The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - MLB's Return To Play, Bauer vs Huff & Problems Ahead for College Football

Episode Date: June 23, 2020

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Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas show. H-Town, what's happening, lunch timers? Good afternoon to you and welcome to a Tuesday edition of the Matt Thomas show, Sports Talk 790, alongside Rossville, Real. And producer Brendan Riley, I'm Matt Thomas. Very nice to have all of you with us here today. As we take you to 3 o'clock this afternoon,
Starting point is 00:00:42 where we, I think we're on the watch for Commissioner Manfred to say something officially today that baseball will return under baseball owner's rules, providing COVID testing and all the protocols are in place, which I believe they are. That's all the major league offices should be working on besides figuring out what kind of schedule there's going to be. There will be grumpy players. There will be some grumpy owners sports heavy who don't want this at all. But America, I think, it feels like we're going to get a 60 games schedule.
Starting point is 00:01:21 60 games is probably what's going to be implemented. So you had the proposal from the owners yesterday voted down by the players by a 33 to 5 vote. And they said, go ahead and trigger a season. Let us know when and where the hashtag win and where that the players have been putting out basically for the last week. So now the owners say they're going to do a 60 game season. They're going to implement it. And what they're waiting back to hear from on the players is a yes answer to two questions. Can you report by July 1st?
Starting point is 00:01:54 And are you going to sign off on the health and safety protocol that was outlined in the 67 page document a few weeks ago? How do you not sign off on a 67 page document? That sounds extraordinarily thorough. You want to spit and you want to lick your hands and blow into your hands when it's cold, I guess? High fives, fist bumps, yes. Bro hugs? Yes.
Starting point is 00:02:12 By the way, we should explain. The reason why the players voted 33 to 5 yesterday know is because what Major League Baseball wanted was you can't file a grievance for unfair labor negotiations. Yes. And Major League players said shove it up your A. Pretty much. Except five of them did. Yeah, that's a very interesting number to me.
Starting point is 00:02:31 I would have expected to be like zero or 15, not five. There were 38 people. Each of the teams had a union rep, which I, I, I, still don't know who the Astros team right is. It's McCullors. Is it okay? Yes. Because I had been looking and I knew it was Colin McHugh for many years and then not long with the team anymore. And then there were the eight guys of the super labor head honcho committee led by Max Scherzer. He's the guy that's been so hot in coming about all the labor negotiations are like thereof. It's the other Snapdragon brother. Is that what that is? Yeah. Remember
Starting point is 00:03:02 the players only? They were like Snapdragon 1 and Snapdragon 2 or something. I did not know they had little code word names for each other. Little pet names of you. What's your pet name for me? You're probably, I can't say it on air. Mine is to you large irritant. Oh, thank you. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:03:15 I like that. L.I. That's right. L.I. Who likes to go to the P.I. To get his good rest. Hmm. Or the IP, Imperial Palace.
Starting point is 00:03:25 Oh, that's may it rest in peace. Or unless you're IP, then you wouldn't go to the IP because you'd be going to the P.I. And today because you wouldn't be able to make the money. Speaking of injury history, Carlos Cray is going to be on the 4 o'clock hour of the A team today. Yes, he is. And by the way, you don't need to bring that up. If Adam and Adam are listening, there's no... I would imagine they're not going to.
Starting point is 00:03:44 No, I wouldn't either. I mean, it is what it is. He's healthy. He looks good. He's been very busy. He's been donating a lot of money in time to various charitable acts. That's the most important thing. And the fact that you would hope that 60 games would be a full 60 healthy Carlos Korea games.
Starting point is 00:03:59 Yeah, we'd love to. I'd love to hear from him at 4 o'clock. Maybe at 630, too. Imagine that. Imagine you pre-playing interviews of other people on other shows. I mean, if it's a good quality content, the audience turns over every 10 minutes. I would agree with you. At 1230 today, Sean Salsberg visited with Jesse Rogers this morning of ESPN.
Starting point is 00:04:17 Yes. Who's been really pretty good. He's risen to fame over the last few months. I listened to the interview already. He sounds nice. I mean, he didn't sound like a douche. Okay, good. So we're going to play some of them.
Starting point is 00:04:26 You're not going to use Smarmy baseball voice when you make fun of him? He actually doesn't sound like Smarmy baseball game. Okay, that's good. I feel like he and Evendrelick have really risen during this whole pandemic thing. Accuracy hits. Sources count, much more than Hayman, who's not only unapproachable, unlikable, but he only gets half the story right. Last week, John Heyman said deal is imminent, imminent.
