The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Kenley Jansen On Playing Astros, Incredible Florida Sound & Malcolm Jenkins

Episode Date: June 25, 2020

But's larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas show. 12 o'clock at H-Town. What's happening in luncht timers? Good afternoon to you and welcome to a Thursday edition of the Matt Thomas show. It is a non-Florida story Thursday. Although the more and more stuff that comes out of the state of Florida,

we might have to just change the whole bit and flip it. 180 because there is audio today of a woman in Florida that has made its way through the social media platforms out there that is a must play and we're going to have to play it today she's upset about mask wearing and she's completely lost her mind and when people lose their minds on the radio show we tend to play it so we'll do it for you between now and at three o'clock brand then riley is the producer of the radio program i'm at the host uh ross is not with us today. And we're doing this as a little bit of a precaution.

Member of Ross's family, unfortunately, has tested positive for COVID. And he was in that family member's vicinity earlier this week. So to be safe, our buddy Sports RV is going to get a test. And hopefully it comes back negative. But just for the sake of everybody around here and me and him and his family and all that, he's going to take a couple days off to just make sure that the test goes in. Hopefully it's a negative result. And he is back with this on Monday.

So, Brandon, you've got to carry a little bit more responsibility in the radio show today. Are you prepared for such a thing? I feel like I always carry plenty of responsibility. There you go. See, I like it. Your modesty is coming through. I like it a lot. All right.

So that means it's even more of an opportunity for you guys for us to chat if you so choose. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-9. is how you reach our show. If you want to say hi to us via Twitter, you can do that as well. At SportsMT. At SportsMT.

Ross Dillov, Topman, he and I'm a texting. He's fine. He says he doesn't feel anything, but, you know, he gots to be safe. And of course, Brendan Riley is our new member of our team,

and he is at Brendan Riley underscore. Robert Ford, Voice of the Astros. Going to join us coming up at 1 o'clock this afternoon to give us his thoughts about the return of Major League Baseball and how he's going to see it,

probably call it. and what to expect in a 60 game frame. So just kind of get a little bit of different flavor of what it's going to have, be like to have Major League Baseball back, albeit in a much truncated season. This is something, and this is one of the things that's interesting to me about this, is that there is no sportscaster, there is no baseball player. I mean, they've all had abbreviated seasons before. That's one thing.

You've had seasons where, you know, and Dusty Baker, the manager of the Astros is this up where they played some games, stopped, and then came back. There has been a season that started and didn't finish, obviously, 1994. But there isn't one of the, we're going into a world that we've never, that not a single human being has been in. First of all, you're playing less than a half of a season to determine a champion. And then on top of that, everything about the culture of baseball completely changes. If there's anything I've been able, hopefully been able to tell you over.

the years of doing this show is that baseball, players, managers, anybody involved, it is the most ritual-esque. Ritual-esque. Is that right? That's a word. I'm not sure the words you're looking for. I don't think that's it. Look it up, see if I'm right. Ritualistic? Ritualistic. Full of rituals. Let's go that one. It is the most pound for pound. organized in terms of what they do, at what time, how at what time the guys get to the stadium, what time the guys eat, what time the guys work out,

what time they go to the batting cage, when they speak to the media, when they have outfield practice, when they throw pitching sessions. There is a routine. It's not a ritual, I guess a routine. There's not a more routine sport

than an average baseball player because they play, you know, in a six-month schedule, they're going to get probably what, 12 to 15 days off. I mean, there are times where they go two or three weeks where they don't even have a day off. So they play six consecutive days or seven or 10 or 11 at about the same time, give or take an afternoon game. But everything is on schedule. And that's all about to go out. We're talking about guys that can't hang around the cage. We're talking about guys that can't

shower in the clubhouse. We're talking about guys that can't get to the clubhouse whenever they want to so they can play video games or eat some extra and or play cards or play golf in the before the day. Everything for these baseball players is going to be in uniform, get to the game, play it, and get out of the stadium as fast as possible. Basically, it's a travel league for high school and little league baseball teams. You know, you know how you'd get dressed at the hotel and you'd go to the stadium, you play the game and you go out and eat after that? Well, you're going to do all that except going out to eat.

I was reading, and this is how shows you how bored I was. I will gladly admit I did not read all 100 pages of that Major League Baseball Manual in terms of what you have to do, but I read quite a bit of it. I probably read too much. It was either read the manual or catch up on my hell's kitchens. How many pages? That I read, 10. So a very small amount. You had me thinking you had written 40, 50 pages.

Well, that's a small fib. I actually never said that. So it's actually technically not one of my three lives today. But they're going to be, there's three tiers of people. There's the players, tier one. There's the support staff tier two. And then there's the rest of the gibonies, which include media in tier three. Tier one and two got it pretty good in terms of what they can do.

Although, again, they're going to be super precautiones and everything they do. Tier three is just like, if you really insist on being here, here's what you're going to have to do. But the bottom line is this, that everything for a baseball player in 2020 is going to be so abnormal. And for that matter, the NBA, too. I mean, think about it. These NBA players are going to Orlando to play in front of nobody. No one's going to cheer for them.

They're going to hear every word that has been said by a coach or an official or themselves. Hell, baseball players can't even spit or they can't even, you know, two nails like Jose Al-Tube likes to do. there's nothing that's going to be ordinary about it. So it's what group of players, the most mature group, can handle this. And if they can, along with their good talent, they're going to win a championship. And that's why I hope the Houston Astros can, I mean, of all years for it to be head down, focus only on baseball, don't let the exterior noise influence you. It's got to be the Astros.

And speaking of exterior noise, there is a, Dodgers pitcher, who got roughed up by your beloved Houston Astros in 2017, who has a few comments about, yet again, everything about 2017. But he does, thankfully, come to his senses on one topic. And we'll play that for you coming up on the show today. I mentioned Robert Ford's joining us at 1 o'clock. Also today, there is news from the NFL about something that is a precursor for a much bigger thing. and that precursor is

the pro football don't call it the NFL Hall of Fame it's the pro football Hall of Fame the game's been canceled not to be replayed not to be rescheduled just gonzo finito done those poor people

in Canton you know this is like what the second time in like the last three years they've had a game canceled or postponed one year it was because it was the crappy turf and now it's the crappy virus now granted it's a completely useless game. It's a fifth preseason game.

I mean, if you can play about four preseason games, there is no one going to go, oh, can't wait to sit out and watch a pro football Hall of Fame game. It was supposed to be, who was the game supposed to be? Let me look at it for a quick. It would have been, oh, Cowboy Steelers. So if you were a fan of Deck Prescott,

you would have seen him play one series, maybe. Zico Elliott carries the ball one time. That's what the Pro Football Hall of Fame is. by the mid-first quarter, you are seeing players you've never heard of before. But really, it's about the official kickoff of the season. The Hall of Famers have their speeches. They get to wear those yellow jackets. Guys walk around and they get in there these fancy cars and they get to wave to the fans.

It's just kind of a nice way to say, you know what? Falls just around the corner. The NFL season is just around the corner. Ain't happening. And I will tell you coming up in a few minutes what I think this is the precursor for. first of all, you know how I feel about the delay of the NFL season. I've already put, I think I put up to 50,000 stars. I think I've bumped it from 28 to 43 to now 50.

I was curious if this counted, or is it just the regular season? Regular season. Matter of fact, Brendan, I know Ross is not here today. Let's get up to 55,000 stars. The NFL season will not start on time. I hope I'm wrong. I hope, you know, you know, we see those handicappers that say, if my pick doesn't hit, you get the rest of the year for free.

with my Monday night special. This is my July slash June October special of the month. NFL ain't starting on time. I mean, they're not going to play. They're going to play. But they're going to have to wait a while.

And I don't know what that while is, but those of you that are trying to count down the days to Texans versus Chiefs, you just might as well keep on counting. There is an NFL player, by the way, that doesn't believe that maybe playing is the best idea. We'll talk and we'll let you hear what he had to say about that. Also, one of the all-time great NBA players has officially called it a career.

And it kind of sucks that he's having to do it in this pandemic. But for you NBA fans, I'll tell you who that is. And where we put him on the all-time greats? Because longevity does play a role. He's never really sucked. But clearly the last handful of years. for this said player is just been as a role players. We'll get to that.

Plus, what else we got? Oh, we mentioned non-Florida stories. And Michael Jackson, is it 11 years ago today? I know exactly where I was. I was doing my radio show in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and I was on the air live. And TMZ announced that he had passed. And I think I've told the story before in the audience,

but I'll tell you, brother, no one at that point 11 years ago believed the TMZ could get stories right. Nobody believed them to be a credible news source. Now, again, they're a little out there with some things. But when TMZ got it right, it was a trend that basically after that, when TMZ reported something, it's been true. I told ND, even being younger, I remember all that pretty well. And I remember it being a, no, it's TMZ. I don't trust it yet.

Absolutely, because I know CNN didn't go with it at the 10. Fox didn't go with it. No major news source went with it. But TMZ said, we got it. We know. And they were right. So we got some things to get to today. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. Lots of little things to get to. But as we have, especially with Ross being out today, you guys are more than welcome. And ladies, to join our radio show. It's 7-13-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90, 12-12 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 Sports790.com. Just remember you'll have to feed him. Time is 1217. It is a Matt Thomas show. Ross getting tested today. I think he's getting tested tomorrow. Poor Ross. He's been texting me the updates.

These tests, which felt like they were very abundant, say like two weeks ago, Not so much now. So we're all hoping for a negative. I mean, all of us. Did he happen to tell you the last time he missed work? He was off last Thursday and Friday. Well, for being sick.

No, I don't. He told me yesterday the last time that he missed work for being sick. And was? Was the swine flu? What? Man, I don't, again, I don't mean to editorialize COVID. But I swear, brother, I hope I had already had it. I had the flu in January.

Again, obviously pre all this. I pray that I had it. Well, I'm curious knowing, you know, you sit in a room with him every day. Do you find yourself feeling like I shouldn't be interacting with other people right now? Because I don't even sit in the room with them. And I'm like, oh, man, I had plans to see a friend today. I should at least warn him. Not really.

And I don't know about that. That's not, I don't think, I hope that doesn't come across as callous. Here's my philosophy. I am not anti-waring mask. I'm not one of those, you know, this is my taking care of my civil liberties or whatever, you know, fringing on that. But I have to live my life, if that makes any sense to you. I guess, like, yeah, I'm going to let my friend know the situation and let him make his own choice, I guess is where I'm at. Yeah. My point is, if I'm going to get it, it's probably not going to be here. I go to the grocery store. I wear a mask at the grocery store. I still feel like the grocery store is the worst place in America to get it. There's just too many people.

And you can't social distance, especially when you're fighting over ketchup. Or that great piece of rib-eye steak that's in the butcher's case there, and you're fighting for that. I mean, I just, to me, I just find 500 worse places than my office than to get it. Hell, it could be at my house. You ain't got, nobody knows. So I'm just doing what I'm doing, the washing the hands, I'm putting the sanitizer on. The face mask is on whenever I need it to be. But I, you know, if I get it, hopefully it's, it's, I'm asymptomatic of it.

Hopefully, as I said before, I've already got it. And more importantly, I hope that Ross doesn't get it. Because, again, we don't want to, you know, it's so weird that there are a lot of NBA players that are testing positive for. I think there were three different Sacramento Kings that got tested for it yesterday. It doesn't, again, you don't want to sound callous, but if you're, if you're an NBA player, you want to get it now. before you jump on a plane and go to Orlando and try to finish out an NBA season. Isn't that kind of weird to think that? That it's almost better to get it out of the way.

And this is the same thing that's being said about college football. There are players and major campuses all across this country that are getting it. And in the back of your mind, whether it's the right thing to say or not, you're going, well, better now, especially if the doctors that are saying, once you get it once you don't get it again, if that's accurate, then those guys are going to be Scott free. The only question is going to be, first of all, you don't wish a virus on anybody's illness.

And secondly, nobody knows for complete 100% uncertainty that if you get it once, you can't get it again. Some thoughts from Kenley Jansen, the Dodger Closer, after I say how to Clarence and ALE for the Matt Thomas show. Clarence, how are you? Fine. How are you doing, man? Good. What's going on? Listen, this is my first time calling to you.

