The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - McCullers Shuts Down Astros Reliever Idea, Rockets Lose To Warriors Going Into All-Star Break, Fantasy 5 RETURNS

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

Matt Thomas and Ross Villarreal of "The Matt Thomas Show with Ross" recap the latest from Day 2 of Astros Spring Training, where Lance McCullers Jr. spoke about his rehab from injury and a potential timeline to return to the mound. Matt and Ross also:get a live report from Chris Gordy in Floridareview updates on Alex Bregman's deal with the Red Soxreact to the Rockets losing to the Warriors ahead of the All-Star Breaktalk with Greg Rajan of the Houston Chronicle about the 30th anniversary of the Rockets trading for Clyde Drexlerdraft their favorite SNL characters of all time in another edition of "Fantasy Five" and more on this "Anything Goes Friday."

Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. 101 in H-Town. Good morning. And welcome to a Friday edition of the Matt Thomas show at Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. I offer to put soup down my body and he wants it scalding hot. Can you listen to yourself?

What is happening? I'm getting some yoga, Matt. Get your flexibility up. I'm very flexible. I've heard you're very stiff. That too. It's not just him. Now, he's the one that I keep my eye on.

on lately. I mean, I just say it. I want to have his babies. I do. I don't want to bust them out because I don't be teased. I like tight ends. And it's just this long white pipe. And they just spray. And it's a little bit of a pain in the ass. I'm calling you as Dale from Magnolia. Yeah, man, we got about six inches up here. Excuse me? What? I don't care what you're carrying, Dale. Come on snow. Oh, okay. What are you talking about? I don't know, but that was very odd. Magnolia, huh?

Good guy. Regular on this in the show. Well, I never was able to call you on KTRH coverage because you didn't do it. Should have done it. No, that's fine. Yeah, just save me for Hurricane Season. I don't want me doing winter storm coverage. Don't say that.

It is. I know, but we don't need it. We didn't do it last year? I don't think I did it like. No, we did it do it last. We did have a hurricane. Barrel. Barrel for like a day and a half.

It kicked our ass. I lost power for two weeks. Every tree in Houston was down. Fun times. Quickly we forget. Hey, everybody. Hope you guys are in a ladies in a wonderful mood. I am in a fantastic mood except for that crap that was last night at the Toto Center.

Traffic was, Conner, get my back on this. It took like less than two hours to get from King One to the studios here today. It was pretty smooth. What up with that? Are people taking Valentine's Day off? Yeah, maybe. Three day weekend? I know Monday.

a day off. Is President's Day? Yeah. Ah, four-day weekend people. You guys are smart. I say how y'all are doing it? We'll be here on Monday, correct? I'm off. But you knew that because of the schedule, I put it out weeks ago. I can't keep track of your schedule. I know. That's why I put out frequent emails to say, hey, Ross, I'm going to start capitalizing everything and putting in bold. Ross, see this day, I'm not working. Okay, thank you. But I'll see you Tuesday in West Palm Beach, Florida. That's true. Actually, I'll see you Monday night with room dogs. we are we're in the same room yes two beds though

here we go you know much you're going to the rest of us I'm going to have to watch now there'll be no blood on the uh refrigerator or the stove or the bathroom on the bathtub like there wasn't a previous trip that was

that was an all-timer it wasn't that bad you're a whiner it was ridiculous there was never in danger didn't feel clean Yeah, it wasn't clean. I mean, we had bacteria build up in all the rooms. It wasn't clean. Again, how did the floors get greasy?

Yeah. Was somebody frying up fish in there? It doesn't make sense. Could you imagine being a part of a greasy floor in West Palm Beach, Florida? Hmm. Ugh. Not even the good side of West Palm. I guess I don't want the answer to that question.

No, you don't. No, you don't. Hey, it is 1005 on Sports Talk 790. Happy Friday to y'all. And welcome to an Anything Goes edition, and then goes Friday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 713-212-5-790 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90

Please explain Rossi the essence Of an anything goes Friday Yes, Matthew, the phone lines are wide open and available to the folks At 7-1-3-212-5-7-90 7-7-90 Anything you would like to get to, you can, On those phone lines If you want to talk more about Alex Bregman

Being a Red Sox person If you want to talk about person, a Red Sock. If you want to talk to about how you're lining up the sixth and seventh inning is the bullpen. How many innings is Forrest Whitley going to pitch? We can talk about that. And if you're looking for

Valentine's Day and or sidepiece Day tips, Matt Thomas is your guy. I'm an expert on one of those, not on the other. Really? We'll let you decide which is which. Okay. But yeah, we are here for you today. Are you doing anything with the lady for Valentine's Day? They're about to land in D.C. So the answer is yes. That's right. You're going to D.C.

for volleyball. Yeah. The Capitol City Classic. Yeah. Oof. This volleyball stuff's expensive, Matt. I'm down the two years. She's already committed.

Why don't you cut this out? You know what? It's funny. Put her on ice. I almost like, let's bubble wrap her. Yeah. Let's not, you know how they... No ACL injuries, no.

You know how they don't, like, college football players don't play in the bowl games because they want to make sure their draft stock is good? It's been drafted already. Are volleyball injuries very common? There is common. as any other injuries. You can run into people. You could turn an ankle. You can, I mean, there's lighting things you can happen. I mean, I would, I would say it's not nearly as, um, I mean,

it's not like you're getting up and down the floor in basketball. No, there's a very physical sport. Yeah. I'm not sure to down. But you can still. You have a lot of jumping. Yeah. Right. And you're, and you're landing on a, you know, now they have these volleyball courts that are laid down on the convention center floors, but they're not built of, uh, soft cotton. I mean, they're, they're not to put a pad down. They do. Okay. But it's still jumping up and down multiple times in a very short period of time. Okay. That's fine. I think I got away with that one.

We'll see. We'll see. 713212-5-790. 7-1-3-2-1-2-5-70. By the way, congratulations to all of you that voted on the poll question, which I believe ends pretty quick. It's pretty much a consensus that Valentine's Day needs should be eliminated. It's just, and to your point yesterday, you were right, every holiday is commercialized. Oh, yeah.

But this is one of the most This is the one of the most invented out of nowhere commercialized ones Because Thanksgiving there was a Settlers and the Well nobody that's what Thanksgiving to me is my favorite Nobody's giving gifts We're just going to hang out and have a bunch of good food

And watch the football It's the eat. It's the goat It's what you want to eat day And it's the leftovers day And there's three football games on And usually a college basketball game or two on It's the best You know it's funny because

in my family, Christmas is number one, obviously, for the gifts. Halloween's number two. But you don't even get a day off necessarily. It could be on a Wednesday. No, you don't. But it's, you get the neighbors around, you pass out candy, you see naughty nurses and naughty teachers. It's the Super Bowl of dressing like a skank. It's great in your 20s.

Oh. Yeah, but you got to stay in, you'll know this a little bit later. You're in your 40s now. Congratulations to hit the 40 Club. God. 40 to 48 is not going to be terrible. for you. Okay.

You got some 40, the 43, 44 that want to stay, they think they're still in their 30s, and if they can pull it off, it's great. Hmm. I don't know what you're saying, but... Like a naughty accountant in 43? I mean, she was probably... Noddy accountant?

Yeah. Nobody's dressing up like a naughty accountant. You don't know that. What do they have, Intuit TurboTax outfit on? Yeah, and they got a cacklitter on their chest? You know, in the side pocket. No.

All right. so yeah christmas is number one Halloween number two and i would say Valentine's day is 17th 18th on the list I mean I would say probably flag days seems to be more valuable for us as a family oh really

do you have Memorial Day What about harbored day? You got planting trees? We could I would do it all right so on the radio program today we'll check in with Gordy at 11 o'clock

Lance McCuller's just going to speak in West Palm Beach really? I mean that's great it's nice is he questionable to speak or is he going to speak? I believe he is scheduled to speak.

So we'll find out what he's got going on there. This is day two of pitchers and catchers working out down in West Palm Beach. And Gordy's going to check in with us at 11 o'clock. At noon, we'll wake the strippers up in the news at noon. At 1 o'clock, Greg Rajin from the Houston Chronicle is going to join us. You know, today is the 30th anniversary of the Clyde directs our trade from Portland to Houston. Okay. So he'd done some background stories talking to Clyde, talking to Rudy, talking to

some of the people. He talked to me because I was there. And so we'll talk to him at 1. You were there? You were sick, I thought. I was sick, but I still went. Okay. I wasn't missing that. Are you kidding me? Now it's Clyde Drexer for the first time wearing a rocket hat? Great job. You weren't around. I was talking about what I was doing in third grade. That's what I'll do in the interview. You were the third grade in 1995? I guess fourth grade. Well, you had to repeat a couple times. No. You didn't repeat? No.

All right. 120 today. the return of the fantasy five recurring SNL characters now I got news for you if you're worried about putting together the list it will not take you long because there's a several websites that have the list of the best recurring characters of all time so you've got a cheat sheet you're going to be able to use it just spends on all personal preferences okay when are we drafting I don't get a list we're going to draft in about six minutes here no I need a I need to okay bottom of the hour we're going to draft we told you this yesterday because Connor's like I'm going to need to do as much time as possible. I've been sick. I went to the doctor. You did go to the doctor yesterday. You look better. Thank you. I mean, you got a few more grades in the hair, but on that, you look fine. And then we got, believe it or not, today at 150. So we've got a very busy show for you today. Now, you were resting yesterday. I'm glad you were. Apparently, Amanda Thompson, for the most part, Dylan Brooks, Alpern, Shangoon, Jalen Green, and Company,

where Cam Whitmore were resting in the first half of the game against the Golden State Warriors yesterday. Ross, I don't like losing to anybody, okay? I especially don't like losing to a Golden State team that's 500 that played on the road in Dallas the night before. Their game started an hour and 45 minutes after our game started. And they came in here and they looked like they owned the place yet again. And so why are you shocked? But I'm tired of being shocked. I mean, the rocket starters and rotation guys early look like they want to be anywhere else.

But the TOTA center last night. Yeah. I mean, we talked with coach about it yesterday. He said that's a big concern. of his every year the game before the All-Star break. But it wasn't concerned to Steve Kerr. They played fine. No, they didn't seem to

mind at all. Something called Pat Spencer was shooting shots and making them. Brandon Pogemsky was pretty good on getting high volume. Currie was not great, but he shot a lot and got at the free throw on a bunch times. And the Rockets made a

massive comeback being down by as much as 24 points that got to win within two because of Nate Williams, Jack Landell, Jeff Green, Jay Sean Tate, and a mix of Aaron Holiday and a men Thompson.

And that's who coach ran with. And I mean, ran the entire base, well, all the fourth quarter and a lot of the third. You think the starters are like, eh, it's an all-star break. No big deal. I want the home court in the first round of the playoffs.

I'm being greedy AF, okay? I want the third or second or third. Well, I'm telling you, Clippers won last night, Minnesota won last night. It is going to be a fight to the finish for a top six spot in the Western Conference. And I was very disappointed. I guarantee you, EMA Adork, it was very disappointed in how the team came out yesterday. Okay. And with that, we take our first time out.

It is anything goes Friday at 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. We take this program to 2 o'clock today. It is an anything goes Friday here on 790. Matt Thomas and Ross Bia Real. Two guys extremely passionate about Houston sports. You can tell them to go get a room. We've shared a hotel room.

But they already have. And shared a bed. Truth be told. That's true. Thanks for the visual. Pillow in between. There's no pillow between you and more lunchtime Houston Sports Talk on Sports 790.

And when Ross is, and I go to Florida next week. We'll have two queen beds in our room. Playing pillows. Queens. Yeah. And the hotel is significantly more expensive than last year. Last time it was two army surplus cuts. No. We just share one blanket.

It was a little... Yeah. Ross likes a cold in the room, so... All right. It isn't anything goes friday here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-9. Lance McCuller speaks and I've seen already what Chris Gordy is sending through Twitter.

Can I guess I haven't even looked? I was looking at SLL characters. Yeah, we have a draft coming up in a minute. Okay, it's a topic that I'm just shaking my head about. What? Go ahead, what do you think? The McCuller thing? Yeah. What's the let's see? Oh, adversity?

No, everybody's got adversity. That's nothing new. Oh. He's just going to say that he He wants to compete. He wants to, he's taking it one day at a time. Of course, yeah. He's taking it slow. Yep, those are not.

He wants to be ready. He wants to, and he wants to help this team this year. Yeah, those are all things that would not be a shakeable head moment. Oh, okay. I thought maybe adversity might make you shake-in. No, no, because everybody has adversity. Okay, what? He wants to be a starter.

What do you mean? He's a starter. What are you talking about? Why would you put him in the bullpen? He's never come out of the bullpen. Because he's going to be, Lance is a middle reliever for the rest of his life. he doesn't know this yet.

Why? Because he first of all can't get on a mound and expect him to throw 90, 95 pitches every five days is just not asking. It's just not realistic. If Lance comes back, he's coming. In my mind, now again, I want him to prove me wrong. But for a guy that has missed basically, what, two and a half years?

Mm-hmm. Give me an inning every other day. Small steps, baby. Small steps. I mean, middle relief would be fine. certainly don't want to he walks too many people. He's going to go out there and walk everybody.

I don't know if he walks people anymore. Yeah, he does. I don't remember. I mean, and look, if you want to get some rate of return back, because right now it's zero, once every,

twice a week, one inning, ending in a third, let's go. Of course, it's going to depend on how he is physically and all that type of stuff. But he's making $18 million a year.

If he's an 18 million, he's making 18, he needs to be out there starting, unless you're going to be, that's Josh Hater level. Well, no, the, contract for Lance is a loss. There's nothing he can do at this point in his career to make up

for that money. Yeah, but on the years going forward on it, you want to win on those. What's he got left? I don't know, one or two years? I'm going to say two three, maybe two three years. Was it $5.85 that he signed for? It was five, like 77 or something like that or no, it was, I don't know. And at the time, as long as he pitched, it was good value. But we kept saying, well, you know, as a good friend of ours once said, attendance is part of the grade. Mm-hmm. And that's what it was. 585, so that's 17 a year. Mm-hmm.

Look, again, it's not worked out well for the Astros. They've still been able to win, despite him not being out there. It was a roll of the dice. When he's out there, he pitches close to an ace level at the least like a two guy. And having a guy who's a number two starter, making $18 million is a huge win. But unfortunately, it's been a huge L. Yeah, I don't even think about the money anymore.

He's a free agent next year. Just, so neck, this is last year. He's a free agent after next year. Oh, so he's got two years left. Okay. Sorry. Yeah, I mean, to me, my expectations are so minimal that if I get him on the mound, it's a win. I'm just not necessarily worried about how many innings or if he's a part of it.

Now, if he Ross can be a part of the rotation, that's fantastic news. But, I mean, he's missed a lot of times. It's just like Forrest Whitley. Forrest Whitley was supposed to be a starter for this organization. Yeah. Well, he, they need start. I know you think Ryan Gusto is going to come on here and win a Cy Young. No, I didn't say that.

You're such a liar. And I quote. No, but you need starting pitching debt too. But I can't. You're not having enough viable guys right now. I'm not trusting him to be that guy. No, you know, look, it's found money and he can give you. Yeah.

I mean, until we hear something from Joe Espada or Dana Brown otherwise, look, I wouldn't be shocked if he goes to the bullpen if they want to say, hey, we're trying to limit your innings and keep you healthy. Now, what he does have in his corner is he has been a starter all of his life. So he's obviously revving up to be that. Now, just because mentally you want to get back on the mound every fifth day, it doesn't mean your arm's going to let you do that. And secondly, you know, I don't think he's thinking,

well, I'm just going to just mail my rest of my career in by just being a one-inning guy. Remember, the Astros already have one high-price middle reliever that they're paying for. Now they're kind of on the hook for two But my point is I guess my issue is Let's just take small steps in this Build up Get him on the mound

Playing in a major league game As compared to these side These videos that we see about Once every 30 days About him throwing on the side Looking good Good movement, good Velo Maybe just throw pus the rest of time

His last full year as a starter It's 21 To run to 25 We're into 25 He finished 7th and the Sihung voting. He was good. He likes playing indoors. We know that.

He also led the league in walks with 76. Yeah, I don't think you can use... First of all, his arm has been... His arm, his forearm, his elbow, his everything on part of that arm. He's like the $6 million man. I'm not using any numbers. That's good. Well, then $6 million dollar man didn't break down.

It's all bionic. He should be good. Until he hung out with the bionic woman, and then she broke him down. She did? She broke him down. Were they breaking each other down? How did that go? Pretty much.

A lot of sparks flying. I'm not, this is all flying over my head. I didn't watch a show. I didn't either, but. Well, you know, they were both hurt in big accidents, and they were rebuilt, they were rebuilt by bonding parts. It seems very realistic, right? Yeah, I guess so.

All right, let's go to the phone. Easy's got him as an opener. Just go throw them out there for like three innings and then move on. Like a middle ground. I like that, actually. That's not a terrible idea. Tap them out at three innings or like 60 pitches. I mean, you may be in a night where you have to go to a six-man rotation.

Mm-hmm. I just think, If he's really trying hard, which it clearly is to get back, I'm not putting any pressure on him to pitch every fifth day. And by the way, if I'm putting him in my starting rotation, I need him to throw 90 pitches. Dana Brown has spoken on Lance McCuller Jr. being a reliever. Earlier today or within the last few minutes.

Can I guess? Yeah, I think it should be easy for you. Our plan is going to be a starter. Dana Brown alluded to Lance McCuller Jr., perhaps transitioning to a reliever. This is from Chandler, Rome. McCuller said, I don't know where that came from. Hmm. Okay, so Dana Brown alluded to it.

