually have fans in the stands. And I guarantee you, Matt, every Major League Baseball owner,

every NFL owner, and every NBA owner wants to have fans in the stands because that's how you pay the bills. They run a business. So not taking a shot at her. Thankfully, didn't read the column, but might want to do a little more research, especially if you're going to go on the attack like that about something that seems to be completely off the mark. Yeah, I would have had more respect for the column if we actually knew who she was and was on the call.

I don't think she was either. I didn't see her name on there. They're an easy target. And I've praised a heck out of a match since 2012. I've criticized them probably more than anyone in the country since 2012. I try to call it like I see it. They're an easy target, and in a lot of ways, and we've seen this for the last year or so,

you know, with the signs stealing and everything, and this big back to Luno. They're also a lazy target, and there are way too many people out there in the media, whether it's bloggers, whether there's national columnists. I know there was a thing last week with an ESPN reporter who normally I respect quite a bit, but just going out of your way to take really weak, lazy pot shots

at an organization that does a lot of good things. They screwed up, but it's not like they're the worst organization in sports. It's completely unfair if you're trying to actually have balanced, well-rounded opinions around something. Too many people take too many lazy, weak shots at the Astros right now. Well, as I said in the first hour when I discussed this, all of us can't be naive to the issues the Astros had. They handled the Justin Verlander problem with the Detroit reporter very, very poorly.

They handled the assistant general manager and that problem with the female reporter and what she's, you know, Brandon Tomlin's situation horribly. They didn't handle the press conference in Florida when this first came out when they first got the guys there. They've made their missteps. So criticism is fair. It's due. And I think the Astros understand as an organization. I just felt like, and I know if you'll have time, you should go walk your dog more importantly,

but I just felt like that this was a column that was written three months ago. All she was looking for was a two-sentence statement to add to her vitriol over a team that has been crushed and will be crushed for a long period of time. But what Jim Crane said was not exclusive to him, it wasn't derogatory, it wasn't an FU to government restrictions or what the state says. It was just an owner. answering a question about would you like to have fans back and how fans do help generate some revenue towards a sport that will only have at maximum 30 home games during the regular season?

It was a very simple question, and I mean that respectfully, it was a very simple answer. It felt like on the side, I listened to it. I didn't even react to it because, and I saw I got some play on the internet, like, oh, the Astros and Crane, here they go again. Give me a bleep and break. And more importantly, there's, there's, there's. nothing easier and lazier than, and this is kind of feeling back the curtain a little in the media, not to get too much into it, but there's a whole genre of people who love to, you know,

it's like screaming about the government. It's really easy to sit, you know, 5,500 miles away or something and type some really nasty things about a team or an organization or a league when you're not around them, you don't deal with them, you don't see the good and the bad. It's really easy to kind of poke holes in something and throw little punches when you really, number one, don't have any idea what you're talking about, weren't participating in it. And number two, you're never even really around the team or the club or the league. It's a joke. What have you thought about the MLB? I know you read some of it. I don't if you read all of it. The guidelines, the restrictions, what you can do. Forget about me.

Because generally speaking, our audience isn't overly care about that. But just the overall are major league baseball players traveling from city to city coast to coast because the astros are in the worst travel spot in the entire sport? Can major league baseball players in these divisions in these 60 games really behave themselves? Or we're going to find ourselves in a spot where they're having to constantly get the ruler out and slap their wrist? I think it's going to be hard, Matt. You know, I've been saying, and you've been saying for three and a half months and a lot of your listeners and a lot of people to read the chronic left, We want sports to come back, but it's everything's confusing, right?