All right. Nice to have you. Okay, because I usually talk to Ross, but my son played for Lamar High School. And I don't know if you remember, do you like high school football? I like it. I just don't follow it because I'm busy enough covering pro in college sports. I just don't have time for high school. Okay. Well, he played against Kyle from Oklahoma. Kyler Murray you're talking about? Yes, and he played against the one from Oklahoma.

The quarterback at Cleveland. Baker Mayfield? Yes. And he's sacked him so many times. My son went to Baylor. Okay, congratulations. Okay, but he's number 96 on the Houston Texans right now. Oh, is he?

Okay. I think I've heard you call before you. I want you to check his accolades out and I'm a sitting and I'm going to listen. Check him out, man. So you want me to look up number 96 in the Texans and then talk about it is what you want? Look up, Ira Lewis. All right. I'll get right on that.

Okay, thank you. Okay. Thank you for the phone call. In my experiences, it's important for me to be fair and balanced like Fox News. if you have a child that's successful in something and you want me to look him up as well 713-212-5-790 7-1-3-212-5-790 for instance if your son graduated from college on the honor roll

give me his name graduating class university attended and I'll look him up if your son plays youth baseball in the Paralland Little League just for example. And he had three hits and two RBIs. And you can verify that through information acquired through the internet. Give me your name, his name,

his team name. And I will run through his accolades as well. Because, again, no disrespect to our last caller, but I just can't do it for, if I'm going to do it for one person, I'm going to do it for a lot of people. Because apparently that young man,

that our last caller son has sacked, what was it, Connor Murray and Baker Mefield so many times. Now, so many times is a great. All right. I'm going to look. See, that's the problem. When you take a call, then you don't want to leave it open-ended, right?

Number 96, Houston, Texas. He had 11 career college sacks. He did? The last 96 is Tim. Now, Tim Jamies had never played for the Texans, so that's not going to work. Let's take a look here. He said Ira Lewis. Ira Lewis is the name?

I'm not familiar with the Ira Lewis, background. Should we do an Ira Lewis, believe it or not, today at 252? I mean, he was, Ira Lewis went to Baylor. Okay, well, I'm not down to who it is, but what does I read Ira Lewis's professional stats and how long he's been in the NFL? I don't know if he has any professional stats yet. Give me a second. When did he get drafted? 2019.

Okay, so he's a rookie. I don't even know. Did he make the active squad at any point? He doesn't have any career stats. Okay, well, then today's edition of Believe it or not will be limited on Ira Lewis. But the question would be, did IRA Lewis, Sack, Kyler-Marie so many times he met his headspin? Believe it. I don't know if we're going to stay without it for our final topic of the show today at

252, but you know what? It's at least a consideration. Kenley Jansen of the Los Angeles Dodgers was on a L.A. radio show yesterday. And it went about 10 or 15 minutes. And for the sake of interest for us, we don't particularly care how his arm is feeling and how excited he is about leading the Dodgers to a deep playoff run.

We are interested in is the conversation they had about 75, 80 seconds worth of Kenley Jansen talking about the Dodgers. And how do I appropriately open this up? He's still pissed of the Astros, right? Is that how we're going to open it? I don't know if pissed is the word I'd use, but irritated. Here's Kenley Janssen. Look, there's been a lot of talk about the Astros, right? Like, we all know it.

You know, you guys played them. You guys dealt with that stuff directly. How do you feel about having to play the Astros again? Just honestly with me, I'm over it, man. I mean, I feel like we were the true champions in 2017. We got cheated. You know, I get it. I feel like Major League could have done a bit better job, you know,

probably like strip that championship down. I mean, nobody want to, you know, listen, to get cheated is the worst. But, I mean, to me, I feel like we're the true champion in 2017, you know, should be us. We got cheated. But if we're going to play them this year, just beat it, man. I'm not going to throw at guys or whatever. It's, you know, now you're not cheating no more. Let's go. Now we're going to play baseball and hopefully we can beat them. Every game that we play them, we just, you know, boat racing. That's how I feel about it. So instead of trying to hit guys

or whatever, that's not, that's not cool. That's not cool throwing up to any people. So I don't wish show them anybody to do that to throw at people. Just play them and try to give them a day. I got no problem with this. You know what? Let's, again, we've got to be honest

and true on this show like we always are. If we were the Dodgers, or we were Dodgers, we were Dodger fans, we'd be really mad. We would think that the Astros cheated their way to a championship, and in many respects they did. But I like the fact that he said I'm not going to go after and hit these guys.

I'd rather have his approach than like Cody Ballinger, who was so belligerent during this whole thing. And maybe Cody has chilled out a little bit because we've all had to chill out since this whole thing has started. But yeah, I'm not going to become Kenley Janssen's best friend, but I'm also not going to crucify him. He's like, yeah, we felt like we were cheating. We were feeling with the best team.

Okay, that's up for speculation. I can't argue with you on that, especially when you throw a fastball 100 miles an hour and it could be hitting my face directly. But ultimately, he says, I'm not going to hit anybody. And I'm happy for that because it felt like to me, while we were in spring training and discussing the upcoming season, the big argument was going to be which baseball players

are really going to try to start blank with the Astros. And that's why Tony Clark, at the time, before we had to go through all this, was down in spring training with the Astros in West Palm Beach because he knew there was a firestorm brewing over current players wanted to attack current Astros. 713-212-5-790. If you'd like to join our show today,

and again, you are more than welcome to let us know of any of your children's accomplishments. I've already looked up one gentleman's son's accomplishments, although he's got no pro stats. The college sets are very, very good. So if you've got a son or a daughter that's done something like if your volleyball team's really doing well, I'll look it up.

Don't know if I can believe it or not out of it, but, you know, I want to be honest and true with all of you and give all of your kids an opportunity to get their 30 seconds of fame. 713-212-5-790. A change in the NFL is next. 1229 on Sports Talk 790. It's Blummer.

Former Astro, Jeff Blum. Holy Toledo! Sports Talk 790. What a play by Blum! Is your home of Astros baseball? It is 1234 on the Matt Thomas show. Good afternoon, everybody. Happy anniversary, San Antonio Spurs fans.

Today in 1999, your team won your first NBA championship. from all of us here at Sports Talk 790, we just don't care. Sorry, Missy Spurs fame, I love you, but was an asterisk-filled championship? Nah, 50 games is plenty. Will this 60-bit be a little bit of an issue, I think, for an asterix? This, at least as I see things, the answer right now is yes, but please allow me to change my mind. 7-13-212-5-790. 7-1-3-1-2-5-790.

an incredible piece of Florida audio in 15 minutes. And again, I'm feeling like, and when Ross gets back, hopefully after his negative COVID test, we're going to be able to maybe we should change it to Florida stories. Because, man, it's so hard to find. Even with the 49 other states in the Union and all the countries, the best material just comes from the state of Florida. It's like you get a chance to have filet mignon or,

the best-tasting rib-eyes, but they come from the sunshine set, or you can have ground chucked from everywhere else in the country in the world, and I just feel like we are, you, the audience deserves the filet mignon of stories. And Florida provides it more than anybody else. The conundit we fight through on this show. All right, 50 minutes from now,

a piece of audio concerning mask and Florida here on Sports Talk 790. Pro football Hall of Fame game between the Cowboys and the Steelers has been postponed. The annual enshriman ceremony also has been postponed because of the virus. The game was supposed to be played on August the 6th. It'll instead be played in 2021. And I don't know if the same two teams are going to play.

It doesn't really matter. We've never worried about who plays in the Hall of Fame game and who does not. It is the first event on the NFL calendar, and it's also the first event canceled because of the pandemic. The league was able to still conduct. agency as we know, still had the draft. And basically what it does is it slows down the Cowboys and the Steelers reporting to training camp.

They were supposed to be there July 28th. There is no word yet from the NFL whether or not they're going to report the new date. I got news for y'all. I will be completely stunned if there are any preseason games at all, which I think probably for most of you, especially those of you that are Texan season ticket holders, you're going to love that because you're not going to have to be on the hook for two completely meaningless football games at regular season prices. There are a lot of shams in sports. For me, pound for pound, one of the top five of all-time shams in sports is having fans pay regular season prices for pre-season games.

I think it's just one of the most awful, greedy things that an NFL owner can do to its fan base. And they've been doing it ever since I've been born and probably before that too. My belief is if you want to keep your audience young and you want to keep your audience to grow and you want another generation of fans who ultimately may become season tickets holders of your team, why don't you do this? Why don't you give the season ticket holders an option of? buying their tickets at a reduced cost, which, again, I should probably stop my conversation now, but give them the chance of buying the tickets. And then anybody that doesn't want to buy it,

don't require the preseason games being sold, then sell the rest of them at 50% of what you would normally pay. Now, the number one reason why they won't do that is because that would be taking millions and millions of dollars away from NFL owners piggy banks because those tickets have been sold as always a part of a 10-game package. But sometimes you've got to think about the big picture. And I think the NFL does an incredible job of pricing its fans out. I know they haven't felt that yet because, again, the season ticket holder base at NRG is 60,000, and then you got the waiting list of 15,000, depending on who you talk to. But could you imagine allowing a family of four to go to a preseason game, four tickets, four sodas, four hot dogs for $125? I mean,

that's how you build your fan base for the... the years 2030, 2035, 2040, because if the price of tickets continues to go up the way that it is in the NFL and were eventually allowed full fan bases back in the stadiums, you're going to have to be in the six-figure, high six-figure income to be able to really afford to go to a game. Now, again, I'm falling deaf ears on this, but it's just one of those things. When I ever talk about preseason football, it just pisses me off that they being the NFL owners have said, well, you know, you want to be a season ticket holder, you want to be team Texan, you want to be team Bronco, team buccaneer, team dolphin, we need you to buy the entire

10 game package. And it's just a crime because what the NFL coaches have done, especially in the last probably 10 years, is they have played their starters less and less and less and putting in guys that are going to be future practice squads in the lineup more and more and I mean, there have been years where JJ Watt hasn't played. There have been times that Deshawn Watson hasn't played. You know, I don't mean to go to the I'm growing up car when I was growing up car, but I'm going to do it here. When I was a kid watching, and this is really that even part of the Texans, too.

So we're not talking about, we're talking less than 20 years, but there was a time where the first preseason game, your starters played a quarter. There was a time in the second preseason game when your starters would play a quarter, quarter, a quarter half, even two. And I remember even going to cover an order or a Saints Texans game in New Orleans where the starters would even play a series or two into the third quarter. Now the fourth preseason game hardly anybody plays because you don't want anybody to hurt. That really hasn't changed. But man, if you were to go look at the numbers of some of the best Texans in preseason games, Aaron Foster probably didn't carry the ball very much,

Deshawn Watson didn't throw the ball very much. I'm assuming Matt Shaw didn't throw that Andre Johnson didn't catch. And again, those guys. you know, been the league five, six, seven, eight years of the time that didn't need it, but you're also trying to sell your fan base of, hey, let's put some games out there, and let's have you pay real prices for you to watch guys you've never heard of before. It's that thing that sucks. But to the bigger picture, I'm ready for another prediction.

I feel like Nostradamus is just all over the place. I'm going to tell you first and foremost, I've told you this that they're not going to start the season on time. And because of that also, I'm also going to make a smaller star prediction in the seven, 7,500 to 10,000 star range. We're not going to have any preseason games. We're going to do a college style. You're going to practice and practice and practice. And you're going to have inner squad of skirmages.