Sorry, is all I have. Oh, okay. I thought he was backing. I misread the tweet. That's my, that's on me. That's my fault. I'd like to apologize to all the listeners. It was a Dana Brown illusion,

and then a Lance McCullors, Jr., subsequent quote, which we'll be having. In moments. Very soon. Eric in Bay City, on anything goes Friday. Eric, good morning to you. And anything will go, Matt.

and Ross. Good morning to you guys as well. You know, I'm sitting here looking at our projected rotation with Spencer Erigetti in it and Hayden West Nesky, who we know even less about, but has to be better than Arrogati. Ergeti was good last year at the second half of the season. No, trash. You sit there. You're going to criticize what my take is this morning. When I bring back back, can't wait. Because, but Spencer Argetti at the same ERA as that Grinky essentially in his last season. And Spencer, I'm sorry, Lance McCullors hasn't pitched in two years.

Is that Grinkie only took one year off, which is probably good at his age. He's also 55 years old. Okay, good. We get some of that Social Security money to supplement his salary, so we don't have to pay him out the wallet. I don't think that's how that works. I don't think there's offsetting language in the contract about Social Security. Well, either way, we could use him as a pinch hit for Jake Myers and Chas McCant hit every seventh or eighth inning. so then maybe we have a chance to get somebody on base with Zach Grinky.

We're in a huge hole here with Aregetti and West Neski starting to season in this rotation. I think we're going to finish behind the Rangers, behind the Angels, and the Mariners right now. Because we have thrown so much bad money out there after Raphael Montero, Lance McCullors, Jose Abrae, Jeff, well, go get enough jobs somewhere else. Zach Grinke was bad money, too, at the end of his contract. No. Listen, we could get Zach Grinky at a very valuable. you bargain bin price right now. I believe that 100%. And other teams assigned

Scherzer and Verlander and all these other grandfathers to be. Why can't we have ours? Eric, it's not happening. Drop it, Eric. He didn't pitch at all in 24. He'd be the best pinch hitter we have. Put him in the outfield. He's got to be better than what we're looking at right now. You are correct that

his ERA of zero last year is better than Spencer Erickettys. Have you noticed something during this two-minute stretch here? What? I'm not said a word. Okay. No, I didn't notice. Yeah, well, I want you to notice. Okay, we'll notice now that you told us to notice. I'm 100% not involved in those conversations any further.

First of all, Eric and Bay City, we love you like a step. We love you, Eric. But I'm afraid you're sniffing more glue than you normally do. He went from the Elmer's glue to that monkey, you know, the monkey glue that sticks that doesn't let ever let, you know, you get attached to your hand, you never get. Oh, the gorilla glue? The gorilla glue, not monkey glue, yeah. So more of the great ape family. He's sniffing the good stuff now.

Spencer Eric Getty, after the All-Star break last year, 3.04 ERA and 12 starts. So you're saying there's a chance. Pretty good. Hashtag future ace. 1030. It isn't anything goes Friday. On the Matt Thomas show with Ross. This is Sports Talk 790.

Back to Matt Thomas and Ross via real. On Sports Talk 790. All right. The picks are in. the S&L recurring characters. And I like both lists. I don't know if it's going to be close, but that's okay. Because there's so many great recurring characters.

I'm not worried about it. I don't think you would be worried about it. It's going to be great. It's going to be fine. I'm sorry. I got to sell this. I'm just, you know, I've been feeling down and sick, Matt.

Sleep hasn't been great. I'm sorry. I'm going to be better for you. Be better co-hors for you. I need you to hang until 2 o'clock. I know. And then you can go back to your normal. I'm drinking.

I'm going to get some more coffee. All right. Monday where I'm out. You're going to be in Monday. Tuesday, we will all address you from West Palm Beach. That's a got to think about Tuesday. Let's get to Tuesday, baby. Okay.

Great guest, anecdotal things, warmer weather. Hmm. Can't wait. You wore shorts? It depends on the weather. I've worn shorts before. I know, but I'm just, my legs are so milky white. It's just embarrassing.

Get them out there in the sun, Matt. You got to let those dogs barred. You think, okay. Why don't we do that? Why don't we do a before and after photo? No, no, I don't want to do that. Let's get you some sundown. No, let's do that.

You don't think so? Go stop by little mallweens and go get some sun tithe? Now that we're off at two instead of three, we can hit the beach. You want to go catch a sunset with me, Matt? I've got plans already the whole trip. What? At least one of the nights. You're going to leave me hanging dry?

No, I'll give you the car. Oh, this is you're going to say card. Give me the card, and we got to do it. I'll give you a car and the card. Rachel's it is. 7-1, 3, 2, 1.1. 125790 audio coming in from West Palm Beach, and we'll give you some of that coming up here.

Charlotte, let's say hello to Nigel at 1036 on anything goes Friday. Neal, what do you got today? Good morning, guys. So I got a hypothetical for you since this is anything goes. So, you know, Nico's a pretty hated man up there in Dallas right now. So what if he had a conversation with Luca, and he said, Luca, I don't think we have enough pieces here to win it all. We've got to make some kind of move.

So we're going to make this move with L.A. Go over there. You got a chance for this season, finish out this season. Next season, you've got a whole season. Maybe you can win one. You can opt out of your contract then. Come back home. We'll have a three-headed monster.

We're going to give you a max deal. Would Nico not become the go from the dumbest general manager to the most brilliant general manager of all time? He's going to lose this trade and maybe get destroyed for it. I mean, at this point, it's too early. We will grade this trade out in two or three years. I don't think there's any sort of pivot to it. You have traded maybe.

I mean, would you say the Mavericks? Is he the second greatest Maverick of all time already in his young NBA career? I mean, it's dirt number one. you could go back to the 80s with Mark McGuire and Roy Tarpley and Jason Kidd Steve Nash wasn't that long enough I mean Lucas is the second greatest maverick of all time Probably

So you just traded the second best player ever to play for that franchise Early in his career he is not even 26 years old yet Neal this is going to be a loss for him And is just going to be how bad if a loss is going to be Yeah well my thing was is what if Luca comes back when he opts out of his Lakers contract and then, you know, they got the assets and the pieces from L.A., and now they have a super team. I can't imagine that happening. I can't imagine.

First of all, he lost a Supermax. He can't get the Supermax now. So he can go anywhere he wants, but he's not going to get more money in Dallas than he would somewhere else. The way he was going to make the Supermax money was by staying with the Mavericks. When the Mavericks would have offered him that money, he would have accepted it. Because they would have been able to give him more money than any of their NBA team. why would you go to a team that traded you away? It's all part of the master plan.

I don't know. Thank you, Eja. That's a little conspiracy there. No, I don't. I think Lucas Day's as a Maverick, at least under this current administration, are over. Yeah. And remember, this was ownership signing off on this.

You do not. Nico Harrison's got power, just like any general manager does, Ross. But if you trade away your franchise player, you better get the call from the top that says, okay. You don't tell the owner, you're going to get fired. Yeah. It's absolutely had to be signed off on.

Because here's the reality of it. They didn't want to pay $300 million for a Doy guy who doesn't keep himself in good shape. He's got a history of ailments and bitches about referees. He was a doughy card again. It's so, such a low, I mean, he is Doey. But if he ever got himself in a really good shape, he could own L.A. I think he's going to. I think he's going to, too.

I think that he will be a, not that we're going to sit there and stare on him, but he's going to be a leaner, meaner looking guy because he's going to be around an organization and said, hey, we're going to pay you this great money to stay here long term. We're making you the franchise. We're taking you and putting you in the number one spot and taking the greatest player or the second greatest player of all time and making him the second guy. That's how important that Luca Dantitch is to the LA Lakers. Also, LeBron's 40.

If LeBron was in his prime, that's true. But, you know, it's funny. And you're not the only one does this. He isn't his prime, but he ain't Chapel ever. He still puts up, he wakes up 28 and 6, or 25. I think he's at 24, 7 rebounds and like 9 assists the game. That's what the one of the two greatest players in the association do, does. He's not fighting father time.

I don't think the Rockets have a player, they don't have a player averaging 24 points a game. They don't have a player averaging nine assists a game. No. The Rockets. No. And they're in the West playoffs. No. That's correct.

That's insane. And he's 40. Yeah. And he probably can play, I mean, comfortably to lose 45. Yeah, we'll see. He hadn't played a lot of games. He's played around 50, 60 games the last few years. He's been getting hurt.

We'll probably see at some point him go down to a role player, a six man, but I don't see him being the end of the bench guy ever in his career. I don't think he was. No, he's retired. He would retire before that happened. His averages are going to suffer too much. He's already got all the totals he needs. Was there anything else he wants?

Is he want to be the all-time assist leader? Is that what he wants? Okay, I lied. He played 71 games last year. But before that, he hadn't played 70 games since 2018. He's top five in assists, correct? All time, yeah. He's behind, like, Chris Paul or Jason Kidd.

It's John Stockton, Magic Johnson, Chris Paul or Jason Kidd, and then LeBron, like all time. So not only does he score a boltload of points, number one, all time, but he's also handing the ball to other people to score. Yes, he's also number one in turnovers all time. but he's played a lot nobody's perfect he's number one missed shots all time yeah he's fourth and assists

Stockton Paul kid that's it he's ahead of Nash he's a chance to get the top he's ahead of magic no he can't catch Stockton he can catch maybe Chris Paul if that dude will retire he is 900 behind Chris Paul Chris Paul's not retiring he's got Deeran Fox and Victor Wemagnama there he's very happy

yeah but apparently there are people who think that he continues to be in that lineup just so they can kind of like a soft tank of the Spurs. Oh. Because he's not very helpful. Kind of like a yeah, can we stay out of the playoffs here? I've not looked at his minute since Deere and Fox has gotten there.

He's playing more than he should. That's what the Twitter, basketball Twitter streets are saying. Those streets can be quite mean. They can be. All right. Hey, let's get you some audio from what's happening down in Florida. It's coming in as our intrepid, is it intrepid reporters? Is that we're calling?

Yes. The intrepid reporter, Chris Gordy. He's going to join us in about 15 minutes, too. We're going to hear from what's happening right there in West Palm Beach next. 1043. Anything goes Friday. 713-212-5-790. Matt Thomas, Ross Villariel.

It's the Matt Thomas Show with Ross on Sports Talk 790. 1048. It is a Anything Goes Friday. Sports Talk 7.90. We'll wake the strippers up at 12 noon. Oh, wait. Are the strippers working a lot today? I feel like is a, is a Valentine's Day?

Yeah, is that a good day to be a stripper? Like if you're a regular, and you're always giving your stripper a bunch of money, all your money, you're pouring your paycheck. Do you show up on Valentine's Day? I mean, that reeks of even more desperation than normal. It's pretty bad. It's like, do you do you give your wife

perfume and flowers and candy and say hey I got to make a I have a five o'clock happy hour with some clients and you wind up going to the strip club? I mean if you're a scumbag tell me that's never happened before

then I'll believe you. I didn't say it doesn't happen. Okay. Yeah if you're so if you know anybody that's in a stripping world is today a good day or a bad day? I would think today would be a bad day. If you know anybody that's in the stripping world?

Now sidepiece day, next day is, like tomorrow is a great day for you. I don't know. It's a Saturday. Might be tough to get away from the kids. Hey, but if you get her a bunch of nice stuff and she's like, oh yeah, go out with your buddies, go play some golf today. The weather's warming up a little bit. I'm just, again, I don't know.

Why is your tea time at 8 p.m.? I'm playing night golf, honey. Why do you think it's necessary to play golf in Dallas today? And you want a hotel for the night? Yeah. Okay. Sure, honey. Have your Valentine's Day?

All right, let's get down to what's Palm Beach. What's happening down with the local 9? Or the local 26 of the local 40 or the local, how many guys are in roster? That's probably about a local 75 down there. I think you're right. In camp right now. That's right. That's okay.

All right, Matt. So actually, let's go straight to something we've been talking about. Lance McCullors, Jr. You know, every year we get some kind of pet topic at spring training. Is Lance McCullors Jr. the spring training locked and loaded pet topic? Well, Joe Spottis says, Lance McCuller Jr. wants to be out there. Better than he has handled that, better than what I would have handled.

You know, this guy wants to be on the field. He has pitched huge gains for us. You know, while I've been here, I saw him in 17, shove it up, you know, against us when I was on the other side of the field. So I respect that about Lance. I've seen how bad he wants it. So I'm just happy that he is close to getting back on the mound and contributing. What exactly did he say shove it up? Is that what he said?

Is that the origin of shove? Now, I don't like when people like, oh, man, Lance McCullors Jr. went out there and he shoved. It's just not a phrase that I'm a fan of. I'm not saying a fan of it. I would never use it myself, but I understand the context of it. I don't know why. I can't even. It's like an odd pet peeve that I can't explain.

Yeah. But is that what it's shorthand for? Did I miss this this whole time? Is it shorthand for shove it up? Oh, you mean the finishing? No, no, I don't, I... Maybe it is. You know, I don't know. Maybe I had to ask the kids. Yeah. Tweet at SportsMT. Let us know.

Because I didn't know that. I didn't either. But there you go. He said he wants to be out there, and he's good when he's out there. And this is the important one, Matt. Lance McCullors, Jr. asked about being a reliever. he says he has no idea where that came from. Yeah, I don't know where that came from. But I don't think that's an easy job.

And being a reliever, I think a lot of times, you know, people almost say, well, just make them a reliever. I mean, that's not an easy thing to do to be a reliever at the big league level. It's not like a fallback position. I think that it's doing a disservice to the guys who are in that role. It's very specific. It's very hard. And I don't think pitching, you know, back-to-back days or even,

you know, you know, three out of four days, for me, I think it's physically harder. I think the things that the guys in the bullpen have to deal with throughout a long season, the ups and down in usages, not really knowing when they're going to be called upon sometimes. That's not, that's a harder, in my opinion, it's a harder, it's a harder, it's a harder way to stay healthy. And so, like I said, it's not just something that you can just decide you wake up one day and feel like, you know, you know, being a reliever, it's a very specific job. I think suggesting otherwise is a disservice to, the guys in the bullpen that have, you know, in our pen and every pin around the league.

And so, you know, for me, I'm, I'm interested in doing what I've always done. It's what I know. It's what I feel like I can give this team, you know, the most excessive. Was he doing that, was he saying those things to protect his bros, his fellow bullpen guys who have been in the bullpen that have worked away to the big leagues out of the bullpen? He's not protecting them. He's deflecting. It's just a deflection.

Say, huh. because he doesn't want to go out there and say like, no, I'm not a frigging reliever. I'm going to go out there and be out there for six, seven innings, because I'm one of the best pitchers on the planet. Because the implication is that why are guys in the bullpen in the first place? Because they're not going to be starters. Because they're failed starters.

Right. So he didn't want to spin it that way, so he spun it the other way. It's a spin. Yeah, that to me was a lot of spin. Whatever direction you want to spin it, but it was a spin. It was a spin, but to also say, I'm not going to be coming out of the bullpen. or I don't want to come out of the bullpen and it hasn't been discussed and he said he doesn't know where that idea came from

well it came from Dana Brown right I mean I don't like we made that up he was alluded to yeah but apparently when you look they had some internal discussions about it probably uh oh did they you know those internal discussions are quite lengthy that was on the checklist besides Bregman he wants to be a starter

okay first of all I bet I could find I don't know this for a fact but let me just educate a guess I bet I could find 10 pitching coaches slash sports medicine slash doctors and say, you know what? Pitching every five days your normal speed, throwing 75 to 95 pitches, normal recovery time for guys that are a lot of injuries. Okay, that makes sense as compared to pitching in consecutive days.

I could also find probably five or six guys that would say, you know what? Pitching twice a week, three times a week, 15 pitches is going to keep you, is going to keep your arm loose. It's going to keep your elbow going. It's not going to put too much pressure and strain on you. And you've got a chance to have a longer career. Ross, my relievers typically have longer careers than starters do. And also, this is just off the top of my head. Doesn't it feel like the vast majority of the time you hear about somebody getting Tommy John? It's a starter? Absolutely. Who's, okay, we've had. There's been some, of course. Javier. I'm talking about just here in Astros recently. McCullors, Verlander,

who is the last Astros reliever to have Tommy John? And this is just a one-team sample size, but I'm sure if we did some data on this, it's probably starters. It's got to be more strength. I refuse to believe. Here's the argument, and I'm not a doctor, nor I've been in a baseball

training room. I refuse to believe it's going to be harder for him to come back. Now, if he's a closer throwing 98 in two consecutive games, or three games and four days, I can buy that. But if Lance McCullors is ever going to make the transition of the bullpen,

which sounds like he doesn't want to do, that's not the role the Astros probably are looking for. They've already got their closer. They've already got their eighth inning guy. Honestly, you're looking for a, probably a more recognizable seventh inning guy. Yeah, well, you could get into that mix. If he were that good, they're not going to be like,

you know what, you're a dominant reliever, we're good. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I, I, again, you could find, I think you could find different opinions from different people about what would be best for Lance to maintain a major league career. I think he's going to be a starter. I think they're going to try to make him a starter. I think they need starting pitching help. I think it all lines up for me.

From a strictly investment standpoint, you want him to be a starter. You've paid him to be a starter. Right. Although it all points to, okay, he wants to be a starter. He thinks he's a starter. You get more value from the contract if he's his starter. And you need starting pitching help. I understand all that, and I don't disagree with you.

But there's one thing that's wrong. His arm doesn't believe you. His arm does not agree with you on these things. And his arm does agree with me. His arm's throwing fine right now. Fine. He's getting some work in and he's going to throw some. Oh, guess what?

Game 6 of the World Series tomorrow. Is he pitching? No. Probably not. Is game six of the World Series a month from now? Is he pitching? No. He ain't pitching.