Starting point is 00:04:47 What are you talking about? And again, about Nightingale, I like Bob Nightingale. If I, next time Bob Nightingale comes to Houston, I want to, I'll introduce you. Good guy, really good guy. Very soft-spoken. I'll take your word for it. And it has some sources, and he just doesn't bat a thousand all the time, but you know, who does? This show bats, frankly, 300.
Starting point is 00:05:04 Well, yeah, that's because I'm at 600. You're at zero, so you average it out. It evens out. Thus, my nickname for you, Consenirited. All right. We are with you till 3 o'clock this afternoon. So Jesse Rogers' visit with Sean's at 1230. We have a doozy of a sports MT theater at 120.
Starting point is 00:05:24 I mean, a clash of Titans. A clash of huge baseball egos. One from the past, one for the present. And we will have that for you today. And then at 2 o'clock, Rossi, I'm very fascinated by what college football is going to do. Dennis Dodd from CBS Sports, probably one of the five most recognizable college football writers. Big picture, would you say? I would say, yeah, sure.
Starting point is 00:05:48 It's going to join the show at 2 o'clock this afternoon. And we will talk to him about the murky waters, the uncertain times. The unprecedented times. The unprecedented times. Will we have college football sooner rather than later? You know I hate that. Later continues to win every single time. So Dennis Dow from CBS is going to join us 2 o'clock.
Starting point is 00:06:09 Believe it or not today, at 252 with an opportunity to win more Hooters gift cards. Wonderful. Topic to be determined. I know you've, have you ever come into this show at the history at 1207 ever had, believe it or not, already written? Yes. Usually if some old actor from the 70s has died and I find about in the morning. I'm like, well, there he is. I got you.
Starting point is 00:06:30 Didn't somebody die a couple days ago? Well, yeah, I want to clearly believe that a lot of people died yesterday. Somebody relatively famous. Well, whatever. Now it's going to bug me. It's hard to keep track. All right. NBA testing starts today for those guys that are going to go to Orlando.
Starting point is 00:06:48 And by the way, the players have until tomorrow to say thanks, but no thanks. Are you ready for a little full paw that's happening out there in the world of sports broadcasting today? Okay. DiVis Bertanz yesterday said he's not going to go. Reason? Wanted to get his chicken. Great. Trevor Reza, one of our former favorites.
Starting point is 00:07:10 Yes. Now the Portland Trailblazers, he's well-traveled in his NBA circles, said yesterday he's not going to Orlando. Reason? Do you know the reason? Yes, I do. Okay, go ahead and tell him. It was a disgust on the nightcap. Thanks for listening.
Starting point is 00:07:24 Because he's going to be spending time with his son. He's in a custody battle, and I guess the mother gets to choose what month he's going to be with his son and she chose apparently August. And the mother probably doesn't like Trevor. Probably not. Probably not. Probably said, I'm going to make sure that you can't go make some money. So I'm going to pick a month where I need you. If you want him so bad, you're going to have to do it. Yeah, somebody tried to tweet me like, oh, well, that's when he's out of school. He's out of school in July. No, this is. Kids come back to school in August. I don't know if he's a family. I'm just telling you. I don't even know if they were married, but mama of this child said like, no, I'm going to make sure that you can't go play.
Starting point is 00:08:00 both of those things in my mind, Ross, are zero percent COVID related. But yet everybody's saying COVID attacking NBA. I put on the first take show, which is the rare TV magazine show on ESPN that I watch. And they had Jay Williams on today. And so Greenberg is asking Jay Williams, what about these two guys saying, no, I'm not going to go to Orlando? And they're like, man, this COVID spike is really concerning people. Neither one of them is COVID related. Correct.
Starting point is 00:08:31 neither one. It's just flat out wrong. So if anybody says two players are worried about the COVID spike, it's just inaccurate. Yeah, I don't know why they would report that or say that. It takes, well, it takes one second to find out the reason of why they did it. Clearly people don't have one second to figure that out. Well, I'm sorry, Jay Williams and company. This is why I don't watch get up or any of those stupid programs. Now, is COVID an issue? Is the spike in Orlando certainly to be worried about? Yes. Of course it is. Yeah, because your favorite soccer team or the Orlando Pride, they're not going to be able to go in the NWSL Club now, Matt, because they all caught COVID from a bar, apparently.
Starting point is 00:09:08 So really, it wasn't because of the facilities. It was they were not social distancing, and they were doing something they shouldn't have been doing. So whose fault is it? The Orlando, what are they called again? The Orlando Pride, the women's soccer league team. That'd be kind of cool to run into a women's soccer team at a bar. A lot of good athletes.
