The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - James Click Speaks, How Many Games For Alvarez & New Team Names

Episode Date: July 23, 2020

So much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas show. 12. What's happening in lunch timers? Good afternoon to you. And welcome to a Thursday edition of the Matt Thomas show. Man, we have a lot to get to.

Nothing like, oh my God, on the edge of your seats. stuff, but enough stuff to chew on. This is a rare day that we wouldn't mind going four hours, but we won't. Like a wedding reception hors d'oeuvres before the meal? No, no. I would go Chinese buffet. Oh, Chinese buffet, okay. Because wedding hors d'oeuvres before is like deviled eggs.

It's like a shrimp, little shrimp cockpails. Southwest egg rolls, perhaps. Today, we have General Soes. Really? Oh, me. Sweet and sour pork. Yes. We have a pepper steak.

Mm-hmm. And then we have the lo-main. What about some Mugu Guy Pan, Matthew? It's in there, too. Okay. Great. Again, we don't have like rib-eye filet mignon, a rack of lamb, but we are definitely in the, wow, plenty of choices.

Okay. So I really don't know where to start, except the Astros did release their new 30-man roster for the season. And your thoughts, Matt? Here's the problem. I don't think I know eight of them. Okay, I'm glad I thought it was just me Because I've been out for like almost four weeks at this point

And I don't know who half of these people are It's certainly in the bullpen There's a lot of names that I'm not aware of The bullpen might be of the biggest concern Okay The fact that the DH position Doesn't necessarily strike me as Wow, the Astros are going to crush

Every bit of the lineup 1 through 9 So beyond that The heavy hitters are still there Springer and El Tuve and Oh he made the team? El Tivet made the squad. And so I'm looking at it as I certainly don't hope

I don't wish that roster spots 26 through 30 help determine what the Astros are going to be like in this year. Now you do need in a shortened season where every game means more am I scared as an alicat about the bullpen right now? Absolutely. It is by no stretch of the imagination

the number one concern I think for the Astros this year. is there a bullpen? I would think so, yes. The four, five starter spots. Josh James yesterday, 82 pitches, 41 strikes, 41 balls. That's Josh. That's Josh Flames James for you.

He's a four starter who, I mean, look, I was talking about it. We've seen this before. It's one of those guys, it's really good, talented, really good stuff, but they just isn't always able to harness it. Now, maybe he can improve. The book is not necessarily written on Josh James, But he's 27 years old at this point. And look, you and I are personally rooting for him because he was very affable guy.

Wonderful. And he looks the part. And he's obviously when you have 100 miles an hour throwing out of one of your arms, that's a wonderful thing to have. And it's going to give you shelf life. You always got to respect the guy who's wearing a fuchsia silk shirt during an interview. In February. Yes.

And not here in Houston. I've got love for Josh James. Absolutely. Yeah. But the point being is this. that scares me to death that the final appearance where he throws 82 pitches and only you're supposed to throw at least two third strikes. You'd love for even being hired than that.

But 41 balls and 41 strikes doesn't necessarily strike the fear. And then you have Framber Valdez who his ratio is even worse because all he does is give up strikes, but they're just hits after hits after hits after hits. Yeah, he's throwing strikes, they are strikes. I mean, I get that. It just happens to be meatballs down the middle. So four and five are, I think, of a huge, huge concern for this team. I don't have any reservations about Lance McCullors and all the history, injury issues and whatnot.

I don't have a problem with Zach Granky. Obviously, Justin Verlano looks like he's already ready to defend his Cy Young. The everyday lineup looks good. There's not much bench. And there really isn't a DH until Yorda and Alvarez decides to show up. Brandon, you were with me last week. Are we ready to pencil in Jordan Alvarez's numbers for the year? Would you like to do that?

Would you like to make a bold prediction about how Yordon Alvarez is going to do this year? I think I'll leave that to you. Because you don't want to because you're afraid it's going to be something terrible. Oh, yeah, I don't have any idea. I have zero expectations now for him. And I hope I'm wrong, Ross, on this. But we haven't even, he hadn't even been the ballpark. We don't even know what he looks like.

Why don't we have an update? What's going on with that? Privacy issues. Okay. HIPAA. Okay. So we think it's coronavirus? We don't know.

But if it's the virus, in theory, he should be over it by now. He's young, strong. The average person's gone between anywhere between 10 days and three weeks. They've been in summer camp longer than that. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Is everything okay? Why, you're asking me?

I can't tell you these things. Why can't we just get an update? Why does it have to be so shrouded in mystery? Well, James Collected the Astero. General Manager right now is speaking to the media. And Gordy's recording it. So hopefully... Okay. Matter of fact, would you make sure in text, Gordy, to make... We get a Yordon Alvarez update of some sort because this is...

That's the only thing alarming at this point to me. And I don't know if it's the knees. If it's the Rona, it's a little bit of both, whatever the case may be. Well, they have COVID toes. Does he have COVID knee now? What are COVID toes? I think it's when you're... It's like an issue with your toes hurting when you have the coronavirus. Some people experience.

It's that. Huh. Did your toes ever hurt? No. Okay. All right. Let's continue on more on this baseball track. Ken Davidoff, New York Post.

Who? Ken, D-A-V-I-D-O-F. David-O-F? Never heard of them. Am I pronouncing it? Probably. And again, this isn't clickbait. This is him writing a column.

This is what he normally does. He is a baseball columnist for the New York Post. Congratulations to him He did his American League West preview Okay He picks the Astros and finished fourth He has the A's winning the division Followed by the Angels

Followed by the Rangers All right Followed by the Astros Followed by the Seattle Meriters Is there any in this Does he have an article that explains his reasoning For the drop He divides it up is to key player

player he'll need to step up, name you'll get to know, biggest question mark. And the last one was how it goes down. Okay. Let me give you just the Astros part. Again, I don't think generally speaking, our audience cares about what the A's, the Angels and Rangers are all about except when we see them face to face. Player who will need to step up, Lance McCuller's Jr. missed all of last year rehabilitating Tommy John surgery and will be counted on to provide

innings with not only Cole gone, but also left-hander. Wade Miley. Wade Miley departed. Miss Wade. Name you'll get to know. While right-handed pitcher for us, Whitley endured a rough 2019 in the minor league, the Astros pitching needs, and this odd campaign could afford him a chance to show his stuff at the highest level. Biggest question mark.

It's a macro one. Can the Astros continue their five-year reign of excellence after a pair of scandals compelled them to fire their two top baseball operations officials, as well as their manager. Dusty Baker replaces AJ Hinch in the manager's office for his knack of providing calm amids to storm. Will that be enough when you throw in the losses they suffer to their starting rotation? That's fair.

That is absolutely 100% fair. Losing Garrett Cole and not replacing him is a tremendous loss that maybe that frankly Ross, if we were talking about other baseball teams, not named the Astros, we might think it'd be too much to overcome. I mean, you lost the guy who 20 game winner, strikeout guy finished literally votes behind verliner to win the american league sion so that's a huge

loss and they didn't replace him didn't even come closer replacing him as much we love lance mccullers he's not garret cole so his last thing how it goes down there's no doubt as crude as it sounds that the strows benefited from the pandemic shutdown which gave the world bigger fish to fry and bans paying crowds in the ballparks that's true but that doesn't mean they can pick up like everything is fine. They are a wounded franchise and they'll need to recover no matter how much talent they feel in their everyday lineup. At least their recovery will occur out of the spotlight, relatively speaking. So I will ask a question to both of you in this first segment. What makes the Astros wounded? I guess he's, is he going with the full

John Heyman? It doesn't look like they're having fun in the clubhouse. The Astros are wounded because their egos are hurt and all this distraction or something like that. They didn't seem that wounded when they were scoring 15 runs on the Kansas City Royals. Brendan, why are the Astros wounded? You know, I have no idea. I saw an ESPN power rankings today that had the Astro's best case and worst case. And worst case was like they're a 500 team. And I was like, wait, what?

I don't understand that narrative at all. You're going to need, I mean, multiple injuries in the lineup and in the pitching staff. for the Astros to be about a 500 team, in my opinion. There's just too much talent everywhere. It is not a foregone conclusion, gentlemen. They're going to have the best record in the American League. I agree with that. I do believe they are the best team in the American League West.

I think it would be a massive disappointment if the Astros did not win the American League West. Something would have to go wrong. Like, for instance, Yorda and Alvarez doesn't take into bat this year. The Astros four and five parts in their rotation are constantly being up for conjecture. and who's next. Like Austin Pruitt's opening up the year on the injured list. He was supposed to come in from Tampa and be in one of those four or five slots. I don't think anybody in the organization when the resumption of baseball was hoping that

Josh James and Framber Valdez were going to be the four-fives in this team. They're still good enough. Their everyday lineup rakes. Will they have to win more eight, six games? Absolutely. How many two-one Astro games? where you see this year? Probably not many. Unless Justin Barlander is pitching.

Right. There's just too, like you say, relative to the Yankees or other teams in the American League, we can debate that. But relative to the AL West, there's just no way in hell they're going to finish fourth. I could not, unless you, like I said, unless you're predicting multiple injuries and just the wheels to completely fall off.

And even if... It's a bad prediction. It's a bad prediction. It's a, it's an ill thought of. approach to it. If you wanted to predict them to finish fourth this year with fans in the stands and the constant berating by other teams and other media and other fans, I might buy that a little bit, but they just have way too much talent. So why do smart, supposed baseball journalist, make up dumb predictions?

It's just, it's like when Colin Coward, who you guys know I do like as a radio host, He's the only national guy that I actually halfway tolerate. This takes are terrible. But he said at the beginning of this year, the Rockets weren't making the playoffs. That was a stupid take. Very stupid. So why? I got back up.

Why do we do this to ourselves, sports media? Why do we do stupid sports takes? Why? Please, Houston, Texas. Please thoughtful sports radio consumer. Why do we do super? I mean, Ross, tell me the guys. odds on us to do. And we're due for a break here. Have you ever heard me have with a

sports take that was just like, Matt, stop. This is making you look bad. Yeah, usually when you predict the Cougars to go 13 and 0 every year. Okay, that's a bit. Oh, it is? And that's about it. Yeah. I don't remember. You and I were going to get it for over a decade going, Ross, that's so bad that's hurting your credibility. We've talked about this actually off air. I was talked about how we've disagreed. how many thousand times over 10 years, but I've never thought you were stupid.

I was just like, I don't think you're, I think you're off base here. But I've never, there are things that, yes, that Colin Cowherd and others say on a daily basis

you're at this person is stupid. I think predicting the Astros to finish fourth is a stupid, ill-informed, and guess what? You lose me as a credible baseball person when you say these things. It is the Matt Thomas show.

Fox Sports opens up their coverage this weekend. And they're going full board on adding things to your baseball broadcast. We'll tell you about what they're going to add. Plus, did you catch any of the NBA scrimmages yesterday in NBA TV? Fascinating, interesting, not all of it of success, but generally speaking, not bad for a scrimmage type atmosphere. We'll get to that. We've got so many things to get to.

We've got a new boxing fight to talk about. And we have missed up, a messed up, I should say, are not talking about the drive-through strip club that is available here. here in town. Lots to get to 1214 on Sports Talk 790. Don't leave Matt Thomas in your car. Take him with you. Download the free IHeartRadio app for your phone at sports 790.com. Just remember you'll have to feed him. So Brendan Bailey is on the MLB roster for the Stroes.

You should do a believe or not of whether or not this place and really is an astro. Any relation to Brennan Riley? Christian Javier, Jack Mayfield. By the way, I cannot call it. call anybody that bats 202 Super Jack. It's just not in my DNA. If he wants a bat 319 with a bunch of home runs,

I'll call him anything you damn well once. But Super Jack is not what I'm going to call him. Making the major leagues, Matt, is a major accomplishment for many baseball players. Thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands never touch

a major league roster. Super George Springer, Super Jose Altoe, Super Justin. Inoli Paredes, who throws really, really fast. Yes.

Garrett Stubbs, who is the third catcher. Something called Blake Taylor. We better get to know these people. Actually, I'm probably to get to know these people. I was like, like I said, I've been kind of out of the loop, so I didn't know. I was going to ask, go to you for all the scouting reports, Matt.

Nope, can't do it. What do you got in the Blake Taylor repertoire? Affable guy? Excited to be there. What is, what's his breaking pitch? You'll find out at 1 o'clock. Roheelio on Menteros on the injured list. Brad Peacock.

Brian Peacock on the Angelus and Austin Pruitt are all on the injured list. A bunch of other guys you've never heard of going to the minor league camp, which would be in Corpus Christi, which will make it a short drive and or a flight if somebody gets hurt. I'm telling you, Ross, we could get a boatload of 9-7 ball games. And it's like 9-3 going to the 8th. So that's going to be entertaining. And long. Yeah, it's going to be some late-night post-case.

It's going to be some Maddie after dark on some of his post-game shows. Did you enjoy those 15-6 Kansas City Astros game? you'll probably get a lot more of that. 1145 in the PM here on Sports Talk 790. How about that one? All right. So would you like to make this gimmicky season even more gimmicky? How's that?

There's two things going on. First and foremost, they're thinking about expanding the playoffs. After tabling it when summer camp opened. Wait a second. When does the season start? It starts tonight. Okay. When are we going to make a decision on this?

They have to make the decision before the first pitch of tonight's game. You cannot reinvent the rules when the season's already started. It's not going to affect tonight's game if they do it in like the fourth or fifth inning. It's not going to change up the Yankee. It's gimmicky. So that's gimmicky part number one is that here they are the day of the opening day of the season. And they're still not figured out what they're going to go with 10 or 16 playoff teams. But the uberist of Uber fit, uh, gimmicky things are doing.