Give him some time. I've been giving him time. He just giving him time. Yeah. He's giving back out there. All we do is give him time after time. All right. Anything else?

Sure. You want to talk about him pitching? He wants to get some games in and he's going to be pitching spring training, he says. Let's go. Let's go. So I've thrown seven pins, which is a good amount, which is coming through like an off season. I'll throw another pen, I think Sunday. And then probably a couple more and then look into face hitters. I'd love to get in some games for the end of the camp.

And, you know, from there probably break a AAA. It's been a little while since I've, you know, really faced competition. Spring training is good. not, you know, there's still a little of a gap from spring to the season. So I think it would, I think we all feel it would be the best to try to get a game or two on my belt down here in Florida. And then probably go to AAA before, you know, making the decision to join back. Before making the decision. Let's go.

I'm, I'm, you know what? I'm going, I didn't like that part. You didn't like the last sentence? Before making a decision to come back. I'm backing off on everything I just said. I don't want to speak for our audience. But I would say 90% of our audience that aren't considered. themselves Astro fans are listening to this and going,

wake me up, but it's real. Okay. We can all say that, and that's fair. And we'll get an update from Chris Gordy. He's ready to go. I want to hear from the doctors. I don't hear from Lance who thinks it's going to be out there, or from Dana who's just going to give us double speak. We're going to hear from Dr. Gordy next.

Oh, really? Who irritates his client. Hmm. He and Lance, Wolfsey, have the relationship is strong. 1058 on Sports Talk 790. Lunch timers. This. is the Matt Thomas show.

1102 Sports Talk 790. It is anything goes Friday, and we go to West Palm Beach for a update on what's happening with the local nine. We just played some Lance McCullors and Joe Espada, the man getting that audio, and checking in the sights of Astro Spring training is Chris Gordy. Chris, have you and Lance McCullors made up?

I think we did. I asked him about his kids. His daughter's five now, which is crazy because I remember when she was born. You know, it's always crazy. These guys have been with the clubs for so long, but it was good to hear from Lance. It's been a while since we've heard from him.

So let's hope we could see him in baseball action this year. All right. He alluded to the fact that Dana Brown alluded to the bullpen. Did you hear Dana speak to this at all? Is this going off of previous conversations? Why do you think it was brought? I mean, I know the reason I was brought up, but I'm wondering why Lance was so quick to dismiss it.

Yeah, so Chandler-Roman, I was just talking. He brought up that. Dana brought that up the winner. meetings back in December that, you know, that there was a possibility that McCullors can move to the bullpen. But, yeah, I mean, anybody who's ever talked to McCullors, you know, he's a, he's a guy who wants to be a starter, is a starter. And so, yeah, I think he, you know, he was pretty quick to dismiss that saying, I don't know where that came from, but yeah, I'm a starter. So, yeah, if the Aster's had any plans of him coming back and working out of the bullpen,

they may want to have a discussion with him and I don't know what the avenues of communication are between Dana Brown and Lance McCullors Jr., but he may want to go have a conversation with him about how they're going to use him when he does get back because Lance is dead set on being a starter again. My partner, Ross Villarreal, you know him. He is way more concerned about the starting rotation

than perhaps I am at this point. You're down there right now where pitchers are getting all the attention before the full squad works out. We talked a little bit about the rotation yesterday. Is it, do you think it's set? Or is there a battle for a couple of guys that maybe are not on the radar at this exact moment? Yeah, I think one through five is pretty much set right now, and I think it's a good one through five, but let's be real, guys, health is always a factor.

You know, but nobody ever stays healthy. You're always going to lose, you know, a piece or two of your starting rotation for a part of the season, and you've got to be prepared for that. Now, the good news is you hope to get McCullors back, and kind of the timetable he was laying out was probably somewhere in May. is where he could return if everything continues on this track, and that's a big if, because he said so many setbacks along the way. Luis Garcia, again, some point along the way would be back.

Christian Javier at some point, and then, you know, J.P. France later down the road. So, again, you could get some reinforcements at some point in the season. But, yeah, I mean, opening day to go Framber, Hunter Brown, Renaulte, Spitzer, Erigetti, and Hayden Wisnowski, it's a pretty solid one through five, especially if Erigati and Hunter Brown build off of the turnarounds they had down the stretch of last season. But again, that's all things being healthy. If one or two of those guys goes down with injuries, yeah, you're a little bit behind the eight ball. Who's the next best person to step up?

That's going to be the big question. And then, you know, the thought on who's going to be your long relievers? I think Forrest Whitley and Sean Dubin are both kind of in the mix for that role. But, you know, there's a lot of spots still up for grabs. here. But I'm with you. Like 1 through 5 on paper, I think it's a pretty strong rotation. But as you and I know, all these guys aren't going to stay healthy

all year. Yeah, that was what I was going to be wondering, Gordy, and you kind of just talked about it there. Let's say literally somebody goes down with some shoulder stiffness or something in camp. I mean, who would be the next man up? I guess would it be Sean Dubin? Would it be, I don't even know, because Garcia and McCullors

are unhealthy either? Yeah, you got a couple of guys knocking on the door. We've got to see him third of day. Ryan Gusto, AJ Bluebaugh, those are the candidates down in the minors that I think are, you know, next man up if they need to call somebody up. So I think, you know, look, I get it. Spring trading game can be very boring and some people may check out at times. But I think we want to be watching what Gusto and Blue Ball and those guys do in the spring

because that'll tell us, you know, where these guys project for, you know, at least the start of the season. And one of those guys may end up making the big league club out of, out of spring. We'll see. You also had Joe's spot of talking about Cam Smith playing him some at third base. We've seen the picture, Gordy. Looks like the dude is pretty ripped. What's the camp

buzz with Cam Smith? Yeah, I got a little mad crush on Cam Smith. Oh, wait a minute. Where do you go to college? He went to Florida State, so he's an ACC guy. Whoa, well, you're not locked in ACC. Stop it. That's ridiculous. I mean, if either gone to LSU would be, you know, we'd be full

all in on him. But no, I mean, this kid, like, just talking to him, he's, he's the real deal. I mean, he's, he is everything you want at a budding potential superstar. He's got to back it up. But, I mean, he's got all the tools. He's got the look. He's got the athleticism. Everybody raves about his hitting. A humble kid gets it. I mean, just, you know, really, really good interview. I just, again, you can easily see why this kid is the number one prospect of the farm system. And he's also confident. You know, he's willing to embrace that. that and wants to play his role. So, yeah, if you're an Astros fan, it's been a while since you've had a top 100 prospect

like this, and you certainly could be one to watch. And what's really interesting guys is like the versatility. They're going to try him a little bit in the outfield. He could play the infield. You've got, you know, same thing with Bryce Matthews and Zach DeZenzo and Shane Whitcomb, like all these dudes who could play multiple positions, it's going to be really fascinating to see how Joe structures this roster. because it's, you know, the thing you fear, though, is that all these guys are, you know, pretty good at every spot, but not elite at any.

That's kind of the danger, but they're going to try everything they can to let one of these young guys maybe earn a rotational outfield spot. And like I said, Cam Smith is knocking on the door. Bryce Matthews is knocking on the door. And they're very soon to be excited about those guys in the future with the Astros. Gordy's with us. Thanks to Carbock Brewing down in West Palm Beach. All right. So one last thing about Cam, I guess the schedules for him to open up the year at AA.

And if you don't know the answer to this, don't worry about it. But what does he have to do? Is it just a question of seasoning? Is there something a part of his game they want him to work on? Are they just going to just slow play him up here? What do you think would not necessarily hold him back, but what does he have to do in order to get to the AAA and perhaps the major leagues before the end of the season if needed? Well, I know this. If he hits, they're going to fast track him.

I mean, if the bat is coming around and he's got pop and he's crushing homers and the average is high, they will definitely not hesitate to call him up quickly. Yeah, there's all those other pieces of it. I mean, they want to find a rule for him and find one or two positions that he's really comfortable at and can excel at. But the bat's the big thing. I mean, that's what they're most excited about with him. And, you know, I think it's probably the answer's best hitting prospect in the system. So if he hits, I would not be shocked if we see Cam Smith in an Astor's uniform this year.

I think Bryce Matthews is really close. I think a lot of these guys we're going to see wearing Astor's uniform this season. And I'm assuming based of what you're just saying and what probably Joe Espada will tell us next week is these guys, the guys you're talking about, are probably going to get a pretty good sample size in Florida, correct, in terms of playing in the major league games, at least in spring training games? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think week one, we're going to see all these guys. And again, like changing positions every day.

Like I think game one, you'll see Cam Smith on the infield. I could see, you know, game two, he's playing some left field. Same with DeZenzo. Like, I think Joe wants to kind of figure out, because let's be real. I mean, you guys talked about it. Jake Myers and Chas McCormick and what else? You know what I mean? That's your outfield right now.

So they really need one of these guys to step up and really exert themselves and say, look, I may not play every day, but I'm going to be a rotational guy. Two, three days a week. I'm going to be starting the left field for you. I mean, that would go a long way to kind of help some of these issues in the absence of Kyle Tucker. Get your crystal ball out. What is Zach DeSenzzo's role going to be in 2025 for the Astros?

Any idea at this point? I think he can win that utility role. I mean, I like him a lot. You know, he has small sample size here last year, but the confidence of the plate is going to be his biggest thing. But I think he can play multiple spots for you. I think he can almost be, you know, a great. to go back to years past the Marwin-Gonzalez kind of role where one day he's playing in second base to give Al-Tubei day off. One day he's playing here.

I mean, I could see him kind of be that utility guy. We'll see how they use DeBahn this year. You know, everything is kind of pointed towards kind of DeBon, you know, still moving around a little bit. And planes about field, D.H. and planes midfield. So we'll see. But, like, if I had to put money on it right now, guys, I would bet on Desendo making this team as a bench, utility guy. Let me ask you this to staying with the bench, and I know the position players won't be there on next week

when we get down there, but I mean, John Singleton is your backup first baseman. He's your left-handed bat. Is that enough to hold a roster spot? Me personally, I say no. I mean, I'm just, no offense to the guy. Great guy. Helped you out of the bind last year where you really didn't

have first baseman in Jose Brayu, but I would not put him on this team. Again, no offense to him, I just, I would turn the page and say, one of these other guy because you have other options. I mean, Yonard Diaz can play some first base for you. You know, Victor Caratini can

play some first base. I mean, you have you have other guys who can back up Christian Walker, but in a perfect world, Walker's going to be playing there 90% of the year. I want him at first base. So to me, that's not enough to keep a John Singleton on this roster. All right. You're going to be down there a couple more days. We're going to take over from there

starting on Tuesday, and we thank Carbock Brewing for helping you get down there right now. Yeah, by the way, I'm going to miss out the big Dana-Brown dinner. You guys are going to get to take part of next Tuesday. So shout out to you guys. That's one milton, care of. I like that. You get the rub elbows with the GM.

But yeah, thanks to Carbock Brewing and the Crawford Bach. You know, just talking Astros and being around these guys, I can already envision being at Dyken Park and crack it open an ice cold Crawford Bach and get ready for some Astros baseball. It's always in season with the Crawford Bach from Carbock Brewing. All right. Safe travels back and we'll see at the airport, I guess. We're going to just, we're going to, what do they call? call it when you're one direction coming back the other ships passing in the night passing in the

night and i will make sure to tell tsa to double check that man's bags right there they will oh they will they know ross is going to be curious i'm on a watch list you've got some illegal materials coming on that thank you gordon i bet mad not ross oh by the way we'll have a we'll have updates every hour saturday and sunday on sports talk seven i'll be doing hourly updates from spring training you're not going to do them every hour cue you kidding that's ridiculous Every hour we will have updates from West Paul. Are you going to claim overtime then? Because you know what?

The company won't pay for it. Sorry. They can't pay me as it is. There it is. Chris Gordy doing hourly updates. Three o'clock in the morning. You want a spring training update? Let's do it.

Right here. Live. He's not going live, is he? No. Mention Gordy at 4 o'clock. He thinks he's... No, he can't do a 4 o'clock in the morning call. I just saw a couple of Astro staffers leaving the strip club.

They're mowing the lawn out in left field. There's your Astros update. All right. Thank you, Chris. And maybe, do we have to do the, every hour updates when we get down there? We don't do that, do we? That's not part of our deal, is it? We'll see.

We're going to entertain the people for four hours. That's enough as it is. And we're going to have you provide updates for the A team. Busy. Let's put you to work. Come on. You've got to do something for the station for once. Everything's all about Matt Thomas.

I'm doing stuff for the station. What? Going down to West Palm Beach. Yeah. Oh, going on vacation. you to Florida. No, no, no, that's other people on this station that turn into vacations. We work. How much fun do we have and we go on the road?

A lot. 1114 on Sports Talk 790. This is Matt Thomas show with Ross 713-212-5-7-90. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Coming up, the news at noon, we've got the strippers worldwide-up as well. And at 1 o'clock, Greg Rajin is going to join us. He is one of the senior editors for The Chronicle,

and he's also a guy that wrote a story about the 30-year anniversary of Clyde Drexler being traded from Portland to Houston. We'll talk to him about that in about an hour 45. We have the Fantasy 5 today which is best S&L recurring characters and what is today's

edition? It's got to be Valentine's Day for something hell yeah or not. We've done that a million times so I don't know. You don't get the best of. It's okay. Well, I said you were going to do alive or dead. On a Valentine's Day? No chance. Whatever. I can't do a live or

that's the worst day. We should do Connemar-Govern dating Valentine's Day, hell yeah or not. Should he do this on Valentine's Day? Hell yeah or not. 713-212-5-790. I want you to get a good auto loan rate right now from the Shell Federal Credit Union. And you can do that by going to shellfcU.org. That's shellfcU.org.

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This is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross on Sports Talk 790. So on that TNT show inside the NBA, Shaq and Kenny like to run to the board to diagram stuff. They've got no idea what the hell they're talking about, correct? Is that fair? No, explain that to me. Now, sometimes it used to be just Kenny going up. there, but then they go at random times and they're racing. And Shaq sometimes Rice's, and Kenny's going to win every single time, because

Kenny's just leaner than Shaq. I saw Kenny get beat by Chuck. Really? Okay, I don't want to show enough to tell you this, but this happened apparently last night, as they were discussing something, they race to the board, and

they say comedy ensues on this. And the words of Marshal Lynch, I'm tired of America. We get fired anywhere It's just a couple S bombs, F bombs. Wow. So Shaq's upset.

He's tired to lose into Kennedy guys Run to the scoreboard. I mean, let me tell you, when I do my last radio show, whenever that may be, or my last game broadcast. You might not know when your last radio show is.

That's true. This is the nature of the business. I'm sorry, Pam. way to depress the segment here. I don't think I'm going to go on a profanity-laced conversation to end it. Not that that was a lot of it,

but there were two in a very short period of time. Shack's feeling is, well, we're not going to be on this TV network much longer. Why not? Yeah. But Shaq's not going to give up on television. You're making too much money. Well, maybe he doesn't want the headaches and the work.

What work? He sits there. He gets things wrong and just goes in her mumbles. Yeah, I think John Morant is going to have a tough time with Jaylen Green. He's not playing. Oh. That was actually too clear, too much clarity for Shaq. They don't ask him.

Now, the only thing that probably would get him tired would be the travel. I mean, he has to come from wherever he lives to Atlanta every week. Now, that may or may not be the case next year with the new TV deal. Where does he live? Florida. He was a police officer in Florida. He's got houses all over the place. He's on like 87,000 commercials.

He doesn't have a house here in Houston, too? He's on Draft Kings with Shaq. I mean, with what's Kevin Hart. Right. He does the mineral insurance. Yeah, the mineral. He's also Rapper Rons. Gold Bond, I think.

Rapper Rons, he's on the Icey Mott. Micey. Yeah, he's quite marketable. He's America's pitch man. He's on more spots than anybody. But they know the one thing that those things can't do is he can't give opinions. He's just. Yeah, but he collects.

a check. But I mean, if you, if he gave up the TNT well, whatever it's going to be called next year or whatever network it's on, I think it's going to be... Petsico, J.C. Penny? I didn't realize that Racy Rennie was still around. He owns a bunch of Papa John's apparently, a bunch of risky,

rispy reams. Hmm. Overrated. Um, properly rated. You just told me you didn't like icing on donuts. I don't like that kind of icing. I mean, I'll eat it. I swear. I like, I like, I, I am in the minority in this.

I like a playing cake over a heavy iced... I'm done trying to figure you out. Good. I never asked you to figure me out to begin with. But, you know, he can't... He does macko mill. But he can't... You know what he can't do?

He can't give opinions on stuff. There's literally a Sports Illustrated article. Top 50 Shack endorsements. And they're not... You know, they're all not cheap. Oh, he's... He's probably making... I don't even know.

Let's just get a $20 million a year somewhere in there. I was going to say significantly higher than that. Yeah. But he, when you go on... on TNT or whatever it's going to be next year, you get to go on there with your buddies, have some half-ass opinions about stuff with no

foundation whatsoever, and get paid a lot. Yeah, he's probably making good money from that too. My guess is that TNT crew, which will be on ESPN next year, is all going to come back. They're going to tape out of Atlanta like they've been talking about and they're going to be on less often. The show's not, it's lost

as fastball. You really think it has? Absolutely. Not because of not knowing that John Moran didn't play last time, the Rock No, I mean, that's been part of the bit. Okay. It's just... I don't know. I don't watch it a lot, but when I happen to be in a room,

on a hotel or something getting on a trip or something, I still chuckle at it. And it's mainly because of Charles. I've never gone, thanks, Kenny, for making me learn something. I've never gone, man, Shaq, I never thought that approach. Charles makes me laugh. And I like Kenny. I mean, Kenny's got the Houston tie.