Starting point is 00:09:28 You say cool. How cool 1 to 10? As far as running out of the eight? You really think it'd be that excited. You don't think that I'm just talking about. Yeah. What do you think you're talking about? They're probably good looking and fit.
Starting point is 00:09:44 So if I was at a bar, is that not why you go to a bar to find good looking and fit women? You can drink at home, Matt. Mm-hmm. So we need to find out where the Houston Dash hangout. I'm okay with that. How we can do this? We can do a segment called Date Night with Ross. Brandon, will you photo this for us?
Starting point is 00:10:02 Were you taking video camera? You carry your phone around? I'm in. What we do is we just chase Ross around a Houston bar with members of the Houston Dash. You just watch me swing and miss over and over and over and over again. That is about the most exciting. You want some web hits.
Starting point is 00:10:19 That sounds humiliating, Matt. That would be so good. Hey, Darcy. I'm Ross and I'm a radio host, and we talk about the dash. you have to lie about it. Matt, I already think about all my failures with women as I lie alone at night. I don't need to add more to the list. You say, you know, we talk about you all a lot.
Starting point is 00:10:37 You do? When did your show on? It's on noon to three on Sports Talk 790. Oh, I'll have to listen. They won't listen. They'll go AM? That's still on? No, no, no.
Starting point is 00:10:46 You know how many times I've gotten that? AM radio? And you know what I have to say? I'm like, oh, it's coming back. Like, yeah, everybody's... Oh, and the kids love AM Radio. That's what I always say. The kids actually...
Starting point is 00:10:56 Yeah. Oh, what station are you on? 87 90-something point whatever? No, it's 790 a.m. Yeah, people in our world have tried to just kick AM radio to the side. Now, granted, it's not very few 22-year-olds listen to AM radio. It's coming back, though, Matt. But it is coming back.
Starting point is 00:11:17 The kids love it. The kids absolutely love it. And at least in the Thomas household. Jesse Rogers, bottom of the hour, visit that Sean had with him this morning. We'll play for you about the future baseball. So I'll throw it out real quick as we sent it to our first time out of the show. Can you feel it? Can you feel it?
Starting point is 00:11:35 Can you feel the return of baseball? 713-212-5-7-90. 7-13-212-5-7-90. If you want to visit with us on Twitter, you can do so at SportsMT, at SportsRV, and at Brendan Riley underscore with a message for oops, steam cleaning. Carpets, with rain sometimes get a lot of damage because the dogs are going out and they're worrying about hanging out in the mud they bring it in the house all sorts of stains
Starting point is 00:12:05 paw stains everywhere that happens to my house all the time so if your carpet if your dogs and cats are ruining your carpets and if you're not having steam clean in a long period of time 281 822.561 is the number to reach it's 281 8220561 online at oopsteam.com they'll take care of your grout, your tile, your upholstering, your air ducts. If you own a small business, they'll do a great job of steam cleaning your carpets in your place of work. Do me a favor and call and see what they can do for you in terms of what they can do for your house, whether you have a small apartment or a large home. 281-8-2-2-2-061.281-8-2-0-6-1. And again, online, oopsteam.com. This is Carlos Correa.
Starting point is 00:12:50 Back to Matt Thomas. It's your home. That's just baseball. Rossi, do you have many highlights we can play? You get people who get fired up for the return of baseball, allegedly, supposedly, hopefully? By the way, nice job by you, Brandon, for finding the clean version of this Jackson song.
Starting point is 00:13:21 I play this song once a week. Is it just feels like it's perfect for this year? And Ross continues to search for highlights? Well, there's Rockets' highlights in the Astros folder. That's not good. Who's in charge of this sort of thing? Is this Gordy's ball? I don't know.
Starting point is 00:13:41 Let me just hit some random stuff. First pitch, deep to right center field. It sends back Ramirez still going back at the wall, looking up. See you later. Michael Brantley goes yard, and the Astros lead is 3 to 1. And that's driven pretty deep to right center field. Springer racing back, still going back, reaches up, makes the catch crashes into the bullpen fence. Outstanding play by George Springer.
Starting point is 00:14:08 Took a little bit of a banana route at the end. to make the adjustment, but able to hold on as he crashed into the fence right after getting to that baseball. Is this kidding you going, Matt? A little bit. We might see some Kyle Tucker this season. Here's the first pitch that Tucker drives one to left center. Hits it real well.
Starting point is 00:14:27 That ball's got a chance. And it's out of here. Tucker with a two-run home run. And the Astros lead it two to nothing. Are these spring training calls? I think so because there's more Kyle Tucker highlights. Off speed fish and he goes the other way. It's going to be a one hopper to Tucker.