You're going to have your offense to go against your defense. But there's going to be no preseason games. They're not going to risk the whole pomp and circumstance of teams traveling and going through the protocol of that and putting fans in the stands or just even operationally opening up a stadium for a meaningless preseason game. Now, most of the players,

they're not going to mind it because they're not playing in the preseason games to begin with. But it is going to be inevitable when you start seeing these games being canceled or postponed that there's a sign that we're not starting on time. And I think,

I don't mean to read too much into it, but I think when you cancel a pre-season game on June 25th for a game as supposed to be in early August? Isn't that setting it up for no preseason at all? It's a lot of money the NFL is going to lose. But I believe the NFL wants to come back and when they do, they don't want to do it in front of empty stadiums. So I think they're going to push and push and push and push things back

in order for game one of the NFL season whenever it is, whether it be opening weekend, which I don't think it's going to be the case, or October or November, they're going to want partial capacity in this stadiums because that kind of money does resonate with them. Getting 20,000 people on an average ticket of $75 who are going to drink some beer and eat some popcorn and do whatever they do, pay it up for the parking

is going to be revenue that they want to get. And I don't think it's in their best interest for lost revenue to play games unless they can get some people in the stadium. The television dollars in these contracts are crazy. The NFL will be just fine on that. but they're looking to get some of that money from you guys that are going to the games. And that's why I think in their minds, maybe pushing things back a month,

moving the NFL season back a month, taking those first three or four games, that Texan Chiefs game is supposed to open up the year, flip it to say the first month of the first couple weeks of January, may make all the difference because playing an Arrowhead Stadium when nobody there is compared to playing with 25,000. I think it's going to be a huge difference for Kansas City and a huge difference for the league. 1243 is our time. It is the Matt Thomas show. Sports Talk 790. We take this program until 3 o'clock today. Now, wait a minute. The Florida woman's comments can't be 6.8 seconds. I'm looking for the whole,

there was a big speech that she had that I want you to play. Man, I'm telling you, I don't think you realize how many there were. Well, I'm going to have to go find her. Because this woman, whoever it was, and I saw on Twitter today, was in front of some city council or something. And she, it was about a two-minute little exhaustive diatribe she had. And she was a whack job. And I'm going to find it. We're going to play for you next.

1244, Sports Talk 790. Greg Bizjo here. The heart of the order is up right now. Matt Thomas is swinging for the fences here on Sports Talk 790. 1248, Sports Talk, 790. Matt Thomas Show. Robert Ford, the voice the asteros going to join us at 1 o'clock. 713, 212, 5, 790.

713-212-5-790. All right. So the Astros have spent the last handful of years down in West Palm Beach at their new spring training home. West Palm Beach is interesting. Once out of the freeway, amazing. Beaches, boats, cool restaurants, cool shops. Just what you would think. When you think of West. Palm Beach, Florida. I mean, that sounds good, right? It sounds like a place you want to vacation. By and then half of West Palm Beach, you would think you were in Central Arkansas. Nothing's wrong with Central Arkansas. But it's just, it's, if I picked you up and dropped you on the other side of the main freeway, you would say, this is West Palm Beach, Florida.

There's a lot of industrial things. There's a couple of strip clubs. there's some pawn shops there's five to six waffle houses eight to nine apple bees it's not picturesque one side amazing one sign eh

and invite you to go to the Astros down there when they have spring training again because it's going to see spring training games are cool but there is a side of West Palm Beach that's a little odd and I believe this woman do we have her name by the way I don't think we have her name do we she is not happy with West

I think she's in Palm Beach is where there may be two different cities but it's the same general vicinity. She's not happy with an ordinance that could be going into place where you'd have to wear your mask in all places. And she explains the council why she's so upset. You literally cannot mandate somebody to wear a mask knowing that that mask is killing people.

It literally is killing people. And the people, we the people, are waking up. And we know what citizens' arrest is. Because citizens' arrests are already happening, okay? And every single one of you that are obeying the devil's laws are going to be arrested. And you, doctor, are going to be arrested for crimes against humanity. Every single one of you have a smirk behind that little mask, but every single one of you are going to get punished by God. You cannot, you cannot escape God.

You cannot escape God. I'm going to say that again. You cannot escape God, not even with the mask or six feet. Six feet, like I said before, is military protocol. You're trying to get the people to train them. So when the cameras, the 5G comes out, what? They're gonna scan everybody. We gotta get scanned, we gotta get temperatureed.

The kids have to go to school with masks. Are you insane? Are you crazy? I think all of you should be in a psych ward right the heck now. Because none of you, none of you know what the hell you are all talking about. This is insane. And then you want to open this meeting with a prayer to God. Are you praying to the devil?

Because God is not listening to that prayer. Because all of you are practicing the devil's laws. What happened to Bill Gates? Why is he not in jail? Why is Hillary Clinton not in jail? Why are all of these pedophiles that are demanding you all to listen to their rules? Why are they not in jail? Oh, is it because you're part of them?

Thank you, man. Your time has expired. The deep state is going down. And if any of you are in the deep state, you're going down. With thee. At the end, I don't wear a mask for the same reason I don't wear underwear. Things got to breathe. Coke?

Meth? Or all the above? Matt, there's more. Like, we don't have all of it. There's more than that? Just fire it off. I don't care. I don't even even lead into it.

Oh, you don't have it already. Do you want more? I can find you more. Is it the same woman? Oh, no. No. The people at this meeting were wild. So you're telling me, there are elected officials in Palm Beach County that sit on a dais

and they're like, okay, we got to worry about construction, we need to worry about our schools, our taxes, prepared for hurricanes, and then you have her. At the end, I don't wear a mask for the same reason I don't wear underwear. Things got to breathe. Things got to breathe. I'm going to, and I'll wait for Ross to get back, and hopefully it's, I can't believe I'm saying this, sooner rather than later. But we're going to have to go to Florida Stories. We're going to have to philosophically change the show.

Today will be non-Flority Stories because that's what the segment's called for. But I want to play sound bites from the whack jobs that are our Floridians. If we had non-flor-if, if this was a non-Florida story, I mean, we couldn't play that audio of those two women. one saying, you know, that you're worshipping the devil and not God. And then one saying this. At the end, I don't wear a mask for the same reason I don't wear underwear. Things got to breathe. I want more sound bites.

I don't care what it's for. So when we have Robert Ford on the next segment, we're going to talk some baseball. And then after that, I just want more random soundbites from West Palm Beach County's city council meeting where complete bat-blank crazy, women get up in front and screaming yell about things they know nothing about because they're probably high not probably definitely high who baby that is some she went up there and she believed every word she said i mean listen to these women of south florida it's just terrible and they want to throw god's wonderful breathing system out the door you're all turning your backs on it.

I really have many question marks about your degrees and what you really know. I'm sorry, ma'am, but I don't think that you are worthy of your credentials. And I would ask suggestively that you go back to school and get educated. I mean, quite honestly, we should carry the Palm Beach County City Council meeting on the show. Because I can't provide that as a talk. I mean, I know my limitations as a talk show host. there's nothing that I would say that would be nearly as entertaining as what you just played. Would you like to hear the Palm Beach?

I mean, the problem is can they bring it to us every week like that? Or does the pandemic bring out the complete whack jobs? We just need like one county at a time to have a mask order. Yeah. So from here on out, you know what we can do? We can keep the non-flora stories. We could find this week in whack job Palm Beach County City Council meetings. and just playing rando soundbites of people that take up the time of the elected citizens of that community

to say this. At the end, I don't wear a mask for the same reason I don't wear underwear. Things got to breathe. Or this. And they want to throw God's wonderful breathing system out the door. You're all turning your backs on it. She sounds grandmotherly. So there's somebody like, I would say, post-60 that's saying these things, right?

You would expect post-60-year-olds to live and experience the world and no right from wrong and mistakes from youth to knowing what it's like to be an older American. It's been there and done that. I miss Florida. I wish the Astros were having spring training down in Florida. I'd try to figure out a way to go down there and cover them for four or five days. But you know what? I wouldn't go to the Astros practice. I'd just go to city council meetings.

Second hour, the Matt Thomas show, starts with the visit with Robert Ford, the Volvo. Voice of the Astros next on 790. Is the Matt Thomas Show. On the on Sports Talk 790, our good friend Robert Ford is finally going to get to work. July 23rd or 24, depending on when the schedule is going to be released. And Robert joins us here on the Matt Thomas show. All right, I know you've been taking art lesson. You're going to put those away and start focusing on your scorebooks.

Are you prepared to do so? Yeah, I mean, I am disappointed. You know, I was really enjoying Bob Ross. you have such a soothing voice. You know, happy little trees, but that's okay. I can get back to baseball. So how many DVR episodes of that show do you have on your DVR right now? You know, it's on Netflix.

I actually have watched a couple of them. I haven't tried to paint, but it always brings back fond memories of childhood, seeing Bob Ross with that huge appro. Oh, my God. Making things look easy with the paintbrush, and I'm just like, yeah, I can't do that. I understand. Have you done anything? I mean, like, I've cleaned some parts of my house that needed to be clean.

What's the most productive thing that Robert Ford has done besides spend time with his daughter? Well, you know, I moved in, you know, the place I live I moved into a little over a year ago, and I finally have gotten around with some various projects I put on the back burner, done a little bit of decorating, fixed a few things. So that's been nice, you know, a few trips to hardware stores. I've also been able to knock out a few books, which generally doesn't happen as often this time of year. And I always have stacks of books waiting to be read. So it's nice to actually have made a dent in that.

Of course, I've also bought more books during the pandemic. So that hasn't really helped. But, yeah, I mean, it's been nice to, I mean, as much as I love baseball, as much as I love what I do, it's been nice to do other things this time of year. I do want to get to baseball for a second, but I do, again, I've done it privately. I'm publicly a semi-condolences to you and your family on the passing of your father. And so if you don't mind, your father, reading a lot about him through your Instagram and through Facebook and whatnot, was one of the original men behind hip-hop. Can you take a minute to kind of

explain to the audience how your father got involved in that aspect of music? Yeah, I appreciate that, Matt. Yeah, so my dad was a writer for Billboard in the 1970s and We covered disco and a lot of other music, mostly, you know, quote unquote, black music. And he was there when hip-hop rap music was just getting started, wanted to get on the production side of things. And while getting hooked up with Curtis Blow, who became the first rapper to sign with a major label. My dad wrote or co-wrote several of his early hits, including the breaks, which is his best-known song and Christmas rapping and basketball, which still gets played, as you know, Matt. of NBA arenas. For sure.

Even today. And, yeah, he was able to parlay that, you know, go from a writer to be on the production side in the music business and did that for a very long time. And was also a manager of the R&B group High Five in the early 90s. And they came out with their first album, High Five out of Waco, Texas. So, yeah, lived quite a life. But you know, Matt, what's been interesting to me is it's been great reading

and hearing from all these different people about. about things that my dad did and the way he impacted people that I just didn't necessarily know. But, you know, as a kid, that stuff didn't really resonate with me. I didn't really understand that until I got older. He was just, you know, he's my favorite guy to play catch with and watch baseball with. And, you know, when I was really young, he pushed me on the swings. You know, those were the things that resonated with me growing up. But it's nice to know that, you know, my dad has had the impact on as many people as he did.

Did he ever ask your opinion about this new form of music that was starting up? I guess I'm thinking that's 30 years ago. So you probably, what, 9, 10 years old and somewhere in that range? With what new form of music? With hip-hop. I mean, the way that it's infancy. Did he go, hey, do you know, do kids don't like it? I mean, it actually happened, you know, so I was born in 1979.

Oh, you're older than I thought you were. Okay. Yeah. And so part of the reason my dad got involved on the production side, He wanted to make more money because I was on the way. And, you know, he was going to be a father for the first time. So that was part of the reason. He kind of took that leap, that leap of faith and took that gamble into being on the production side of the music business

because he knew it would be more lucrative and it would make it easier for him to support me. And he was right because, you know, the royalties from some of the songs that he wrote for Curtis Blow helped pay for my college education. Wow. Well, that's great. Again, you did a fantastic job of honoring him. and I'm sure he'd be very proud looking at you today. Let's get to a little bit of baseball here. Do you take anything away from what you saw in March,

or are we just scrapping that entire four weeks down in West Palm Beach and saying it's a brand new season starting when the guys get together at Minutemade Park? Well, it's hard to – I mean, for me to take anything away, I'd have to actually remember it. I know. Like, I'm having a hard time remembering the Rockets roster right now, much less trying to figure out who's going to get in the rotation,

can playoff time. I'm right there with you. Yeah, and so that, you know, I mean, you take some things away, and I'd imagine once the game starts and I see you guys again, you know, that'll kind of jog my memory on certain things that I saw during spring training, especially with some of the younger players. But, yeah, I don't know that there's a whole lot to take away from it or that you can lean from it.