And it continues to be. I mean, you know, our reaction to this, how our elected leaders handle this, the national government, fighting with the state government, fighting with the local government. I mean, it just continues to be a mess. So human nature then kicks in as well, right? I mean, if it's hard to get 18-year-olds or 25-year-olds or 60-year-olds to truly follow the rules, what about baseball players who are who, for a long-year-olds? time have been used to a pretty sweet way of living and you're in five-star hotels and everything

taking care of and catered. It just takes one slip-up. It just takes, you know, one guy getting and passing it on to five guys and he passes it on to a 70-year-old coach. And then you've got some serious issues. So I think for the NBA, we talked about this a couple weeks ago, I think for Major League Baseball, I hope it works out. We all want it to work out. It's much, much easier said than done. And I do believe that for as much as some NBA guys love their lifestyles, at least they're in a quote-unquote bubble with probably more containment, I think it's going to be hard for Major League Baseball to really pull this off. And I'll love it if they do it, but I think it's going to be difficult. What was your reaction when you saw that 16 out of a possible 302 players

in the NBA were testing positive? It's 5.3%. I took that as a positive because, as I was telling this with Joe George a few minutes ago. If Major League Baseball can get 5%, the NFL can get 5%, with just the sheer way, way, way more players, way more teams, I think that's a controllable number. So if I'm the NBA, I feel fairly encouraged

about that number. Do you? I think five, if we can make it through 2020 and the NFL and the NBA Major League Baseball are running around 3, 4, 5, 6%, 7%, they will take that and run with it and we'll have

seasons, Matt. I mean, you can't shut down the world. They're trying to shut down Texas, you know, a little again, and that's understandable because things are rising. But if you're going to want to have a season this year, college football, NBA, Major League Baseball, the NFL, MLS, whatever it is, you're going to, what are the, what are the PGA head said? We need to learn to deal, live with this virus. That's the biggest truth of all of this. And yeah, be responsible, wear a mask, distance, all these things. But do you either want to do things. And you, and you want to try to get through this, like Adam Silver's talked about, or you just give up and say, hey, I'll see you in 2021.

Personally, that's really never been how I, you know, think things should be handled or how professional sports leagues make all their billions of dollars. So if they can keep it around 5%, 4%, whatever, they're going to live with that, Matt. I actually thought it was very promising because earlier this week, there have been reports, oh, it's going to be, you know, crazy high, and it's going to be shocking and on and on. And I think those were kind of nationally sourced reports. I thought 5% was very encouraging as long as they can keep it in that general area.

All right. Lastly, let's go to the NFL real quick because we really even talk about this at all in the last couple of days at least. Doc Prescott signs his franchise tag. If you're to Sean Watson, do you have any opinion about him doing that at this point? I don't think so because while they are similar, right, I mean, they're both franchise quarterbacks, for lack of a better term, and they're both young and they're both on teams that are kind of in the middle area of the NFL. Simple, simple facts. The only quarterback that Watson needs to worry about, keep his eye on when it comes to his contract,

there's only one guy, and he just won the Super Bowl, Patrick Mahomes. That is not in the same world as Deshaun on the field. And more importantly, in terms of years, in terms of extension, you know, the only person that's going to affect Deshaun Watson's value, you is Patrick Mahomes. The numbers of like $40 plus million a year for multiple quarterbacks.

I love the NFL. It's the $10 billion business, but man, the salary at that one position is skyrocketing out of control. What the hell happened? Because, I mean, and Dak's good. But could you imagine five years ago when

Dak was a young man being a mid-round draft pick on Mississippi State that he was ultimately going to make $31.4 million for a single season of NFL football? Well, and this is the weird thing about the NFL, right? You have a quote-unquote hard salary cap. But to this day, Matt, one of the dirty secrets about the NFL is, you know, you've got four or five guys that are paid very well.

But you've got so many guys that, and majorly baseball is like this, the NBA is like this, but nothing structured like the NFL is to where one position, for the most part, dominates the quarterback position. Although, look at the NBA. You know, look at what James Harden and Russell Westbrook are making, and then really the rest of the Rockets, LeBron and Anthony Davis, the rest of the Lakers, that's kind of how it goes anymore. I mean, you're basically, you're going to pay for your elite talent,

and that's the Sean Watson, that's your franchise quarterback, and everything else, especially with the Texan, everything else is cheered around that. Have a great weekend, my friend. Good day, you back. We'll talk again next week. Thank you, Matt. I appreciate it.

All right. Brian T. Smith, Houston Chronicle, with us every Friday for a couple minutes here on the mat. Thomas Schof.