You're right. Maybe I'm just upset because they just knew nothing. about the Rockets and they still don't. They don't know. I'm sure... I know. But if the best basketball show is just the best part is when Shaq and Chuck say they're going to fight each other, then it is a good basketball show? Depends on what you're looking for.

It's good entertainment, but it's not good sports entertainment. Okay, so I will say it's an entertaining show. But in terms of learning things, I'm not going to. No. But you know what? Do you learn things on the ESPN pregame show and the postgame show? I don't watch those. No.

That's fine. All you've got is screaming A just yelling at the top of his lungs and talking about how much he loves the Knicks. Yeah. By the way, do you notice there are people trying to push him for a presidential candidate in 2028? I will not be. I'll go ahead and let it be known. I will not be voting for Stephen A. Smith. I'm going to make this very clear because we talk politics, what, once every four years? Here's the obligatory 2025 political. Okay.

I will never, under any circumstance, ever, ever, ever vote for Stephen A. Smith. If he's a Republican, a libertarian, a Democrat, whatever. It ain't happening, not on my watch, never going to happen. There's my endorsement. Thank you, Matt. Thank you, you're welcome. Political system is just great. So what we're doing now is we're looking for celebrities, what we're looking for.

Let's get off this. I don't want to talk about politics. I hate politics. Yeah. But back to the, is there somebody in basketball? Those are all three. are there in the three big sports that we watch who gives you the most oh i didn't figure that out like i'll tell you what for college football i mean he tried to uh to uh wallet punch us a little bit

or whatever you're going to call it me joe clatt it's really good on the big ten games or whenever he does the fox stuff pistol whippus not a wallet wallet wallet whip us And we said enough, I can't pay you that. It's just crazy. And you're hard to get a hold of. So that is going to help. You're talking about Joel Clack coming on this show? Yeah.

Okay. I love Joe. I think Joel is an excellent, excellent broadcaster. I learned things during a game broadcast with him. So that's college football. Pro football, who do you learn from? Do you learn anything from anybody? I still like Tony Romo.

I know people get excited about all the screen. I think Tony explains things really well. I think Tony's around and get a form. But are you learning anything from Tom? Are you learning more anecdotal things when he was playing the game? I think so. I think he's doing a good job. It can be a teachable moments.

Okay, basketball. Does Jay Billis help you explain college basketball too? I think Jay Billis is good. I do too. I do too. I like Jay Billis. Baseball? Who's the best baseball bra?

I don't know if John Smolts and necessarily is the guy that's explaining situations for me. I was learning stuff from Sparky. Sparky's really good. He's always talking about baseball and inside baseball. Like how the guy is positioned, where he's approaching stuff especially, yeah. Yeah. I think you agree. That's right.

And you can hear Sparky on 790 starting next Saturday, not tomorrow, but the following Saturday. Can't wait. And we have to work during spring training, too. Yeah. I'm sorry. Yesterday we used to get those time off. Now it's going to be the A team being the primary recipient of us. Yeah.

You're still me mailing it in. Not really. I don't have a mail a show in. You're not even coming up here. I'll come up sometime. it in. You know what? You should come up

up one of those days and we'll go to the lunch I hope. We're going to go I'm going to come up several times. Yes. Because I owe you a fast,

casual lunch. Ding. And I owe you a barbecue for everyone. Ding. And Korean barbecue. No, Korean barbecue.

Yeah. You'll be three meals. 175. Didn't get that, Bramon didn't get that. We didn't bet on that. We didn't make a bet a luncheon. We didn't lunch bet that.

I told you I didn't want a lunch bet that. You were probably right. 1128 on sports talk. 790. 7.13. 2.125790. As then anything goes Friday. We actually tell you what we did bet. I remember what we bet on that. Go ahead. One dollar. So just add a slice of pot of our lunch.

Okay. Extra dollar a tip to the waitstaff. Yeah, I like it. I like it. I like it. 713-212. I was like, I ain't bet lunch on that. You were right. 7-1-3-2-1-2-5-7-90. By the way, a team that was in on the Bregman's sweepstakes, if you want to call it that,

like, we don't even know Alex Breggman. explain that next here on 790. Time is 1133. All right. I'm going to ask you to listen to me, read some quotes, and you're going to decide, Rossi, whether this is sour grapes or this is honest, true, and legit commentary from a general manager, okay? So the Tri Tigers are meeting in Lakeland, Florida. That's where their spring training is.

And they're president of baseball operations. His name is Scott Harris. And he was asked about Alex Bregman with the sign with the Boston Red Sox. And he says the following. We want players who want to be here. I say it a lot because I mean it. We want players who want to be tigers. We made a very compelling offer to Alex Breggman, but he chose to sign somewhere else.

That's fine. We knew that was possibly a possibility throughout this process. And we plan for that outcome. I'm going to skip a little bit. We were going to be able to run out a really good team with or without a. Alex Spregman. Skip, skip, skip, skip. Okay.

We're going to be just fine without Alex Pregman, and we still have a clubhouse that just got to the postseason and just beat a team with Alex Breggman so it clearly can be done. Ooh! We just got to focus on the guys we have in camp right now, and we got to get

after it in spring because we've got to be a lot better to be able to compete in this division. Is he like sour grapes, or if you ain't with this year against us? Isn't that? Salar grapes?

Yeah, both. No, I can, if you're not with me, you're, I don't have sour grapes and you're just, I'm just against you. I think he's got sour grapes and Bregman's against him. It sounds like, I think, yeah. Breggman spurned the tigers. 6-171. Higher than what the Astros wound off.

Yes. So apparently from what I was reading on the Twitter Street yesterday, Alex did not want a pay cut. he wanted to make at least $30 million annual he wanted a raise from his $30 million annual value and he certainly got that with the Red Sox. He did on a short-term deal. Yeah. But in his mind, and now we've been able to deduce this, AAV was way more important than the total sum. He probably wanted both and got one of the two.

He wanted both and then yeah, he could bet on himself. He's going to say that I'm going to have a great year and maybe he can opt out. even if he doesn't opt out, he has to make up, what is it, $51 million over three years from the Tigers deal? He could probably do that, probably, as long as he's playing well.

But yeah, I mean, the Tigers, the Astros yesterday were very coy, would you say, with their remarks about Breggman, like wishing the very best, can't say much, but the reports are true, good luck, which obviously they were.

I mean, Alex Breggman called the Astros and said, I'm not siding here, or somebody did from his representation. I had to. He wouldn't have been that rude about it. Well, I don't know. Dana Brown had been picking up Scott Borris calls for a while. Yeah.

Maybe, do you think that, do you think that, um, Dana sent a text to Bregman and Bregman said new phone hood is? No. Do you think Bregman would have sent him to Dana Brown? I don't think he'd be professional about it. I think so, too. But clearly, our friend in Detroit here is, yeah, I think he's, he's spurned. He's not happy.

Yeah, I would say so. because it was the best, it was the longest deal that he was being offered by anybody. I think six years was the top shelf number. And the dollar amount was the top shelf number. 171 was more than anybody else who wanted to pay. So I would say, we gave you the best deal in terms of length and money and you still turned us down. F you. The best part of the quote was, we beat a team with Alex Spragman on it and we can

do it again. It's true. They did. They did. In a three-game series. It only went two. Well, it was still a three-game series. Best of three.

Can you believe the Tigers beat the Astros last year? Yes. Was Tarex-Goubled that damn good? Yes. I forgot he was. And then Frumber had a bad start. Right? Game two? Yeah.

By the way, some friends of ours in a media business happened to be listening to us yesterday saying goodbye to Farmer Valdez. Okay. And I was like, oh, this is this going to be uncomfortable? And they're like, no, man, you guys are spot on. See? Yeah.

Hmm, you're going to have to tell me who these friends of ours are. I'll tell you during the break. Okay. I mean, I can't say it because I don't want to give out their names. Yeah, you don't want to. But protect the innocent. Protect the innocent, yeah. But yeah.

So we could probably update that a little bit, but it really, we got it already knocked. We got locked and loaded. We could actually probably do, we could probably... We're ready for October. You know what we could do? We could have people calling right now with what was their favorite Framber Valdez after a picture moment.

I don't have to get that locked and loaded. I can put my tweet out. What was your favorite Framber Valdez as an Astro moment? If I did that right now, people will be like, what is going on right now? What was your favorite Framber Valdez as an Astro moment? No hitter? No hitter against the Guardians. By the way, one of the things about Frommberg yesterday, it was so crazy.

He's clueless in some respects. What do you mean? He's like, Joseo Tuba is not playing left field. Y'all, y'all being hoodwinked on that. Joseo Tuba is going to play some left field this year. Yeah, it seems like it.

Frumber completely dismissed it yesterday. Well, he's not paying attention. That's what I'm saying. How do you not pay attention? This is not like 11-year-olds in a little league. This is your profession. This is your team. I'm assuming you'd have some sort of conversation.

that second base. His job is just to get him ground balls. He's not worried about any of that other stuff. He better. There are eight guys. There are seven guys behind him that can help. He's working. He's focusing on,

he's locking in on throwing against hitters, Matt. He's not reading all the T-leys and looking at the winter meetings and what Dan is saying at the winter meetings. You made to tell me. You made to tell me that Frant Bervel does not talk to anybody this entire off-season about what the Astros may be doing in left field and moving Hoselle Tubei, and he's like, no, man, y'all stop joking with me. Maybe he was in vacation.

Well, I'm sure he took a. a vacation of some some some yeah does he need hose to call him and say man brunt it's it's everybody was laughing about it at fan fest but then it looks like it's become more real or maybe it maybe it isn't going to be that real maybe he's going to play out there like 10 games maybe he's out there in spring training for a week and he's like uh yeah all right what's the number how many games is l-tube are going to be out of left we're not making a bet because we're running out of bets no i wouldn't bet on this i don't know i have no idea um this will just this will just be a completely uneducated guess. Okay.

Just set a total. I'll set a total. I'm going to say 41 times. I'll go under. And the reason why I like 41 is for one reason. Yoron's going to probably play in the 40 range. Mm-hmm. It's 120. Two. So that's all I need to do is get one-third of that. What's left of that? I like my number. Who's at second base those days? Isaac Barreides. Could be a variety

of folks. Could be Dubon playing some second base. Remember Dubon played a lot of second base when Hose L2B. He's a lot of left. But he's better at, yeah, you swap him. He's better at second. Dubon's better at second than L2V as this stage of their career. I love my number at 41. Okay.

It's not bad. Yeah. Because again, if you think about it for a second, which you don't, sometimes you don't think about, is that he is minus it defensively at second base. Yes. So if you move, rude.

It's truthful, but it's rude still. You don't, if you put somebody out, out there in left field, it's not very good. If you can't improve your second base spot, then you're hurting yourself potentially in two positions, where if you put Altovae and left, the easiest outfield position, maybe you gain a little bit of traction

and a better defensive spot with whoever's replacing him at second base. I think we're going to see, I think we're going to see some DeZenzo in left, Dubon, Altuvae, Yord on. Or? Who else? Or maybe they make a trade before the deadline

and go get a big slugger out there. Ben Gamble? And right with... Chazzy Fizz out left? How's Benny G looking? You're all right? I don't think anybody in the city of Houston is going. First of all, who is Benny G?

They're like, they have no idea who that is. Secondly, I don't think anybody's pencil, man. If Benny G can get up to 319 with 15, 20 home runs, still 25 bases. Oh, we're going to be so good. Maybe he's going to have a career renaissance at age of 32. You know what? Something has got to happen.

Something has to happen. I know you're working on this Jake Myers fan club. I'm not starting the Ben Gamble fan club. He's too old. He would be actually hysterical if he started the Ben Gamble fan club. If somebody wants to start it, we can be friends. How about the sister clubs? How about the dwee that calls us about Zach Grinky?

Oh, my God. Maybe he's got to get over it. Maybe he can be Ben Gamble guy. Literally no team. Grinky did not pitch in 2024. He did not pitch. It's not. It's a bit for him.

Again, he sniffing some of that Lake Jackson glue. Is the glue is different in Lake Jackson? I mean, it's stronger maybe? I don't know. Okay. 713-212. 5 is 790. 713-212-5-790.

On Twitter at SportsMT, at SportsRV, and at Connor D. McGovern. We have the news at noon coming up in about 15 minutes. All things about Valentine's Day on hell yeah or not at 150. And we have the Fantasy 5 today. 120 plus our friend Greg Rajin from The Chronicle joins us at 1 o'clock 30 years ago. Matter of fact, we have just found the audio of me announcing him. You want to hear him coming back?

Yes. You can say no if you don't want to. I can't wait. That's nice to you to say that, Ross. Appreciate you. The anticipation is killing me. Hope that walking a morning doesn't hurt you anymore than it already has. He'd have to miss significant time and go on disability for that.

You have better hope I don't. Actually, I do want you well. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. I want to tell you about the great folks over the Uptown Appliance Repair Group. Bobby Fierro and his team have been working throughout Houston and Dallas, fixing appliances for people that have spent lots of money on high-end appliances, but you're just worried about them being maintained properly.

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Matt and Ross returned Returned Returned On Sports Talk 790 30 years ago today I said that My voice was good back then Of course the body was not in great shape at that point

And that's what it is We all used to be younger, Matt A lot morelier God mighty Yeah we're proud of you Yeah My 20s were the decade of missed opportunities, if you know what I'm saying. I think you're doing great, Matt, what do you mean?

I am very happy now. Happily married, wonderful career, three great children, decent friends. I guess. Yeah. It's not bad, not bad. I'm proud of you. All right. So Greg Rajan from The Chronicle is going to join us at 1 o'clock today and about an hour from now to go over his research behind that.

Mm-hmm. You know, it was, and we'll talk more. about this with Greg, but it was such a mind-blowing trade because you just won the championship. It'd be like, I don't know, Ross, winning a World Series and firing a general manager right after. Yeah, but the team was faltering, correct? Yeah, the Rockets finished six in the West that year. It wasn't like he came out all of a sudden they started playing 800 basketball.

No, I'm saying at the time the trade was made, right? Yeah, yeah. Was it the first ever succeed to win the championship? Yeah, and still the only, six and below. Hello. Jimmy Butler's Heat made it as an eight. An eight's made it before, but are they ever won? I don't think so.

No. The Nixon 99 made it as an eight. That was a lockout year. And I want to say Jimmy Butler's, was that the COVID year when they made it as an eight? Yep. So a lockout year, a COVID year. Yeah, so some strange situations put in and presented himself. And Otis Thorpe was, and I've gotten to talk to Otis several times. You have?

Post career. When he was playing. he was so intimidating because if you didn't ask the question, like when you go on and ask questions, you're looking for a desired response. It's almost like an attorney asking a witness on the witness. You know the answer. You kind of know the answer.

Especially, I feel like especially newspaper people do that because they're looking for a specific quote about a specific thing. They're trying to finish, they're trying to get a storyline put in. Right, right. He would give me the weirdest looks. and I cracked like an egg during it. What did you do? What do you mean? How does one crack like an egg? You apologize to him?

No, but it was just, I'm sorry, Mr. Thorne. It was like, well, it made me much more sharper. You asked better questions. Well, I was much more, I was really nervous asking him questions because I was always afraid of the stare down. And it wasn't a stare at like, I can't believe he asked it. It was almost like the blank eating grin of why did you ask that question? again 90% of the questions that are asked by members of the media to a athlete I'm sure it's in the political world as well you're looking for a desired response or you sometimes you just want to hear yourself talk and then you can put it on your YouTube channel later and say I asked this athlete this question so you can try to get some clicks yeah and it doesn't work out because you've got a failed media career that you just kind of created yourself that you're really not a member of the media but that's a different issue of different time but yeah he was he was a one of those guys that I was scared of because I didn't

want that, why are you asking look? For instance, this is elementary. What happened in the fourth quarter? Let's say you got, let's say you are scored 27 to 19 in the fourth quarter. Right. Well, the easiest answer is, well, we didn't make baskets. Yeah, we didn't make baskets.

But was it, was it because the rotations weren't good? Was it because you were taking bad shots? It was, you were forcing things up. Did you take too much time off the clock? I mean, there's, there's a variety of. angles to why didn't so would you what you had to do that as a as a person to ask questions as an interviewer you have to get question answers out that are not going to come across as the what do you mean why didn't we why do we fail in the fourth quarter we didn't score as many

points yeah you know what there was a uh i'm trying to find it i know exactly what you're talking about tarry easton basically did that the other night yes he was very short with a Let me see if it's this. Feel just out there overall. Good. Just the way that you guys played in the fourth quarter, what do you think was different from that point from the first three? Played harder.

Oh. How did it feel out there? Good. That is exactly how I... This is how OT would do you? Yeah. What do you do the next game? Shoot better.

Win. How disappointing was it that you gave up 119 points? very now the the player itself can make things a little easier the player itself can understand what we're doing because again you're not going in there i don't think most members of the media even the even the fake ones are going there trying to uh be antagonistic try to create a debate you're trying to go in there and get your questions answered no yeah i mean yes i'm agreeing with you now boston media can do it New York media certainly has done it.

It can't happen. You have certain loudmouth types that want to be confrontational because they want to sensationalize. Right. Real quick, before the top of the hour, did you see the, people are sending me this photo of a guy wearing a sweatshirt at the, oh, here it is. C.J. Garner Johnson, do you know who that is? Yeah. He's got a hoodie on. This is CEO full show sent this to us.

The hoodie says. on it Swifties Can L-I-X My you know what's at the Eagles parade? Huh. L-I-X, of course, is 59. Yes. Licks.

Licks. My blanks. Yes. This is not a match game, by the way. It feels like it might be. Taylor was thrown for a curve, wasn't she? Why? She got booed.