And I think what's also going to be tricky, and, you know, there's still unknowns in terms of how much access there will be to, you know, these spring workouts, but those are still going to be different than your typical spring training games. So it's going to be a really weird year to evaluate guys before the season because normally you could kind of go off maybe noticing something in spring training. Someone's doing different or young Claire that impressed you. But, I mean, that was, you know, more than three months ago.

So, I mean, does that really translate now when guys are ramping it up again and have had the layoff that they've had. So yeah, I don't know that you can take a whole lot away from the first spring training, even if you, you know, even if you are able to remember much from it. Robert Ford, Voice of the Astros with us at 107 on Sports Talk 790. I told the audience last hour that of all the sports, the ones that have the ritual, the daily habits down to a T are Major League Baseball players, from the time they eat, the time they get the ballpark, time they hit, time they field. Everything's going to be different. You tell me how much of an adjustment you think these players are, because as you know, being around these teams as long as you have been,

that George Springer knows where he needs to be at 420. Carlos Curia knows what he wants to do at 315. Justin Verliner knows what he wants to do on the day after he pitches. So I think it's going to be a tremendous adjustment for these guys, especially with all the new protocols in place. It is going to be a tremendous adjustment, and I think, you know, what it could come down to is who's able to adjust the quick. who's able to adjust the best and not just with the pregame stuff, but also with the no fans or very few fans.

Because I think employers will even tell you, you know, they feed off of fans being there, whether they're on the road or at home and feed off that adrenaline and feed off just, you know, everything that they hear from the stands, grip that or indifferent. And that's not going to be there. So what is that going to be like? If you're still going to be able to dial up the same amount of intensity or even close to the same amount of intensity, applying in a stadium that's half empty or empty, I think that's going to be a big part of it as well. And I really think that the teams that are able to adjust to that the best,

the players that are able to adjust to that the best, are the ones that are going to be more successful, whether that means they have to really change up their routine and are able to do that. But I think it's going to be one of the big storylines of 2020 once games get going is how teams adjust to all the different things that they're going to have to deal with that they normally wouldn't have to deal with. I think anybody in broadcasting, especially baseball, lends themselves to more traditional, you know, what you watch as a kid. So I'll throw these at you two things. DH in both leagues and the runner at second base to start extra innings.

How do you feel about both? Well, the DH in both leagues was always inevitable. And I grew up, and I think it all depends on where you grew up, how you feel about that. I grew up a Mets fan, so, you know, I grew up being used to seeing pitchers hit. And for a long time, that was my preference. Now, I mean, it would be, it's fine when that happens and obviously adds a different wrinkle to games. But, you know, it doesn't really make much of a difference to me either way at this point. But I've always felt like, you know, this is something that's going to happen,

DH in both leagues. So I'm just going to have to get used to it. As for the runner at second base to start extra innings, that's something that, you know, I mean, it sounds like it's just going to be for this year to speed games up and make sure guys are spending as little time in the ballpark as possible. I'd have a harder time with it if I felt like this was something that was here to stay because it just changes what we know about baseball

and what we know about extra innings. And it's not something I'm crazy about. I mean, I guess it's nice that it's less likely there'll be these, you know, 15, 16, 7 inning games that every team seems to play at least, you know, once or twice a year over the course of the season. But, I mean, I'm always, I mean, who's in favor of less baseball? You know, like, in general, I want, you know, there to be as much baseball as possible. So long-term, I'm not crazy about that idea of the runner at second base

and extra innings. And right now it doesn't sound like it's going to be long-term at the major league level. But I am looking forward to seeing it. I mean, at the 60-game sprint, it's going to be something else to talk about, something that's going to be unique. So that's going to be just one of the many fun and interesting things about baseball in 2020. Well, as we debated it yesterday, my feeling is this. I don't mind it, but I don't think if you're going to do it long-term, you give the 10th inning its organic foundation like 1 through 9 is.

I think baseball fans, and I don't mean to be speaking for an entire generation of fans, but I think the 10th inning creates drama. Oh, this thing wasn't settled in 9, let's get it done in the 10th. I do feel there's an indirect exhaust of, uh-oh, we're going to the 11th,

we could be here for a while. And that's the reason why I would say, if basically baseball asks my opinion, that you keep it organic for the 10th, and if you can't get it done after the 10th inning, then maybe the second. second base thing is in play. But I think as everything is up for experiment. Lastly, I do believe

managers, Robert, will manage a lot differently because again, when you have guys and you've talked to managers every single day, you do with AJ on a daily basis, when guys go through a two for 19 slump, a lot of times, guys will say, all right, we're going to get this guy either a day off or we're going to keep him in a lot of because we know he can hit. If guys go through two for 19 or it's two bad starts in a row in a 60 game compressed season, that's going to make the managers, his staff kind of think twice about maybe putting a guy back in or skipping a guy on rotation. What is your thoughts on allowing the slump guys to breathe a little bit in a short season? Well, I think it comes down to a couple of things.

I think one, it comes down to how's the team doing. And if a guy's two for 19 or in a bit of a funk and the team is winning, and it's a guy that you believe in or has an established track record, you're more likely to stick with him. I think that it also depends on what your team goals are. I mean, the Astros are a team that's poised to go back to the World Series and try and win it again. So you're less likely to have a long leash for guys, especially if it's, say, maybe a Kyle Tucker, for instance, who doesn't have as much of a track record at the big leagues.

Maybe, you know, the leash is shorter for someone like that. But again, I think a lot of it just kind of depends on team performance. if the team's playing well, you're more likely to stick with guys. But I think you're right. I mean, there's going to be a team. I mean, one of these teams that people think is a playoff contender or World Series contenders, somebody's going to get off to a terrible start. And a terrible start in a 60-game season, it could be 3 and 10.

It doesn't even have to be, you know, over, you know, 30, 40 games. And, you know, what happens then? Does that team start to panic? Does that team start to make some moves? Do guys start getting benched? I mean, that's going to be really interesting, but it's going to happen. You know, certainly hope it's not the Astros, but somebody who is expected to do well is going to get off to a terrible start. Or on the flip side, you're going to have something like the Mariners started off 13 and 2 last.

That's right. That's right. You're going to have that happen. And so then, you know, is this team for real? Like normally you would say, oh, you know, Mariners start 13 and 2, whatever. it's only 15 games in the 162 game season. But when it's 15 games in the 60 game season, oh, well, that looks a lot different. And so then does that team become buyers at the trade deadline?

Does that team start to try and add? It's going to be, there are going to be a lot of things that we can't even really anticipate that are going to happen this year. If that team become buyers at the trade deadline, does that team start to try and add? It's going to be, there are going to be a lot of things that we can't even really anticipate that are going to happen this year that are just going to make 2020 a year that I think we're going to be talking about for the rest of our lives. Great stuff, as always, my friend. Rest those pipes, we look forward to hearing you on 790 here in a month or so, my friend.

Thanks again for the time. Sounds good, Matt. Take care. All right, you got it. Robert Ford, Voice of the Astros with us, 115 on the Matt Thomas show, news from the NFL, and one of the all-time greats in the NBA. Finally calls it a career. Details on him next, 115 on Sports Talk 790. Houston's official sports cliche translator.

I'm working hard. I'm trying to be a good teammate. I'm trying to go out here every day and do my job. Matt Thomas. Taking it one day at a time. 120. Matt Thomas Show, Sports Talk, 790. This always reminds me of the Munsters.

That's a show. It predates me, so don't even ask. Although there was the new Munsters, but nobody ever watched that. 713-212-5-7. 790 713212-1-2-5-7-90. Again, our thanks to Robert Ford for joining. Vince Carter calls it a career after 22 years in the NBA. 22 years of which he was probably productive in little parts of all 22 of those seasons.

Really awesome for probably 10 or 50, more than 10, 15 of them. But 22 years in the NBA, it kind of sucks that he's going to end his career with a sucky Hawk team that has absolutely no chance of making the playoffs and not even going to the bubble down in Orlando. No. But Vince Carter said, I'm done, finished, complete, and he will be today's subject of, believe it or not, today coming up at 252. Florida stories, an hour and non-Florida stories, an hour and nine minutes away. That's at 2.30. Let's go to David and pass a get-down on the Matt Thomas show. David, what do you got today? Hey, I want to talk to you real quickly. What about the strategies with this runner at second base in the 10th ending with no outs? You walk the next batter Put the force and play at third Are you now set up the double play

Are you home or visitors There's going to be different strategies there in that situation What do you think? You forgot one How about a good bunter Bunning the guy over to third base Having a runner at third base out? There's no more good bunters

Because the pitchers don't bat anymore Well, don't tell that to old school baseball fan Who wants five months a game There you go I think it depends on where you are in the lineup. I think it depends on who the runner goes to, who the runner is at second base. If it's the last out of the inning, does that player have any speed? Can you take that player out?

Do you intentionally in a situation like that, like for instance, Miles Straw, if he's on the Astros roster, no matter who's at second base to open up the 10th inning, do you replace him with Miles Straw knowing that any base hit of any sort of distance is probably going to get him home? I think there's a whole different bag of options there, so to speak. Absolutely. We'll see who can manage and who can, I guess, in those situations. Thank you. Thank you.

I appreciate it. I'm telling you the truth. I do like it. I like it. I just don't like it in the 10th inning. And again, you've got to realize, they're trying to play, I think it's 60 games in like 66 days.

I think I even said 60 and 70, and I think that they're not even going to do it in 70 days. They're going to try to have this season done by September the 27th to get the playoffs going as per schedule. And from what I understand, if I heard right, there are no scheduled double headers. So it's game after game after game after game. And then there's going to be about six, seven days, off days depending on when you start the season. So they don't want to be at the ballpark for five and a half hours unless the game just dictates it. but you've got to realize too there's going to be i think you're going to be a lot more afternoon

games i think there's going to be because the travel procedure and getting these guys going from one city into the next is going to be it's going to take you double even if you are playing in a division as close as say the national and national and american league east if you're busing to places it's still going to take hours because you're going to have to drive these places and you're to make sure the bus is cleansed and you're going to make sure all the food that gets i mean there's going to be preparation for every Major League Baseball team. Now, the Astros get screwed in respect that most of their plane trips are going to be far. The only close trip they're going to have is Arlington to take on the Rangers.

And by the way, we've got to talk. Brendan, go look at the Brendan, the Globe Life Park videos and the photos that are out of the new stadium. We're going to talk about that because it's getting crushed. But every other trip is a plane ride where a lot of teams in that division can go from Philadelphia to Washington and a bus, or they can go from Baltimore to Philadelphia and not having these problems. The Astros are going to do more plane flying. My guess is more than anybody else.

You know, Seattle always gets the worst mileage. I would think the Astros and Rangers would be the worst because at least Seattle's going to stay on the left coast for most of the season. But back to the point of you don't want a boatload of four and a half hour, five-hour games. You want the guys in the stadiums as, again, you're not going to try to speed the game up and have it be a two-hour nine-minute game if it's not supposed to be, but they don't want them there five, six hours. They want to play their three-hour game,

get out of there as fast as they can, close the ballpark down so they can scrub it all down. Everything from a logistics aspect of this is going to take twice as long. So I understand why the 10th inning is being used this year. But if they like it, and I think we're going to like it, I would like them to see it start in the 11th inning

as compared to the 10th. But it's just semantics at this point. But yeah, I think we'll see different styles. That will be a fun part of doing 10th-ending call-in shows here on 790 is how the managers are going to play this out. I brought this up with Robert a few minutes ago. We're going to see some managers are going to be aggressive in the 10th and make that pinch-hitting switch or pinch-running situation right away.

We're going to find out that there are guys on baseball teams that can actually bunt. Because I'm not a big bunt fan, as you guys know, it's just not 2020 baseball anymore or 2015 baseball. but if you can get a guy over at the third base with an out, especially if you're not going to make that move to get a speedy person at second base, you might take your chances by giving up that at bat, knowing that you've got at least one more to get, you got two more chance to get that runner in from third.