Starting point is 00:14:45 He's got it. They're going to send the runner. There's going to be a play at the plate. He's gone. A one hopper by Kyle Tucker, a perfect strike. And they gun down Rosario at the plate. Wait, what? Yeah, Rosario wears like 96.
Starting point is 00:15:00 Well, you know what, Matt? You know what we probably won't hear a whole lot of? What? Dustin Garneau home runs. Here's the pit. And this one's poked. Oh, my God. This is spring train calls. He'll look up and it's off the wall.
Starting point is 00:15:10 Oh, it's off the back wall for a homer. Dustin Garneau connects. And a butt's call. Jeremy Rehack with the call twirling. It's going to happen. Garno was going to stop his second, but it's a homer for Garneau. His first is a natural. Well, he, Garneau didn't even know what it was.
Starting point is 00:15:27 How about a Miles Straw inside the park drive? Stop this right now. Oh, no, this is the last. Diving, he can't get it. It's Thomas. And it rolls all the way to the wall. Watch Miles Straw run. He's around second base.
Starting point is 00:15:40 I'm trying to drown out. the third. He's getting the windmill from Gary Pettis. Here comes a throw to the plate by the Young, not even close. It's an inside-the-park home run for Miles Straw, 7 to 4 Cardinals. Matt, what are your thoughts on Cory Jolks? No, no, Jolks. He's not going to be on the team. Left field, going back on it. His dad's Cameron looks up. It's gone. On an 0-2 pitch to Corey Jolks, and he hits a grand slam to left field, and the Astros lead it 8 to 1. Are you sure they're playing a major league roster this time? Oh, take it.
Starting point is 00:16:19 Coos House. That's right, Steve Sparks. I'd enjoy a University of Houston and Clearfield High School and Friendswood. This is a long-ass highlight, too. We're done. We're done. Well, I'm sorry. Well, there's Ben McLemore layups in here.
Starting point is 00:16:34 So he hits the final two free throws, and then the Rockets come the other way. Rolling to the cup hitting the shot plus drawing the foul is Benny Mac. Why can you play a lot of me? You can't. You can't find one. No, that's not you. Augustine. No.
Starting point is 00:16:52 A lot of Craig right now. This is very difficult. Let's see. No, that's not going to be you. Is this you? Carol, to his left for Rivers, kicks it out left. That's a sore throat. Sounds like.
Starting point is 00:17:04 Got it. The Rockets can knock these three points. corners down like they have ever since the end of the first quarter. This could be a very tight fourth. Are you all right? Matt, we need some therapy for you on this call. So,
Starting point is 00:17:15 Brendan, he plays one highlight of me, and I've got a massive bad sore throat. Well, they aren't labeled. Matt has sore throat. How am I supposed to know that? How do you even make the list?
Starting point is 00:17:27 Delete that highlight. I'm sorry. I'll give you some more Corey jokes highlights in a second. Oh, well, we tried. So can you feel it, Houston?
Starting point is 00:17:37 Yes. 713-212-5-790 That it could be Even as late as today That Rob Manfred says All right, protocols are in place They accept that Is it you said 67 page?
Starting point is 00:17:50 Why is baseball 67 pages And NBA is over 100 pages? Is it because one is using like a smaller font or a bigger font? Yeah, it could be Somebody's on a on a Times New Roman And the other's on comic sands One's using a legal pad and one is using like school rules College ruled.
Starting point is 00:18:08 Yeah, college ruled and wide ruled. All right. So we got it. So if you're excited, I know you've got to be, because we've got live sports coming up in about. Boy, you talk about the end of July. We better get some vacation time in as soon as possible. I have some vacation coming up in July. I haven't taken enough yet.
Starting point is 00:18:24 I've got to take some more days. I got a week off in July. All right. 713-212-790. 7-1-2-1-2-5-790. If you want to reach out again through Twitter, it's at SportsMT, at SportsRbee at Brendan Riley underscore. I don't want you, did you hear the Jesse Rogers conversation today?
Starting point is 00:18:43 I did not. Okay. So what do you think he's going to say about how the players feel about if Manfred officially opens up baseball today or tomorrow? Probably they're not going to be very happy. They want to do more negotiations, but there's no time for more negotiations. So again, and I apologize for beating a dead horse on this. Are we absolutely sure?
Starting point is 00:19:08 that somebody that doesn't have a hangnail Ross is going to go on the disabled list pretty damn quick. Are we absolutely sure that back stiffness doesn't become a one-week situation? I mean, they've talked about a lot of things that they were going to be able,
Starting point is 00:19:22 they were going to agree to having like on-field microphones, they were going to agree to advertising patches on the uniform, other stuff like that. They're not agreeing to any of that now with the deal that the Major League Baseball is going to invoke.