Bood. Big time. Now, again, that wasn't booed because she's a bad singer. It wasn't booed because people in New Orleans don't like her because that cry wasn't in New Orleans. It was booed because the Eagle fans hate her. There's a lot of Eagles fans, and some people disagree with her

political positions. Not that I could possibly take a poll, but I believe 90% of the people that booed were booing because she was a Chiefs fan. That crowd at the Super Bowl was severely big time in favor of Philadelphia. They celebrated. Yeah.

Now Taylor is upset. Travis might retire. the Chief's Kingdom? Is it crumbling? No. Maybe. No. You're right.

Xavier Worthy's emerging as a wide receiver one. He's going to help. They're going to go get a running back late first round. They're going to get healthy on the offensive line. They need a running back. They're throwing out, Cremont. Isaiah Pacheco just hadn't been the same since the century. No, no.

They need an R.B.1. They get that late first round or early second round. All right. Are you ready to wake the strippers up? Very much so. Now, they don't get off today, do they? That was weird. They don't get the day off, I should say,

because of it being Valentine's Day. I don't know, Matt. If it's slower? We had no strippers calling and ask and tell us that they're, if they're completely off today. Have we ever a stripper ever called the show? No. We're not in their demographic.

I mean, maybe. Maybe they just didn't identify themselves. That's not bad. We used to have a strip club bouncer. That was good. Derek in the gallery, may he rest? May he rest? It was trying to get me on the open mic one night.

Yeah, we should have got you. You know what? On the rocket season's over with in June, I could pay some extra hours. Yeah, why can you announce a strip club? I think I would, I could pull it off. I don't think it's that difficult. Now at the stage, Desiree. Now to the stage, Ambrosia.

Ambrosia? Put your hand together for Destiny. There you go. They're not playing this at the strip clubs. Yeah, Connor, they don't play this as the strip clubs. Are they, Conner? Or maybe you do know they play this to the strip clubs? I don't know. I've never been, so.

That's good for you. All right, we're going to wake the strippers up here after we tell you about League One Volleyball. A brand new professional volleyball league is up and at him here. Yeah, turn this off for the volleyball league. Yeah, that would be kind of weird. It's got full of former Olympians. It's got full of all-USA of All-American.

It's got lots of top flight college players. And you want to go see them play. You can do that in the Fort Bend County. county area over there in Richmond Rosenberg. But they're Houston's team and you need to be watching them for League One Volleyball. League One Volleyball is available for you on their website at LOVB.com. LovB.com. You can check out the schedule. There'll be matches in February and March here in the Houston area. Go see them. You'll enjoy the experience of watching the brand new major league that is professional volleyball. League one volleyball for ticket information and more information

about everything about League One volleyball, you're going to go to L-O-V-B.com. That's L-O-V-B.com. I love volleyball. My daughter does. Your kids love it. Everybody's one of the fastest growing sports out there and becoming quite a sensation nationally.

It's League One volleyball, L-O-VB. L-O-VB.com. Launch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. 1203 in a sound. Good. To hour and three of the Matt Thomas Show and Ross, this is Sports Talk 790. I offer to put soup down my body when he wants it scalding hot.

Can you listen to yourself? What is happening? It's not just him. Now, he's the one that I keep my eye on lately. I mean, I just say it. I want to have his babies. I do. You can get you doing some yoga, man?

Get your flexibility up. I'm very flexible. I've heard you're very stiff. That too. I don't want to bust them out because I don't be tees. I like tight ends. And it's just this long white pipe. and they just spray and it's it's a little bit of a pain the ass.

I'm calling you as Dale from Magnolia. Yeah, Matt, we got about six inches up here. Excuse me? What? I don't care what you're carrying, Dale. Come on snow, man. Oh, okay. What are you talking about? I don't know, but that was very odd. All right, it was a Friday.

Officially the week is coming to a close. We thank all of you for not driving into work today. The drive was nice and easy. Just about 51 minutes on the old clock. 51 minutes. Give me a chance to listen to 51 minutes of the Sean Sonsbury show. Oh, that's excellent. Six o'clock until 10.

You know what, in a way, I kind of do miss the long commute. You can listen to a whole album. You can listen to a podcast. Get some time to yourself. Maybe even just sit in silence and think. Oh, God, no. Give me five minutes every day. I'm telling you, it's not that bad.

I wouldn't trade it. I'm just saying. You can make the best of it, Matt. Why don't we do this? Why don't we one month a year? One week a month. You come to this, Kingwood Studios. Okay.

We do the show from the house. You want to stay at your house? We'll have a built-in audience. Sadie and Coral will watch the show. You stay at my house and you stay at my place? It's kind of cramped. My place? Yeah.

What are you talking about? You have a full spare bedroom for me? Yeah. Do you really? I didn't realize that. You know what the hell you're talking about. Okay. As usual.

So I get to spend time at your place one week a month. That's awful nice of your sports RV. I appreciate that very much. All right. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. It's time for us at 1207 to give you the big headlines of the day. We present to you because Ross has been working on this.

I've been working on Fancy Five. Almost. Very busy. Very busy. And believe it or not. We're adding production value of the show. It's fine. It's time for the news at noon.

Sure. All right, Matt. Well, the big news at noon has been what's been going down at spring training as pitchers and catchers have reported. Well, the big news of the day has been Lance McCullors Jr. talking about coming back. And while he says, I don't know what the heck you guys are talking about, where did this relief relief stuff come from? No, where that came from. But I don't think that's an easy job. And being a reliever, I think a lot of times, you know, people almost say, well, just make them a reliever. I mean, that's not an easy thing to do to be a reliever at the big league level. It's not like a

fallback position. I think that it's doing a disservice to the guys who are in that role. It's very specific. It's very hard. And I don't think pitching, you know, back-to-back days or even, you know, three out of four days for me, I think it's physically harder. I think the things that the guys in the bullpen have to deal with throughout a long season, the ups and down in usages, not really knowing when they're going to be called upon sometimes. That's not, that's a harder, in my opinion, it's a harder, it's a harder job. It's a harder way to stay healthy. So Lance Cullas Jr. said, I don't know what you guys are talking about with this reliever stuff. It's hard to be a reliever.

He wants to be a starter, Matthew. And that has been built into his DNA since the time he first started pitching. Yes. And that's not going to change even though he hasn't pitched in two and a half years. That's all I got. Okay. That's how I says it. I don't, I'm telling you if I was him and I had not pitched in a long time, I'd be like, whatever you need me to do, I'm happy to do it.

Lance is like, I'm going, if I've been putting in all this work to try to get back on the mound to play, I want to do it every fifth day. I want to be able to throw 80 pitches. He talked about when he expects to throw. He's been throwing some bullpins, also wants to get in some games in Florida and then head to AAA. So I've thrown seven pins, which is a good amount, which is coming through like an off season. I'll throw another pen, I think Sunday,

and then probably a couple more. And then look into face hitters. I love to get in some games for the end of camp. And, you know, from there probably break a AAA. It's been a little while since I've, you know, really faced competition. Spring training's good. but it's not, you know, there's still a little of the gap from spring to the season.

So I think it would, I think we all feel it would be the best to try to get a game or Twitter on my belt down here in Florida. And then probably go to AAA before, you know, making the decision to join back. In today's edition of Pure Gas Moments? Yes. June 1st, before or after, does Lace McCullors make his Astros debut? I think it's a good line. I think it's a good line. I'm going to be, I choose to be optimistic before June 1st. I choose to be realistic and I'll probably say post-July June 1st and go.

if he happens beforehand, can't wait. Let me tell you, when Lance is eventually back on the mound, pitching for the Astros, it's a celebratory moment. Well, you don't know, I don't know. I'm going to be optimistic. Let's call you Mr. Optimistic. I know. I love it.

Well, let's keep it going, Matt, but let's keep it with the starting pitching Framber Valdez with some comments yesterday, talking about being approached for a contract, says that hasn't happened, said I'm ready for both. Doesn't matter if I'm a free agent or the Astros opposed to me about a contract extension. I'm ready for both. There's always an answer for both.

I'm ready to do whatever is best for me. And I'm ready for both occasions. I wish you should be ready for. For agency. In all likelihood, yes. What else is happening in the world of sports, Rossi? How about your Houston Rockets? Oh, no.

What? We haven't taken a call on the rocket yet today. Should we have? Do they deserve a call? Well, I mean, people could be like mad or disappointed. horned, angry here. Disgusted? Shot clock at 17. Jimmy Butler, right-hand

dribble drive, right side, Pajemski, pump fakes on a three, kicks it out straight away. Dremont wants a three-pointer. That's up in and that'll seal it. At 105-96 or 47 seconds remaining. You know the Warriors were 11 and 41 from deep last night? That's 27%.

Over the Rockets. 12-36, 33. Still not good. Rock has turned there over 20 times yesterday. 2-0. 11, I think, in the first

quarter and a half. That's not good, Bob. That's not good, Matt. No. That's not ideal. Well, they did have a comeback with a bunch of backups on the floor,

and unfortunately, they still lost 105 to 98. They limp into the All-Star break, having lost seven of their last nine. And I mean, there is pressure coming from 4, 5, 6. No, 567 right now.

You're talking about the Western Conference standings. Yes, Matt. The Houston Rockets right now still in the four spot as the Lakers lost as well, but only a half game ahead of them, two and a half ahead of the L.A. Clippers.

Who, by the way, came from behind to beat the Utah Jazz last night. Also only two and a half behind the Grizz. Okay. Let's get that two or three. Let's go. it can happen it's going to happen

I'm going to give you the rest of schedule the rest of the way not right this second okay but we're going all dubs undefeated is that what you're saying I love it I love your optimism you know I don't know

anything else that's it okay time for break you did a nice job you did a nice job you prepared that from about 1030 this morning it's very good

all right it is uh anything goes Friday here on the program Allen in North Houston says he went out with a stripper last night for dinner I mean, I'm curious, right? What other radio show have people calling and just talking about random conversations they have at dinner time? This one does.

713-212-5-79 if you want to jump in on the conversation. 7-1-3-212-5-790. We have pieces of our equipment just dropping like flies. Ross broke the microphone. I didn't touch it. We'll get that fixed never. 713-212-5-7-99. I want to tell you right now about Scott Callahan and Associates,

if you have been involved in an accident through no fault of your own, and you are unable to work, you are unable to pay your bills, if you're having issues with the insurance companies and the hospitals, and you need some help because of your pain and suffering, you're going to call a man who's had 25 years of experience taking care of people with personal injury trial issues, and that is Scott Callahan and Associates. 713-88-9,000, 713-88-9,000. The website is wehelptexis.com. They put you first. They'll listen to you. They'll fight hard and give you a voice. They'll also get back to their community, which is very important to the team at Scott Callahan and Associates. And here's the best part. You'll pay no money up front or out-of-pocket expenses. There's no travel to an office required. They will do the heavy lifting and working with your insurance companies to get you and your family back on your feet.

713 8889,000. 713 8889,000, We Help Texas.com. 25 years of experience at Scott Callahan and Associates. 7138889,000, We Help Texas.com, principal office, Katie, Texas. The Matt Thomas Show with Ross continues on Sports Talk 790. And this kind of fits the show, right? All right. So our audience is diverse, men, women, young, old, calling and say, hey, Matt, I was at a ballgame yesterday.

Or hey, Matt, I went on a trip, and hey, I went to Vegas, or on the beach. Yes. People that want to call the show, I said, I had dinner with a stripper last night. Wow. Alan, good afternoon. You're on the Matt Thomas show with Ross and anything goes Friday. Alan, what is on your mind today? Well, you guys were curious if they were dancing on Valentine's Day, right?

Yeah, it was, by the way, who, do you know this person as a friend or is this somebody you said, hey, girl, what's up, let's go have some dinner? No, as a friend, as a friend. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, we went out to a nice steak restaurant last night, and I actually asked the question. I said, are you working Friday? And she said, possibly.

But other than that, they do work on Fridays on Valentine's Day. Okay. How long has your friend been stripping? At least for about three, four years, about three, four years. Now, are you all like, y'all were friends before the strip club, or did you meet her at the strip club? No, met her at the strip club. We talked and had a good vibe with each other, and we exchanged phone numbers. That's nice.

And we've been texting each other. Yeah, nice. Nice. Nice lady. Real nice lady. Is she older or younger than you are? Oh, she's definitely younger than me. In fact, she's like a year older than my son, and he's 25.

My wife. Has your son asked about this girl yet or no? No. He talks about it and asked me if, you know, I'm still texting her and stuff like that. He starts laughing every time we talk about it. But other than that, I sent pictures to her and stuff like that. She's gorgeous. I'm telling you that right now.

All right. Well, good. Does your ex-wife know about this strip you're going out with or at least having dinner with? I don't even care. I don't even care. You hate your ex-wife, don't you? you hate the mother of your child well no no no that's my first wife so yeah how many times you've been married

twice okay just twice so you're gonna remain a free age of the rest of your career that obviously and this and this girl you took out to dinner last night she's not marrying material yes uh not right now no okay is she dating somebody at this point uh no no i even asked that about what two, three weeks ago if she was dating, she said no, but, you know, sometimes they say that to you, you know, just to kind of stroke your eagle. But, no, from what we've been texting each other and talking, yeah, we're real good friends. That's for sure. I'm done. Ross, you got anything else? I'm good. Thank you, Alan. I hope I answered your questions.

By the way, did you buy, do you guys always, do you, how many times you've gone out to have dinner? Just twice And you've bought both times We split the second time Oh no, that was nice, okay Does she wear her stripper garb To said restaurant or does she have like a difference No, no she was pretty relaxed

You know, casual comfortable You know Yeah She was looking good though She was looking good Well, okay, that's nice I'm glad to hear that you approve of her Physical appearance

Yeah, yeah physical, mental. She's smart. She's a smart young lady. Okay. Is she currently... Going to school? Is she going to school right now? No. In fact, she's unfortunately, we were talking, and she's getting ready to move back to Arizona with her sister.

Okay. I take the back. She did say she was going to school. She's taking classes, but we never did get into that, what classes she was taken. Sure. Yeah, that's going to happen. You know how that... Whole dancing. So when is her final appearance in the greater Houston area?

Possibly tonight. Possibly tonight. Wait, she has not made up of mind whether she's leaving tonight or tomorrow. Well, well, we talked about it because the thing is, if she's leaving tomorrow and she's dancing tonight, you know, as far as driving and stuff, I told her, you know, you may want to be a little cautious about that and, you know, may not go to dance tonight. But she said she was going to text me as she was. And if that's the case, I was going to meet her up there for one last, you know, one last. Spend some more money. Okay, what are you guys thinking?

Hold on. I got a couple more here. Okay, so she's thinking about moving tomorrow. Well, she is going to move tomorrow. She's actually going to leave tomorrow on Saturday. Okay, so she's out of her place of residence where she is right now, correct? Or she's about to? As of tomorrow, yeah, as of tomorrow, she, you know, basically needed to be moved out.

And shall she run in an apartment or a townhouse or something like that? Right now, current. Was she? Is that what you're asking? Yeah, like where does she sleep last night? Downtown. She's got a apartment complex downtown. Okay. So she told the renders, I'm out, goodbye.

It's been great hanging out with you. I'm going to Arizona. Pretty much. Yeah, like I said, we're going to keep in touch. But yeah, I'm kind of disappointed that we hooked up. Finally, the next thing, you know, it's like, well, I'm traveling, you know, to Arizona, going to go out, you know, be out of town and boo. I'm like, oh, we just hooked up with each other.

But, you know, I understand. I understand. Okay, well, now I feel kind of bad for you because it's not like you guys have developed quite a relationship and you're unable to extend it, as the kids would say. Yeah, I know. That's why I kept telling her too. I said, you know, I'm kind of bummed out and stuff. She said, well, I know I am too. I'm like, yeah, like I said, we had a good vibe together and all that good stuff.

So, you know, just, you know, good friends. Good. Well, good. I'm sorry you losing her friend, but you've got friends to us. Now, we're not going to be nearly as attractive as she is, I'm assuming. but you know we are your friends here at 7-9. We appreciate you opening up your personal life does, Ross. Or to Alan, I can say.

Yeah, thank you. No problem at all. You guys are fantastic to listen to you. Thank you very much. Nice to hear from you. All right, there you go. Well, I feel kind of bad for Alan now. Loss is a girl.

It's going to Arizona with their sister. There will always be another. But there's only going to be one of that. I forgot, we forgot to ask the girl's name. Does it matter? I mean, it's probably on the stage name or her real name? Penelope? Panelope.

Tiffany with two eyes? With two eyes? Yeah, T-I-F-F-A-N-I. Why would anybody put an eye in the end of Tiffany? That's absurd. All right. Rockets for the Suns in March in Phoenix. What does that mean?

You taking her to the game? No, I'm just giving the information. You're going to sweep his girl? Come on, Matt. Let him let Alan live. Didn't I not tell you guys earlier that I was going to give you the rocket schedule the rest of the way? Oh, yeah. Is that part of it?

Oh, okay. Thank you, Matt. So if there's any strippers out there that would like to have Alan as a friend, let me tell you, if you didn't hear that the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the lightfulness in his voice. Hmm. I'm sure, Alan, I mean, it's, it's good, as nice as it gets. Steakhouse.

Yeah. He's going to try to go back to the club one more time to see her goodbye, spend some more money on her before she leaves, a little extra gas money. That's what a friend does. That's what Alan is. Alan's a friend. They went Dutch at the steakhouse. you split the checks or you just say here I'll pay for this and you pay the rent I mean

you don't you probably just hand them two cards and tell them to split it that's what do you mean what could be what if what if she spent more money on uh like if she bought a lot of booze and he didn't drink anything you didn't that happened I don't know you're so ridiculous you are ridiculous thank you all thank you all for joining us here on the program wow that's let me tell you there are a lot of radio shows doing valentine's day stories that's not going to be played anywhere else the Matt Thomas show. Mm-hmm.