You ready for this? No. They're going to give the three playoff teams. that win the divisions, the choice of who they're going to play. Oh, you've been fighting this tooth and nail for months. You don't get to play, I want this guy. Oh, I want this guy. It's not a make it or take it deal.

You play what the record says you play. If you're the number one team, you play the number six opponent. You just do. Why? Because that's what sports is all about. You don't, you know, there's no picking and choosing in sports. Except the draft in free agency. Yeah.

No, you can't go, why not. There's all kinds of picketing choosing. That's not the example. That's not an acceptable answer. Oh, yes, it is. No, it's not. I think it's fun. It creates intrigues.

No, it does not. It's a better storyline. And you're rewarding the, uh, the team who has the best record. You're rewarding them with something. They can choose who they want. You reward them by having home field in the series and you get to play the crappiest opponent. Yes.

In their eyes, whoever the crap is the same thing. They're playing the crappiest opponent. it in their eyes. It's awful. It's terrible. Why not? What's it going to hurt, Matt? It's not going to hurt anything. Because it's making a gimmicky season even more. And by the way, they're going to have a selection show. So let's not hide the fact they're doing this for television ratings and money. That's the whole league exists for television ratings and money.

That's true. That's not a great example. So I think it's great. If you're the Astros and I don't know, the team in the six seed has somebody say it's maybe the Yankees had a rash of injuries and everybody started to come back and they're somehow slipped into the playoffs in the six spot. You don't want to face the Yankees in the first round so you

choose the next worst team. That's great. It's a great reward for the team who has the best record. They should do this every year in every sport. I hate it. I think it's fun. It's more fun. I didn't realize the playoffs that I had to have a level of funness to it. Yeah. Fun equals entertainment

where this is entertainment. We're watching on television. Absolutely. I just want some assemblance of a legit baseball season. And first of all, then not knowing if they're playing with 10 or 16 teams at this point at 1224 makes it even a bigger sham. This is just once again another example of horrific leadership in baseball. So how are they going to do this on TV? Who's going to announce who wins? They should have like one representative from every team and do it like Bachelor.

See, you just made my point. I don't need my sports to be goofy-ass reality television. I want it to be legit. If I told you they were going to announce a show where every team had one representative, and so it's like for the, it's Lance McCullors or whoever for the Astros. He has a baseball,

and he's going to throw it to whoever they want to play. If it's, let's say it's like, I don't know, the Tampa Bay Race, who the Astros are going to choose. So they throw a baseball at somebody from the Tampa Bay Race. Something like that. You didn't tell me you wouldn't want? I'm going to watch because I've got to figure who the asterers are going to play. But I'm not going to enjoy that.

No, hell, hell no. You're going to watch under protest? Yeah. I mean, I have to watch it. Yeah, they should do something like that. How else will they announce it? I guess it would open up envelopes? It wouldn't make any sense.

Yeah, let's just trick this up as much as humanly possibly. Fireworks, the whole bit. Come on, people. Look, this is not a question of get off my lawn or old school. This is just stupid. I like it. I see no reason why not to. And there's a lot of things.

It doesn't hurt the integrity of the game. It doesn't hurt. It's an extra gimmick. And maybe, you know what? Maybe I should change my view because I think everything about this season is a gimmick. Yeah, exactly. If you're going to do have one carnival season. Speaking of gimmicks.

Fox Sports is going to put thousands and thousands of virtual fans in the stands for these games. The cardboard cutouts or the virtual? No, no. They're going to supplant fans in the ballparks that are calling games in. in. Okay. And they're going to do chance and they're going to do music

and they're going to do crowd. And you will see on Saturdays games of the week. There are four of them this week. Saturday game, they're like playing a quadruple header on Fox. Wow. Yeah.

They're going to have the virtual wave. Okay. Well, that's a little much. Oh, no. It's not progressive baseball guy. I thought we were done with the wave. Wave Busters had to disband because we didn't need to worry about

anymore. And now the dorks at Fox are going to make us do watch a virtual wave. That's funny. What are they putting an iPad in every seat or what are they doing? No. I don't know. They're going to be all on screen digitize? I'm confused. Yeah. Yeah. They're doing it. They're going to do with everybody. They're going to take

their graphics and supplant them in the state and the seats. They're not going to be real people. Go look at Fox's website. Twitter account. They have a little sample what they're going to do. Let's see. Well, I think I have them muted. You know what this is? but first things first. This is just,

we're playing a video game. We're not playing real baseball. Fox Sports or MLB on Fox? I don't know. Somebody showed it to me and I'm like, this is awful. So all things considered, I think I even was a hypocrite enough to say

that bring the wave back if we can bring fans in the stands, but not the virtual wave. Okay, I'm looking at this. Are these people that they're just all completely fake. Completely fake. Okay.

Oh, like you're playing a video game. That's right. All right. Yeah, whatever. This is just going to make it like a video game. We have to start dealing in reality. Oh my gosh. They do have them doing the wave.

I didn't make that up. I didn't think you did. So they're completely digitized fans. I thought you were saying because like in these soccer games, they have like fans that say Liverpool's on or whatever. They'll get a Liverpool fan at their house. like Roger Goodell did during the draft. And then they act like they're there.

That's what I thought you were kind of trying to say. So these are completely digitized CGI fans in the stands. Doing the wave. This seems like a waste of money. And they're going to also get louder as the home team is rallying. How many people are they having to pay

to make these digitized fans and monitor the game and have them cheer and boo and all that stuff? That's a waste of... Fox is cash flush. Is this Joe Buck's fault? Do you think he's into this? Wasn't he the first one who complained about not having fans in the stands and how he needs

him for his calls? Because he lays up for it. He's going to make it a bit. Yeah. And John Smoltz are going to make it a bit. Oh, crowds really not happy about that one, Joe. See? I mean, it's fine.

It doesn't bother me. Everything is wrong about this season. They're going to act like there's actual Orioles fans in the stands. I guess they won't be doing all right. You wouldn't have to put the graphics in the Marlins because they don't have fans of it in with. Yeah, they're going to put sparse crowds for it. And when they go ahead, have games in Tampa. That's right.

That's right. 1229. It is the Matt Thomas show. Sports Talk 790. 713212-5-790 if you want to get in on the show today. Do you guys like the fact that baseball will expand its playoffs? I'm okay with that. But just see them the way they're supposed to be seated.

And how do you feel about the a Astros being predicted to finish fourth by a New York Post baseball columnist? We have a lot to get to today. The rosters will be expanded. and the rosters have been announced. We'll hear a little bit from James Click. The Rockets, by the way, will have their first scrimmage tomorrow. Did you catch you in the NBA stuff? We'll discuss that as well.

The NFL, or at least Washington, has been announced. We'll hear a little bit from James Click. The Rockets, by the way, will have their first scrimmage tomorrow. Did you catch in the NBA stuff? We'll discuss that as well. The NFL, or at least Washington, has a new name for their NFL team. It sounds very temporary. and speaking of names, did you hear about the new name for the Seattle NHL team?

Plus, Ross is our official boxing guru. He has a fight to look forward to, or will he? 1230 on Sports Talk 790. This Friday is National Chicken Wing Day. How good does 75 cent wing sound? Yep, 75 cent wings in any of the eight big city wing locations. You get in there, you get yourself 10, 12, whatever the case, however you can eat, and enjoy them for just 75 cents.

Get some great ranch or blue cheese dressing with it, the side of waffle fries, and your day is set. All I ask you to do is stop by any one of those eight big city wing locations. Today, with it being Thursday, is two-for-one boneless wings. So you go two-for-one boneless today, 75-cent wings tomorrow, all at some of the great food you'll find in the city of Houston, sauce and tossed with so many flavors and styles you'll have endless opportunities to choose from. That's Big City Wings, and Big City Wings.

com for tomorrow 75 cent wings for national chicken wing day. The rockets are raining threes. Hey, it's Coach Dan Tony. This is Sports Talk 790. You're home for Houston Rockets basketball. A couple of things on the baseball front on the Astros. No Jose Orkini on the opening day roster. That would have been another potential four or five starter.

Pruittan and your kitty gives you way more confidence than Valdez and James, right? I would say so. I mean, that's a needless to even bring up. And no Forrest Whitley. Boris did not make the opening day roster. But Blake Taylor did. Good for Blake Taylor. Yep.

Yeah, Channel Room saying no update on Jordan Alvarez or Jose or Keating. What is it, boys? I mean, honestly, if it's COVID, they have horrible COVID. They have extra strength COVID. It's been weeks for both of them, yeah. Yes. I hope it's not. Yordon's creaky knees.

Yeah, that would be worrisome. And then Jose or Kitty, have we heard, yeah. But if it were that, wouldn't we, wouldn't it be listed as that type of injury? Okay, so that's accurate. So why? Here's the thing. I don't know why they're embarrassed to say if it's COVID. Because guess what?

Millions of people are getting COVID. It's not like they've got the bubonic plague. You know what I'm saying? Yes. Yeah, I don't know. I don't, I will only find out years later, unfortunately. But at this point, the Astros have two-fiths. They're starting rotation.

Not available to them. And their DH. And again, a roster full of players. We're going to get to know by seeing them in action probably for the first time. I don't think Blake Taylor has pitched above AA. He must have had an amazing summer camp. Good for him. I don't know how much he'll be used.

Well, I mean, he might be a roster spot. 30, but he is on 30. That's good. And he's obviously doing something more than as a Whitley did. That's better for when there's some kind of, when the Astros are blowing everybody out throw Blake Taylor into the fire. See what he's got. All right, number of endings, Blake Taylor will throw in the first 10 games of the year.

I'll put the over under it three and a third. Three and a third I'll go under, I think. Oh, I'm going over. Everybody in that bullpen's going to be working. Yeah, you think so? Everybody. Okay. Everybody. 713-1-2-5-790. Let's go to Edo and say how to Brian on 790. Brian, what do you have today?

Hey, good, more, good after an empty, sports RV. Welcome back. Thank you. It's good to hear you back on the airway. Well, it's good to be back. I'm glad you no longer have the clap. I'm at COVID, COVID. Glad you were ever to shake that.

But no, Matt, I was calling about, first of all, I love the new cracking name. I heard you tease out. Oh, that is awesome. Brutal, brutal name. But we'll go on. We'll talk about that in a minute. I love it. No, that is awesome.

I love it. But what I called about was the Astros. Is it two things I'm going to kind of watch this year. One, I'm getting kind of concerned now that Forst Whitley didn't make it. I don't know if we're ever going to see this kid pitching the majors and be what he was projected to be. I mean, this guy was supposed to be the next number one phenom, the next ace of our staff. And he can't craft a 30-man roster over some of these guys who have barely gotten above AA. either his arm isn't up to big league talent yet or something is wrong or he's just not going to pan out

because I would have figured by now he would have at least cracked the roster. It's nothing else this year even as just a long reliever or guy like that, you know. So you're expecting Brian, so Brian you're expecting him to crack in the roster? At least, you know, being ahead of Blake Taylor and guys like, you know, or yeah, Blake Taylor and even and only Perez, but Peretti actually will intrigue me, but the one player I am actually most excited to watch because I want to see how they use them this year.

And unfortunately, it may just be all in Platoon is Abraham Toro because I think he could actually be if you don't resign Yule just because of age, I think he can make a great first baseman for you next year and be a corner book in

and then for whatever reason Correa walks and you move Bregman over to short, you can move him right back over to the third base, which is, I think, more of his natural position anyway. Yeah, I'm just curious if Abraham Torrell long term is a guy that plays six days a week. I think there's a huge adjustment that you go from being that super utility player to a guy that's going to play every day. And I'm not saying he can't do it. I just don't have any sort of frame of reference. There hasn't been a long stretch of Abraham Torrell as a major leaguer playing, say,

14, 15 times in a month. You know what I mean by that? So I don't think he can, I'm saying he can't do it. I just don't have even a smaller sample size of believe that he is a type of player. Your first point was on, oh, Forrest Whitley. That's a name that continues to be brought up in trade conversations. And I think it's because, again, he's a former first round pick. There is a high pedigree. There's a lot on him. He's a recognizable name in the organization.

I'm not going to just think that he has been a bust until the end of this 60-game slate. And if he doesn't have a significant role, role in this 60 game season, that means the Astros really just never have had any thoughts about him being a big part of this franchise. And that would then go down, I think, in your world, and I think mine too, Brian, is a major, major bus for this team if he can't contribute it somehow this season. Would they be able to, if he's not on the three-man traveling squad or whatever, or the reserve squad, whatever it is, are they able to move players up and down or is this pretty much

in other than Corpus Christi's going to have a thing like that? going to have a pretty fluid roster spot up and down because they had to because, and thank you for the phone call, Brian, good conversation. They had to do it because COVID's could be, could set an entire roster. So yeah, there's going to be plenty of flexibility between what you have at your minor league or your secondary squad, the taxi squad, then what you would you would have at the major league spot. So yeah, don't worry about that. No, there's no way in the world they would say these are 30, good luck. In fact, they're going to start reducing a roster down to what, 28 I think, next month and then 26 the final

month. So there's going to be some pairing down as it is. But yeah, Corpus Christi to Houston and vice versa. I think it would be pretty fluid spots for both for the franchise this year. I'm not devastated that Willie didn't make the roster coming out. But Rossi, he better damn well do something this year.

It would have been nice if he did. Is there a scenario where he could have? What's the service time issues for these years? Are they holding him out? He's still at zero. That's what I'm saying. Is there a reason to hold him out? Like he's ready, but we're holding him out for service time. I don't think he did enough.