And then, as I said before, will Dusty Baker, will any of the managers around baseball, you know, will Mike Socher, not Mike Sosher, but, you know, any of any other managers out there, Joe Girardi, just a good example. Will they be able to pull guys aside and give them days off if they're slumping? Well, they would in years past because it's a long season. With this year being a sprint, it's compared to being a marathon in years past.

So that's some of the nuances of baseball that I'm very intrigued by. And I think we will enjoy it. Albeit, we're looking forward to seeing it being a full 162 eventually. And at some point with fans. That's going to be the real interesting. thing for me is at some point, Major League Baseball is going to trust that you can go see the games. Now, if we have our continued outbreak like we've had here in Texas, maybe that's going to not be something that's going to be in the foreseeable future. But remember this, no matter

what cities and what states have games that have fans in it, none of them are going to be crying, you know, are going to be singing, oh, look how cash flush we are, because there's only 30 home games a year in this season. So realistically, I don't know what Jim Crane's thinking about this, but could Jim Crane, will Jim Crane be happy if 15 of his games going to have fans in it? I'm sure. Hell, he'd be probably happy of 10, or even if there's postseason. But for now, I think the main thing is just getting the guys on the field, getting tested,

and hopefully no outbreaks once they do play. Because unlike the bubble in the NBA, they're going to be on planes, they're going to be in visiting hotels, and they're going to be out way more than an NBA player will be when they're stuck on that campus at Walt Disney World. 128 on the Matt Thomas show. NFL news that I think is a starter to a point of what's going to eventually happen to the preseason. Plus, there is an NFL player that doesn't believe that his sport should come back.

Or at least he's very hesitant because he believes the NFL is unlike the other professional sports, especially when it comes to the NBA. We'll tell you who that is and what he had to say. You'll hear from him. after I tell you about Shaw's jewelry at the corner West Gray and Montrose. They have zero percent financing right now available for you on most of their purchases, and you get that zero percent financing for 12 months. So if your wife or your girlfriend's been saying,

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On Sports Talk 790. 133. We're halfway home. If you're asking where Ross is, we don't know. No. Ross has a member of his family that recently tested positive for COVID. So we put him on assignment. And Brendan, his assignment was, go get tested yourself. And unfortunately, he has not been able to, I think you found a test available for him tomorrow. So we just said as a precursor just to be safe, take a couple days off, relax, don't work too hard.

You know, the least he could do is right, believe it or not. You can't do anything else. I mean, that's the thing is that if here's the thing, if he's found negative, he gets too free, like an extra bonus vacation. Meanwhile, Brandon, you and I are grinding it out here at 790, and we may even have, we don't even know. Well, and let's keep in mind just because he test negative this time, like the way things are going in Texas, there's no guarantee we don't have to have him get tested again. That's true. I think I'm going to go get tested Monday and get tested every other day until like baseball starts. The two of you just cycle tests every other day? Yeah, we can rotate. Some day it'll be macho. Someday it'll be Ross show. So in all seriousness, I hope he tests negative and he's doing the right thing by getting some precaution. The thing of it is, did you see these rapid tests are only having 80% success rates? There's a healthy amount of false positives? If anything is 80% accurate, that makes me a little squeamish.

I wouldn't want to pay the cost of a COVID test with it only being 80% right. I was going to say they're not cheap either. To pay that price for 80%? No, thank you. For instance, you trust free throw shooters that are 80% right from the free throw line. Yeah. They still miss. Like James Hardin, I think it's about an 85% free throw shooter. At least he's been since I've been calling the games.

I've seen James miss free throws. I've seen James missed two free throws in a row. I've seen a miss two or three of the line. Now, there are a lot of times where he'll also go 14 for 15 from the line and you feel great about it. But that one miss was still a miss. So we told him, we said in all honesty, just go get the real stuff. And so he keeps sending me text of the way he's trying to get an appointment online or through a phone service. It's, man, if any of you all are feeling it, first of all, we're sorry for you.

Secondly, man, I feel really bad for you. This got to be very frustrating to have him to go find one. I'm sure Ross would rather be here. Oh, yeah. Irritating me? Because I don't think he's probably thinking, Brendan, get in there and attack Matt for something. This chair just is empty with somebody not, you know,

constantly argue with every point that I make. The only thing I really know to make fun of you for so far is being an old man. I'm not old. I'm 48. I'm not old. Well, by your taste, I couldn't tell. That's true. But you know what?

I'm comfortable on my skin. But if this wasn't a window, if this was a wall and I could only listen to you, I'd assume you were at least 60. Okay, shut up. Not 60 at all. No, not even close. I just like older music. That's it. I don't dress like I'm 60 years old.

I don't eat like a 60 year. I don't eat meals at 4.30 in the afternoon. I don't go to bed at 8. My music collection is, yeah, it's used older. I get it. But I don't use old fokey terms. I'm not coming to give you fatherly advice. because I'd be young if I was your father.

Thank God. All right, 713-212-5-790, if you'd like to join us today. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. So there will be no Pro Football Hall of Fame game this year, which lends me to believe even further there will be a delay in the start of the regular season. Now, again, that's a little presumptuous, but we're here to do on radio. We're to presume things. And I also believe that there will be no preseason games,

that when the NFL season begins, it will go from where they are now to working out, using all the proper protocols, to playing game one of the NFL season. And I'm going to say probably, this is just a pure guess, mid-October.

Take the four or five games they missed to start the year, put them in the back, play out your 17-week schedule, and you're crying on a Super Bowl February 25th. Because here's the thing. The weather's going to suck. But the Super Bowl this year is supposed to be where?

It's Tampa this year, right, I think? Tampa can handle February 25th Super Bowl. Now, there'll be any radio. I don't think it'll be any Radio Rose, so you won't be able to hear those old guys peddling products for a variety of things. Maybe some good guess, but I think Radio Roe is probably going to take a year off. But I think there will be fans. I think it's going to be the large part of the reason why the NFL

delay because they don't want to play games in empty stadiums. Malcolm Jenkins of the Saints at this point. Now remember everybody's a lot of to change your view on this thing. At this point Malcolm is uncomfortable with the thought of playing football this year. No,

shush. Here's Malcolm. The NBA is a lot different than the NFL because they can actually quarantine all of their players or whoever is going to participate where we have over 2,000 players, even more coaches and staff. We can't do that. And so we end up being kind of on this trust system where the honest system where we just have to hope that guys are social distancing and things like that.

And that puts all of us at risk, not only us as players and who's in the building, but when you go home to your families, you know, I have parents that I don't want to get sick. And I think until we get to the point where we have protocols in place and until we get to the place as a country where we feel safe doing it, we have to understand that football is a non-essential business. And so we don't need to do it. And so the risk, you know, has to be really eliminated before we, before I would feel comfortable we're going back. That is Saints Safety Malcolm Jenkins. So at its face value, I don't think he's speaking in hyperbole. I think he's genuine when he says what he says.

But if he is going to stay with this thought, then he's not going to play this year. Because there is not going to be a successful vaccination ready for him, his teammates America before the start of the upcoming season. So if he's going to stay with that, and I'm applauding that he does, I think he's not going to play this year.

But what have you noticed about the NBA players? Have you noticed this something, Brendan, that there were a lot of players that were worried about civil unrest. There were a lot of players that were worried about COVID. We've had one player

say thanks but no thanks to playing in the bubble in Orlando, at least at this point, because of COVID. There are other players that are not going to go, but they're for non-COVID reasons. The Warriors, not Warriors. What does Willie Colley Stein play? He's with the California team, not with the Kings anymore. Who's he with? I'll look.

See who Willie Collie Stein is playing for. I'm drawing a blank on that. Willie Collie Stein is not going to go because he is expecting. in the birth of a child. He's with the Mavericks now. That's right. He was with the Warriors and got moved to Dallas. So Willie Colley-Stein's like,

I don't want to miss the birth of a child because remember, he knows, just like every other player, once you go in the bubble, you can't come out. And if you come out, you're done. You had DeVis Bertans of the Wizards. He's not going because he wants to get a paycheck.

It's not COVID-related. Trevor Areza is not going because of a custody battle over his son. Not COVID-related. the only player at this point in the NBA that has said, I'm worried about the COVID when it comes to my family and the people that are around me is Avery Bradley. So Malcolm Jenkins is more than welcome.

And I applaud that he has such reservations because, again, you only have one life and you don't want to infect yourself of those around you. I just think at this point it's pretty easy to say these things. but when it comes down to the moment of truth where you have to tell your various sports organizations, am I going to play or am I not going to play? Sometimes they change their story. Case in point. Dwight Howard.

Dwight Howard was right out there. I'm unnerved by everything that's going on. And for good reasons. But the number one reason I told everybody, and this is my opinion among many others, is you know, you're going to be able to do more to promote social justice as a player when you're playing as compared to when you're in the background.

are not playing. Dwight Howard is going to play, at least from what I have, I have not seen him on the list of I'm not playing. So it could be for variety of reasons. It could be because you're a competitor, because you love the sport. It's because you don't have guaranteed contracts and the guys could be cut.

Or it could be that, you know, the love of money ultimately takes over. I don't know what every individual person's decision is to go in and play in these situations. But right now, Malcolm Jenkins says he doesn't feel comfortable playing in the NFL. And I hate to tell Malcolm this, and he knows this, that sounds like a very smart guy, that the NFL is not going to have a vaccination ready to go. So if he's going to stay with that, he's going to continue to have that philosophy of

until there is a way to properly make sure everybody's treated if they get it, then my guess is if you're a Saints fan, Malcolm Jenkins isn't playing. Because I don't envision there being a radical change in how we stop this COVID between now and the time training camp starts at the end of next month. 143 of the Matt Thomas show, 713, 212-5-790, 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Globe Life Field is the new ballpark in Arlington. It's being made fun of. I know you hate to hear that.

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I hope you guys have had a chance to see the Globe Life Field photos. Yeah, they're taking pictures of it. They've added the roof. It's just about, I think it's all done now, right? But why, I mean, it's been done for a while. Why are these pictures becoming such a big bit now? I hadn't seen it until yesterday. Yeah.

It's right across the street from where the old stadium was. And I'll say this. The ballpark in Arlington was a cool outdoor stadium in terms of it looked majestic. It had an old school feel to it. It's been named like five or six different times, different stadiums. names, but it was a great place to go to watch the Rangers play. Now, I wouldn't recommend anybody going to see a game in Arlington, say, past May 15th because it's hotter than heck, and there's no roof. But it was still a great place to watch the game, and it was fun to take

fans up there and go see an Astros, Rangers series in years past, and when they were interleague and now their division foes. This Globe Life Field has been made fun of. It's becoming quite the rage on Twitter and or Instagram about how boastful the Rangers fans are about this stadium, and yet it looks cheesy. Now, let's be honest, if we were Ranger fans, we'd love this place. It's our first retractable roof stadium after watching Texas Rangers baseball for decades outside. You tell me, Brendan, if I hit this on the head or not, it looks like a barbecue grill. Sure. My favorite that I've seen is it looks like a Home Depot.

Explain what a Home Depot is for those that have not gone because I have hives by going to hardware stores. Well, I mean, just that's, it looks like a hardware store. It looks like a giant hardware store. With a cheap looking aluminum-based kind of tinty cover to it. Right. That's why I thought the barbecue grill fit. It definitely is a cheap looking cover. It's not a cheap stadium.

These stadiums today, anything with roofs, are insanely expensive. But they're necessary. especially for a city like Arlington that hasn't had indoor baseball ever. And I'm sure once we get inside, it'll be cool. And I'm sure that the 25 or 30,000 fans in Dallas and Fort Worth that actually consider themselves Ranger fans are going to love it. But do yourself a favor and go take a look at some of the views, the aerial shots of this thing.

And you could call it a hardware store. you can call it an aluminum foil, you know, a tent made of aluminum foil. I like to call it a barbecue grow cover. And then apparently once you get inside, it's not a complete knockoff of Minutemade Park, but it's pretty damn close. And here's the thing.