With Ross. Don't you, you can't eject from this show yet. I'm trying. I'm trying to distance myself. You wanted your name on the show. You got it now. Yeah, mistakes were made. It's too late.

713-212-5-790. I don't know where to go from here, honestly. To break? I mean, besides that, what's the very next thing we're going to talk about on the show today? Lance McCullough, Jr., not going to the bullpen. We just talk in the Rockets. Second half wishes for the Rockets. All right.

I owe you the rocket second half schedule. Yes. And by the way, and I'm not going to mention this person's name. There is somebody that is a familiar media person out of this town that tweeted out something today that it's not great. But stop sending it to me. I've already seen it. Y'all are sending me a bunch of DMs on this. I'm like, man, I've seen it all.

And so has everybody else. Got no comments. Good. It's better than you don't. People make mistakes. and they send out tweets at odd hours of the day. 713-212-5-790. Matt Thomas, Ross Villarreal.

It's the Matt Thomas show with Ross on Sports Talk 790. We were just talking about a moment ago about how Shaquille O'Neal was like, I can swear on national television because I'm not going to probably get fired. Mike McCarthy of the Athletic, the media reporter, just announcing about an hour ago, that Shaq has a new agreement in place to stay long-term at T&T that will pay him over $15 million per year. Wow.

$15 million per year to not care about the game he's about to call, to barely pay attention to what the NBA is doing right now, and to make fun of Charles and Kenny and Ernie for about 30 weeks a year. And threatened to fight each other, basically every show. It's pretty good. It's fun. It's great. Spectacular.

dynamite programming. On the all-time category if I just don't get it. Like an all-time goat category. Okay. The amount of money that is being spent on national television personalities,

you're bidding against yourself. In TNT's case, you're bidding against Amazon Prime, NBC, in ESPN. Although really not ESPN, because the TNT shows going to go to ESPN for the NBA side of it.

So you're really bidding against two other groups of people. We saw the Tom Brady $375 million deal. Again, a lot of money. Probably could have got him for half of that, maybe. What would the viewership have been a Super Bowl Sunday if it were Greg Olson instead of Tom Brady? Zero decline. The exact same, right?

Yeah. Broadcast probably would have even been better. Oh, it would have been more analytical for sure. not the time did a poor job but Olson has prepared for this all of his life and he's done a great job. He's also very upset about this. Oh, and he's not afraid to tell you either.

So under the all time, I just don't get it. Look, every media job, including ours, there's a certain economic expectation to it. But I'm not necessarily competing against other people in my marketplace for my services. I'm competing against, do I want to stay in this? this business. And there's just a certain threshold that 790, IHeartMedia, Houston, Texas is going to pay for you and I to do a radio show. I mean, I'm flabbergasted about the money that has spent

like Joe Buck and Tragman, do a fantastic job on Monday Night Football. Did a great job during the playoffs, did a great job calling that Texans Chiefs game. I mean, they really separated themselves from the Gibronies. But it could have been Laverne and Shirley doing the broadcast, and I would watch the game because that's the Texans playing, right? I mean. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. There has to be some sort of element. Look, they wouldn't spend all this money if it wasn't worth it.

Now, I don't think. If you want to spend crazy money on Stephen A, because he drives a show. I get that. I get that. People do tune in to see Stephen A. They do. Yeah. And I don't, but I understand that people do.

But there is. But also, he's also competing against what? FS1's not going to get in that sweepstakes for that kind of money. Going independent? Let me tell you, going to YouTube ain't going to do it. You may make some money on YouTube, but you're going to make a lot of money. Yeah, but if YouTube offers you money, it would be Google that would be giving him the money. Okay, but it won't be anything close to what the ESPN's offering.

And ultimately, no matter, there is, the only person I can think of, and I could be very much wrong on this, the only person that left mainstream media to go to Plan B media, meaning something that wasn't the networks that was successful, was probably Howard Stern, right? Howard Stern took a gamble on this serious XM and his main gazillions of dollars. Yeah, but they offered him like $500 million to go. It took a lot of money to get him to go. Yeah. That's different.

But like even McAfee. McAfee created his little niche on the YouTube. Yeah. And then he has been said, I want that. I'm going to pay you for that. Yeah, giving him like $85, $90 million, whatever it is. To hang out in with tank tops and his 19 members of his team. He's got our shirt on like 40% of the time.

That's nice. That's good. National media talent spending is crazy and who you can be in against. I mean, was there really going to be a bidding war for Tom? Was CBS going to offer 10 years 380? Yeah, I mean, you're talking about Fox.

That's, of course, who they're bidding against, but I don't know. I mean, you're paying Joe Buck to do 20 games a year, probably 10 million bucks. How much does it matter with sponsors? Are sponsors more attracted? Tom Brady is on the broadcast? Does he go meet people and wine and dine? There is a sales component to it. Fox can use Tom Brady to go help them sell

the Thursday night American Idol, whatever the whatever their shows are on. He's not just saying, hey, come buy our NFL stuff. You're bringing Tom Brady to the national pitch. He's going to the national pitch and saying, hey, why don't you guys sponsor the masked singer? Yeah. Spend money on Fox. Now, I'm sure the NFL is the most important thing he's trying to

sell, but he's probably being used for other things. Absolutely. Because Tom Brady transcends football. All right. Yeah. You say so? Shack is getting 15 milly a year. To do nothing but basically humor himself, fall down and crash on a Christmas tree,

tackle Kenny and insult Chuck. Not know who's active for the game or not. Like, for Shaq, I don't need Shaq in my TNT. I told you Charles makes me laugh. Shack is fun. Shack and Chuck, I mean, it's good chemistry. For sure. For sure.

Let's talk to John in Memorial at 1230. Anything goes Friday. John, good afternoon to you. Hey, Matt. Hey, Rossi. I was at the Rockets game last night. Me too. I had a few questions.

Oh, my gosh. Well, you involve one of my questions. So, I mean, it's been a really fun team to watch this year with the exception of the last 10 games. or so. It just seems like there's so much inconsistency. Granted, I'm not a, I don't know a ton about basketball, but I mean, is there a way to get that on track? I mean, at least have one or two guys that can consistently go out and at least offensively score some points. And then two other questions. I'll just hang up and listen. First, who lets Reed Shepard walk around with that haircut? It's all.

Wait a minute. Don't mess with a young 20-year-old. He's still a bro. He may be a rich bro, but he's still a bro. He's in the prime of his life. He needs a new haircut. He's a good guy, by the way. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure.

And then my last question, and then I'll hang up, is why do you sit in a big, tall, fancy chair at the radio table over there? I just like it. Thanks. That's it. Yeah, there's chairs. Are you in a fancy chair? I'm not, it's not, it's not comfortable.

It's a, it's a wooden chair. It elevates me a little bit higher to see over stuff. Oh. Hmm. You want to be elevated higher over everyone else. Actually, the, usually most of the visiting radio broadcasters use those chairs. And I looked over and I said, I should try that. So I have.

And you liked it. Yeah. Rather than going with, I think Ackerman goes with like four booster cushions. Well, he has a bigger chair than I do. Oh, he does. And his has actually got, what is this? What is this? What is this made of here?

What is this? What do you mean, cotton? Cotton, yeah. He's got a cotton chair. I don't have, mine is a hard chair. Oh, you got a hardwood chair? Hardwood chair. He's got a soft cotton chair.

Is it a rocking chair? He's TV diva. Usually I'd have a folding chair with two cushions on it, but I just thought, I'll try the, I'll try the wooden chair. I like it. I like a cushion game. I mean, I don't use one on my side. What do you sit with? You sit in a rolling chair.

It's a regular fold-up cushion chair. Yeah. I have two monitors in front of me. One is the game and they have stats. Instead of having to look straight, I look over above it, I can just sit and sit there. Yeah, you guys need those monitors.

We have monitored. We just literally lay them down. Oh, do you really? Yeah. So they actually in the way? That's funny. They're in the way of us seeing unless I get cushions. Yeah.

And then what's I going to tell you? Oh, as far as the scores, I mean, the Rockets have been mid-scores all year long. They have not been the top 10. I don't think much at all. this year. Offense hasn't been great. Their offenses,

bottom four in free throw street. By the way, the free throw numbers. Sports RV, they went, what did they do yesterday? They were 10 of 18.

What up with that? I mean, Alpi's numbers have fallen off the map. He's now under 70% for the year, where he was at like 75, 75, yeah. He's dropped. And now everybody's missing free throws.

Their 25th in field goal percentage. 27th, I think, in free throw, and about 28th and 3. point somewhere on that range? 28th and 3 point. They got up to 19th for a little while. They did.

Not in 3 point. Yeah, they did. Remember when Jalen Green was hitting everything? It was like a two-week period where Jalen Green was shooting like 50% when he went on that nine-game streak and then Fred Van Vleet was knocking everything down. They got to 19? Yeah. Are you absolutely sure about that?

I can pull it up. You really can't? I don't think he can pull you and pull it up. Does it show how the numbers change? I would take some work Ross I love you like a third cousin There was never a point They were 19

It was like for a game or two Yeah When they were shated very well It was very early in the year It was in the, I'm telling you It was in the middle of that stretch You can't go from 19 There's too many shots being taken

You can't go from 19 to 28th You can't drop that far It's the percentages don't have to go up that much They were over they were like at 34 and a half percent or something And it went from night I can find team ranks of three point percentage Okay. I got to check that out because I don't know if I believe that. I don't care. I know you didn't care.

What was the other thing? What was the thing you were wrong on yesterday? I can't remember. Oh, oh, a gold glover moving from one position next. You said it never happened in baseball history. So basically you found one person 60 years ago. I kind of win my argument. No, I stopped after finding one. You think I can't find another? Keep going. No, you're going to work on this three point percentage first. Okay. I feel like the entire season they've either been 25th or below.

19th right now would be 35 They're at 339 So one percentage point They weren't up a percentage point for like a couple of days I'm not saying they weren't up But I'm saying like I would I got to call Rockets PR

This is going to bug me Really? Because if that's the case Then the drop off has been dramatic No they've yeah they went up It was it because like I said Fred Van Vleet was making everything Jalen Green. Jalen Green was shooting for like

55% from 3 or something for like 9-10 games. And people are, Jaylen Green made it. You know what? I mean, I could be wrong. You're our stats guy. No, I mean, look, I could be wrong. I'm wrong every day. I know. 1243, Sports Talk 790.

This is the Matt Thomas Show at Ross. At 1 o'clock, we relive 30, something happened 30 years ago today. And that is the Clyde Drex for Trade. Sports Talk 790. More Matt Thomas show with Ross. Now on Sports Talk 790 I just texted the Rockets It's PR department and they're like

Leave me alone I'm at the All-Star game That's nice Well at least he responded So I was telling somebody that they were 19th I have the text that I wrote Yeah yeah I know But I must have I think I might have had bad information

Well let me tell you something You are working with someone that has been giving out bad information For a long time in my life No sweat The Rockets got the 19th Ross. They'd have five more wins. And if they could stay there. Yeah.

Last night, the Rockets shot 33% from 3. 12 of 36. The Warriors were 11 to 41 at 26%. Rockets rebounded the Warriors 52 to 42. 15 offensive rebounds. Warriors went to the free throw line. 27 times made 24. The Rockets were 10 of 18 for the line.

and all of the starters were told essentially by E. Mae Doka to shut their bumasses up, go sit on the bench. And you know what they did? They didn't stand on the bench. They stood on the bench. Like, when you know you get in trouble, you can't go sit down on the corner,

you got to stand in the corner. That's exactly what EMA did to those starters last night. He's like, you're going to stand up and you're going to watch this. Yeah, he does that a lot. You're going to watch Jack Landell and Nate Williams help this comeback. Nate Williams out there. Taking names. Yeah, they got from 24 down to 10.

And if Jack Landale makes a little runner on the right side, it's a tie game. Jack Landale. Well, now we're on the All-Star break, thankfully. Landau went six to nine, scored 13 points. That's good. Not bad. Not bad at all. Let's go to Jason and Katie at 1250 on the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

Jason, good afternoon. Hey, look, yesterday I get to work and I check the, I always get on my website and check the lines. And the rockets were minus six, and then about an hour later it moved to minus six and a half. So I took Golden State. So then I get off work and I go to the bar, and I look at the bottom line, and there it is, minus one and a half. I'm like, why did it shift so many points? I think there was, people weren't sure that it was probably injuries, right?

Matt, wasn't it, Curry was in question for a little while? The only player that was confirmed out last night for Golden State was Kaminga. Gary Payton was a late scratch. But before the game, I mean like the day before, when did you do this? You said in the morning, Jason? Yeah, in the morning. In the morning, it was six.

It was rocket. But see, if it shifted, I thought somebody was out on the rockets, but then when I looked at everybody in there, everybody was in there. So I'm like, why would it shift five points? I think in the morning, there was still doubt that Curry and others

were going to play on the back-to-back. Steve Curry was talking, remember in his post game? He was like, oh, we're going to get there at 3 a.m. Jason, they did not release injury reports until 1 o'clock yesterday. afternoon. That makes a difference. That's when it shifted. I got one more thing for y'all. I would bet, and I can't think of

anything else or anybody else it would be, but I bet Al Tuvei will, how do you call him, Hosey, Jose Altuve will be the next guy to have his jersey in the rafters. I don't think there'd be anybody else. That'd be my bet, but I'll hang up, let y'all go. Among those on this current regime, we mentioned that a little bit yesterday. Correa no. Springer no. Verlander? I'm going to go to the yes on Verlander. Retired number? Because I think it's going to be more owner influenced.

Like, you know how Clyde's number got retired by the Rockets by Les Alexander? Because sometimes you just have your faves. And one of Jim Crane's all-time faves is Justin Verlander. I would say probably yes. Does he deserve it? Sure, why not? No, see, I don't think you can say sure why not when it comes to Jersey retirements. The Astros don't have a bunch of them.

Yeah, they do? Not really. For a franchise, it's been around since the 60s? What, like, seven or eight more? That's not a lot. Go look at the Yankees. Go look at the Celtics. They've got like 25.

Yeah, they've been around for a hundred years. The Astros are half that. The Astros have been around since 1962. That's how many years? How long? How long? Three years of the rockets? been around. They've only got... Rockets have been around

since 70 when they were in San Diego. They've got what, six or seven? Yeah, I think they've got a good ratio of number of Jersey retirement. Now one of them obviously is Jackie Robinson. Yeah. One is, I believe, a player

that died early of a heart attack. They've got 10 now. Astros. So, okay, let me think if I know who they are. Scott, Dirker. Mm-hmm. Ryan, Bigio, Bagwell.

Yes. Don Wilson? Yes. How do I know that? I don't know. Who am I forgetting? Jimmy Winn, Jose Cruz, Jim Umbric, Jackie Robinson. You said Durker, right?

Yeah, I did say Durker. Yeah, I, uh, boy, Verlander and Bregman are... Wagner's going in, by the way. So, you know what? They're both getting their jersey retired. If Billy Wagner's getting his jersey retired, so too is Alex Breggman, And so too is Justin Verlander. There I said it.

So it'll be at 12. Yeah. For 60 years? It's not terrible. I don't like it's too many. I think it's like Godot's the porges. Just right? So Jim Umbrich is the one that died, right?

Yes, he's the one that past, yeah. Don Wilson? Is he that good? I never saw him. I never saw Jimmy Win play. I just saw, I mean, obviously, I was the video highlights, but I never saw him play. Okay.

You said, okay. I'm going to say one, two, three. For who? Verlander. One, two, three. No. Bragman, I wouldn't do it. One, two, three.

Yes. While you're rolling your eye. Billy Wagner, one, two, three. No. Because I think what, basically, if Wagner's getting in, that should push the other two way over the top. To me, if you're retiring a number, that number is so tied to that person, and it's such a popular number that you couldn't possibly think of another player wearing that number. I think of that's your argument. I can't think of anybody not wearing 13 again.

I can't. Has nobody worn it yet since? I'm sure they have. I don't know. I'm sure they have. But I don't think anybody should wear a 13 again. Billy Wagner for a long stretch was the, I mean, a shutdown absolutely. He's what people want Josh Hedner to be.

Three batters, 99 in the gun, boom, boom, boom, out. Like 10 people have worn it. I forgot about Tyler White. Did you ever say Tyler, if Tyler White went out there wearing 13 and you're like, man, I can't believe they're using Billy Wagner's number. I bet you I have. There's no way you did. you I have. Abraham Toro wearing 13.

You're like, I can't believe Abraham Toro is wearing Billy Wagner's numbers. Nobody said that. It was a, zero people said that. It was an insult. Not a single person said that. I was outraged by the organization. Literally three years later, Eric Munson was wearing it. Shouldn't be retired.

I'm sticking with it. Ronnie Sedano, Domingo Santana. Okay. Dustin Garneau. Well, you have the stones to say when Billy Wagner joins this radio show at some point. J.J. Madich. But shouldn't a Hall of Famer's number be retired? I guess.

Right? Think about it. If you're in the Hall of Fame. When Cooper Hummel was wearing 13, did you go, did you at any point say, I can't believe that they're wearing, Cooper Hummel is wearing Billy Wadder's number?

What I said was, what I said was who the hell is Cooper Hummel's right? Exactly. So nobody said that. Okay, go back to my original question. No. If you get in the Hall of Fame, doesn't that mean you're one of the all-time,

all-time greats? The answer is yes to that. So he wasn't a Hall of Famer last year? so because he got 20 more votes or whatever he's now you've got to retire his number the Astros retire his number clearly the Astros believe that because some other body gave him

35, 40 more votes or whatever it was Yeah To answer your question yes Okay If the major if the pro baseball Hall of Fame thinks you're one of the all-time grades That means you're probably definitely a whole-time grade of that particular team for nine years

Cooper Hummel Yeah Cooper Hummel Yeah, Cooper Hummel wore his number Nobody was an outrage that they do I can't believe Billing Wagner's numbers led multiple shows with it. Steve Pierce. Steve, God, man, there's some sucky 13s.