That's what I'm... That's it. This is not reading between the lines. This is not holding out a guy for arbitration. This is he didn't make enough pitches. Mm-hmm. I mean, he was getting a lot of praise from Brent Strom and he had that... Yeah, but praise and making rosters are two different things.

Yeah, right. What bothers me is that Forrest Whitley, this first round can't miss prospect, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, couldn't beat out Josh James, who was busy watching his child being born, comes to the roster, and pitches twice, of which yesterday was, eh. And he's the number four

starter. Whitley couldn't beat that out. He's the four guy, yeah. That's true. It's a good point. Good point's all, Matthew. I can't argue. I don't want to do a lot of that. I feel like I've been Mr. Sound Effect today. Oh. Oh. Like the Seattle Cracking.

We'll debate it next. You don't you like it, don't you? We'll talk about it next. And I'm not even counting your vote, Brandon, because I know everything I don't like you like, so I'm going to just naturally assume that you think the Seattle Cracking is a cool name. 1243 on the Matt Thomas show with a message

coming up from you, from our friends here at 790. Craig Bizjo here. The heart of the order is up right now. Matt Thomas is swinging for the fences here on Sports Talk 790. We'll hear from James Click coming up at the top of the hour here on Sports Talk 790 as he is meeting with the media right now to go over a variety of things. 713-212-5-790 is how you reach the show if you want to get in. We've got non-flora stories at 2.30 this afternoon.

Wonderful. Do you have one yet? Not yet, no. Where's your from? Well, I just said I didn't have one yet. Mine is from Michigan. You've already got yours locked and loaded? Well, I was doing some research for the nightcap yesterday. and I came across a funny story

and I was like, you know what, that's a pretty decent non-flora story. Brendan, do you have your non-flora story? I don't, but I'm glad he shared where his is from because I saw that story and strongly considered it. Oh, really? So how good is this story going to be of his coming up into 230? Assuming it's the one that I think it is. South Rockwood, Michigan?

You know, I didn't look at the location, but I'm pretty sure I know what it is and I think it's pretty good. All right. So we've got to step up all game. Brendan, that's what we've got to do. Step it up, Maddie. Honestly, Matt, I make fun of you a lot. but you've impressed me.

I'm not for the stories. You know what you got to do? You got to go get a copy of the story we did last week for Ross about the girl. I heard it was a doozy. I would like that. Onlyfans.com. The girls basically make $100,000 a month by acting like a dog. Would you act like a dog for $100,000 a month?

Yeah. Me too. And what kind of question is that? Yeah. 1.2 to bow. Ruff. There's a horro. I'm ready.

I didn't realize dogs talk like that. like Scooby like a horrible Scooby-Doo yeah oh raggy let's not do this I'll do the whole show like Scooby-Doo for 100K I wonder the whole show like Bill Cosby for 100K

but you won't let me do that because no one's shelling out any money to hear that all right so Seattle today their new NHL team officially made their grandiose announcement about their name of their team and there was a rumor that was going to be the Seattle Crackin.

And when the announcement came out and they undid the logo and they did the big city of Seattle. And by the way, I should say this. Seattle is one of my favorite places. I have not been there enough. But I love Seattle. Beautiful weather. If you're there in the right time of the year, lots of things to do,

fresh air. It's a different world. It's on my list. I want to check it out. The next place I want to go, I want to go to Seattle. I've never been to Seattle. I've never been to Seattle. I'll take you to Seattle. I want to go out there. Oh, I wanted to go to the ballpark. What was it? T-Mobile Park now? No, no, I don't know what it's called anymore.

It was Safeco, but it's not that anymore. Yeah, I think it's something else. But it's just... It's a great sports town, too, for losing the size. I know. I want to go out there. I want to go, I want to go catch a salmon. Going up to the fish market and have them throw fish in front of you.

Exactly. Go to the space, Neil. Have a large cup of coffee. You can get plenty of that there. Go well watching. I don't know. I'm never well watching Seattle. I go well watching.

I don't know why. I don't know why. I interest me. Okay. So they announced the name of this team. And it's officially the Cracken. Now, see, bringing this up to you Gibronies is not going to help. What do you mean?

I don't think that most people know what a Cracken is. That's because you didn't know what a Cracken was. That's what I'm saying. And if I said, hey, do you know what a Cracken is? I'm going to have 10 people call the show and say, yeah, do it with a Brick Cracking in. You know, I'm saying we should get the Harris poll. Okay. That did the poll yesterday and just randomly call 25 people and say, how many do you know what a cracking is?

What do you think of those 20, if we went and got 25 randos and said, well, do you know what a cracking is? How many would know of the 25? Honestly, 14. Okay. That's my point on this, gentleman, is that if you put in, if you have to explain to say 40% of your audience what your logo is, that's a bad logo. That's a bad team name. But now they're going to learn, Matt.

They're going to learn what a Cracken is. We should explain the audience what a Cracken. For those that don't know, because I don't think I was the only one that didn't know up until a handful of days ago. A Cracken is a legendary cephalopod-like sea monster of gigantic size in Scandinavian folklore. According to the North Saga,

the Cracken dwells off the coast of Norway and Greenland and terrorizes nearby sailors. It's basically a giant sea octopus Or type squid or whatever Okay They can overtake it entire boat I think It has a chance

If the logo in the uniform Look good To actually be scary as hell Have you seen the logo in the uniform? I just saw the Seattle part Of the S part I think they look pretty good Yeah

Well it's just basically an S On the jersey Sweeters They call it a jersey Sweeters, they call sweaters On the sweater I think it looks fine So this has a chance to grow on me

My only point is this I don't think You're doing yourself any favors when you announce who you are and then the first question of at least 40% of Americans' minds are, what the hell is a cracking? Can you buy the marketing part of that in me or is that, you're just going to dismiss this? No, I get where you're coming from. I mean, there's, what is a, what's a hokey?

Nobody ever knows what a hokey is, but that's actually Virginia Tech is a terrible name. Oh, yeah, you're helping my cause. Yeah, probably. I mean, I'm just trying to look at other names. A lot of the stuff comes out. It's just like Florida Panthers. Do you know why they did it? Honestly, it's because we've run out of great names.

Yeah, I think it's hard to name a team, and it's a mythical creature. It's tough. Seattle, obviously, is next to the sea. So I like it. I like it. That's what Greg Hardy's nickname was the Cracken. Did you know that? I did not.

Okay. And then there's always commercials for this Cracken Spiced Rum. It's a scary little sea. I'm not a rum drinker, though. It comes on the TV. You don't have to be a rum drinker to see it. It's not working for me, unfortunately. Okay.

You're sure. You fast forward to the commercials. Let's get this out of the way. Brendan, in 3-2-1, do you like the name the Seattle Cracken? I don't hate it, but I don't, I'm not a huge fan. Oh, wow. This is a pleasant surprise. I put a Twitter poll out on SportsRvia.

Just sent it out. Seattle Cracken, good team name, bad team name. I am pro logo. I think it's a good-looking logo. I will say this, and I want to be honest and true. as I always am on this show. It's got a chance to grow on me. I just don't like it.

When I was, you know, when you, if you were to open up your own business to have to explain what your business is based because the name is not obvious, I think it hurts. It just does. Well, so far you are 93% of people are saying it's a good team name. Short sample size. Not really surprised. Now, you've got 10 people. You've got 7% of the people with you.

Now, I will say this. I've already got the Las Vegas NBA team name. Aces? No, that's the WMBA. The 21s. Oh, yeah. Two cards, Ace and Jack, the Las Vegas 21s. Book it.

That name is not good. And it's already been taken, I think. Oh, has it? Yeah, the baseball team calls themselves that. It's there. How about the Black Jacks? No. What?

No, it's 2020. We're not doing that. No, sir. You said 21. I said Blackjack. It's the same thing, Matt. I don't see what the issue is. Nope.

Nope. How about the craps? No. That'd be actually funny. But check on it real quick. I think the Las Vegas Mileygalsalsing baseball team. How about the Las Vegas Pai Gals? Pagal Pokers.

Three cards. Yeah. Mississippi Studs. The Mississippi Studs. It's not going to work. It's just not. But I think the Los Vegas. That sounds like an off-brose strip show you would go to. Hey, you want to go see the Mississippi Studs?

No, they don't. They don't wear towels. Ooh, gross. It's like the thunder from down under. Yeah, I think the loss, they used to have a baseball team called the Las Vegas 50 ones. It was named after Area 51. Oh, really? But I think they've changed that since the 21s.

I don't like the 21s. All I can find is the aviators as a minor league baseball team. Oh, so I got a puncher's chance then. Yeah, it does not appear that anyone has that team name yet. Could you imagine the uniform with an ace and a jack on the front? Yes, but it's called the 21. I feel like you call it a 21 when you're a kid. Like when you're eight and you're playing with your brother.

Well, you can't call them. an adult. Why not? Rosset, you just can't. Why not? You just can't. And then Jared Jack could be their coach. And then they had Jack Mayfield as a majority owner.

Of course. No. I love the Las Vegas 20. You hit 325. How about just the Las Vegas gamblers, done? That's actually it would work. Because let's face it, if the NBA ever goes to Vegas, they're not afraid of gambling. In fact, I think NBA will really make it as easy as possible of you to gamble on their

Isn't it funny how that was just, it was a non-starter a few years ago? Then they're making how much money? They're going to give us how? What? Yeah. Primary League is getting how much from these gambling websites? Okay, yeah, let's do that. Yep.

Yeah. Gambling will be, you know, people always tease about Brent Musburger throwing gambling into its ABC broadcast. Will I at ever any point as a Rockets broadcaster, say the Rockets are up plus eight here in the second quarter? You should. I mean, I won't now unless it becomes a corporate sponsor, but. Is that going to be a problem?

No, I liked how the XFL, remember they had the point spreads on the graphics. It did. Yeah. We are going to become a full gambling society. We're not going to separate between sports and gambling. I'm all for it. All right. 1257.

James Click, the Astros General Manager, speaks of the changes or the 30-man roster. We'll hear from him next. Second hour, Matt Thomas Show, Sports Talk, 790. Here we go with our number two of the Matt Thomas Show. Here we go with hour number two of the Matt Thomas. his show on Sports Talk 790 with Brendan Riley, our producer, co-host, cohort. Man, knocking back coffee like a mutter right now. How is it doing?

That's a little hot tea, Matt. Oh, trying to... I told you, well, I tried to convince you... Well, I told you, I wanted to work up. Like, you know, a pitcher in spring training works up their arm. I asked if I could just do one hour a day with you, but you said no. So I'm just letting you know... You got Tuesday as a prep day.

It's all you had to worry about. A vocal cords is just taking a beating because I'm going from talking zero hours a day to now up to four. So it's just a little bit of day. different. Actually, you played a 10-minute interview with Mike Dantone yesterday on the nightcap. It was 834. So really, you'd only talked 52 minutes and then you said hello. Well, Joe came in and while I was talking with him, so. That counts. Your argument falls flat. Well, the point is, I'm going from zero to 60, and it's just taking a little bit of a toll on my vocal cords. Well, I think tomorrow you're fully ready to go for full

three hours without me. Okay. I don't know where to go. I probably should work the show, and I will. Time off, Matt. I'm going to. You deserve it. As soon as the Rockets win the NBA championship. Oh, don't say that. That just made me so happy. Just don't get my hope.

Don't get my hopes up like that. No, for the Rockets to win the NBA championship. Real quick, before we get to these James Click soundbites, we got Larry wants to like some Stroes. Did you watch the NBA TV? I don't think a lot of people get NBA TV. I do have it. I have it as well.

I don't pay for it. They gave me NBA TV and they took away my CBS Sports Network, which... That's a good trade for you. win-win for me. Unless you wanted to watch the World Tennis League last night. Or I wanted to watch some Bradley versus LaSalle College Basketball for the 19th time. The rerun. Yeah. So I think it's a win-win for me. Did you watch any of the, they had like five games on yesterday.

Yeah, I think it was the, I can't remember which exhibition game I watched. I watched a couple of them. I watched a little bit of whoever the Pelicans were playing. I watched that one. Court. And a little bit of the Nuggets game. The court needs a little color. You know, like, you know, the lane area needs to be colored in a little bit. It's, it's, everything is just, um, help me describe this. A bland?

It's plain, yeah. Okay. The lanes are color. Yeah. Don't you think? And I'm not asking for like early compact center coloring where the rockets had the 80% of floor colored. It was very weird for me.

It was like watching, like watching Summer League, right? Exactly. The superimposed fans, I don't need it. it. No, I don't care. I don't need the Miami Heat logo all over the floor above it. I know they're trying to make this thing look as good as possible. And remember, again, this was just a first run through for them. They're supposed to be having some things we've never seen before. But as a play-by-play guy, there were some angles that were going to frankly hurt me a little bit. They were going diagonally for a while. I was thinking, I hope I get a different feed because I won't be able to follow the action. Yeah, there were some straight-on angles they did as well. Yeah. So from the basket. My guess is at the end of the day, we're going to come back and go, man, NBA, you did a great job.

But for the first go-round, it was, sometimes you don't need to reinvent the wheel. When the court is just going left to right, right to left, three-point shot, they're just trying to make it as an interesting as possible. Sometimes there's something that's tried and true that doesn't need to be tinkered with. Yeah. And that would be the, I'm with you on the angles as far as it. We've found the best angles for watching basketball. We don't need to try to change it up. Yeah, and again, superimposing fans or chance and all that.

Same thing with the NFL. They try to give us the sky cam from behind the huddle and stuff. Or like how NBC puts that camera over the middle of the field. I'm a surprise that hasn't been hit by something. Yeah, that's true. All right. So if you saw any of the NBA stuff yesterday, I want to let us know 713-212-5-790.

