The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Joel Klatt Weighs In On The College Playoff Rankings

Episode Date: November 13, 2019

Joel Klatt of FOX Sports joins Matt and Ross to discuss the College Playoff Rankings and how the rest of the season could shake out

Much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas show. Good afternoon to you and welcome to a Wednesday edition of the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790 alongside ProNiclo, our producer, our friend. A comment on odd topics. Sports RV. Comment are on odd topics. He just, he's an honest. Man on topics. I don't know what it is. That's in my job description. That is. I'm Matt.

Ross, Nick. We're all here. The gang's all here. We got a really good show today. Of course we do. It's every day, man. Joe Clyde joining us from Fox Sports at 1 o'clock. The very talented I in the Eagle, the voice of everything on CBS. We'll call the Texans and Ravens at 2 o'clock. He'll join us. His son is actually here in town today. Really? 22-year-old Noah Eagle is the voice of the Los Angeles Clippers. What? First year, yeah.

Wow. So there's that. Non-Florida stories coming up on the show today. By the way, I've been given the same non-Florida story by multiple people. And it's so gross, it's not going to be done. You're not going to do it. Okay. And I'll just give you the first three words of the non-Florida story.

That's the reason we won't be doing it. Okay. A hot diarrhea. All right. So that's why I didn't know it. going to do. It is. No, you are not doing it. You let him do what he wants. If he wants to try to win that way. You want to do it,

that's fine, but it's gross. That's how you know the bits catching on, because we always get people sending us stories. So if you guys got any non-Florida stories that don't involve diarrhea, send them to me. My email address, mt.attsportsev.com. Or Ross at sports790.

I don't have to go send them there. If you want me to win. The lead story continues to be whether or not the Astros use video tactics to steal signs. The story has really taken off early since the start of our show yesterday when the report first came out from The Athletic. Here's Jeff Luno yesterday.

This is audio courtesy of ESPN, and this is, I guess, two different clips, answering questions yesterday at the general managers meetings in Phoenix about the sign stealing allegations. At all, just yes or no? I mean, specifically, I'm not going to get into exactly what I knew or anybody knew at this point. So, I mean, we're just going to have to wait and see what, I'm sure there will be an appropriate time to answer that question directly. I'm not trying to avoid it. I just think at this point, we are, you know, we're going to investigate it and figure out what the facts are, and then we'll respond after that. Are you concerned this has been to muddy the reputation of what has been the greatest success in the history of the franchise?

I hope it doesn't. We have a lot of good players. We have a really good manager. We've got a great fan base. And we've accomplished a lot. And I think that stands for itself. I'm hopeful that we'll find out exactly what happened. And we'll address it if there's something to be addressed and we can move on.

I mean, we've got the reason we won the World Series in 2017 is Jose L-Tuba and Alex Bragman and Joseph Berliner, a lot of great players. And they do things the right way. And we as an organization, that's what we aspire to do as well. All right. I think everybody by this time has seen every story that's on the local news or national news. Many of you have probably read this story. There's the video that's out there by the one person on Twitter that has the Danny Farquah, the Chicago White Sox going against the Astros. So I don't think there's anything out there at this point that people haven't seen that pretty much at this point can, you can make up your own mind about this.

Jeff Luno, yesterday, in those two soundbite, sounds like we need to figure out how we're going to say that we're sorry for doing this and that we got caught. I mean, it's not going to, and this is just, this is me speaking. This again is Astro Buddy since 1979. this is man that has done thousands and thousands of Astros pre and post games over the years, celebrated when the team was really, really awesome like they are right now, and depressed as hell when they were losing 100 lost seasons. This is a terrible look, but it's not a look that's going to tarnish the 2017 World Series run.

It's just not. It's just one another storyline after what has already been a pretty turbulent month for the Astros. when we should have at the end of the day been celebrating again, an American League pennant going to Game 7 of the World Series. We've had the Brandon Todman situation. We have this going.

It's just been a difficult look for the organization. And I feel sorry for those that have nothing to do with this because it is tarnishing some of the greatness that has been the last three years of Astros baseball. Yeah, it's definitely going to take some of the luster off. The question is how much? Because right now we're going through it, right? It just came out.

This is basically any story that comes out. When Roberto Osuna was first moved here, There was a firestorm. There was people with think pieces, and there's people getting all upset, and female Astros fans saying, I'm never watching the team anymore. And then, you know, you let the months pass. And some of that, you could just say time heals all wounds, and it goes away. And I think that's what's going to happen with this.

Because the same thing happened with the Red Sox in 2017 in the Apple Watches, right? Right. Nobody says that tainted any 2018 things that were going on. And this specific story, whether you want to debate what happened and how much they did or whatever. The fact of the matter is they cheated. So how widespread was it?