Most of these new stadiums now, they're going to about the same different architectural form every single time. So my guess is one architectural firm is bit stealing after the other. Hell, the show after mine bit steals me constantly. I know I should take it as a great, grandiose thought of, man, these guys can't think of something original on their own, so they're going to steal something for me. That's how we should feel about

the Rangers' new globe life field. Barbecue grow cover, Minutemate Park once you open up the grow cover. The difference is their team will be lucky to win 25 games in the 60 game schedule, and hopefully the Astros crush everybody in the American League West again for a fourth consecutive year. From the outside when closed, don't you think it could pass for a football field? Yes, very elongated, isn't it? It doesn't look like a baseball stadium. I will say this about Dallas-Fort Worth.

They don't mess around when it comes to their facilities. Well, I shouldn't say Dallas-Fort Worth. I shouldn't say Arlington. Could you imagine if you're a resident of Arlington how much you're paying in taxes for sports stadiums? I mean, first of all, that monstroneroy, that is AT&T, then you have the new baseball stadium, in which you had another baseball

stadium that was plenty fine. The only problem with the old ballpark in Arlington is that it didn't have a roof. But it wasn't decrepit. It wasn't old. But man, do you notice today that these shelf lives of stadiums are about 20 to 25 years? Atlanta, Georgia,

Turner Field, just fine for a baseball stadium. had all the creature coverage you'd ever want for a baseball field. Gone. The Braves moved like to the suburbs. They moved to like Jersey Village to go put their baseball stadium away from everything. The Georgia Dome, about 30 years old, not a bad place, plenty of good seats. The only residents, the Atlanta Falcons.

They kicked that damn thing of the curb so they could build, you know, Mercedes, is it Mercedes-Benz Stadium? I think is what they call it? It is amazing to me that when, the cities cry poor, it's everything except, well, we'll always find money to build a stadium. Because again, they know at the end of the day, these stadiums do generate billions of dollars of industry for their particular cities. And if Arlington didn't want to, you know, pay the tab of building a new the Rangers ballpark,

the Rangers would have moved out of Arlington in a heartbeat. You mean telling me that Friscoe wouldn't put up a 45,000 seat dome stadium? They would have done it. Hell yeah. that's one thing I do like about now our facilities here in Houston. They're always kept up in spectacular condition, and they're in our city. I mean, if you live on the east side of Dallas to go to a game in Arlington, that's like an hour and a half.

If you live in the heart of Dallas to go to Arlington, that's 45 minutes. I mean, nothing, granted, we're also sprawled out city like Dallas is. But at least we have two of our facilities in downtown. so it's going to be an equal pain in a distance for most people to begin with. Man, Dallas all over the place. But Arlington needs it. Because if any of you been to Arlington before, you know what it is?

It's pawn shops, strip clubs, and two monstrosity baseball sports stadiums. I think I just described West Palm Beach again. If you didn't hear that, we'll play that before the end of the show. Point being, go take a look at it and you don't, and argue, with me that they just haven't blatantly ripped off a Home Depot and once you go inside the stadium and see some of the video of that they haven't ripped off Minute Maid Park. Once again, proving. And I know that you're relatively new to Houston, Brendan, but people from Dallas are generally

speaking very jealous of us. We have nicer people. We have better weather. Our Tex-Mex is more delightful. And we build better facilities. What would they say about us here in Houston? They're jelly. They'd admit it.

Of course. I mean, we here in Houston don't hide the fact that our football team has massively been a huge disappointment. In Dallas, all they want to do is talk about those Super Bowl championships from 25, 30 years ago. Now, granted, we did celebrate our Rockets championships during our anniversary thing. But a month from now, we're not going to spend hours talking about the 1995 NBA championship or not. We move on. There, it's every other day, it's Michael Irvin this, Tricman, this. This, Emmett Smith, this.

Dallas lives in their history of... They get more credit for doing less than anybody, any other sports franchise I know of, the Cowboys. There are national television more than anybody else. They have more primetime games. They have a bigger fan base. And for what? Didn't even make the playoffs last year in the sucking NFC East.

Sucking NFC East. They have an owner who's probably the greatest businessman in the history of sports, but is a way below general average. general manager. Yet, the Dallas Cowboys get away with it. Larger because Jerry Jones will never fire himself as a general manager. And now they got Dak Prescott on the hook for $31.5 million. I mean, it's good quarterback.

But unless the Cowboys not only go to the playoffs but win it, that's not money well spent, is it? You're paying a quarterback $31.4 million. And again, part of that is because of the process. they better win 11 football games. They better crush everybody else in the NMC East. Giants aren't contention for a contender. Redskins certainly aren't. So it's them and the Eagles like it was last year.

They couldn't do it. Sometimes it feels good. You'll know this for annoying. Just a bash on Dallas sports for five or six minutes once a week. It's not the worst thing in the world. Kind of cleansed the palate a little bit. Meanwhile, Dallas guy living here is like, oh, that's just another jealous Houston guy.

It's called a six-minute segment. 157. Final hour of the match. Thomas show. We'll start with some baseball as a former, as a current Dodger going against a former opponent, basically saying, yeah, you're cheaters, but we're moving on. So I appreciate that. We'll play that. We'll also give you some non-Florida stories. And believe it or not today, on all things about Vince Carter, as officially he calls it a career after 22 seasons in the NBA. If you'd like to join us, you can do so. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-790. And on at SportsMT at Brendan Riley underscore.

This is Sports Talk 790. Is the Matt Thomas Show. Here we go in the final hour of the Matt Thomas show. The time is 201. Good afternoon, Houston, Texas. Alongside producer Brendan Riley, I'm Matt Thomas. Sports RV will have today off and tomorrow off as well as he hopefully gets a negative test. Do we say prayers on negative test?

Wish good thoughts. Yeah, we can say all the above, depending on how you believe. But Vince, Vince, Cards are, believe it or not. Ross has a member of his family test positive for COVID, and so he said, hey, just to be safe, I need to go test myself. So he's done that. And we look forward to getting him back very, very soon. Headlines of the day, Pro Football Hall of Fame is canceled, not to be replayed, just canceled. It was supposed to be between Dallas and Pittsburgh.

I think it leads us to perhaps a future postponement and or cancel. cancellation of all preseason games. Vince Carter calls it a career at the age of 42, 22 years in the NBA. I don't, I'm not for sure in the age, but I know 22 years in the NBA he is done. And anything else, sports related, if I, have I missed anything? Let's see. He was 43 when he retired. Vince Carter was, 43 years of age. And baseball, nothing new on that. And Kenley Jansen said some things about the Astero. We'll replay that for you coming up in just a couple of minutes. But I do want to say hi to some folks on the phones. If you'd like to join us, 713-212-5-790, 7-1-3-2-790.

Let's go to Peter in Cyprus at 203. Hi, Peter. Hey, how's it going? Good. What's going on? Not much. I was calling in to ask you guys about the rocket season starting. I know they didn't look that good when the season just ended a few months ago.

Right. So what do you think their chances are with the playoffs picking up in August? Well, Peter, I like to be able to give you an educated answer, but I have no idea how any of these teams are going to look. So I have to go basically on what I think they are on paper, couple that with what I think rest will do for them. Are you a pretty avid Rockets fan? Yes, huge Rockets fan.

Good. My feeling is the time off indirectly will do a guy like P.G. J. Tucker a lot of good. I think the time off will help a guy like James Harden and Russell Westbrook do a lot of good. I also believe, and I would say this for any of the teams in either conference about trying to win a championship, I think the teams that are focused, that have a thirst for a championship, especially maybe older players have never tasted an NBA championship. I think of a better chances compared to guys that are just happy to be there and we're looking just to make the playoffs, i.e. a young team like a Dallas.

a younger team like Philadelphia. I really, really, really believe, Peter that a Laker team with LeBron trying to win his first championship there, a Clipper team that's got a lot of veteran players that have yet to taste a championship with the exception of Kawhi Leonard, a rocket team. Those are the types of teams that I would be scary good thinking about maybe those teams winning their respective conferences

because I think they know the focus is there. Go play basketball, not worry about the extracurricular stuff, and focus on trying to win a championship. Yeah, no, I think the same. I don't know exactly what to predict, but my hope is that James Harden will be a lot better than when we left off because it seems like he was beat up when the season ended. Well, yeah.

From what the videos, and thank you very much for the phone call, Peter. I appreciate it. The videos look like he's lost 10 pounds. That's very positive because, again, if I was gone from my job for four or five months, I'd gain 25. I mean, especially these couple months? When there's nothing to do in a lot of it, you can't leave wherever you're going?

A lot of places doing free delivery for a while there. Could you imagine if the radio station said, hey, don't come back until there's a season started? I'd be at $250 by now. Matt, that basically did happen to me. And I promise you, I gained some weight while I was at home all the time. How much weight did you gain while you were gone? Oh, I mean, I was out of work for two months. I probably gained 10 pounds in two months.

Okay. Now, because you lose 10 pounds, doesn't mean you can't gain it back real quick. Because here's the thing about the bubble. You're going to work out in Orlando and you're going to play games and you're going to scrimmage and you're going to practice. But I think the very first thing they have to do when they get to Orlando is they've got to go quarantine. And that means don't leave your room at all. Not go for a stroll, not go play cards, but sit in your room. Now, granted, my guess is every NBA player that's going to go there is going to have at least an apartment-sized room, right?

I don't expect James Harden to be sitting in a studio apartment or a studio room. You know how you go? You ever been a residence inn's the Marriott property? They have like two bedrooms for big families, one bedroom for decent-sized families. And if you're just by yourself, but you just don't want to have a kitchen, you get a studio. My feeling is LeBron, Kauai. Anthony Davis, James Hart and Russ Westbrook, they're not staying in studio rooms at the Disney World property.

But still, 1,100 square feet for a room, while being a big-sized hotel room, you're going to get cabin fever. Thus, you're probably ordering a lot of extra DoorDash. I think they can DoorDash. I don't know if they can DoorDash, or they have to eat all the Disney food.

Disney food is good, but Disney food's expensive. Not granted, they're not paying for it, but you go to Disney. World, you first figure spend a hundred bucks on the park and then like chicken strips and fries are like 1575. Then they scam you and get one of those all you can drink

cups for another 12 bucks. You're thinking chicken strips, fries and a Coke for $31. Don't like it. What do healthy options look like at Disney World? They have salads. I bet you can get a burger with wrapped in lettuce. But you're not doing that. You're walking miles

a day throughout a park. You're dying for a Coke and a chiro. You're doing a the opposite. You're going double sugars compared to zero sugar. So what was I saying? Oh, so he's lost the 10 pounds. Hopefully he's kept it off. I think Eric's also lost, Eric Gordon's lost some weight as well. But quarantining? Like if, think about that for a second. If you guys are driving around and listen to show, and I told you, you could not leave your house for four days, not even go to the gas station,

not even go to the grocery store. You are in your. house, now granted, if you have a house of, say, 3,000 square feet, you got different rooms and whatnot, but most people don't. Could you, how could you not gain significant weight if you cannot leave your premises for a handful of time? A handful of days. I'm telling you, when this, when this pandemic first started, I was up six or seven pounds. And then I got out a little bit, came here to the office and, you know, just naturally walked, dropped the weight because I was just being more active. So good for James. Good for for Eric, good for Eric's legs and knees, good for Russ, who took back-to-backs off.

Selfishly, if you're Oklahoma City fan, you're loving the fact that Chris Paul had the time off because what does Chris Paul usually do this time of year? It gets hurt. So if you're Oklahoma City, you want to surprise somebody and be a legitimate contender in the Western Conference, you're hoping that Chris Paul behaved himself. And it sounds like he did as well. That's why, again, I don't envision a young basketball team winning the championship. championship this year. I don't envision Denver surprising the world. I don't envision

Donovan Mitchell and the Utah Jazz doing it. I don't really even envision the Milwaukee bucks winning the whole thing in the East. I didn't figure out who's going to win the East yet, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's not Milwaukee. I think it's going to be the NBA champion that's going to be crowned in October is going to be somebody that's going to have multiple players over the age of 30, multiple players that have had at least seven, eight years of experience in the NBA, and I bet you 80% of the team, maybe even 90% of the team,

has never won an NBA championship. Because, man, once you get in that bubble and you get locked in, why would you want to put yourself through all that if you can't go for the big prize? That's winning an NBA title. 210, Sports Talk 790, 713-212-5-790.