7-13-212-750. James Click spoke with the media less than an hour again. Yeah, there's a couple of things. A lot of things going on. We've talked about the bullpen, the rotation, the roster, and all that type of stuff. A lot of things James Click needed to update. First and foremost, a health update on Jose Al-Tuve.

He's fine. As far as I know, he played in our game yesterday, and the latest reports from the training room was that it was a left-leg contusion, and he was day-to-day, but the fact that he played yesterday is certainly good news. So there you go, Jose Altupe, playing yesterday and healthy and looking good.

This is an important one, Matthew, because we've been talking about this with Josh James and Framber Valdez. Here's what James Click had to say about the Astros rotation. It's been a while since I've had a one through five starting rotation to think about, so I'm probably still getting my head around that, but it's impossible not to be impressed by the group that we have right now. I mean, you're talking about, you know, Hall of Famers at the front of it and a young talent that has shown. And I mean, our hitters will tell you just how impressed that those guys are. So it's an impressive group. I'm looking

forward to just sitting back until the six, seventh inning and then finding out who we have to go to in the bullpen. There you go, Matt. We're expressing worry. He says it's, it's hard not to be overconfident about it. James Click absolutely sounds like a first time general manager.

In what way? Keeping things super close to the best. What do you mean? He said this has got a good group. Hall of famers and good young talent at the back end. Young is a relative term when you're talking about 27, six-year-olds. Could you imagine if he said...

I would like to say unproven rather than young. Yeah, they have... I hope I'm wrong about four and five in rotation. I don't think you're going to... But I don't think I'm going to be. Well, how about that? When the team is full health... But I'm not even sure...

But I'm not even sure Jose Arkiti would be absolutely a no doubt about four or five guy. But the difference in then is that we did see a sample size last year that made you go, wow. this is a young man that stepped up in the most pressure-packed situations and helped this team win some baseball games. You know what I'm saying? Where what's the most impactful moment that Josh has had? I mean, I guess he pitched in the post season, right? Yes, he was all up and down.

There was times where he was on it, and there was times where he was going to kind of the wheels. And Framberg just never was ever a guy that you can count on. Let me put it this way. When you heard Josh James was coming out of the bullpen, you weren't just, you didn't get up and fist pump. You're like, how many else do you have to get? Yeah, right, exactly.

Who's coming up? And look, this is not an indictment against him per se, because we are flat out rooting for him. Of course. No, that's okay. This is how teams are constructed. You got your front-end guys that you're happy about, and they don't make you nervous.

And then it's always going to be like that way. In the back end of the rotation, there's going to be guys who are going to make you nervous when their name gets called out of the bullpen or when they're on the starting lineup. But Austin Pruitt was brought here for a reason. because the Astros, I think, in their heart of hearts, realized between Erkidi, James, and Valdez,

those three gentlemen need competition. Forrest Whitley should have been a main competitor. Roheelian Menterro should have been a main competitor. Injuries got to those guys. Yeah, so speaking of all three of those guys, Peacock, Pruitt, and Armenteros, James Click was asked about an update on them. Yeah, Armenteros reported to UH today.

We're optimistic that we can get him out there soon and see what we got. You know, Peacock is kind of status quo. Pruittitt. I don't have an update on, but hopefully we should have something on that soon. Peacock is status quo. What does that mean?

Is that good or bad? You okay? I don't think it's good. Good status quo is he's playing for us tomorrow night, us, the Astros. Yes. You know what I mean? Bad is, well, his arm can't move. Thus, it's the status quo.

What? Does Brett Peacock get a little bit of an I-H? When are we going to ever build to use IP again? I don't know, Matt. You can use it whenever you want. No, because every time I bring it up, you argue with me about it. We erupted into a semantics argument, and it just bogs the showdown. I get it.

Well, those three guys are on the IL. We've also been asking for updates on Jose or Qidi. We just talked about. And then Yordon Alvarez, here's what James Click had to say about those two. James, do you have any update on Alvarez or Qidi? Channel run. Nope. Are you confident that both of them will play for you this season?

unfortunately I can't comment on timelines or expectations for doing everything we can't get them back on the field as much as we possibly Can't comment on timelines What? What? No. No, play that again. And then I want you all to scream with me.

Oh, boy. James, do you have any update on Alvarez or Qidi? Nope. Are you confident that both of them will play for you this season? Unfortunately, I can't comment on timelines or expectations on that. we're doing everything we can to get them back on the field as soon as we possibly can. Hey. Heavens.

Lord Evans. Lord Evans. Damn. Damn. Damn. Yeah, she is not happy. Mm. Oh, no.

Unfortunately, I can't comment. Unfortunately, I'm going to cry. Larry on 7. Hello, Larry. Oh, man, I tell you what, I am with you as far as crying. And, you know, damn, damn. It's a bad deal. But anyhow, you know, we're locked and loaded and let's get after it tomorrow.

Question for you about Springer for at least the number of years that Al-Tubei is locked up. Pretty close to the number of years. Is that going to break the bank? I mean, we have one of the strongest outfields in the major leagues. And that's all I got, bud. Thank you, Larry. James Click asked today about Joel Springer. I don't think it really changes anything. Obviously, we're going to keep an eye on the market for these kind of things. But the conversations with George are ones that I'm looking forward to.

The direct question was, did Moogie Betts a deal have any added pressure for a Springer deal? We'll answer that coming back in a minute. 112 is our time. It is the Matt Thomas Show 713-212-5-790. if we play that click comment again about erkiti and yorne, we're going to need to drink on the air. That's not encouraging. That's not what I wanted to hear out of that. We'll save ourselves at the bottom of the hour,

and then we're all going to get a glass, one large ice cube, one really big ice cube, and drink it slowly. 1.30 will do that. Okay. Time is 112 of the message here for Shaw's jury at the corner of West Gray and Montrose had been in that same intersection since 1966. Something's going right. You know why?

Family owned and operated. Great customer service. Terrific selection. Same exact intersection and outstanding prices when it comes to the diamond purchase of your choosing. Whether it's yours for something for yourself, like a pre-owned Rolex, a special diamond necklace or a ring or earrings or a pendant for your girl, whatever the case may be. Stop on in there and find out how you can get zero percent financing. on most purchases for 12 months. They want to make it as affordable as possible for you to get in there and find something

that she's going to really want. They have a master jeweler on premises, and they also have a great repair service, too. All available to you at the corner West Gray and Montrose open Monday through Friday 10 to 7. Saturday's 10 to 6, the home of West Grey Montrose is also the home of Shaw's Jewelry. Houston's official sports cliche translator. I'm working hard. I'm trying to be a good team. teammate. I'm trying to go out here every day

and do my job. Matt Thomas. Taking it one day at a time. Real quick, worth mentioning, we welcome you back to the Matt Thomas show at 118. Washington's football team this season. Yeah, what are they going to be called, Matt? Washington NFL team.

Here's the thing. They probably don't want to screw it. There is really no hurry. It's going to take a whole year to think about it. Let me tell you something. If you are changing a name from a team that's been that team, in 1930s, you better get it right. That's true. So, yeah, I don't think anybody should be like, oh, real original there, Washington.

They're going to obviously have a new name. And maybe even a new owner. Which one are you pushing for? Red Hawks, Red Wolves, Americans. If there is a team that I care less about, it probably would be the Washington Redskins. I think there are DC Sentinels is some Reddit sleuth thinks it's going to be

because of trademarks. I'd go something that would associate the city with being the nation's capital. I mean, I just would. The Washington capitals. But the nationals are taken. The capitals are taken.

The American sounds kind of goofy. I think it sounds goofy, but I like it. You could go to the generals. Ooh, okay. Because the generals used to be on a USFL team, the U.S. The New Jersey generals. And their logo was just a bunch of stars.

Like, you know, you'd have a brigadier star general kind of thing. So, I don't know. I don't know if I'm red hawks, red bulls, whatever. It doesn't, those don't names are no much. But again, I have zero emotional attachment to the Washington Redskins. Neither do I. Or their name.

Like, for instance, do you have any emotion when I say the team Atlanta Falcons? Nope. Makes me think of the 1998 team. Carolina Panthers. John Fox. Like, I have emotions towards the Dallas Cowboys. They're not good, but I have emotions towards them. There's just teams your blah about.

Jacksonville, Jaguars. Blah. Well, actually, that's not even true because they play the Texans twice here. blah, though. But they are blah. You're not going to get passionate when the Jacksonville Jaguars come to town. Philadelphia Eagles.

Could give two craps about them. Yeah, I get you. Love the Buccaneers. I wish they go back to the Cream School jerseys. Swash and bucklers. Lions, I was born in Detroit, so I have a small affinity towards them, but not much. Bears, you nothing for me.

Packers. I'm not anti-Pakers. Some prestige. Packers as well. Packers got some swag to them. Yes. Seattle, I just think that stadium is awesome for on a game day. just so incredible going to the loudest stadium in the NFL.

But I don't have a whole lot of... Yeah, there's probably by 10 NFL teams that I just give a... You're not passionate about the Washington Redskins is what you're telling us. I'm not passionate about the Pittsburgh Steelers or the Miami Dolphins. Well, who are you passionate about? The Patriots? I have zero passion. Okay.

I'm passionless. But I do have... I mean, if you said name your five favorites, I'd probably go on no particular order. I'd probably go Tampa Bay. because they just love I grew up as a kid spending my summers in Tampa. You're just talking about names and uniforms?

Uniforms. Maybe I was a big Doug Williams fan growing up. Loved him as a quarterback. They had a running back named James Walder who was awesome. They had a defensive lineman named Leroy Selman who was really good. I just like the old school buccaneers

so they're always going to have a soft spot in my heart. I think the San Francisco 49ers are a really cool, classy team. I think they're being run properly. I don't know if Jimmy Gropolo is the guy that's going to be the start. starting quarterback long term for them, but he looks the part. Small affinity towards the Detroit Lions.

That's about it. Yeah, I get it. You? But you're a Texans fan, though. Let's not get crazy. I'm not. Me either. We've talked about this for years. I'm an Oilers fan.

I'm an Oilers fan. I like Columbia Blue Man. That's right. By the way, I spit on the Tennessee Titans. Oh, that's not very nice. But you do hate them. Oh, and with a passion. There is some passion there.

Oh, no question about that. All right. To the previous caller that asked about whether or not the Mookie Betts signing was going to impact George Springer. I've had a chance to think about this for the last 24 hours. They better come strong, Ross. Or George is going to tell them pretty early that we need to stop talking about this and that we will start thinking about free agency as soon as the seasons they were. just like Garrett Cole did,

and how long are going to take Garrett Cole to find that deal with the New York United States or Yankees? Not very long. I think they're going to have to, and this to sound strange, they may have to overpay for Springer because guess what? George Springer is now the number one free agent in baseball this upcoming season. He's up there. And what kind of franchise would it be like?

How do you, you can't, you have to understand they're going to suffer. If you lose the top free agent pitcher and the second, and the second top free agent player in back-to-back off-season. No organization, not the Yankees, not the Red Sox, not the Dodgers, not a single baseball organization would not suffer big-time damage if you lost two incredible free agents in back-to-back years. Without much of a backup plan in the outfield as well. No.

Well, Kyle Tucker. That's it. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It'd be huge. Well, we went through the list yesterday. This is just from, we had JT.L. You also want him to throw a bunch of money at JT. Real Muth.

to as well. I did. I'm okay with that. He's up there and then Marcus Simeon and then Trevor Bauer and then George Springer. That's their top five from MLB.com. So George Springer is definitely up there. So homegrown, fan favorite. Do you know what this did? You know what the Mookie Bed signing did? Is it basically

this whole thought of mine of signing him for one year and then thinking about it? George didn't do that. There's money out there now. Now granted because the Dodgers spend money doesn't mean there's 29 other teams, but... All you need is one. Yeah. And I think the Dodgers spending that kind of money to show up the number one free agent

has given, I think, other teams to say, we better do something comparable. Not give him comparable mooky bets money, but this whole thought of, well, we can wait a year to see what George wants to do. I think the Astros have to be probably 25 to 50 percent more aggressive than they were, say, three days ago, if that's even in their DNA. If they are saying, George is, I mean, Georgia is going to be, it's 31 years old. we don't want to put $25, $30, $35 million into a guy that's going to be for five or six years when he'll be 37 at the end of that contract.

Guy that's had some injury issues. These are all things that play into this, unfortunately. Or do you go with Carlos Graya, who's still very young, was your number one overall pick? Yes, he's had IH, but there's a chance with two guys that have had comparable IH. In fact, maybe even Craig has been a little hurt more than George. I would say so, yes. But both of them have an injury issue. But both of them certainly have an injury history.

If we're only going to pay one guy with an IH, it's the young guy. It's a shortstop. It's the left side of our infields intact for the next seven, eight, nine years. I was having to think that's in the thinking. I'm not trying to talk the asteros into thinking that. I'm just saying that's what maybe they're thinking. That's probably where I would lean if I were making a long-term deal. And I understand that there are a lot of people who would disagree with that idea.

But I trust. Don't you trust George more than you trust Carlos right now? slightly. Okay, not enough to go, I've got to keep George here. Oh, way over. I don't think he's miles ahead of Carlos Correa long term. And he's, and Carl's Correa is significantly younger. What is Carl's Correa?

Is he even, what's he like 24 or something like that? Yeah. I mean, how old is he? Yeah. Well, he's got to be. 25. Yeah, and Cray is 30, and Springer's 31. He's 25 and Springer's 30 right now.

I think 30 right now. But it'll be 31 by the end of the season. Right. So it's a five-year difference. So I would, that's significant. That's significant. And especially, I think Carlos Correa, in terms of raw talent only, I think Carlos Correa is more talented as well. But, man, I haven't seen that, though.