How much did it matter? How many other teams are doing it? How many other teams are doing it is also something we can debate? But they did cheat. It is a little bit of a black eye, but I'm with you. I mean, there's not going to be an asterisk. They're not going to take away the World Series rings. You can't take away the fact they did what they did.

They said even in the story that they stopped during the playoffs. So this is just a bad PR hit that the Astros. they're taking it on the chin right now. What I would like for the Astros to have is fewer PR hits. Yes. I'd like to be able to say, hey, the Astros did this, or acquired this guy, or traded for this person, or signed as a free agent. I don't want so many of the negative stories that have hit the Astros in the last 30 days to continue.

Fact of the matter is, I think Major League Baseball is going to use the Astros as an example because I'm also of the belief that a lot of Major League Baseball teams, if not all, are doing something artificial to try to gain intelligence against the opponents. I think there is a lot of teams that are doing similar things that probably today are going,

whew, I'm glad we didn't get caught. So, with all that being said, I love my Astros, I love this baseball team, I love to talk about them, but sometimes in the good times and the bad, we have to talk about them. And today is a day

that's going to be a day still for a lot of people to react. I don't think the easy line is everybody does it move on. I don't think that's the case. I don't think Major League Baseball is going to say that. I also don't believe that if you're the diehardest of diehard Astro fan, that you saying this is no big deal when if it was the Yankees, the Mets, the White Sox, the Cardinals, the Mariners, you would be crushing them.

Right. If we found out that the Nationals were doing this during the World Series or something like that, it would be complete bedlam in Houston, Texas right now. Astros fans coming for blood, full pitch forks and torches, storming, I don't know, Minutemade Park or storming the offices of Manfred. I don't know what they would be doing, but it would be, yeah, like you said, you would be crushing them. So anybody that comes to you and says, oh, this is no biggie. You know what, in a few weeks, it will be no biggie. and if majorly baseball finds them a quarter of a million dollars or finds them a draft pick, well, then you know what?

That's probably what they deserve. But this notion of everybody does it, I can buy that. But to say that you wouldn't be treating the opponents differently than you're treating your hometown team is a different animal. And that's honestly in everything. We have favorites in our teams. We have favorite teams. We love the rocket. or we love the Texans or we love the Astros.

So nothing that our teams do could ever really be, quote, unquote, that big of a deal. Right. It's just trying to trivialize something that you can argue that everybody does it. You can argue that maybe it doesn't even help that much because the Farquhar game, they scored one run the entire time. You can argue all that. Sure, if you want. But the fact of the matter is they still cheated.

And if it doesn't help at all, why are they doing it? The fact, they cheated. Unless you were one of those people, there's people, Matt, there's still people with their head in their sand saying, saying, I need to see more evidence. I need to see before I believe. You've got Mike Fires admitting it. He was on the team.

You got Farquharhood admit. You've got the video evidence. You've got multiple sources who haven't come forward. But I don't think Ken Rosenthal and Evendrelich are just making this up. This obviously they did it. The Astros cheated, period. And this is just like when our favorite college teams do something wrong, like improper activity or benefits or something that would get the NCAA to raise their flag.

Oh, it's no big deal that our school did this. It's just we're all being selective. We're all hypocrites when it comes to this. For sure. Yeah. Like, great example. The Kentuckies and the Kansases and the North Carolinas, they're all cheating. But that doesn't mean just because you got caught that everything's okay.

And it's not okay. Just because everybody's doing it doesn't mean it's fine. All right, if you'd like to get your two cents in, our friends at Channel 2, are you guys leaving already? They've had enough of you. Man. Okay. Channel 2 is here. Matt wants a full hour expose on himself.

I want to, yeah. That doesn't sound terrible. The ratings disagree. Days of Our Lives is leaving, so I can fill that spot. I mean, come on now. Are they on Channel 2? They are on Channel 2. Okay, good.

Yeah, by the way, Days of Our Lives, all their cast members were told we're not paying your contracts anymore. Are you going to be okay? I haven't watched it show since the mid-90s. You know why I've not stopped watching it? What happened? When Marlena got possessed by the devil, I said, I'm done with it. And I was done with it.

Oh, wow. Then you were out. I was out. Now I'm on the young and the wrestlers and the bold and the beautiful. Okay. On another station. It's very difficult to keep track. 713-212-5-7-90.

If you'd like to get in on the conversation today. Can we just be grown-up about this and say, yeah. Our team that we'd love got caught. There's no if-ans or butts. we can call Mike Fires a bitch, which we probably should. Well, let's not add him on Twitter like some people have done. No, I'm not saying that, but he did snitch. Yeah.

And maybe there's some sour grapes on his part. Maybe. There are lots of sour grapes on his part. Right, but that is, I mean... If he had zero grapes, he wouldn't have gone and told the athletic. Right. But his grapes were sour. Very sour.

These grapes are awful. Let me go tell the athletic all the...