That's how you reach our show today. 713-212-5-790. On Twitter, it's at SportsMT and at Brendan Riley. Kenley Jansen spoke to a Los Angeles radio station about the Astros. Now, what you expect him to say is what he said, but he also grew up a little bit and matured and said the right thing, because let's face it, the Astros and Dodgers are going to play each other this year in the regular season.

You'll either be three games in Houston or three games in Los Angeles. We'll hear what Kenley had to say, and perhaps you'd like to react to it as well. Do I think there's still astro anger and jealousy out there? Absolutely. Has it been tempered a little bit by Kenley Jansen? I'll let you decide next on 790. I'm feeling good. I'm feeling great, but what if you haven't in your daily life,

and I know you've got the baseball news and you're feeling better, but what if you've been a little sluggish? You haven't felt like yourself, and you're thinking to yourself, I've been tired. It's not me. I'm crabby. I've been in a bad mood. It might not be your fault.

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To get your free low-t test, call 833-fix low-t, 833-fix low-t. You can go online to 833-fixloatheat.com as well. Treatments are typically covered by most insurances. So get back in the game of life. Feel like your old self. Feel like you're years younger with synergenics, Houston's premier men's health clinic. They've got locations all over town. New location in Cyprus now open. It's synergenics, testosterone clinics. The most awkward nooner you'll ever be a part of. This is the Matt Thomas Show. We have non-flora stories coming up at the bottom of the hour.

252. It's all things about Vince Carter on, believe it or not. And we've got Hooters' gift cards giveaway for that. And that is 35 minutes away. 713-212-579 if you want to get in today. 7-13-212-5-790. Kenley Jansen had a miserable World Series against the Astros. God, the Astros beat up in their World Series run, a Roldest Chapman, Craig Kimbril, and aimed Kenley Jansen to win the 2017 World Series.

I'm not going to say any more than that. You decide how much the extracurricular stuff had to do with it, but that's for you to decide. Kenley Jansen asked about it on a visit with an L.A. radio station yesterday. Look, there's been a lot of talk about the Astros, right? Like, we all know it. You know, you guys played them. You guys dealt with that stuff directly. How do you feel about having to play the Astros again?

Just, honestly, with me, I'm over it, man. I mean, I feel like we were two champions in 2017. We got cheated. You know, I get it. I feel like Major League could have done a bit better job. You know, probably, like, strip that championship down. I mean, nobody want to, you know, listen, to get cheated is the worst. But, I mean, to me, I feel like we're the true champion in 2017.

You know, it should be us. We got cheated. But if we're going to play them this year, just beat them, man. I'm not going to throw at guys or whatever. It's, you know, now you're not cheating no more. Let's go. Now we're going to play baseball, and hopefully we can beat them. Every game that we play them, we just, you know,

boat racing. That's how I feel about it. Instead of trying to hit guys or whatever, that's not cool. That's not cool throwing at any people. So I don't wish anybody to do that to throw at people. So just play them and try to give him every day. We have respect for that, right? I mean, he wants to boat race him, which would be three times.

I mean, it makes you feel better. All I can tell you is I was there in 2018 to Dodger State and when the Astros and Dodgers played that regular season series for the first time since the World Series. And the Astros didn't boat racing, but I think beat them two out of three. In fact, the one game they didn't win was the one game I wasn't at. So that was a good road trip. I took my senior in high school at the time, Cameron, who's now a sophomore in Texas Tech. We went to L.A. for three days to see two Dodger Astro games.

Then we flew to San Francisco to see two Giants Astros games. I can tell you, if you believe in the MT travel agency, going to games at Dodger Stadium is way, way, way more enjoyable than seeing games in San Francisco. We went to a August night game in San Francisco at AT&T Park. I felt like I was in Green Bay in the middle of January. It was so freaking cold. The night, the sun goes down. on the bay with about 20 mile on our winds,

we were shivering. I was buying, you know, you know, those cups of coffee, there's caraffs of coffee. I was like, I was telling the guy at 3,

at 18, I said, what is it going to take for me to buy this entire pot of coffee from you? We froze our asses off. We were in the upper deck. It was miserably cold. Man,

I've been to games that snowed, so I've, I feel like I could probably handle San Francisco. 51 degrees, 20 mile per hour winds in August. Even wearing jeans, froze the ass off. You're just not prepared for it because you don't think August, summertime, even in California, even in Northern California. Now, we go back the next day for the Astros in a day game against the Giants.

Different story. 1230 start, 70 degrees, little breeze off the bay, much more comfortable. The only thing that's sucked about Dodgers stadium, and I think it's one of my favorite ballparks in the history of ballparks, is that going in and out of Chavez Ravine is a major pain of the ass. You probably spend an hour getting in and two hours getting out. So if you're ever going to go see an Astros Dodgers game down the road, maybe when they really have fans and you can really get to Dodger games and all baseball teams,

you better allow five hours, which is part of the problem of baseball. because you allow five hours for a football game, but there's only eight of them in your home field, and it's an event. You don't expect to sit in traffic for 90 minutes of two hours after a ball game. One of the things that's funny, are you much into retro games? Do you, have you watched some of the old games at all on MLB Network or an ESPN?

No, I'm actually far more likely to, like, follow, like, a season than just random classic games. Well, let me just a very small case in point. You know, when Kirk Gibson hits the home run in the 89 World Series in game one over of Dennis Eckersley, he hits the ball to right field. And they win the game in the ninth inning. The funny thing I always look at that video is there is a car leaving Dodger Stadium. You can see the brake lights, and I'm thinking, that dope left early. And he missed one of the most incredible moments in the history of Major League Baseball.

But that dope was thinking, if I don't leave now, I'm going to be stuck at Dodger Stadium parking lot because there's going to be 56,000 people there. and there wasn't mass transit and Uber like there was and 89 like there is now. So he's probably thinking, the Dodgers are going to lose this game. It's Dennis Eckersley on the Hill. There's nothing that he can do to, you know,

he's one of the best closers. He hasn't had a lot of home run since mid-July. There's no way in the world that this gimpy Kirk Gibson's going to go to the plate and smack a home run to give the Dodgers the win. But he did. But the one thing I always think it's funny is if you see the video of the ball leaving the stadium or the you know going out in the outfield you see somebody's parked his car and their brake lights going on and me thinking i got to get out of there so it's one

of those funny things but i would say this and if you guys ever get to travel again to baseball games which i hope you do because that's part of the fun of being a baseball fan is seeing that all ballparks are not created equal uh the stadium dodger stadium is it's a shrine it just it feels like baseball. It's been around since the 60s, but it still has all the modern nuances, great concessions, great fans. I mean, I know the Dodger fans are going to piss you off because they're hating the Astros, but it's certainly a must go-to place among nationally ballparks if you can just live with the fact that you better not be in a hurry after the game or at least leaving the seventh inning. But as far as what Kelly Jansen said, I'm glad that he said

what he said, because frankly, we don't need beanball mania this season. I think before the season started, Ross and I did a unofficial count. I wish I had written it down, but I didn't, of how many times an Astro is going to get beaned. There was a ridiculous argument from non-baseball watching media when all the Astros were getting hit during spring training. It was stupid. As I told you all this before a couple months ago, I watched a Today show one day. and again, I don't go to the Today Show to get my sports news. But they took time out of their, whatever they call that show, news magazine to say,

what's going on with the Astros? Why are they getting hit so much? So guess what they did? They suckered me in, they reeled me in. It was a little promo. You don't want to miss something. I'm thinking, okay, what am I missing? What are other teams doing?

Come to find out all the video they were showing were Astro batters with the number 70 and above being hit by teams with pitchers with the uniform number 70 and above. And if Brenglin was hit or Altube was hit, which I think they were, it was on like 78 mile an hour off speed pitches or 84 mile per hour curve balls. The tease of the story never matches up what the story really was. And that's what I was so mad about. It's like, man, are you serious? you're going to take time. Why don't you give us recipes on how to serve meatballs? That's what the day show is all about.

What is Gwineath Paltrow doing these days? Because Lord knows, you are a fish out of water trying to talk about baseball. I don't talk politics and weather on this show. Leave sports up to me. Summer fashions should be what today's show should be focusing on, not whether or not the Astros are being intentionally beamed for sign stealing during the 2017 World Series. 713-212-5-790.

Brian's in downtown LaMette Thomas show. Brian, what do you got today? Hey, what's going on, Matt? How are you, sir? I love you, too. Thank you. Hey, I'm good. I'm good.

Hey, man, you know, I practically, my grandparents had season tickets to the Dodgers when I was growing up, and that was beginning in the 60s. So I'm an old guy. But, man, it is an awesome baseball park, especially at night. And I was actually there when Kurt Gibson hit that home run. And that was my most. unbelievable sports memory ever. I just thought I'd throw that at your bet.

No, as I said, it's one of those places that has held up through the years. Thank you, Brian, for the phone call. It's a baseball stadium. It's not a football stadium that has a baseball field configured into it. I mean, they created Dodgers Stadium for the exclusive purposes of just the Dodgers playing there.

And it's a wonderful place. It's great ambiance. Shevez ravines a beautiful apartment. It's California. If you guys are ever going to travel, I would skip San Francisco and Oakland just because of the huge cost and the fact that night games in San Francisco are awful. And Oakland Stadium is terrible. I mean, it's a dump. It's probably the worst. It's even worse than Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg.

That's how bad Oakland Coliseum is. It's the worst in baseball by far. And Oakland at night is not safe. It just is not. I would do L.A., Anaheim, and San Diego. you can drive to all three of the places, one plane flight, and have the time of your life. Petco Park in San Diego is awesome. First of all, I love San Diego.

But that, if you were to say, hey, let's do a baseball summer trip. Southern California is your jam. 228 on the Matt Thomas show, 713212-5-790. If you'd like to get in, 7-13-212-5-7-90. Non-Florida stories are next. It takes... It takes absolutely zero talent. to find out stories in the state of Florida,

although we're going to have to squeeze that audio in one more time, aren't we? From our girl from Florida, the Palm Beach Council. I think we're going to. That and non-Florida stories next. 228 on 790. 232 on the Matt Thomas show.

713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. You'll want to have that number ready to go for, believe it or not, today, all things about Vince Carter. All right, normally on non-Florida stories, I go with strange news arrest. You know, West Virginia man,

Wisconsin man, Michigan man, Michigan woman. And we're going to play at a city council from Florida. I know it's not in the segment, but it's just too good of audio. But I got to tell you, if there's one thing I have done, Brendan, since the pandemic has started, that I have done more in the last four months that I may have done in the previous four years, is buy lottery tickets

because I'm thinking, you know what, if I'm going to have this pandemic, if I'm going to eventually get the corona, I might as well be rich during it, right? So, I'm going to tell you about Mark Clark. He lives in South Rockford, Rockwood, excuse me, South Rockwood, Michigan. Do you know where that is?

Yeah. Good town? I mean, nothing special about it. Okay. Three years ago, he went to buy a millionaires club scratch-off ticket from the Michigan lottery. Scratch, scratch, scratch. Now, when I scratch, I get $1 back when I spend a dollar.

If I buy a $10 ticket, I usually get $7 back. Never have ever won money, like significant big money. So Homeboy scratches off a Millionaire's Club scratch-off ticket, and he wins $4 million three years ago. Pretty cool, right? Fast forward to June 22nd. He went and got another ticket from the Ash Market in Carlton, Michigan. He scratched off the same type of ticket inside the store with a special coin.

He won another $4 million. I hate that, dude. I would think you'd stop playing after a big win. You'd assume you can't get two in your life. Well, you're not a gambled argument, my friend. Oh, no, I am. I just, I feel like I'm a smarter game. So let me give you a little sports MT example.