The raw talent, you're right. But the production does count. It's a huge part of the grade. He was on, he was on an MVP level pace last year. He was, but that's when he played. Which is always the big caveat. When that nasty I age kicked in. But I will also say this.

Jim Crane has surprised us a number of times with these big deals. and with the willingness to be aggressive and the willingness to do what it takes to win. I mean, the trade taking on Verlander's salary, taking on Zach, giving the green light for Zach Grinke's salary last year, giving Bregman a big deal, giving Altuvae a big deal, just about at every turn, except for Garrett Cole, of course. I mean, Jim Crane surprised us a couple of times.

Well, I'll also say this. Let's go back two years ago. If I was to ask you which player would like the big city, the big lights, and the pinstripes, Who would you say? George Springer or Carlos Correa? Of course, we've always, we've always talked about him being in. I think Carlos, yeah, I think Carlos Correa is thinking about a lot of things outside of baseball.

You can just stay in Houston? He and Daniela, make a family? Oh, we're speaking well of her now. I never spoke that ill of her as much of it. I know, did I. This has been the pro-Daniels show. Just because Adam Clinton hates his wife. Doesn't mean that we can't appreciate Daniela Correa.

I am a big fan of Daniela Correa. We are your official home of Daniela Correa. Yes. Sports Talk 790. 128. More James Click Soundbites. We've given you a warning. Go get you a glass right now.

Get that super big ice cube ready. And whatever you're going to pour. Because you're going to hear some bad things from a general manager next. 128 on the Matt Thomas show, 713212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790 with a message here for TGS and insurance. Ross, our phones are going off. I'm guaranteeing it's Clinton right now texting about him being anti-Dagnalla Correa. And that's fine. No, something against that. Let me tell you by TGS insurance. I hope all of you are pro TGS insurance. Do yourself a favor and text the word money,

M-O-N-E-1 to 23-23-23. That's money to 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, and start experiencing the excellence that is TGS insurance. They'll ask for your address. You type it in, and then like 15 or 20 seconds later, you're going to get a pro quote that's going to save you, I think, hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in your home policy with one of the fastest growing agencies in the Houston area. But it all starts with you as you listen to this show. Text the word money, M-O-N-E-Y to 23-23-23. M-O-N-E-Y to 23, 23, 23, and start saving big on your home policy right now with TGS Insurance. Hey, it's Craig Vigio.

Listen to the home of the Astros in your home. Just tell your smart speaker, place four. Sports Talk 790 on Iheart radio. Hi, this is Eric Dickerson. You're listening to Sports Talk 790. Real Texans talk here. James, do you have any update on Alvarez or Orkitty? Nope.

Are you confident that both of them will play for you this season? Unfortunately, I can't comment on timelines or expectations on that. We're doing everything we can to get them back on the field as soon as we possibly can. Welcome back To the Matt Thomas show You know Drinking two cores lines In between commercial breaks

It's not going to affect the integrity This radio show You know this, right? I don't know, Matt Unfortunately, I can't comment On timelines or expectations on that I made this Yeah, let's have another one

Why not? One more, Matt, just one more. Take the edge off, as you would say. Remember I predicted that Brendan that He was going to have a zero-sum game season and our general manager does it. I mean, I do. He's coming back.

Remember when you wanted me to predict the stats like an hour ago? Yes. You ready to do it now? How about we do like an over under on games play? Oh, do we have to? I'm going to be optimistic. I choose optimism. I'm a great overnumber under guys. I'm going to say, how are you? I'm going to self-proclaim that. Yorda Alvarez,

28 games over or under 28. It's a pretty good number. Told you. I'm going to be optimistic, and I'm going to go over. I'm going to go over as well. I'm going to put it closer to 40. Now we get crazy. I don't know if I want

to go 40 yet. I said closer to. I take the under on 40, but 35, 36. Creaky knees. Yes. Maybe COVID. Probably COVID. Yes. Bad COVID, not regular COVID. I mean, it's been 18 days.

I think Channel Rome is... Channel Rome basically tweets out every day. It's been X days since we've had a Yordon Alvarez and Jose Arquidi update. I think it's at 18 days. So let's walk through this. You've had COVID for 18 days. You've probably lost 15 pounds.

Oh, no. And that's strength 15 pounds. That's not baby fat, water. That's... No. Yordan Alvarez is out of granite. Yeah. He's...

Yeah, he's not been in a workout room. Yes. So we're going to, first of all, help him gain. those 15 pounds back. And then we're going to actually put him in a batting cage because I'm Terry, you hadn't picked up a bat. Are you sure, guys? You do not want to change it.

I'm going to give you the over under again at 28 games. Going over. He's rehabbing right now. Then why wouldn't he the gym tell us that? He's in the gym. He's in the cage. He's building up strength. Getting his fluids.

He's trying to, he's trying to talk his way into this. I'm with Ross, man. Optimism. I'm on the over. Matt, this is my first season as an Astros fan, and I'm not going to let anything ruin it before the first pitch. All right. I'm writing this down right now on this pad that I'll probably lose. Yeah, exactly.

I'm going to... Unless you're right about something, then you'll save the pad. All right. It's true. I'm going to go under 28. Doesn't mean he can't make an impact this year. Hold on. Let me write this in my notion of wrong, this pad. Hey, have I been hitting... I'm batting a thousand in the last month.

The only thing I have to wait for to be a complete 100% success is the NFL season to be pushed back. I told you guys there was going to be no preseason. Oh, I also said that college football would be dramatically reduced. But again, I'm not going to claim that one. I need for these two things to hit, and then I will be the ultimate Nostra Thomas. Matter of fact, we may have to get our costumes back on, Ross. We haven't done that in three or four years. No, it's been like eight years.

God, those are heavy costumes, too, especially in the heat. All right, I'm taking under 28. Ross and, Brendan, you're taking over 28 games, huh? Over 28, yes. You said last year at the beginning of the season, George Springer would get an extension in 2019. There's a chance he could.

In 2019, you said this last year. I don't know about that. It's on my nostrilongous note-pad. Yeah, you write this stuff down. Here's some other things. Vince Villasquez will be the Astros closer. Let's see. Justice Winslow will win NBA Rookie of the Year.

I did not say that. There's no chance. There's no chance I would have said Justice Winslow. No chance. Peyton Manning will be a dolphin or a redskin. It's funny because I saw a story recently that he was almost a redskin. Thank you. You're welcome.

And then he was a Bronco. You're welcome. Did he used to make these like every five years? Oh, he makes all these crazy predictions. He only remembers the right ones and calls him to self-noster Thomas. Yeah. So I have to... I had Nondi Ossimala, correct?

I had the Dallas Mavericks beaten the Miami Heat in 2011. Nine years ago. Yeah. I had the NFL getting rid of preseason, another win. I've had way too many that I'd just stop counting and running them down. Somebody had to keep the receipts because he was only remembering things he got right. So that's when I stepped in. Not true.

Not true. Ronnie Dawson will not play first base. What does that even mean? Was that a draft pick of theirs of the Astros, Ronnie Dawson? He almost made the roster. Did he? Yeah. Good.

All right. Oh, well, that was right, actually. He's playing outfield now. Yeah, thank you. walk i didn't make that up either there's no chance i would have done that one either you're just making a prediction you think i made up us you think i made up a prediction of yours about ronnie dawson you think of ronnie dawson and say hi i'm ronnie dorson and say hi ronnie what do you do for a living i think it was drafting i need to see i delete the ones that you get right oh see i see how that works he's a fraud

that one is off the list all right uh we were talking about the d h spot now that yordaan is not going to be around for a while yes what does uh james click say about the d h spot the dh right now that's a conversation that I've been having with Dusty and especially with the short ramp up, the ability to get guys almost like a half day off where they don't have to play the field for nine innings, but we can still get their bats into the lineup is a tremendous thing to have to kind of rotate guys through there. And fortunately, we have enough bats that are ready to step up and can contribute. As far as how I feel about the club, it's not that different than I did when I had to face them in the playoffs last year. This is a championship caliber club. We got some guys who are really,

talented hitters. We got some guys who were some really talented pitchers and hopefully we can put it all together. Basically, he's like, I don't want to use Abraham Toro and Garrett's Debs. That's what he said. So you're not going to be back soon, maybe. You don't know that? You just made up an erroneous statement. You don't know if he's been back soon. Hopefully. That's better. How about that? I'm hoping he'll be back soon.

Breaking news. Oh, we got It's not huge, but it's a little bit of breaking news. Go ahead and fire off the sounder. From Jeff Passon. Hi, I'm wearing a collared shirt today. No, that's not what it is. Jeff Passett says that Juan Soto has tested positive for the COVID and will miss tonight season opener against the Yankees. How old is Juan Soto?

21 now? Okay, good for him. 21. If not, go ask Joe Buck because apparently every time he batted during the World Series last year, he had to tell us that Juan Soto was only 12. Yes, this was a very big point to make. Will he be back? Who's back first?

Juan Soto or Yorna Alvarez. Yon Alvarez. Promise? I can't, I'm not his doctor. James Click is being very good, as you would say, close to the vest about this. So I don't know, but I'm going with Yorda because I choose optimism. All right, Houston, Texas, Yordon fans. I'm giving you the over or under and 28 games.

Oh, geez. And by the way, we have no clinical evidence of any of this. We don't know if it's knees, if we don't know what's neck, if it's family issues, if it's COVID. But the general manager does not sound optimistic. When he continues to give no results. The tone of his voice was a little. The tone was like, stop asking me. I have no idea.

The tone of the voice was a little worried. I can't comment on timelines or expectations on that. We're doing everything we can to get them back on the field as soon as we possibly can. Like calling, can you please come back. That's all they can do. That's all they can do. 713-212-5-790. We have a fight to talk about.

I can't believe it. We're going to get the return of a legend against another legend. Would you buy it? We'll explain who they are and what they're about to do. 142 on Sports Talk 790 with a message here for bronze roofing. If your roof has not been checked at a long period of time, then please do yourself a huge favor and get with the folks at bronze roofing. They will take terrific care of you.

Their website is bronze roofing.com, B-R-A-U-N-Sroofing.com. They have been around for decades taking care of Houstonians, and trust me when I tell you this, they're going to be here today and certainly here tomorrow. If you have a residential roof commercial, tile, asphalt, steel, or shingle, and you need to check, you can get a free estimate within 24 hours in most cases. All it takes is a phone call to 281-480-9900. 281-480-9-0 and online, bronze, roohing. com. Cougars coach Kelvin

Sampson here. You're listening to the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. We got more on this one soda I want to get to in just a second, but I do want to pay off when we just talked about. You've heard the phrase, Rossi, because you're a boxing guy, the best pound-for-pound boxer in the history of boxing. Yes. Is Roy Jones Jr.

Whether you agree with or not, if you put pound-for-pound boxer, Roy Jones is going to be the number one thing. on the Google search. Is that right? I believe it is. Roy Jones is, along with Mani Pachio, my favorite boxer of all time. I don't have a fave, but I'm just saying that I've respected both of them for a long period of time.

So mega-talented, so unorthodox, so just... And a good analyst, too. Decent Allen. Yeah, yeah. Okay, I would agree with that. I would agree with that, yes. He's going to fight again. He's been needing to retire for years, and he's...

He's 51. one. Yeah. And he doesn't even, I think he says he doesn't even need the money. Now do we believe him, I guess. But he's been fighting for years.

He would have to go to, like, Russia and he, he's getting knocked out by a bunch of random people and stuff. Yeah, he's been hanging on for way too long. Well,

there's another guy out there that's looking to hang on for just a little longer. And that's Mike Tyson. Mike Tyson and Roy Jones, Jr. are going to have an eight-round exhibition fight.

Interesting. And it's going to be available on. Paperview. Of course. How much? Well, what do you think there are? They're usually $60.70. And then you can get the HD cost to $10 or $20.

And then if you want the latest Mayweather Gryft, it's going to run you $100. I'd buy it. Really? Absolutely. Matter of fact. Matter of fact, you all come to the house. All right. If you're buying it, I'm coming, I'm going to see it.

Brendan, you want to come out to the house? You can come watch it too. What is it? I don't know. We don't know. We have to wear masks in distance, correct? Is it in September? I don't know if I ever.

I didn't see a date, no, no. Well, I haven't seen a fight, so sure, why not? You've never seen a fight ever? No, I haven't seen Mike Tyson a fight. Oh, well, most of us haven't. He did beat the crap out of that guy in that little prelim than they had an Instagram video on. Yeah, I'd watch it.

Mike Tyson and Roy Jones are superhuman. Out of morbid curiosity, I guess. And they're not even, I mean, Mike, and Roy Jones is naturally a middleweight or a super middle. Oh, the weight is. is going to be terrible. He fought mostly at 168-175. And what in Tyson most? That's 200

plus. I was going to say 210, 2.15 somewhere in that range. Yeah. So, I mean, he's probably like 250 pounds right now. Roy Jones isn't going to be close to that. So there's going to be a weight discrepancy. Okay, so it becomes power versus if Roy Jones has a Joe de los? Roy Jones is younger, I think. He's still, he's going to be faster.

Which one's older? Yeah, Roy Jones is 51. Mike Tyson's what? 53, 54? Not by much. Would y'all watch at Houston? Y'all come to the house? Now, I'll cook out. You will?

Sure. All right. I'll invite 15, 20 people over. Well, you got to keep it under 10, Matt. Oh, that's right. We can't, yeah. 10 with mask. I mean, I know your palatial estate can probably hold up to hundreds of people,

but we're going to have to keep it under 10. Okay. With masks. I will invite eight of you to come with us. No, I actually got to be less than that because you two, my wife. Correct. You got like seven kids. Cameron and Peyton will be

No, camera will be gone. Payton and Carlos. Yeah, so I'll invite five of you. Carlos. Can't you get a Carlos? Now, Mrs. Thomas got a little frisky. Yeah, so I'll invite five of you. Come to the house.