Abraham Toro. I'm sure, I'm sure if the Pierce's film is listening nice. I mean, we're big Torrell fans. Jacob Wilson were 13. Nobody said a word. We were mad. We're still mad. Tyler the Great White.

People were manufacturing nicknames for him. Nobody said, I can't believe he's wearing Billy Wagon's number. I did. We let out the show. Like, at least every Thursday. We're a liar and a fraud. All right. Let's talk to Greg Rajer from the Chronicle.

Happy anniversary for you, Fly Drexler fans for you Rocket fans. We'll discuss that next as a Matt Thomas show continues at 1258 on Sports Talk 790. Launch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. 30 years ago today, the Rockets make a trade as part of the 1994-95 season that turns into an NBA championship. Their second one for the Great City, Houston. Greg Rodgin.

Friend of the show. Rossi, Greg's been saying, when are you going to finally get me on the Matt Thomas show with Ross? No, he's been texting me like every day. Yeah, every day. It's too much. Greg wants him to show so bad. Fine. Let's get him on the show.

Let's get him some shine. He wrote a brilliant article that I read today because I'm a chronicle online subscriber. You only read it because you were in it. That can't be true. Hi, Greg, what's going on? And you know, I said I'd only come on once you added Ross's name to the time. I know. I know.

That is the exact sentiment. He says, I'm not coming on your show until Ross's name gets added. Matt said we'll only put you on the show unless you write an article with him in it. Yeah, aren't you doing a darn the story about me soon enough? It's been a couple of years. I don't know. I've only written like two or three profiles of you over the years. I guess we'll do for an update.

Well, the never show. They're doing quite well. Quite well. Hey, first of all, happy anniversary. Now, you're younger than I am, obviously. What were you doing 30 years ago? And were you, are you of Corpus Christi ties? Is that just where you worked originally?

Tell me where you're from. I'm from Austin. Okay. 30 years ago, this makes me feel old. I was a senior in college. Oh, you are old then? Okay, good. You're older than I am then.

I'm younger than you, but I'm still old, but I'm younger than you. I got you. All right, so being in Austin, I'm assuming you're in Spurs country. Is that correct? Austin is a Spurs TV market, yeah. But I followed the Rockets a lot because of Elijah on back then. I was more into the Rockets than the Spurs. I only got to see Rockets games like if they were national TV games mostly.

So the kid in you saw this major trade. The young broadcaster and me saw this as working the PA that night. And the whole NBA world's like Clyde Drexler, Mr. Portland Trailblazer. I mean, the greatest blazer not to win a championship. Now, obviously Bill Walton helped them win in 77, but they got close a couple different occasions than eventually lost. He basically says, I don't want to be around for the region. bill. Now, in your article today, Clyde brought up that this was

comp to Luca leaving Dallas to go to the Los Angeles Lakers. Do you agree with that comp, or is it pretty close, but not completely the same thing? I think it's pretty close because when we grew up following the NBA, you didn't see guys like Clyde Drexler get traded. You know, like guys

stayed with one team pretty much their whole career, superstars, like Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, those types. Clyde was the best player on some very good Portland teams. They went to the finals twice, lost to the Pistons, lost the Bulls, also had the best record in the Western Conference in 91, lost to the Lakers in the conference finals. So to see a player of his stature being traded in season, that was kind of surprising.

I think there's a lot more fewer over Luca Donchich, because it's a different media environment. There was no social media back then. I'm pretty sure I found out about the Clyde trade. it on the car radio when I was driving. I mean, I wasn't getting an update on my phone, like at midnight on a Saturday, like the Luca trade. But I think Clyde, I think there's a kernel of truth to what Clyde saying, because, yeah,

I mean, he was Mr. Trailblazer, you know, for that era. And for him to get traded, I'm sure Paul Allen got some blowback, no doubt. I'm curious. I don't know if you had an opportunity to ask this, but what if Paul Allen, the owner of the Blazers at the time had said, Clyde, you're Mr. Blazer. I'm not training you. We're going to transform this team, but you're still a part of it. I wonder how things would have turned out if Clyde would have gotten

surly with the Blazers and done something that a lot of teams are now doing in the NBA when guys are unhappy, like Jimmy Butler, for example, and just not play. Well, there is a quote in the story where Clyde says, I'm not interested in teaching. I'm a competitor, and if I can't compete, I'm going to do something else. What that's something else is, who knows, I don't know, would Clyde have sat out and demanded it? to trade. I'm not sure, but we'll never know. But for him to really to go to the owner and ask for a

trade, I think, you know, it takes some nerve. And, you know, eventually got his way. He said Houston was the only team he would have accepted a trade to. So I'm really not sure, like, if Clyde would have been content going to some other team at that point in his career. It is kind of strange, Greg, that he went to Paul and said, look, I want to go to this young Houston team. Elijah wants my teammate. college. They're in the prime of their NBA career. I mean, we've seen teams ask for, like, Jimmy Butler wanted to play in Phoenix. And I hate to keep bringing up Jimmy's name, but that just wasn't going to happen because Durant wanted no part of Golden State. So I don't know if there's

been other guys that were before Clyde that demanded a trade to one particular team. I don't know. Did a cream demand you go to LA Lakers or the Milwaukee Bucks has found a suit or I don't know. But it was certainly strange at the time that a player could not only ask for a trade, still very much in the problem of his career, but do so to one particular team because I remember, some of the details are sketchy for me because it's been so long, but it wasn't like you had, hey, Clyde's available, call my Portland general manager, and I'll take your best offer. No, I don't recall it being like that either. I think with the case of Kareem, it was like a lifestyle thing.

He didn't like living in Milwaukee at that point. It didn't suit him, and he wanted to trade, I think to the Lakers or Knicks. I could be wrong, but I know. I think he had ties to LA, obviously, since he played at UCLA. With Clyde, I'm not sure how that worked, but had other people saying that Rudy come down against really needed to upgrade the offense, and, you know, Clyde was the best option to do that, and they found a way to make it fit. I mean, it took some pain because, you know, giving up Oda Storp, that's tough.

Yeah. When he was a big part of the Rockets beating the next year before, a very popular teammate, and you're going to ruffle some feathers in that drive. dressing room, but eventually they, you know, they pull the trigger on the trade and it paid off for them, although not initially, you know, through the end of the regular season, I believe there were one game under 500 to finish the season. But come to playoffs, you know, that's when that trade really paid off for them. Did you make much effort to try to get a hold of the Portland side of this deal at all? Not really. I mean, I was more interested in the Houston side and, you know, I talked to

Clyde about this trade years ago than I got back in touch with him this week. And I want to to get some different perspectives on that trade. But I mean, with, you know, Paul Allenlin, he is deceased. So I'm really not sure if management at the time in Portland had anything to do with that deal or if that's strictly, you know, an ownership deal where he says we're trading Clyde and, you know, make it work. Could you imagine me an OT during that time, Greg? Here you are. Now, granted, that 94-95 team just never could not to get out of its way, but they were losing

way more than a defending champion would have lost. they were a two seed going into the playoffs the previous year. They had fallen to, and eventually ended up at six. So it wasn't like this was a juggernaut. I'm curious how things would have gone. And I've talked to Rudy about this several times. And Rudy has said it over and over again. He says, look, people were asking us to make a move because they were sick of us finishing,

they were disappointed about us finishing in the bottom four of the West. And then if you make a trade, who are you giving up? Because it's going to hurt. And I know Vernon Maxwell's name was being brought up in possibilities. I don't know if Otisorp was a surprise or not, but you were taking a solid back to the basket power forward, a true power forward in Otis Thorpe and replacing him with a position you already had its strength in Vernon Maxwell playing the two guard position. Yeah, you're right. You're not trading position for position because Clyde, he doesn't come in

and necessarily replace Otis Thorpe. He's replacing Vernon Maxwell in the starting lineup. And obviously, Vernon Maxwell got sideways with that and left the team during the first round against Utah. And as for what Otis Storpe's feeling, that's got to be tough because you're a key contributor and a championship team that finally breaks through the year before, and then they deem you expendable when you're trying to repeat. So I'm sure he took that really hard. Yeah. Greg Radge with us from the Houston Chronicle, one of the senior editors, and a piece on their website today about the 30-year anniversary. So, and I look, I haven't gone back to look at how things went, but was there a turning point that maybe Clyde said, maybe when you were doing some

stat analysis? What was the turning point that turned this bottom, third playoff team into a potential repeat champion? You know, a couple of people I talk to said in a couple memorable moments. Clyde hit a buzz feeder in Denver late in the regular season. He banked in a three-pointer at the buzzer to beat the nuggets. That was kind of like one thing, although they didn't. That was initially like a springboard. I think it's more two games that stuck out with Clyde.

Game four, the first round against Utah. They're facing elimination at the summit. that he and Akeem both score 40 points, only the third pair of teammates that both score 40 points in the playoff game. They win that game, then they go up to Salt Lake City, come back and win game five. But the Clyde game that really stuck out with people, and it's funny because it's his worst statistical game of the playoffs. Game five in Phoenix, he's sick all day with the flu, drags himself out of bed, gets to the arena like 5, 5.30. He's in the starting lineup. He doesn't contribute much.

But just the fact that he was out there giving it a go. He has a very important contest on Wesley Person at the end of regulation. If Wesley Person makes this three point of the series is over, Rocket surviving overtime. And Tim Frank, who was one of the media relations guys at the time, said that was really the game that kind of galvanized them because they looked dead in the water. He went out there. He gave them a spark, reason to believe. And they came back to win that series. And then they took care of San Antonio and Orlando to win the championship.

Help me out. Wasn't that the series two that Jake O'Donnell tossed Clyde early in the game with a couple technical fouls and then Jake never worked again? That was, yeah. Was that game one or game two at Phoenix? It was definitely in Phoenix. I know that for a fact. I don't remember which number it was, but I remember Jake tossing Clyde really quick. The whole world of sports stopped for a second.

Did Jake O'Donnell just tossed Clyde Drexler for something, you know, look, Clyde was sly on the court. He would say things under his breadth to get under official skin. I think he'd be the first one to admit that to you. But for him to get tossed for what he said or didn't say or how he handled it that fast in the game. I mean, the NBA basically said, Jake O'Donnell, you've got screws loose, you lost control of it. You'll never referee a game again. And that was the very last time that Jake O'Donnell ever refereed to NBA basketball game. Very true, because they had had beef for years on the court.

And then Jake O'Donnell, if you remember NBA reps of that era, they had a lot of personality. You were like Jake O'Donnell, Earl Strom, Daryl Carrotson, these types. They're not quite the robot you see these days. I mean, Scott Foster might be an exception of that rule. But back then, NBA reps were they were a little more flamboyant. And certainly Jake O'Donnell would fit in that category. Well, Greg, your first time of appearance on this radio show was quite successful. The next time you have another feature article that involves me,

you're always welcome to come on the show and talk about it. So we'll talk in about 30 years, I guess. Did you notice how Ross is so an integral part of this conversation? I was hoping to speak with Ross a little more, but that's okay. I was nine years old when this happened. I don't really remember. Then ask Greg anything. Just ask him a random question right now.

Okay. What's your biggest pet peeve about Matt on air? That's not nice. I'm just kidding. How's everything with you? I don't know. How's it? How's it?

How's it's a chronic? How's it's, we're getting busy. You know, it's a busy time of year. Rockets are, you know, hitting a stretch run. You got Astros of Spring Training. Good time to be a Houston sports fan. All right. If you need a columnist, you know where to find me. I will do.

That well's dry, Greg, it's been enough. Don't listen to him. Greg, great to hear from me, my friend. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks, Matt. Thanks, Ross. You got it. Greg Radgey with us from the Houston Chronicle, one of the lead sports editors with a story about the 30 anniversary of today. 30 years ago today. Clyde Drexor, a Houston rocket. Was it just straight up swap?

What was the whole deal? No, is Tracy Murray and Clyde for Otis and something. I don't know the exact trade on. Okay. I'll find it. It was 30 years ago. Damn, I'm getting old. Then you're doing great, Matt.

I'm doing great. I know. With you? I've seen your house. You haven't come by in a long time. Of course, you're not welcome to the house. Ms. Thomas believes that, but that's a different issue. What was she upset about?

The one little slam you made many years ago. When you guys had me come over for wrestling and I set the place, you told me, by the way, I was under instructions from you to talk about how far out it was. I don't remember that at all. Yeah. Fantasy 5 is up next. Hey, you know, for those that aren't familiar with this fantasy 5, we need judges. If you're a fan of Saturday Night Live for decades, not just the last three or four years,

which I haven't found to be very hard to believe. If you're a fan of Saturday Night Live, we need five judges. Now, Connor, I love you like a younger son, but you're not voting because you don't know. I don't think he was alive when any of these picks happened. 90% of these characters, you have no idea, so you're not getting a vote. I know at least 60%. Do you want to vote? No, because I don't know all of them.

All right. We need people that have watched Saturday Night Live for a long time. If you have watched Saturday Night Live for a long period of time, I want to help us judge. It's a fantasy five of best recurring characters. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-19. The Fantasy Five is next. More Matt Thomas show with Ross.

Now on Sports Talk 790. So we decided that Connor McGovern is not going to be one of the judges. But friend of the show, part of the A team, one of my broadcast partners on Rockets Basketball. I think I've got figured out. I think your percentage is better than Clanton's. That is correct. I believe it's 19 to 15 of the 34 wins. That's what I'm talking about.

It might be 18 and 16. What do we got next week? What do we got the rest of the year? He's got Friday and Saturday's game. I'll be on TV Saturdays. And then I'll- You're doing TV on Saturday? Wow.

Finally, yes. Where you've been all year on TV? They have the employees to handle it most times. I think they have a second team starting to play games. Their first game is Saturday. First spring training game on Space City Home Network is Saturday. So you're on Space City? Next week.

Three to six and you're doing Space City on the weekend. Man, you're all over the place. I got you. But I thought we'd bring them in because this is somebody that would know multi-decades of Saturday Night Live. Uh-huh. All right. Here we go.

We do a snake system. where one of us either gets the first pick or one of us gets picks two and three. That is correct. I was the defending champion between the two of us. And so I thought there were so many great options I gave Ross the first selection.

By the way, if you want to be a judge, wax is judge number one. We've got Roger and Lynn, our judges two and three. We need three more judges at 713-212-5-790. If you want to be a judge, these are best recurring characters on Saturday Night Live. 7-13-21-5-7-9. The floor is yours.

Yes, Matt, I'm with you. I think there is a cluster of top picks to be made, so I would have seated the number one overall pick to you as well, but I went ahead and went with my gut on this as an all-time classic. It was an all-time actor. His name is Chris Farley. And, well, one of the signature recurring characters was Matt Foley. Well, I'm here to tell you that you're probably going to find out as you go out there that you're not going to amount to Jacks. squat, eating a steady dieted government cheese, and living in a van down by the river. One of my favorites all the time. Just makes you laugh.

This is about the entire draft, but an excellent number one overall selection. Thank you, Matt. No argument. And look, I listen to all five years are really good. Thank you, Matt. I can't possibly argue with this. I get the next two picks. my favorite pound for pound recurring sketch

is Celebrity Jeopardy. And when you think of one of the contestants that separates themselves, and Bert Reynolds is certainly very good, Tom Hanks being very good, but there's really only one person, and that is Daryl Hammond doing Sean Connery on Celebrity Jeopardy. Oh, brother, Sean Connery. Negative $69.

Okay, that wasn't your score. Well, 69-ish. how I scored with your mother last night. Hmm. It's a great recurring character. All right. Next. Even though it's not a sketch of a character, and it's an impression, which we

said we were going to rule out. But that's okay. Go ahead. Next. I love when they, what do they break, when they break the third curtain or third wall? The fourth wall. The fourth wall. When they break the fourth wall. Yes. Which Lauren Michaels are a longtime executive producer hates. But there is no funnier moment

when the ensemble cast joins this character when they break the fourth wall, I speak of Debbie Downer. I love me some sticking eggs. Ever since they found Mad Cow disease in the U.S., I'm not taking any chances. It can live in your body for years

before it ravages your brain. During your day, everything's going your way, then alone come stay on the Downer. Always there to tell you about a new deal. disease, a car accident, or killer bees. We'll beggar to spare you, Debbie, please, but you can't stop Debbie Downer. Yeah, Rachel Dratch, not overly funny, Debbie Downer, hysterical. Debbie Downer's good. It was on my list. It's further down, but it was on my list.

Okay. Good one. Okay, well, it is my turn now, Matt. And I was next up, and I went with another classic that also spawned two classic movies. did appreciate this sketch. That was by two of the all-time greats. That would be Mike Myers and Dana Carvey doing Wayne's World. Party, party. It's Friday. It's 1030. It's time to party. I'm your excellent host, Wayne Campbell.

With me as always is Garth. Party on, Wayne. Party on, Garth. Okay. All right. There you go. Little Wayne's World. Love Wayne's World. The movies better than like the weekly sketches. Because I thought the sketches were a little repetitive. The movies were very good. By the way, when they did have Madonna on, it was excellent.

And Madonna was good. Aerosmith was on. It was very good. Who else? What's his name for Mary? What Children was on there? Bundy. Yeah.

Well, I can't remember his real name. Ed O'Neill? Ed O'Neill. Look at you. That's why they pay you the big bucks, Matt. All right. Thank you very much. Wayne's World.