I've been to Lake Charles twice since it reopened, right? The first time I went and I want a lot of money. So under your thought process, hold on, under your thought process, I shouldn't go back because I want a plenty of money and I want enough the first time. Can I tell you what's different about that? Yes, you can't have to tell my story. It feels like the second time I went back and I gave the money back to Tellman Fleta in the state of Louisiana. but with casinos I'm not saying it's the case

it feels like you had some skill involved doesn't it? That's true it doesn't feel like that with scratchoffs no it doesn't that if you win that kind of money that you are lucky and that you shouldn't tempt fate again but if you have four million dollars of which probably three million dollar of it is FU money

you're going to spend a little bit of that FU money on some more scratchoffs that's fair so this Jibroni this 50 year old from Michigan has two checks in his hand addressed to Mark Clark each of them $4 million.

Mark Clark, I hate you. Congratulations on your $8 million in winnings. Go ahead. Okay, a Harlem man, so this is in New York escaped a stabbing Tuesday with minor injuries. However, one of those minor injuries, a giant kitchen knife stuck out of his head.

this man is seen in an Instagram video that went viral refusing to get in an ambulance with a giant kitchen knife just lodged in his head wait a minute we all know what kitchen knives are if it got into his head it's probably pretty deep into the head correct well it's deep enough to stick

but not deep enough to cause any serious injury do we know how it happened just a fight just a normal fight Yeah just a fight With whom? It was between two men and two women And the end result was

I have kitchen knife in my head So escaped serious harm Because the blade didn't penetrate his skull He was listed He did end up eventually going to the Harlem hospital Stable condition I mean The lucky man

If you watch this video He's walking around like nothing's wrong Like you can't even tell he knows That there's a knife in his head So who's luckier knife in head or double four million dollar lottery winner. I mean, this guy still got a knife in his head. So I'm going to go with the lottery winner.

Well, you don't keep it in there full time, do you? No, but I mean, like, it was still there for a portion of time. I can't call that guy lucky. I'll say this. If I ever get a kitchen knife stuck in my head and I live to tell about it and I don't have some sort of serious injuries, I'll make that my new avatar on my Twitter account. And by the way, I think he was doing this to get some IG follows.

Like, my IG counts about $1,500, give or take. It's not bad at SportsMT on Instagram. I'm not willing to add to my account to have a butter knife or a kitchen knife stuck in my head. It's not worth it. So it says that the stabbing victim and an old woman were on the same side of a dispute against another man who was the one who eventually stuck the knife in the man's head before fleeing the scene. I was nervous to do this because it sounds almost dark. I'm sure it's true.

But if you watch the video, I mean, he's walking around. Yeah, no, it's real. It's not like magic or something. It's not one of those faux knives. It is a reliable source. It does look like that, though. Like, if you see the Instagram video, it looks like... So he has an Instagram video or somebody took a video of it and they put it on their Instagram?

I think somebody else took the video. I don't believe. Do you think I would get more Twitter followers if I stuck a kitchen knife into my head? Because I've been losing followers left and right. I mean, I'm in a fast, a steady declass. I think it's a lot of because of an active accounts, which is fine. If you make it look real enough. Okay.

We could do something at 305 when the show's over with today. Stick me in the night. Stick me in the head with a kitchen knife. And now take me to hospital clearly. Pay my bills. And maybe I get to 30,000 followers after all that way. Short of that, I'm never getting there. This man refused an ambulance ride, Matt.

Well, that's stupid. You want an ambulance ride, don't you? I mean, they're expensive. But if there's a knife in my head... If I have a knife in my head and I'm not feeling well, why would I want to drive myself for the hospital if I'm getting in a ride? Now, granted, the insurance cost of the ambulance is high, but you know what? Saving blood and being able to use my head for, I don't know, thinking, speaking, talking,

seeing would be kind of more important than the cost of an ambulance ride. And that's this week's non-flora stories. This week's not in Florida. And again, when Ross is back, we're going to have to make amends on this because all I can tell you is, a woman in Palm Beach not happy with the fact that Palm Beach County may soon require every resident to wear a mask no matter where you are. You literally cannot mandate somebody to wear a mask knowing that that mask is killing people. It literally is killing people. And the people, we the people, are waking up and we know what citizens arrest is because citizens arrest are already happening.

Okay, and every single one of you that are obeying the devil's laws are going to be arrested. And you, doctor, are going to be arrested for crimes against humanity. Every single one of you have a smirk behind that little mask, but every single one of you are going to get punished by God. You cannot, you cannot escape God. You cannot escape God. I'm going to say that again. You cannot escape God, not even with the mask or six feet. Okay, six feet, like I said before, is military protocol. You're trying to get the people to train them.

So when the cameras, the 5G comes out, what? They're going to scan everybody. We got to get scanned. We got to get temperatureed. The kids have to go to school with masks. Are you insane? Are you crazy? I think all of you should be in a psych ward right the heck now.

Because none of you, none of you know what the hell you are all talking about. This is insane. And then you want to open this meeting with a prayer to God. Are you praying to the devil? Because God is not listening to that prayer. Because all of you are practicing the devil's laws. What happened to Bill Gates? Why is he not in jail? Why is Hillary Clinton not in jail? Why are all of these pedophiles that are demanding you all to listen to their rules? Why are they not in jail? Oh, is it because you're part of them? Are you part of the deep state? The deep state is going down.

And if any of you are in the deep state, you're going down with it. Simple question. If Ross has the Rona and is gone for like a week or two, do we bring her in to sit in with us? I can reach out. I mean, I wouldn't necessarily ask her for sports analysis. There's nothing to talk about. No games.

I can listen to that for three hours a day, 12 to 3. There's worse things on radio right now. I can tell you that for damn sure. I would rather listen to people like, Her and her. At the end, I don't wear a mask for the same reason I don't wear underwear. Things got to breathe. And her.

And they want to throw God's wonderful breathing system out the door. You're all turning your backs on it. And her? I really have many question marks about your degrees and what you really know. I'm sorry, ma'am, but I don't think that you are worthy of your credentials. And I would ask suggestively that you go back to school and get education. And I do want to meet her one more time. At the end, I don't wear a mask for the same reason I don't wear underwear.

Things got to breathe. Please get things got to breathe trending on Twitter at some point. I'm going to take that sound by. I've got to put it on my Twitter account. Things got to breathe. So the question is, do you wear a mask? Do you wear underwear? Do you wear both?

Or do you wear neither? call Brendan on his private line. You'd like to meet you. Believe it or not next, 243. All things Vince Carter. This is Sports Talk 790. Daryl Morey here. Let's go Rock this.

This is the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. It is time to get the polls at the city of Houston. And we will do that by going to the Twitter question. And it reads as follows. This is at SportsMT on Twitter. do you wear a mask B underwear C a mask and underwear

D no mask and no underwear Let's check 61 votes are already in Brendan people didn't waste time going to the answer this one Thankfully 62.3% of you at least of the 61 votes now 62 votes say a mask and underwear tied for second

underwear third 15.1%, no mask and no underwear at 13%. And then at last at just 11.5% is a mask. So let your vote be found and counted at Sports 17. Remember, you can't pitch about the results if you don't vote. So 13% of my audience will not wear a mask and will not wear underwear. The people who just scroll by that without recognizing the context, they're going to be very confused. That's why you listen to the show 12 to 3.

I feel like my Twitter is an extension of the 12 to 3 show and so if you don't listen you don't know why I would ask such a question like if I put up there would you rather who's the luckier guy a kitchen knife survives head wound back to back four million dollar lottery winner yeah but that gives you enough context to like understand I mean some people might have seen this video anyways

but if you haven't seen this video and didn't hear it right here you probably want to know why Matt Thomas is so curious about what you're wearing. That's true. That's true. Five minutes left to go on the show. What should we do? We should play

America's fastest growing sports game show. We simply called it. Believe it or not, and here's how it works. You'll call 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Today's edition of Believe it or not is brought to you by Houston Woodhouse Day Spas. Print out your gift card.

for the gift of relaxation at Houston Woodhouse Spas.com. The category today is all things about Vince Carter, who at the age of 43, is retiring after 22 seasons in the NBA. I'll read your statement about Vince. Statements completely utterly accurate. You'll say this. Believe it. Right on cue.

It's a statement's erroneous full of bunk and made up. You will say this. Two, believe it or not, in a row will win you a $50 gift card. To Hooters. We'll have up to two winners today on today's edition of Believe it or not. But first, how well do you know Vince Carter? 713212-5-790. Jay on 790, ready to play, believe it or not? Yes, sir.

Vince went to high school in Daytona Beach of Florida and was a former Mr. basketball in the state of Florida. Believe it or not. Believe it. Believe it. That is correct. Statement number two for the win. Vince was offered more than 50 basketball scholarships. One school, Bethune Cookman, offered him a music scholarship.

Believe it or not. Believe it. Believe it is right. That's a win. $50 to Cooters, congratulations on that for you. Let's start giving away one more. John on 790. John, you're ready to play Believe it or not?

Believe it. Vince is a cousin to Penny Hardaway. Believe it or not? Not. That is correct. It's Tracy McGrady. Statement number two for the win. Vince played for a total of eight, I repeat, eight different NBA teams. Believe it or not.

Believe it. Believe it. Another winner. Dang. Well, we'll go to tomorrow's batch. Why not? We can get some more. 7-13-21, 2-5-7-90.

That's a mini-skunk, by the way. Four statements, four correct answers. Line number four. Rob on 790. Rob, you ready to play, believe it or not? Absolutely, let's do it. Despite being 6-6, Vince has relatively small feet. He wears a size 11 shoe.

Believe it or not? Believe it. No, he's a 16. Thank you for playing now. Let's go to line number five. Joe on 790. Joe, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Better believe it.

Vince is an avid bowler. He has thrown two perfect 300 games. Believe it or not. Not. That is correct. Statement number two for the win. In 2018, Vince made a $3.5 million donation to the North Carolina Athletic Department. The women's practice facility is called the Carter Performance Center.

Believe it or not? Believe it? No, I made that up. I'm sorry. Thanks for playing. I feel kind of bad. Last one belongs to Ron on 7-90. You ready to play, believe it or not?

Believe it. On the all-time scoring list, Vince is currently 19th in NBA history with 25,728 points. Believe it or not? I'll take a nod. Believe it. Sorry. Thank you, though. After a strong finish, we had four correct answers, and I think we had four misses in a row, or at least three of the last four were incorrect.

And thus, congratulations to John and Jay. You guys have won $50 to Hooters. All right, tomorrow on the show. Again, Ross is not with us today and tomorrow. He's getting a COVID test. He's got a member of his family that tested positive. So he is trying to be uber, uber safe, and we will get results from him. And hopefully he gets a negative test.

So he's back with us here on Monday. Or as the kids say, sooner rather than later. Brian T. Smith from The Chronicle is going to be on the radio show tomorrow. We have anything goes Friday. We have the Fantasy 5. I got to figure out who we're going to get in for a Fantasy 5. I need a partner first. Well, I can also tell you I'm not going to be here either.

Where are you going to be? I'm going to be off. Oh, you don't want to say? I'll share it with you off there. That's fine. You don't have to tell me. You can tell me off there. Wex, you want to come into the fantasy five tomorrow?

Brendan's not going to be here. Ross is not going to. Am I even going to have a producer? Am I running my own show tomorrow? My assumption is Joe will probably be into you tomorrow. All right, Wex, you're in. Wex is just not at his head. He's a loyal listener to the show.

He loves Donnie Part music. and he is going to play the Fantasy 5 with us tomorrow at 2.30. So very much look forward to that. We'll do that. Brian T. And I'm working on a couple other guests as well to hopefully take care of a Friday with, again, no sports. But thankfully, we'll have something in the not too distant future. My thanks to Robert Ford for joining us.

My thanks for Brandon Riley. Ross, hope you get a negative test. We look forward to visiting with all of you tomorrow. For anything goes Friday, we'll welcome the strippers and wake him up tomorrow at 12 noon. Adam Clayton, Adam Wexer, combined. They are the A team, and they're up next right here on Sports Talk 790.