I'll cook some steaks and we'll watch two men 50 plus. They're not even making it to the eighth round. Somebody's quitting on their stool. Well, do you know there's also an undercard? Oh, no. It's going to be MMA versus real boxers. What? Who's putting on this show?

Well, it's got to be Bob Aram, right? At some point? I would think probably, I guess. So then one of the boxers... This is starting to sound like a Don King production. Yeah. One of the people that are allegedly interested in competing in the undercard is former New York Nick and former slam dunk champion Nate Robinson. Oh, that's right.

He's going to fight some YouTube star. Yes. Come on. That's a circus. We'd watch that. Would you rather watch that or would you rather watch UNLV versus Air Force football? You and LVF football. You would not.

That's a lie. If I had a bet on the line. No, well, bet free. What would you do? Oh, bet free? We're watching the boxing. Okay. I guess.

Oh, come on. This is terrible. These men in their 50s and they're late stage of their lives, not late stage of the line, but well, for boxers, yes. Money grab. I would, if you're going to buy it, I'll go watch it. Otherwise, I would refuse to buy it. I'm telling you, they're getting my money.

Okay. Just like Pacquiao and Mayweather got my money, and it was a horrific fight because they met they met five years too late. They've met five years too late. And if you knew anything about Floyd Maydweather, he was just going to sit there and kind of pick apart Pachio slowly and win a decision. And that's exactly what happened. And so many people knew that going in, that they over flooded the pay-per-view request lines, thus having to delay the fight for about an hour. You brought in the casuals. So thanks for them.

And that's, I'm sure, man, many Paci-O-and-M-M-A-Pack-Eau and me. And Floyd Mayweather. Oh, let me tell you something right now. There are no diehards of good buying this. It's Gibranies like me that watch one fight a year are going to want to watch this thing. I'm just saying keep your expectations low. I'm saying we should go cover the fight.

Oh, yeah. Where is it going to be, Vegas? That I don't know. Okay. But let me tell you something. You and I have never covered a fight together, have we? No, we haven't. I've had other producers go with me.

Well, I haven't, no. And it's fun. I'm a huge boxing fan. You keep giving me these empty promises that we're going to cover a big. fight somewhere and it never happens. Okay. If they let us what is it September?

Vegas won't be normal Vegas, so we're going to have to wait. What are we going to do about this? Can you find out a date of this bike? Because if they can push it to 2021, then you... September 12th in California. Oh, which city? I don't know. Just says Cali. Forget it. We're not going. But could you

imagine the pre-fight press conference? How good that's going to be? Is Mike Tyson going to get in a fight? He's tame now. He's like mellowed Mike. He has to come back and be normal guy. He's mellow Mike. No, he asks him back and be the old Mike. He's doing Broadway.

When Customato was, when Cuss was training him. Well, he's not going to be like that. Savage Beast. I don't think that guy's coming out. He looks good though in those workout videos. But that's half of how I'm trying to sell this is Bat Blank crazy Mike Tyson is back.

He's always been mega talent. No, it's a softer, older. No, then people aren't going to watch. I'm looking for a freak show. Are you wanting to bite Mike, Why would I normally, why would I ever want to buy two fighters in their 50s on a pay-per-view? I'm looking for freaks. I'm sitting here asking you that.

I don't know. Now you know, now I shouldn't you tell me I shouldn't buy it. I wouldn't. Okay. You know what? We'll just do. I don't want to talk you out of it.

No, you've already did. You've already done it. Well, it's going to cost me about 15 bucks in gas to get from your place. Now it's not already a gallon. No, it's not much less. You have to stop at a motel 6 on the way it's so far out there. the palatial estate.

I don't even know if the armed guards are going to let me through. Well, you're already in the list. Not welcomed. I was on the blacklist already after WrestleMania. That's right. All right. Final hour of the Matt Thomas show. We've got an hour left to go.

We got non-Flority stories coming up at 35 minutes. Are we playing more click? Yeah. Well, we got a few things that he said. What's believed or not today? And when are we going to give away a question? Hmm. Oh, I got one.

The Googlable one I gave you yesterday. But Juan Soto? Well, he's too young. Oh, I'm going to. I got a pay off on the Wans. There's a woman reporter that believes we should shut down baseball because of Wan Soto. I'll explain it next. 156 on Sports Talk 790. Is the Matt Thomas show.

Final hour of the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. Believe it or not coming up in 50 minutes where we will be giving away more. Give cards from our friends at Twin Peaks. Scenic views, cold temperature of beer, about, what, 28? 28, 29 degrees. Good eats. Curbside available? Yeah.

They're not. The girls aren't. The guys, the food is. Well, the girls will come out and bring you the food. This is true. You need to tip well. I would hope so.

I am a generous tipper, Matthew. What? I don't think Ryan in the nearest dollar makes you generous. That's why I give 15% for bad service as a veteran of the service industry. Veteran, you walked out on Cheddar.

Well, they didn't fire me because I quit. In the middle of the service. service. No, no, it was pre-shift. That's different. This story seemed to change every time I hear it. I gave you the story. Folks, he walked out mid-dinner.

He had seven croissant rolls in his head. He says, F this place. It was, well, I had missed a day of work because I thought I was on the night schedule and I was on the day schedule. So I show up for the night shift and they're like, hey, yeah, you know, call, no show. I'm like, what? And I'm like, we can put you on the floor tonight. You know, if you don't want to be here, you don't have to be here.

I was like, all right, and then I just walked out. You grab five crescent rolls on the way out. Well, that's that have been the pro for a dollar. That was the pro move at that point. All right, 713, 2125-790. 7-1-3-1-2-5-7-9. We've got some baseball to get to. Real quick, both Tyson and Jones Jr.

are minus 110 favorites, or a minus 110 period in Las Vegas. So you've got to, you're going to get you, have to give the juice up. That's what you're going to do, basically. So your thoughts on that, Matt? I have zero. I would not bit the fight at all. No chance.

I go Roy Jones. Really? You say speed over brute strength. Speed and he's fought professionally more recently. Mike Tyson hasn't fought professionally in 15 years. And you don't think Mike Tyson cares if he wins about or not.

It's an exhibition. Yeah, it's an exhibition. I think they're just going to kind of pillow-handed. They'll probably wear a giant glove, so it'll be tough for anybody to get a knockout. They'll have tattooed logos all over their bodies. It'll be easier. With the bigger gloves, see, I'm thinking this out, Matt.

It'll be, first of all, more difficult for somebody to get knocked out. Second of all, it'll be easier for Roy Jones to cover up comparing shots and he's, I think, a more skilled fighter. Okay. And it's in California, so we're not going. Why not? What are you doing? What if it's near?

There's casinos in California. Yeah, but they're not the real casinos. There's like an El Dorado or something out there or... Well, where's out there? We don't even know where it's at. That's true. It could be in Mission, B, A, or it could be in Sacramento. There's casinos throughout the state.

That's true. All right. 71321, 2, 1,000. I got to give you a little postcript to this, Juan Soto. A baseball reporter put out a really bizarre tweet after announcing that Soto had tested positive for the nationals. But first things first, let's let you recap of some of the things that James Click had to say today after he announced the 30-man Astros roster. Yes, a couple of things that James Click talked about. One of the things we have not gotten to yet, Roberta Osuna, we've been worried about him.

He did make the roster. And here's what James Click has to say about him. He is healthy. I wouldn't say that he reported out of shape. He obviously had a little bit longer intake period than some of the other players, and that put him behind a little bit. But everything I've heard from Stromi in particular about his ability to get ramped up has been very impressive. So there you go.

O'Suna's ready to go. He was also asked if he's going to be available for Friday. It's still TBD. We're going to continue to talk to Osuna and Stromi about that, and we'll get him out there as soon as he's ready. So that's encouraging that he's at least TBD. That means he's somewhat close, right? It's up in the air. Is he fat?

He just said no. He wasn't out of shape or anything like that. That's what James Click just said. Do general managers lie? Daily, I'm sure. Because here's the thing. He's not going to be able to hide him. If he's a little chunked up.

Right? I would think so. Well, you know, if he puts on a big enough mask, he picks with a mask on and a loose uniform, it might be difficult. So tomorrow and night when the Astros are playing the Mariners, what you'll hear on. We had a double header here. on 790 tomorrow. We have the Astros.

We first are the Rockets' first scrimmage against Toronto at 630. Wonderful. And then as soon as that's done, we'll go right into Astros coverage against the Mariners. And if you want to catch the beginning of the Astros, they'll be on 740. 740. Look, throughout the season, if you're looking for one of the or the other, they're either going to be on 790 or 740. It just depends on this

calendar, yeah. Be ready for that, people looking for the Astros and the Rockets. And it's in the same cluster of state. I mean, 740, 790, it's a couple spots over. They're like our big brother. Yeah, and don't be like, I'm confused. It's either 740 or 780. You just touch the dial a couple of clicks.

You're fine. So here's your options. 740, 790 for sports events. 740 for radical right-wing conversation. Excuse me? Or 790 radical right-wing sports talk? Well, after 7 yes. Yeah, that's right.

A political noon to 3. Radical right-wing 7-9. Correct. I'm not opposed to it. No, it's fine. I like all politics. I watch as much Fox News channels I watch CNN. I watch zero of either.

I'm a flipper. But I will be tuned in to these debates. I can't wait. Well, if they remember to get there. There's a great chance one of the three is going to forget there was a debate. Joe Biden's talking about some kind of topic. And then he's, sir, this is a Wendy's. And Joe's like, who are you again?

Yeah. I thought it was really discouraged four years ago. I'm over discouraged in 2020. It got even worse. It got even worse. I remember four years ago, I mean like, this is the best we've got.

Yeah. But I feel like we've been saying that for 20 years. Yeah. All right. So we done with the past, we had to cut some, we got other ones to get to you. Yeah,

I mean, unless you want a big Jack Mayfield update. There is not a Jack Mayfield update in there. There's no chance. Mayfield and Toro provide a lot of positional flexibility. And we just want to make sure that we have a roster that can adapt to unexpected changes or unexpected situations.

and so the positional flexibility was a primary driver there. They both bad two-fifty. Oh, you know what I got one for you? How about Forrest Whitley? We were wondering about him and why he was cut. We need a Forrest Whitley update. Foist Whitley. Here's what James Click said about what he saw out of him.

Well, he obviously came into camp, summer camp, in better shape. And the first outing in particular, I thought, was really impressive. And then he was out here the other day and is maintaining a lot of the improvements that I've seen from him just over the past couple months. he was a consideration, but that's not unique. Everybody that we brought in this player pool was a consideration. And I expect that just because somebody's not on the roster today does not mean that they're going to contribute to this team at some point very soon. The one thing that I'm glad that James is here for is he doesn't have an emotional

or financial investment in Forrest Whitley. Now, the organization does. But if it doesn't pan out, it doesn't make James Click look bad. It makes the organization look bad. Yeah, that's a good point. He can be honest and open it about everything. He doesn't have to go, well, this is, because let's be honest, gang, if you pick somebody to do something, whether it's a general manager to a player, or it's, like, if you bring in somebody from a radio station or you bring in somebody from a company. Yes.

And you said, this is a guy. You're going to give him more by the benefit of the doubt because you don't want to look bad yourself. Yes. James doesn't have to worry about that. It's going to be like your baby. Right. If the hiring manager hires a board op or something like that, they're going to probably get them a little more leeway because they want them to, succeed so that they look like they made the right decision like brandon you got hired what two months ago

about right there is somebody that used to work in the media business in our town that just couldn't sell you hard enough john reclaim it was not no he's still in the media business point being is this if you look bad to us he's going to look bad to me because he's the one of the selling you so super hard i'm glad i've done him well okay well jury's still out oh you're still in a probationary period you know what in the trenches likes me. Yeah. You have a nickname on this show, right? B. Rye. B. Rye. B. Rye. B. Rye. What? It's a combination of B. Ferexon. It's like CP3. It's very unoriginal. Yeah, my goal is to get that underscore taken care of that off of your Twitter.

How about he can be the Cracken? Oh, no. I like that. I'd rather not. What? Crack and B. Riley. That's it. It's Crack and B. Riley. Yeah. All right. We got the Crack and B. Riley. Yeah. All right, we've got the cracking back of the controls here on the Matt Thomas show. It sounds like a guy that should be on a law show. Cracking B. Riley is a lead investigator. Perhaps. All right. Let me give you this to this quick story about before we get to some more phone calls. If you're going to join us, by the way, 713212. So Jeff Passon announces earlier less than an hour ago that Juan Soto, who by the way, is 20 to 21. He's 20 to 20. He's 20 now.

Has tested positive for COVID. We'll miss tonight's game against the Yankees. By the way, opening up the regular season. So this reporter named Kate Feldman. You ever heard of Kate Feldman? She writes great articles. You've never heard a word she said. No, I have no idea who she is. She is the New York Daily News reporter and senior TV writer.

I mostly tweet about baseball games. She follows 817 people and she has 4,451 followers. She says the following. In all seriousness, No Twitter threads or anything. Colon. This should be the end. Soto has been playing all week,

which means the entire team should be quarantined. The Nationals play the Orioles two days ago. When is enough? So she's basically saying if we're going to follow life's quarantine rules to go away because a coworker has been gone or tested positive, then why isn't every coworker

of Juan Soto's in quarantine for 10 to 14 days because that's what you're supposed to do. Co-worker gets caught, whether or not caught, but it has it, contracts it, quarantine time. But didn't everybody else on the roster get tested as well? That I don't know. I'm sure it wasn't just Soto they got tested.