Starting point is 00:19:35 And again, no expanded playoffs too, right? Correct. It's just the 10 in each. I believe so. 10 overall. I don't know. What was your initial thought of expanded playoffs?
Starting point is 00:19:44 I think it's fine, especially when you have a 60 game season and, I mean, the goal of a championship is to have the best team win. Right. And maybe we've, of course, the example we've been using all the time, the 19 and 31 start for the Washington Nationals, you get more teams in the playoffs, more teams have a chance to get a crack at the championship. And therefore, I think you have more of a legitimate championship. when there is a shortened season.
Starting point is 00:20:10 Well, I'll say this. I think the number one reason why I was for the expanded playoffs is that if somebody, I don't, I don't give a damn anymore or factor out. And with 60 games and expanded playoffs, you're giving more teams to say, all right, let's get out there and try to sneak in.
Starting point is 00:20:25 And then once we sneak in, anything can happen. Yeah, then you have more markets interested, more games, more TV revenue, more, it just makes sense on basically every front.
Starting point is 00:20:32 Because also, too, think about this, don't you think shorter series lends itself to giving, the underdog a greater chance to win. Look, I got news for you. Remember the Astros in the last three or four years? Didn't they get swept at the White Sox one year? Was it the World Series year or American League year?
Starting point is 00:20:49 I think it was last year. They've had problems with the White Sox. Or lost three out of four or something. The worst teams in baseball, pound for pound, can still sweep the best teams in baseball. And that's why, again, I think if you are a fan of a team that, at least on paper right now, doesn't think they got a chance to win the World Series. You want to expand a playoffs. Now, obviously, it doesn't sound like it's going to happen now,
Starting point is 00:21:13 but at least gives you the hope of, you know what, anything can happen in a short stretch. And that frankly can be anything for even when the playoffs are at 10. If you play a three or five game series, well, maybe a three if they do that, you do give the teams that maybe have a hot pitcher they can line their pitchers up a much better chances compared to a team like the Astros,
Starting point is 00:21:33 who at last year certainly had a much deeper rotation, had a much deeper bullpen. That's probably the greatest unfortunate thing of all of this is that we will not see the expanded playoffs. There will not be additional drama and also give some of those second-tier teams maybe less of a glimmer of hope that they can actually win a playoff series. I'm all for it. I just think it's more intrigue. It's more markets. It's more eyeballs.
Starting point is 00:21:58 It's more everything. It's just better with a shortens season. I think because you have the excuse of, hey, you know, injuries and all that stuff, Justin Verlander misses a couple of weeks. Justin Verlander misses a couple of weeks in 162 game season. It's not that much as a 60 game season. All right. Jesse Rogers was a guest of the Sean Salisbury show
Starting point is 00:22:16 earlier today. If you missed it, well, we got great news. We're going to play a clip about a four-minute clip that's really good. Jesse's been really all over this baseball negotiation front, breaking a lot of stories. And more importantly, Ross, he sounds like an affable guy. So we like affable people on this show. Wonderful. So we'll talk with, we'll hear the conversation
Starting point is 00:22:32 next. Our time is 1228. It is the Matt Thomas show. here on Sports Talk 790. We feel that you guys are affable too. So if you want to jump in, you may do so. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. With a message here for Big City Wings.
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Starting point is 00:23:05 We've got the Bear Creek location. There's Pearland, Atascata, Spring, Kingwood, all points in between. I promise you, if you go to big citywings.com, you'll find a location near you. And again, the most important thing, two of them. One, Big City Wings has buy one wing, get one free tonight. Secondly, the crawfish is still being served at record levels, five pounds for $25. Take advantage of both offers today at Big City Wings and BigCityWings.com. Hey, it's Craig Ackerman.
Starting point is 00:23:34 Listen to the home of the Rockets on your smart speaker. Just ask. Hey, Google, play Sports Talk 790 on Iheart Radio. 120 this afternoon coming up in 50 minutes from now. We have a... This could be one of the better sports MT theaters. I don't think we're going to perform it well, but the material's good, right? It involves a tremendous D-bag of baseball.
Starting point is 00:24:05 I would say two of them. Well, I don't really know the old one, but it comes across that way too. So two tremendous debags, one current player, one pass player on a sports MT theater coming up in about 50 minutes from now. Any projects only as good as the script, Matt, and we've got a great script. Yeah, we do, we do. By way, spa leads something, no, it's no score, excuse me. And two players are down holding their knees and ankles. That's not true.
Starting point is 00:24:32 Only one guy's holding his ankle. So spa and CAG are scoreless. minute 24 in for your... What is this? This is Italian. Oh, they put the magic spray on him. He's good.