One of my time, all-time favorites. Next, let's keep it going on. I'm going to go to the Chris Farley well again because he was part of this. But I just called the sketch. The recurring character would be Bill Swirsky's superfan, but also, of course, our good friend Chris Farley being one of those. All right, Bob. Actually, this one's really just stipulations.

I just got to limit my pork intake to 400 grams a day. It's tough. Yeah, well, the doc says that I got a small piece of Polish sausage lodged in the lining of my heart. The Bears. The Bears. And Bill Swirsky. George Wett was actually Bill Swirschkki. Yeah.

Super fans. Mm-hmm. So we'll let you have. Yeah, so we'll let you have both guys. I don't know with Chris Farley. I got you. All right. Next to, in the 1980s, there was very little that was enjoyable about Saturday Night Live,

especially early 80s. Except there was one breakout superstar on that show. I'm not talking about Joe Piscopal, I know you're thinking that right off the top. I was. His name was Edward Murphy. And he had two amazing characters. One, I went and looked at the Google reference to it. It's a green, blocky, clamation character and cultural icon created by Art and Ruth Klosky.

Eddie Murphy made him a real-life person. We speak of Gumbie. How the hell are people not going to know who I am? I'm Gumbie, damn. Let me tell you something. I saved this damn show from the gutter. And it's thanks to me, this is the thanks that I get for saving this show. Shame on you, Lord Michaels.

Shame on you, NBC. Shame on you. All right, Gummy, Gummy, just calm down. Don't tell me the calm down trailer, boy. Eddie Murphy saved Saturday Night Live with this character. One, Gumby. This is a little before my time, so. I'll take your word for it.

He also saved the show with this character, Mr. Robinson's neighborhood. A beautiful day for a neighbor. Could you be mine? Would you be mine? I was gone for a bit. But it's now I'm all right. My neighbors with all black, but now they white. The check-cashing place turned into a bank, elevator works, and the stairs, they don't stink.

The white people came and changed everything, but I am still your neighbor. Now, this one way better than Gumbie. Those are hilarious sketches. And, of course, talking about gentrification and other things going on in this world. Great pick. And when Eddie Robinson, or Eddie Robinson, when Eddie Murphy came back to host a couple of years ago, first time he'd been back in like 30 years,

he went and recreated Mr. Robinson's. Yeah, because he had beef with Lauren Michaels, right? Or something like that? Big time beef. That clip was from that show. Yeah, it was from the revival. All right, let's keep it moving. With another two of my favorites,

this also involves Dana Carvey and Kevin Neeland, and they always had great sketches. I'm going with the Hans and Franz. and Franz. Now, can I get two characters with this one too? You may. Sure. Hans? You can't have Hans without Franz, man. Once again, I'm Hans. John, I'm Franz, and we are here to pop.

You are. There we go. One of my favorite sketches always made me laugh. I like it. I like when they had Arnold Schwarzenegger on there. It's good stuff. Yep. Let's keep it moving, Matt. Because, well, we got to get to break like three minutes ago. And we're going to keep it moving with my final pick, which apparently you wanted.

Also, a lot of catchphrases in this one, always important with a recurring character. It did bring this one back in the revival as well. I'm speaking of Church Lady. Well, isn't that special? We kept that one short and sweet. Last for me, I had to put a Will Ferrell character in. Now, Cal Bell would not have been accounted

because it was only a one-time sketch. But he had a lot of great characters. He and Anna Gostire played a pair of junior high choral teachers? They were known as lovingly the Culp's. I, Marty Culp, and I, Bobby Mopin Culp, promise to honor you and cherish you for richer, for poor,

in sickness and in health, till death do us funk. One, two, three, four. I believe in miracles. You sex, Sixcy, sexy, sexy, sexy, sexy. Hot mic. Is this on?

Is it on? Hot mic? Hot mic? It's a bad one. It's a bad pick. That's fine. We will make... I would have gone with Unfrozen Cade Man lawyer over that.

Let me give you a couple ones. Toon's the Driving Cat. Leon Phelps, maybe? The Continental with... What's his name? My word. Toons is the driving cat. Colps is about a 45th round pick.

Nah, it's not that bad. Forty-fifth. What else? A severe head wound man was. also one of my favorite. Be your headwood hairy. It was a little one note, but it was funny. It was funny.

All right. We make the decisions. Yes. Next. When we come back? When we come back? Oh, look at this. We need, we need, uh, waxes, like, I only

was scheduled for one segment here. I can't do design here. He's got to be show prep. He's got to prepping like a muddle. He's got to put Adam planting all his back for four hours. Can you imagine? Got that right. 713, 23, 212-790.

If you want a judge, 7-1-3-212-7-9ing. Lunch timers. It's the Matt Thomas show with Ross. on sports talk 790. 136 on 790. We have a hellier not coming up in a few minutes. Wex is here. He's got to get ready for his show.

So Wex, my friend, you had a chance to look at the list. Listen to the sound bites. Ross for me, who wins a Fantasy 5. So I was compiling a list as you guys were going. And if you pegged one that I had on there, I'm like, okay, these guys got it right. These guys are doing well. Hans and Franz and the church lady were on my list, and they were both selected by the same person. I would suggest where I would be leaning with my pick,

but it's really because of Matt Foley and Wayne and Garth that Ross is the winner. I'm only one judge, a small voice in this parade of fun you guys have. So I'm going with Matt Foley, Wayne Campbell, and Ross V. Rale. And I agree with Ross. The culps did not help the cause, nor did Gumbie. I love the cults because I loved they just sang pop songs and a choral voice. that's fine. Mr. Robinson

almost brought you all the way back. Very strong. All right. Len and Spring on the Fantasy 5, Lynn, who wins Ross or me? Ross. All right. Thank you, Lynn. Appreciate it.

Go to hell, Lynn. All right. Were you doing best of seven or what do we do? I forget it. No, we're going to do it until I get one vote because I'm not going to win. What do you mean? There's no... There's no chance I'm going to even won.

Roger on 790, Ross, who wins a... Roger who wins a Fantasy 5, me or Ross? I'm going to go with you, Matt, because you have the showhead time of a fix with the Celebrity Jackie. It has a bunch of everything on it. It's always never, it's never not good. It's always hilarious. So, yeah, Celebrity Jeff is probably my best kid on the show. Thank you very much.

I got Von Vo. Thank you. I was actually going to go Bert Reynolds because when he called himself to hurt Ferguson, I mean, that's just hysterical of great stuff. But Connery, what are some of the categories? Well, actually help me out with some of the categories that he would get wrong. You really want me to? Yeah, we just do one. Petit designe.

I believe the pen is mightier. Therapists? Something therapists. What about the swords? What about those swords? What are those swords? All right. Two to one, you lead.

Greg on 790. Greg, who wins a fantasy five? Roster me. Okay. Look, I got to go. I got to go with you, Matt. And the reason why. in the 80s that was the high school year and like he said Eddie Murphy

Eddie Murphy saved Save that show so hey Mr. Robinson's neighborhood was classic Yeah you know I got to thank you very much it's two two now I will say this The culps hurt me but I think Mr. Robinson should ruin your whole list And prevention from getting any votes let me tell you this terrible wax loves draft talk If you have a great third round pick you make sure forget about the fourth round pick right You got to have a starting five Matt He found a star

in the fourth round, an absolute star. So it's 2-2. We're going best of seven here. So you're doing great, Matt. It's 4 to win. You're going to win. Danny and Sugar Land. Danny, who wins a fantasy 5, Ross or me? Matt, you went off the rails with Debbie Downer

and you crashed in Burn with the Colts, Ross for the win. Okay. You know what? Thank you, Danny. By the way, suck it, Danny. Debbie Downer is hysterical. Have a great weekend, Danny. Danny.

I hope you don't get in a car wreck. Let's go to Geo and Atasca Cita. Geo on 7. Out of Geo, who wins the fantasy 5, Ross or me? Matt, your list sucks Ross Williams. Thank you, Gio. I hope your girlfriend doesn't cheat on you tonight. That's it, 4-2.

You know what? To be brutally honest, as soon as we drafted, I knew you were going to win. Yeah, I should have won. I'm happy that I got two votes. I mean, I made the superior list. I win, you lose. The champ is back! I was the Nate Williams of last night.

He is back in his throne. I was Nate Williams last night. I was just happy to get out there and contribute. Yeah, the Colps is about a Nate Williams pick. Probably also worth a hat tip for both of you for some of the ones you did not suggest, though they were popular. They were just unfunny. Mary Catherine Gallagher, nice job.

Not funny. Dieter, another Mike Myers. Not funny. Cheerleaders, not funny. Yeah, you guys did it good, leaving them out. Chewlers better than the Colts, though. I was trying to find what's the best, what's the best Will Ferrell? Is it Harry Carey?

It'd be Harry Carey or him, just him doing George W? Or when he and Rachel Dratch were in the hot time together? Or doing Newley. When they're in the hot time? Oh, the lovers. Actually, I should have taken that. I didn't think of it. I probably would have done a little bit better on that.

The lovers. The lovers. All right. Wax, what's on the big show today? We'll hear more from Lance McCuller's Jr. You guys had a visit with Chris Gordy. We'll check in with him also. And we got everybody ready for the weekend.

And now that there's been an Alex Bregman's siting at Red Sox camp, now we can really move on. Oh, we moved on yesterday. Actually, moved on two days ago. Did you hear Gordy? Did you hear where Ross do the Rockets' raps, slash astro-bregman talk in the middle of the night i think the only thing i heard from ross was when somebody caught mid-bit the buy to framber valdez which had somebody worried that he was already gone

traded well we actually preface good things we did preface that but we're right 142 all right hellier now what is the category of today is it valentine's day stuff it's all things involving the clyde dregster trade ain't that a blip all right that's Clyde Drexler and friends, because I kind of, yeah. Or are they friends? Oh, okay. Let's talk about Big City Wings right now. Delicious wings, amazing sandwiches, outstanding salads, the appetizers, and the desserts

are delectable at any of the 13 Big City Wing locations. I've got Valentine's chocolate-covered strawberries for dessert tonight. Stop on by there. Take your girl out for a little dinner tonight. If you're going to go to a show, a movie, maybe go see some comedy, go listen to some live music. You're looking for some late night eats. Tonight at Big City Wings is half-priced appetizers. They have specials every single day.

And they're the appetizers tonight are half-price after 9 p.m. But most importantly, get on and Troy the amazing fresh food, the great wide variety of menu items and the daily specials. All at Big City Wings and Big City Wings.com. 13 locations. Stop by and buy it today. Tell them your friend Matt from 790 sent you to the home of Houston's wing joint, Big City Wings. Back to Matt Thomas and Ross Villarreal. Sports Talk 790. We've also forgotten a bunch of different S&L stuff.

I was just telling the boys, because Wax's still in here getting ready, that the show, I mean, for 50 years, has provided a tremendous amount of comedy, from the impersonations to the skits. Now, you're asking a group of people to be

insanely funny for 90 minutes, well, there, there's two musical acts. For 80 minutes, commercials, monologues, come on, give us five good sketches. A week is kind of a lot though. I mean, they're on, what are they on, about 25 times a year, give or take? I think so.

I had no idea. Somewhere in that, I mean. I can, yeah, we can find that. Point being is that it's never going to go away. I know that people have always thought about it, but it's still an iconic television show. I don't know. Lauren Michaels getting up there. You know who when Lauren original left, you know who replaced him?

I don't recall. Dick Ebersoll, who was then wanted to go work for NBC Sports. and that show, the Dick Ebersole years could be its own documentary about how bad it was. I mean, just one unfunny character after the other.

Last year was 21 episodes. Yeah, they looked like they've been about 20, 21 episodes of the last few years. So they've dropped it a little bit. I'll tell you what the pound-for-pound weekly funny thing they have on, weekend updates really funny to me.

I'd agree with that. And the best thing they do is when Colin Yost, Jost. That's the one that, that's Colin when they had to flip, they had to read each other's jokes. Yeah.

When Colin had to read about his wife, Scarlett Johansson. Oh my God. I mean, and maybe one of the funniest things had done the last two years was when they had the PBS show on

and they had Beavis and Butthead in the background. Oh, that was funny. God, it was hysterical. Absolutely hysterical. And my friend Vanessa, you know,

she works on Space City. She's friends with one of the great old-time character actors, Keenan Thompson, in the show. She is? He was at the Nets game with the Rockets, and I wanted to meet him, and she's like, he's very busy. Okay. Oh, man. You got a Stonewall by Keenan Thompson? So I went to Vanessa. You were going to tell him, you

drafted him on the show. Yeah, I was absolutely going to tell him. Then I said, then I went to Vanessa, I said, what up with that? Ooh, unfortunate. Another great, he's great on Black Jeopardy. He's great as a Steve Harvey. The show's funny. I'm still bitter. He's one of the best all time. He's really not. He's been on the show for like half of a time.

Yes, because he's so talented. He can't get off the show. He's like 50. He wants, I want to quit. I want to quit. No, let's give you more money. No, stop. How about the target? You should be happy to have a job. How about the target lady? My girl, Christian Whig. Another person that was talented enough to get off the show. Keenan Thompson wasn't. Keenan's just going to be a goat. They're going to name it the Keenan Thompson Theater eventually.

Five minutes left to go on the show. What should we do? We should play America's Fastest growing sports radio game show Monday through Thursday, we call it a B. Believe it or not, but on Fridays, we call it a hell yeah or not. And here's how it works. You call 713, 212, 570. 7.1.3, 212.570. Today's edition of Hellyer, or not, it's all things about Clyde Drexler.

A rage your statement about Clyde's statement is completely and utterly accurate. You'll say this. Hell yeah! Antisans he'll runny's full of bunk and made up. You'll say this. Two hellierrenauts in a row win your prize. What are you playing for today, Connor? A four pack of tickets to Marty Grau Galveston happening February 21st,

through March 4th in Galveston some 790 t-shirts. All right, let's play, hell yeah or not. John on 790. John, you ready to play hell yeah or not? Hell yeah. Clyde Drexer was cut from the Sterling High School varsity basketball team as a sophomore. Hell yeah or not. Hell yeah.

There you go. Statement number two for the win. While at the University of Houston, Clyde Drexler majored in finance. Hell yeah or not? Not. Hell yeah. Smart guy. Very smartly.

He's winning, too, of course. Matt on 790. Matt, what was your favorite part of today's radio show? All the above. Clyde Drexler is still top three in Portland Trailblazer history in points, rebounds, and assist. Hell yeah, or not? Hell yeah.

Statement number two for the wind. While at Houston, Clyde Drexler initiated players into the Fieslamma Jamma by making them stand under the basket while he threw down a dunk. Hell yeah or not? He did. Duh. Ask my buddy Regettish about that. Let's go.

Oh, Bill and Katie. Bill, how the hell are you? I've missed you. Oh, no, you don't, man. You don't care about me. Clyde Drexerman, a number of TV. Yes, sir. What can do for you today?

Hey, you know, Alvin Franklin on this weekend? RIP. Yep. Clyde Drexer, man, a number of TV appearances. is including married with children, the Sentinel, and Celebrity Apprentice. Hell yeah or not? No, hell no.

Hell yes. He sure did. Bye. Ron on 790, Ryan, what was your fair part of today's radio show? The SNL part. Clyde Drexler's barbecue, Jose Drexler's, made the Texas Monthly franchise

top 50 list back in 1999. Hell yeah, or not? Not. Yeah, I don't think it's very good. statement number two for the win. Clyde Drexler only made the NBA all first team once. That was back in 1992.

Just one time. Hell yeah or not. Not. Hell yeah. Yeah. Very underrated. Sorry about that. Let's go to Seth on 790.

Seth, you ready to play hell yeah or not? Hell yeah. Clyde Drexler is a two-time Olympic gold medalist winning in 1984 as an amateur and then in 1992 with the dream team. Hell yeah or not. Hell yeah Nope, just one gold medal We gave away nothing today

Connor and Ross celebrating futility from our listeners That's just terrible Now we still have two minutes left to go on the show You can leave if you want to You're not You know you wiped down You already wiped everything down

You did you go and take off Make sure I don't put any spittle on there Yeah don't put spittle on there Don't put any that on there All right hey let's say about what's coming up In the next a handful of days Monday Ross is going to have to carry a show for four hours

You're going to need to call in and help him because Lord knows, four hours of material for him. That could be a struggle. And then Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of next week, we will be in West Palm Beach for Astro Spring Training. Back home Friday for the rocket start of the second half of the year. They've got a back-to-back with Minnesota and then the Utah Jazz and the Road. And Astro Spring Training games start one week from tomorrow against, I'm against the National.

They'll play the Nationals like 11 times. So they'll open up spring training playing and look forward to carrying a lot of the games right here on Sports Talk 790. I want to thank Greg Ration for joining us from The Chronicle on the 30th anniversary. Want to thank all of you that called throughout the course of the week. It was fun talking to you all. Have a really relaxing, safe weekend.

If you're off on Monday because of the federal holiday, enjoy that. We also want to enjoy great sports radio all throughout the course of the weekend. Of course, Chris Cordy will be giving updates of what's happening in Florida. He'll be joining the A team coming up here shortly. Plus, what else? Oh, the NBA All-Star weekend?

I've got to be honest with you. I'm not going to watch it. any of it. I don't care if they've changed the formats. I don't care if it's first to 10. I don't care if they play horse. You know me. If you've listened to me for any length of time, you know that I'm just not All-Star or Pro Bowl guy. And so I'm going to take a week off from basketball. Cougars, by the way, big basketball weekend for them. Tomorrow, they play Arizona in Tucson at 1 o'clock. They're off on Sunday, and then they play Arizona State on Monday. So stand by. We got our friends, Adam Wexler, who voted for Ross. I don't judge him. It was a good list. And Adam Clinton up next.

They are the A team. They're up next. Two to six right here on Sports Talk. 7.90. Have a great weekend.