I'm sure everybody got tested. And Soto was positive and everybody else was negative. And then they'll get tested again tomorrow, I guess, I'm guessing. They should. she has 98 likes 64 retweets which is good thing and 17 comments

so she's not been ratio just yeah it might be coming though does she have does she have any validity I get where she's coming from but I think to me

there was always that that everybody's getting tested at the same time and if one is positive then you should be fine right you quarantine that one you take out that one bad apple everybody else was negative

here we are presuming that. Has he been, has he been, so he's been distancing and wearing his mask and sanitizing and all that type of stuff? But does that even even matter if everyone else in the team has tested negative? I mean, let's be honest, they're doing their best, but when the cameras are off, they could all be singing kumbaya and sharing the same glass of water in their dugouts and in their clubhouses. Yeah, I mean, I guess, I guess we'll find out, right? We'll find out in a couple of days when everybody continues to get tested. So if there's an outbreak from this. So it would be easy for us for, for us for, for us.

to dismiss what she said. So let's do this. In three days, if the Washington Nationals do not have another player test positive or the Baltimore Orioles don't have anybody testing positive in the next three days,

then she's wrong. Right. Time will bear this out. And if there's an outbreak, I say absolutely, well, we need to think about stopping this. And here's the thing that makes me nervous. If she's right,

then baseball's in real trouble. Mm-hmm. if she's wrong, then this was just a remote case like I think everybody in baseball thought would potentially happen, that you're going to get a once in a while a positive case out of some group. For instance, have we heard any more Kansas City Royals testing positive for COVID? Yeah, there was a couple days ago, Hunter Dozier. That's right. Have we heard anybody since then?

No. That's good news. That is great news. So if five more Royals show up, then there's problems. All right. 213. of the Matt Thomas show 713212-5-790, 7-13-212-5-790 on Twitter at SportsMT, at Brendan Ronley underscore, and at SportsRV with a message here for the Shell Federal Credit Union.

Guess what I did today, Ross? What's you, Matt? I called Shell, and I'm thinking about purchasing a vehicle for my middle son Peyton and any little financial assistance. Well, guess what they offer me today? For 36 months, 1.99% APR. How good is that? That's great.

Can I borrow 50 bucks? Well, you can by going to shellfcU.org. From you. No, no. You can borrow from Shell. What's your rate? My rate for you is 14.99%. But if you go with Shell, it's only 1.99% APR.

To skip a pay is $250 in cash back and the opportunity for deferred payments as well. So if you're looking to finance a vehicle like I am, then go to shellfcU.org and get it all started. That's shellfccccc.org with rates as low as 1.99% APR. Welcome home to Shell FCU. The most awkward nooner you'll ever be a part of. This is the Matt Thomas show. If you're a Clay Walker fan, please turn your sound down for about five to ten seconds. So everybody should be fine.

Clay Walker will not be singing the national anthem at tomorrow's Astros Mariners game. What? Lyle Lovett will be doing it instead. Okay. I don't want to be rude. Go ahead. And I'm just one human being. Yes.

But I do love country music. I'm just not a fan of Texas country music. Oh, really? I'm fighting's words to your wife. No. Didn't she like some of the Texas country artists? I don't think she's a super fan. She's like, there's a couple.

I thought she's like a Kevin Fowler and those guys. Oh, she likes the Roger Craggers of the world. That's Texas country to me. Okay. So I don't know. There's a lot of things she's going to fight me over. that's probably not one of them. Okay.

There's other things that I've got wrong in my life. Trust me on these things. But I listened to Clay Walker on July 4th. It wasn't soothing to the ear. Like Willie Nelson to me is Texas country. I could listen to Alabama. I could listen to the Oak Ridge Boys. I could listen to Travis Trit.

I could do a lot of those guys. How would you describe Lyle Lovett Squirley? No, not the facial feature. I'm talking about this. His music? I know nothing of him.

Zero. Give us a minute or so. Give me a minute or so. Give me a minute of Lyle Lovett. It's just not soothing to the ear. Has he ever had an actual hit? Well, I'm sure he's... He's just most famous for being way too ugly for Julia Roberts.

I didn't want to say that. So I'm not. I'll let you say it. He is singing in the National Anthem virtually tomorrow for the Astros. I guess he had a bunch of country. Top 20, top 30. He did? Yeah.

On the country chart. Like, do me a favor, Brendan. Play the most famous Lyle Lovett song. It looks like it's cowboy man. Hit me, hit us with some cowboy man. Okay. From Lyle Lovett. I just think we are such an incredible music city

that we could have really opened this up, right? Okay, it's instrumental so far. Yeah, let's go Lyle. I mean, you tell me. She smiled at me as I want to work. I mean, you tell me. Is this this cowboy man? Yes.

Take me for a ride. It does nothing for me. And maybe it's just us. Because there are people that love a lot of things. A lot of people love fine art. Does nothing for me. Okay. People love NASCAR.

Does nothing for me. I got you. People love. wine does nothing for me. You said you've never had a glass of wine in your life. Not a full glass, no. That's still mind-blowing to me.

You know, it gets you drunk, Matt. How do you feel about sangria? No. Not a full glass. Okay. That's very interesting. But anyways, no, I get it. I don't really, most of the time, country music doesn't do anything for me.

There's a few country jams that I like. Like, for instance, I don't, I'm not a big hip-hop fan, but there's a few songs that I do, enjoy listening to. Of course. Of course, gin and juice would be like top of the list. Oh, really? Gin and juice is your jam? That's my jam. Okay.

But you would just think that, you know, man, we got, Beyonce like hangs out here occasionally, right? Jeez, nah, you can't afford her. Do you have to pay these people to do this, right? No. You think Lyle Lovett's doing it for free? Yeah. Astros call you and say, please sing the national anthem on our first ever game of the year? You got to be cutting them some kind of check. No, no, no, no. Clay Trave?

Clay Travis will sing. Clay Walker. Yeah, you're not paying for it. Clay Walker does the National Anthem. They don't give them anything? No. I'm not doing that stuff for free. Because your voice sucks.

Hold on now. Can you sing the National Anthem? Fergie and Jesus. Probably not. I mean, well, I can, but nobody's going to enjoy it. It just feels like there could have been a bot, even if people that weren't necessarily

immediately tied to Houston. Okay, well, they don't pay people. Then he's just doing it for publicity? Yeah. Lyle Lov is trying to move a few units. When would you ever think of Lyle Lovett and an Astros? You wouldn't unless he's singing the national anthem. It's going to be broadcast on AT&T. I guess it's benefits in my guess.

We probably care on the radio too. Who knows? I just learned he existed like 10 minutes ago. So, I mean, he has no clue about Lyle Lovett is. Correct. At Texas Scrage, I think, says, Watch your dirty mouth. Lyle Lovett is a Texas staple. Oh, sure. Why not?

He isn't Texas country music. He's a country artist from Texas. Yeah, to me, there's a whole genre that's like Texas. And I didn't mean to speak out of turn. Yeah. That's what all my brother's frat brothers liked when I was in college in Texas country. Like, if you had a choice, realistically, medium range entertainer to come sing in the national anthem at the Astros game

in a strange season, which is going to be gimmicky as I'll get out. Who would you have gone with? Well, you said Beyonce, but if they're not paying. So she, you also said they're not paying. Beyonce's not doing that for free. Okay. Beyonce doesn't need the publicity. She's doing okay for herself.

I'll get you one. Megan Traynor. Where's she from? I don't know. It doesn't matter. But if she said, yeah, I'll sing an national anthem

to open up the season. For free? For free. Sure. Over Lyle Lovett? Yes. Okay. Is she a better singer?

I don't know. Oh, way different. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Give me somebody else. Just give me anybody. Anybody that's in the last 10 years. That would be somewhat of, that would be somewhat,

yeah, I'll sing. I mean, I was in a rap. Like Big Sean. Big Sean is not doing. the national anthem. That's what I'm saying. None of my guys are. Bunn's not singing the national anthem.

Bun, if you're out there listening, which I know you do. Would you sing the national anthem in an Astros game? How's he singing? How's he singing? I mean, he's got great pipes, Bunn.

Bunn's voice is amazing. I'd rather hear Bunn sing the national anthem and Lyle Lovett. And here's the thing. Lyle Lovett looks like the most, the nicest man out there. He looks like a celebrity that is approachable,

which we need more approachable celebrities in our time. Okay. But his voice, it's just... So no lie I love it. I said Megan Tram. I'm just trying to think of anybody else. Okay.

Somebody in Retro. Oh, if Kelly Clarkson want to come sing the national anthem. For the Houston Astros? Yeah. Would you accept that over a lie I love it? Yeah, she's not going to do that for free. You got to take what you can get. Why do you think they're going to charge?

Why not? Especially virtually? I got to charge you virtually. Well, yeah, if you can do it from your home, maybe you charge a little half price. You don't have to have the ticket. You don't have to have the five-star motel, hotel, I mean. Let's see.

Strow's relegation. Hell, I'd have gotten some of them pussycat dolls. I haven't done anything in years. They probably could do it for a hot talk. The leftover ones, the ones that are not Nicole Scherzinger? Twin City Rod, they can't pull George Strait. Now, George Strait, virtually, you tell me that George Strait wouldn't sing the national anthem for the Astros?

Not for free. He's probably doing the Rangers. Yeah, that's true. Brand new ballpark. He's on his 17th retirement tour. Give him a break. You shut your dirty mouth. Now, that is a country western star right there.

Okay. Yeah, George Strait's got some hits. I'd go see George Strait anywhere in this world. Okay. He's a talented individual. We can't get him. Why can't we get him? What's George Strait's big hit?

Oh, there's got lots of them. He's got Amarola, By morning would be his early one. Amarillo by morning. See, I'm not big in a country. That's a freaking jam. I like that. Yeah.

What else would be there? It would be a major hit of his. Blaming on Texas, I think. I don't know that one. I do know Amarillo by morning is a jam. Yeah. There's a lot of. My wife's a diehard.

George Street. How many of his farewell tours have you paid for? Three. Christian on 790 before we get to non-Florida stories. Hi, Christian. Here we go. Ross Rillery and Brendan Breed Rye Riley. Hey, Christian.

Look, I know I can't really say nothing about, you know, the whole, what am I trying to say? I know y'all talking about the Roy Jones, Mike Tyson, by y'all talking about it earlier. Y'all saying that y'all wouldn't see it because it's out in L.A. and both Tyson and Roy Jones have passed their prime, but as someone like me who covers freaks show fights for a podcast,

I will probably see it just because of the fact that two legends landed on the line fighting for eight rounds, I'll be able to oversized clubs, giving us some much needed entertainment. I'm not going to sit around for you know, X amount of dollars just to

see Jake Paul and Nate Robinson fight. I don't want to see those two fights. But I have to ask you this. Y'all saying y'all wouldn't see them competing their prime. I mean, y'all I think you wouldn't see them compete past their prime, but considering the fact that it would have happened in 2003 between these two fighters, would you have seen Mike Tyson versus Roy Jones Jr. did? It would have been a better fight then, obviously. That was when, I mean, Roy Jones had

stepped up to heavyweight to fight John Ruiz, but then I think he stepped right back down, and that's when he started getting knocked out by the likes of Antonio Tarver and such. So they were both towards the end of their careers then anyways. And Mike Tyson was just trying to get paychecks at that point. I don't think he was very interested in fighting. He quit on his stool in his life's fight, right? Against Kevin McBride, wherever it was? You're over my head on this.

Okay. Look, the point is, in 2003, it would have been a better fight because they would have been only in their late 30s instead of their 50s, but probably still wouldn't have been a great fight. All right. My non-flora story comes from Houston, Texas. Really? Yeah. Wonderful. Did you just find it? Did somebody tweet?

Oh, I've had it for a while. Uh-oh. Is this something happening in your palatial Kingwood estate? No, that would be the Kingwood story. Then, Brandon, where's your story from? Huntington, New York. And Ross goes to Michigan. Now in Florida stories next, 2.28.

It is the Matt Thomas Show on Sports Talk 790 with a message for big city wings. Two things to tell you about big city wings. First and foremost, tonight is buy one boneless, get one free. Two-for-one boneless wings in any of the eight big city wing locations. That's number one. Number two, tomorrow. is National Wing Day. That means the folks at Big City Wings are going to celebrate that

by giving you and offering you 75-cent wings. So if you are a 10 to 15-person eater of wings, it's going to cost you about $10,000, maybe a little bit more, maybe a little bit less. Get them sauce and tossed the way that you want to. The new Cool Ranch flavor is delicious. Garlic Parma is amazing, hot, garlicky, everything. The dry rubs, lots of different choices.

Get some curly fries, some ranch dressing or blue cheese, get a cold beverage, and you are all set. So today it's two-for-one bonus. Tomorrow, it's 75-cent wings all day long at any of the eight Big City Wing locations. To find the one near you, bigcitywings.com. Big Citywings.com. Put your arms around me, breathe. Oh, smart device.

So hot. Want to touch the heinie. No need to touch me, Mr. Sandler. Just ask me for Houston sports. Thank you very much. Tell your smart device to play Sports Talk 790 on I-Hard Radio. It's our weekly getaway to find out interesting sports stories in the new world. Not sports stories, general stories.

It can be sports, but all we ask of you is to sit back and listen and enjoy the experiences of state things that are happening outside the state of Florida. Because as we've talked about numerous times, Florida provides way too much material on a daily basis. It takes a special radio show to find things happening outside the Sunshine State. You've just always got to be different, Matthew. It's trying to be. I want to be like every other sports show. Brendan, I'm going to let you go first with your story out of New York this afternoon. So yeah, a 25-year-old man out of New York faces up to four years in prison for providing a fake death certificate to try and avoid jail time.