Starting point is 00:24:46 No, no, he's still very upset. Look, he's writhing in pain. The magic spray is not working. Get up. Let the magic spray do its work. Get up, you wimps. Oh, he did get his... He actually got his ankle stepped on.
Starting point is 00:25:00 Sometimes they're overselling it. Well, he's probably overselling it a little bit. He's overselling it. The referee's like, get your ass up. That's why soccer sucks. All right, Jesse Rogers has done himself pretty good during this pandemic, right?
Starting point is 00:25:12 Yes. Breaking some stories like a mother, getting some insight. He was a guest of Sean Salisbury today, and the conversation started off with, and it's just a little glimpse into their visit today, was Sean asking Jesse how upset the players are about this comeback of a 60-game season without the both sides really agreeing to a lot of the common issues they both had their preferences on. Very bitter. I mean, about as bitter as you can get.
Starting point is 00:25:38 It could not have gone worse this whole negotiation, and the end result could not have been worse. And what I mean by that is, let's remember, the big sticking point of this whole thing was games played. And there was a point in this calendar where they could have gotten in 80 or 90 and done the doubleheaders and played as many as possible games, maybe play a little bit later into the fall, though that's up for debate, obviously, because of health reasons. We're nowhere near those numbers now. Now they're debating 70 or 60, and it's almost like the players are supposed to be appreciative that the commissioner might actually land on 60. Well, they're not going to be that appreciative. They're going to be like, okay, at least it's not 54.
Starting point is 00:26:20 But, yeah, they're pretty bitter. The big storyline here is basically the players think the league dragged its feet through various means, meaning not just they didn't call back in three days. That's not how they dragged their feet. They dragged their feet with an offer to split the union up. You know, when that first offer came out, the sliding pay scale was going to divide the union. I mean, they just felt like they did all these things to drag their feet, and now there's not many options to play more than 60 or maybe 65 games. So that's where the bitterness comes from.
Starting point is 00:26:54 They just don't think the league negotiating good faith all along. They wanted to shrink the calendar, and that's kind of what's happened. How quickly will they file a grievance? That one is a tough call. I don't know, you know, I'm not familiar with all the ins and outs. It's not like it happens all the time, right? A union filing a grievance against a league. It may be an off-season thing.
Starting point is 00:27:16 It may be tomorrow. That's a good question. I don't know how that's going to go exactly, but it certainly is the major leveraging point that they had during this whole thing. We know that the owners are worried about a grievance. to the point where I think even the union feels like half of the reason Manfred was negotiating at the end was so when they get in front of an arbitrator, he can say, well, look, all the way up until the final Sunday, I was tweaking the offer. And then, look, I gave them 60 games, which is what they wanted anyway. So that's what the union feels like.
Starting point is 00:27:51 A lot of what Manfred's been doing was just in case this goes to in front of an arbitrator, they're able to have some evidence because some of the evidence looks bad for the league. some of the evidence, you know, it doesn't look so bad if you take it in its totality. So I think they're really worried about that. And, I mean, the union's going to have to meet and decide exactly how they go forward. So I can't tell you timing on that. Jesse Rogers, ESPN.com covers baseball. Great. Is 60 games a gimmick season to you?
Starting point is 00:28:21 Yes, it is. It is. Having covered this sport as much as I have, I mean, it's a glorified youth travel season, for God's sake. you know, depending on where you live. I live in Chicago, so they can't play seven months of the year here. But down where you are, you can. And teams play more than 60. I mean, it is.
Starting point is 00:28:41 I mean, being around these athletes, especially these veteran pitchers, I mean, I know John Lester pretty well, he needs a month or two to get into things. Now, he'll just have to, maybe forced to get into his best possible pitching shape. He'll do it. And you can't do it now. You have to get into a camp and get the adrenaline going. and I've talked to a lot of players. They all say they're trying to stay in sort of late January shape, you know, shape that
Starting point is 00:29:07 you're in right before you go to spring training. And then quickly you have to get into game shape. And I just, I don't know. I mean, somebody's going to hit 480 and someone's going to hit 120 and, you know, and that's what it's going to be. So 60 wasn't enough. It'll be okay once we get into it, I suppose. 80 or 90 would have been better.
Starting point is 00:29:28 I will say this, Sean, I think the, the under-talked-about storyline that will explode will be injuries. Well, absolutely injuries. Guys that are going to have tweaks and soreness may fit out and not come back for 50 games, which is the season, right? So remember, they get paid if they're on whatever the injured reserve is going to look like this year. But no one's going to risk their future to get this season in.
Starting point is 00:29:54 Is the World Series champion going to jump on each other on the mound? I suppose so, but it's going to feel a little different. right now with the damage it's done with the the bitterness if i said you got a hundred grand you got to slide it one way or the other and you've got to bet it work stoppage or not before the next cb a's agreed on boy it's it really is an aggressive take to say there definitely will be one now but it seems like the right take i'll say there will be one and with one caveat if the if the if the negotiators on either side change names or tony clark or rob manfred move. You know, if it's the same people in place, then I'm going to say yes to a work stoppage.
Starting point is 00:30:35 How much blame do you think Rob Manfred should get out of this? Because what we've always done in sports, as we've told our audiences, he works on behalf of the owners. He being Goodell, he being Manfred, he being Adam Silver. Although Adam Silver feels like he doesn't get the criticism the other two guys get because I think generally speaking, the players like their commissioner. I think there's an inherent distrust of leadership at the ownership level. I think Adel feels quite a bit of it because of his inconsistent penalties and rulings. And I just don't ever think that baseball has ever liked a commissioner, no matter who it was. Whether it was Bud Seleague or Peter Ubrod or Rob Manfred.
Starting point is 00:31:16 How much does Manfred get of this? And to the point that Sean brought up, does Rob Manfred survive this? would a change of voice make that big of a difference? I don't think so. He's basically doing the bidding of the owners. If there's distrust there or if he's bungling all of this, I don't think he's going rogue. I would imagine he doesn't have a whole lot of autonomy.
Starting point is 00:31:39 I'm sure he's pretty much just a mouthpiece for the owners, or at least the overall general thought of the owners. He goes back to him and says, hey guys, he's almost like a messenger, I feel like. Well, so here's when the players did this, what do you guys want to do now? Here's what I'm going to judge him on. players hated him because they thought the Astros penalties weren't severe enough. Yes. Well, they're stupid.
Starting point is 00:32:06 They need to read into what witness immunity is. Okay. Well, I'm just telling you, that's what people are saying, that Danford should have taken the trophy away from the Astros. Then we as Astro watchers and a lot of fans who listen to show despise the fact that the boss and Red Sox got off Scott Free. Yes. And we have the feeling that if this letter is continued to be sealed,
Starting point is 00:32:30 the one the Yankees and MLB got together about their use of what they did in 2017, that that's another reason why Rob Manfred is an ineffective owner because he's trying to protect a baseball team that happens to be one of the most legendary franchises in sports, certainly within his own sport. We don't like him. We don't trust him. We don't think he rules that all things occur at equal, that everything is different. I think the same criticism could be said for Roger Goodell.
Starting point is 00:32:57 Some guys get better, bigger penalty. Some guys get others. I think some franchises are protected, some or not. So maybe that just comes Ross with the territory of being an owner in sports. You're just going to be hated. So really at the end of the day, and I think this is what Roger Godel has been able to do to survive and thrive, is that he doesn't give two craps about what anybody thinks of him except the 30 people, or in his case, the 32 bosses of his, and those are all each of the NFL owners. He has to be the face where all the negative energy, or at least the majority of the negative energy of a fan base when they get mad about something, it just gets focused on Roger Goodell. It gets focused on Rob Manfred. And the owners absolutely love that. You're not hearing a
Starting point is 00:33:40 whole lot of individual owners getting called out about any of this. They're focusing it all on Rob Manfred. He sits there. He takes it. He gets made fun of. He gets crushed. And they pay him $22 million. a year and they call it even, basically. And in Goodell's case, double that. Yeah, exactly. So, hey, I wouldn't love for America to hate me and let me make $40 million a year. I got no problem with that. All you have to do to be a commissioner in sports is be smart, be a lawyer,
Starting point is 00:34:07 yes. Kiss ass to 30 to 32 really rich people. Yes. And be able to make, and have a really thick skin. I can do all but one of those probably think. Be a lawyer? Yeah. Everything else I can handle.
Starting point is 00:34:19 especially kissing ass at 30 to 32 ridiculously rich human beings. 1243 on Sports Talk 790. A little woe news about what's happening with testing in the NBA. We'll tell you about that in a moment. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. You are more than welcome to join us throughout the course of show, if you so choose. Right now, is there something missing in your driveway?
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Starting point is 00:35:19 1818. 281.351.9822 for hoops. Craig Ackerman here. When I'm not calling Rockets Basketball, I'm following at SportsRV on Twitter. You're listening to the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. All right, well, a job date coming up at the top of the hour on what's happening in the NBA. Today is a big day for testing. Rossi, you missed our Monday night meeting last night.