The original charges were attempted grand larceny of a truck. And in the year between that original case and him providing the death certificate, he'd actually ran away to Philadelphia, where in the time where he was supposedly dead, he got arrested again. Who is presenting the death certificate? His fiancé. Oh, so his girl's in on this. Yes. And they said the fake was actually really well done, aside from misspelling.

Oh. Got a spell check those. I don't think it helped being arrested in a different city, though, when you were dead. Do you think a girl is yours forever if you ask her to help fake your death? That's right or die. That's ride or die. I've asked people on Twitter to ride or die with me at SportsMT. Well, I was actually surprised originally.

How's that going? Not well. Because they have the death certificate here, and it lists him as single. And when I read the story initially, I thought he was married. I just assumed if his girl was willing to go in on this, that it was a pretty good sign they were married. The lawyer actually is the one who provided it to the court, but the lawyer got it from the fiancé. Okay. So let me ask you this.

If you're the fiancé's parents, what kind of impression does that make on the future mother and father-in-law when your husband's trying to provide, avoid arrest by pretending he's dead? It's not a way you'd build a relationship with a family member, right? What town was this in? The original arrest was in Huntington, New York. Huntington, New York. Yeah, they're embarrassed. Yeah. Florida's like, that's cool.

Yeah, if you just said, Ocala, Florida, it's fine. They don't care. By the way, I think it's really important to note that when he got arrested in Philadelphia, he provided fake identification there as well. This guy's a good fake. Well, I think it looks like he was caught then as well, so he isn't good at it. He's just.

Maybe he's been getting away with it for a little bit. He's persistent. You know what? At first you don't succeed, try, try again. Well, we know that women fake things. so sometimes dudes do as well. Yeah, well, that's true. All right.

Have you ever faked? Take what? Anything? I faked enjoying something. Yeah, that's all of us. A food dish? Yeah. Like when you go to somebody's house and you eat their food and you're like,

you enjoying this? I'm like, yeah, it's great. A school play? But I'm very full. Okay. Oh, a school play with my kids? No chance. I'm enjoyed every one of them.

Oh, really? Okay, maybe 80%. Next, I'll go, and I'll stay local. Ross lives off a West Summer. We will not give the exact street or the intersection. But there is a place that can get burgers. Chicken wings. Okay.

a drive-through sports RV. What is it normally? Well, it's normally an entertainment club. All right. That features women. That will strip naked for you. So it's a strip club. Correct.

Vivid's Entertainment. Gentlemen's Club has set up a white tent in which dancers perform behind metal barricades. Patrons must stay in their cars. Yeah. And are limited to a two-song performance in order to make room for the next customer. No touching? Doesn't mention touching. How does you sanitize?

Well, no, you gotta, you gotta say six feet away. Oh, what's the point? So let me ask you this. Would you all pay to go to Vivid's Gentleman's Club to get a cheeseburger, onion rings, a cold beer, and two six feet away dances? How much? Six feet. No. That's not very far. It's not far from where you live. Correct.

Do you want me to do some field research on this? Could you please do some field research for this? Do you want to get some hands-on fields research? They're not going to let you touch them. And there's no champagne room, i.e. your car. The back seat isn't the champagne room? Yeah, by the way, there's other strip club restaurant, drive-thru club restaurants with nudes in Portland and in San Antonio. It makes me think of like a car wash.

Like, do you pull up, put your car in neutral and it just? dragged you along the show. Yeah, do you tip these girls? I would assume so. And usually back in the day, the dancers were 20 bucks apiece, right? Yes. Do you pay that same price

for six feet distance? Here's what I would normally do. I would normally say, hey, has someone gone to this calling it? But I don't want you to do that. Why not? Because I think the stories will be made up. I think somebody would...

Okay, we'll tell us if you've been, if you've legitimately been there, they can give us a story, Matt. You think somebody legitimately is going to call this show and tell us they've been to Vivides. 713, 2.1.25. All right. Here's what I'll do. If you have legitimately been to Vivides

and got a remote table dance, I'd like to know what it's like. Relatively speaking. Give us a very PG version of this. You can hide your name. You can actually change your voice. I mean, if you do it in the end, you get to protect yourself. You just be caller X.

Yeah. We're looking for one caller X that has gone to Vivid's ordered a double cheese six wings side of fries a picture of beer and two dances 713

212-5790 I might have to check this out I really want you to just for field research I'd pay for half of it I will send you a video Can you send a picture I'll see what I can do

Just to make sure that you can take my money for me I can do man You can't take pictures of the girls It's illegal Not illegal but they're in the car You'll never see you doing it why wouldn't they? All right, your Florida story.

Not a Florida story. No, it's a non-Florida story. Let me tell you about a 50-year-old woman. Not a vivid, right? 51-year-old woman named Windy Wine of South Rockwood. Well, Matt, you know what happens when you have a problem in life? Say you need to fix a leaky faucet, or you need to figure out how to chop an onion properly,

or maybe you need to substitute buttermilk in a recipe. What would you do, Matt? You'd go to Google.com. Well, yeah, I would look it up because I would not want to guess. You would go look at it. If you have a problem, you go to Google. Yeah. Well, Wendy Wine had a problem as well.

Her problem was she wanted her husband dead. So Wendy Wine Googled Hitman and eventually found rentahitman.com. That's not, by the way, next to Remote for U.S. No. So she went to Rentahitman. Hitman.com where she tried to solicit a hitman that she contacted there and offered to pay $5,000. Well, there's one problem with rent to hitman.com.

Not expensive enough. It's run by a guy who refers everyone who contacts him to the police. What? So Wendy thought she was negotiating with an actual hitman on renta hitman.com. she was negotiating with a police officer in Munron County. That's a slime ball. She offered $5,000. They met.

She gave the money. And then she was arrested for attempting to hire a hitman to kill her ex-husband. Wait, me, that's how, does he make the money off of this? The policeman? Yeah. No. Where's that $5,000 going? It's evidence.

She has been charged with the legal use of a computer to facilitate. a crime. She's been being held in the Macomb County jail in Michigan. Macomb. Macomb. Outside of Detroit. Okay. I just think sometimes Google lead services isn't the best way to go.

Yeah. What are the, what is that review where they review all the plumbers and stuff? What's that website? Is it Yelp? No. That's restaurants. Yeah, what are the Yelp reviews of these Hitman? No, so it's a fake website. The guy just says, it's called hire a hitman.com. You can go to it right now. No, not on this computer. And then if you try to contact him, he tells the police.

I did see this story as well. And from what I read, it looks like he has reviews, fake reviews, obviously, on his website. Yeah, actually, he does. I did go to the website. It's like Philip G. Bring a job, discreet, took care of my problems. No way. Yes.

No way. Yes. And Wendy fell for it. And now she's in jail. Like, what's the penalty on that? I don't know how much time she could do for illegal use of a computer to facilitate. criminal. Isn't this attempted murder too? I guess not.

Hiring a hit man's got to be a pretty serious crime. You're trying to kill somebody. 5G seems pretty low. That's what I'm saying. You have to make sure what you're looking to get done matches what the cost is. I don't think Wendy Wine was a Rhodes Scholar. Let's just put it that way. And there you have it. Those are

our Florida stories, or non-flora stories for the week. Believe it or not, it's next. We're going to give away some more Twin Peaks. And we're going to do it next year on 798244. Darrell Mori here This is the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790 Real fast

One thing we have not mentioned on the show today Mark Emmert, President of Illinois Did you see what he said yesterday? What did he say, Matthew? He said, I am against kids signing waivers to know if I'm going to play college football So it's not fair Okay, genius, so what's your idea then?

Oh, no, we don't have any authority over football or Power 5 conferences, so we're going to let them decide. He is the most weak-ass leader of weak-ass leaders. You know what? I used to try to defend the NCAA saying it's amateurism, student athletes. Just get out of the way. Get these kids whatever money they want. You are corrupt.

You are greedy. You have no stones. When we looked for your leadership during this very tumult, was time, you've given us nothing. Mark Emmer, you're a fraud. It's a broken, messed up system. And, yeah, he's basically powerless, except for basically enforcing if somebody needs to,

if an individual school needs to have sanctions on them. Otherwise, there's no leadership. That's what they do. They're just policing and raking in money. It's awful. He's just, and that's the reason why we were talking their day on the Monday night meeting, which was on a Tuesday, about who could really be a true commissioner.

The sport needs a commissioner. Problem is all 140 teams are not created equal. Alabama has got different needs than Utah State does and wants. And that's why you'll probably never get it because Mark Emmert's like, I can't control Utah State and what they need and what Alabama wants and needs. So others ridden myself of all of it. And they're left without leadership. And that's why college football is in a state of complete chaos at this point.

It's totally, yeah, in disarray. It's just bad right now. So NCAA, by the way, on Friday, going to vote on whether or not there will be any fall championships. That's volleyball, that's anything that's playing the fall. Now, again, those don't make any money. So what if they put their heavy hand down and say, there'll be no fall championships? So what? That doesn't mean anything towards football.

Look at Notre Dame out there. Are they going to have a schedule? Yeah. They're one of the most powerful entities in college athletics, and they don't know what to do. You have the athletic director saying, we'll see in the spring. You have Brian Kelly, the head coach, like,

I'm ready to go right now. Did you see PAC 12 is going to start a conference-only schedule with a mid-September start? Yeah, 10 games. Not ideal, but good, good enough. But I got news for your Rossi. You put a bunch of University of Washington players on a flight to Arizona, that's three-hour flight, three and a half-hour flight.

It's a big conference. I'm not going to slow down the corona. It's a lot of risk. We'll see. A lot of testing they need. 72 hours. And then the last 72 hours for kickoff, these players are going to any of a damn well want.

And then go back to school on Monday, get tested. You have about 40 of them test positive. And then college football comes to a screeching halt. Yeah, there's going to be outbreaks. Five minutes left to go on the show. What should we do? We leave it all night. should play

America's fastest growing sports game show. We'll simply call it believe it or not and here's how it works. You'll call 713-213-1-2-5-7-90. 7-1-3-1-2-5-7-90. Today's edition of Believe it or not is brought to you by Woodhouse Day Spans.

Print on your gift card for the gift of relaxation at Houston Woodhousespas.com. The category today is whether or not is this team change its name. Is that how we're going with it? If this team name actually existed at some point, you'll give the league and the name, and it's a believe it or not. Okay.

Did this team really ever exist? League, name, and if it's true, you'll say this. If it's not, you'll say this. Two believe it or not, it's in a roll, and whether or not this team name ever existed wins your prize. Ross, what's the prize? Matt, we've got a $50 gift card to Twin Peaks where there's now online ordering available. If you feel like enjoying your Twin Peaks favorites from home without having to get out of the car, you can order online and pick up on your way home.

It's quick and easy, and we'll bring your order right to you. Visit twin peaks restaurant.com slash order dash online. Search for your favorite Twin Peaks to order now. 713, 212, 5-790. John on 790. John, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. NBA, used to have a team called the Cleveland Rebels, believe it, or not?

Not. Yeah, they did. Sorry. Who's your favorite all-time Cleveland Rebel, Matt? That would be J.P. Klinglingkline. It's German, of course. Jason on 790. Ready to play, believe it or not?

Believe it. MLB wants a team called the Rochester Redlegs. Believe it or not. Believe it. No, there's actually one red leg team still out there. The Cincinnati Red legs, short for Reds. Line number three. Jay on 790, Jay, you're ready to play.

play, believe it or not? Believe it. There used to be an NFL team named the Detroit Panthers. Believe it or not? Not. That is also incorrect. Three incorrect so far. Almost a mini skunk company.

Kevin on 790. Kevin, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Ross wins. The NHL, Pittsburgh Pirates. Believe it or not? Not. Believe it.

No, sir. You got nothing you like it. I don't mind that one at all. Eric on 790. We have a mini skunk, by the way, going. Eric on 790, ready to play. Here we go. St. Louis Brown's, Major League Baseball.

Believe it or not? Believe it. That is correct. Statement number two for the win. The NBA had a team called the Sheboygan Redskins. Believe it or not? Not. Believe it.

What was your favorite Sheboygan Redskins? I thought it was Donnie Donnerson. Donnie Donnerson. Apparently, Mrs. Donnerston didn't think much originality in the first name. Andy on 790, ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. NFL, former team known as the Chicago Packers. Believe it or not?

Believe it. No. We've had seven? We've had six incorrect answers. One more for the gift card to Twin Peaks. Matt on 790, ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. The Louisville Cardinal.

Is it Colonials or Colonels? Colonels. Colonels. The Louisville Colonels. Believe it or not. Believe it. There you go. We're finally gave it away.

Nice job. All right. Do you turn your computer off already? Oh. Play that one Yordon Alvarez cut that's made us so sad today and play some Uber sad music. Let's give the A team a good proper lead into their show this afternoon. You want to hear some unsatisfying news from the general manager?

Here it is from James Click earlier today. James, do you have any update on Alvarez or Qidi? Nope. Are you confident that both of them will play for you this season? Unfortunately, I can't comment on timelines or expectations on that. We're doing everything we can to get them back on the field as soon as we possibly can. This is how you lead into a show, right? Sports RV. It's really getting the people fired up for the A team.

Hey, everybody. You want some more bad news on the Astros? They're the American League champions. They got the rings yesterday. celebrate that maybe Yordaunel play 28 games this year with Adam Clanton and Adam Wexler. They are the 80s. They'll entertain you between now and six. Back tomorrow for a COVID-free, anything goes Friday.

Sports Talk, 790, 12 noon, Wax and Clanton next.