Starting point is 00:35:47 Why didn't miss it? I wasn't invited. Well, I wanted to give you some rest. Yeah, it's fine. I appreciate it. Did you watch? I did, no. You can go back and look at it if you'd like. Oh. On the Facebook page.
Starting point is 00:35:58 I mean, I'll give it a view. I'm not going to read it. Go to Facebook.com slash sports talk. Well, how good was it one to ten? How thrilling was it? Give me the top three highlights. I mean, basically, well, I'll give me the number one highlight. Okay.
Starting point is 00:36:09 So we have relentlessly teased Adam Clanton about his lack of love for mayonnaise. And mayonnaise can run hot and call with a lot of people, right? Yes. Mostly cold, a little bit of hot. For me, again, I'm not a condiment snob. If you want to make me a turkey and Swiss sandwich, I'll enjoy some spicy mustard on it, or I'll enjoy mayonnaise. It's okay. I'll put mayonnaise on a hamburger. I'll put mayonnaise.
Starting point is 00:36:36 I like mustard potato salad. I like mayonnaise potato salad. I'm an equal opportunity lover of all condiments, if you will. The ketchup, the mustards, the mayoes, the relish. And now we've got two players down on the game in soccer. Everybody's just getting hurt. why even bother. All right, back to my story.
Starting point is 00:36:53 So we ended it yesterday, Ross, with the following question. Teaspoon full of mayonnaise or three upper swab COVID-19 test in one week for Adam Clanton. You know the one that people have been talking about? It goes way up your nostrils. Yes. And he hemmed and hawed. Really? For about three or four minutes.
Starting point is 00:37:16 He went with a test. He went with the test. Hmm. I could see that. Teaspoon Ross. Not label. He says, can I hold my nose? I'm like, I don't care what you do. You just have to eat it.
Starting point is 00:37:30 You got to ingest the thing. You can't take it and spit it back out. There's just nothing that I find so offensive that I would not. I mean, there's things that have preferences. Like, I don't like mushrooms on my pizza or something like that. I'll eat mushrooms, though. Or if I'll order a burger with mustard. But if it comes with mayonnaise because they messed up, I'll just eat it.
Starting point is 00:37:49 Right. So I do want to ask a question. Is there anything in your life food or drink-wise that is so repulsive that you would take three COVID test over, I'm talking about in a week. Yeah. Three COVID test or a small sample of it. Now, let me give you the things I absolutely despise. You don't like olives. I know that.
Starting point is 00:38:12 I do not like olives. I do not like cantaloupe. I do not like guacamole. I do not like Dr. Pepper. You're losing me now. Oh my. What is happening. Okay.
Starting point is 00:38:26 But I would taste a small sample of every one of those things I just said over three deep nose dives in the COVID test. The hardest of them would be for me would be probably the olives. I really hate olives. I'm going to invite you over when my mom makes some quack. It's the best quack in the world. You've been saying that for like seven years. Well, until I get things. I've been saying that for like 35 years.
Starting point is 00:38:51 Okay. So most restaurant guac is terrible. I could drink. Here's one more thing. I despise sweet tea. It just makes my, I don't like the flavor of it at all. Would you like Coke? I do.
Starting point is 00:39:03 It's got sugar in it. I know. You like unsweet tea. I love unsweet tea. Sweet tea is just with sugar in it. I don't like it. It makes my teeth. It just gross.
Starting point is 00:39:12 So I could swallow a small glass of Dr. Pepper. Excuse me. I could do a small glass of sweet tea if I had to. I could eat some of mom's guacamole if I had to. Olives might be, for me, might be the hardest thing for me to eat, especially green olives. Hmm. You're a smart ass. Oh, what the heck?
Starting point is 00:39:29 What, how'd that get in there? You're a smart ass. That's the system's messing up. I think it was funny. That's not, why is this screwing up? All right. So what is the thing for you, Ross? Brendan, you got something that would say, no matter what I offered you, you would take the
Starting point is 00:39:45 COVID test? And now it's working. Over the, over the small, like, what is your most despise food? item. So olives are good one. I hate olives, too. Also hate pickles. Ooh, I love pickles. And so it's not a food, but let me tell you, I was gifted a half gallon of black label whiskey when I turned 21. Congratulations. Not for me. But I still, all those things. What kind of black label? Or is it just called black label whiskey? Johnny Walker Black Label. Oh, okay. Did you have too much of it or you didn't like the taste it to begin with?
Starting point is 00:40:13 I described it as tasting like I'd imagine gasoline today. Okay, fair enough. I think scotch, especially if you're just, I mean, had you just been, you hadn't been drinking for, I imagine you didn't start drinking when you're 14 or something. I actually didn't drink before 21. So this is like new alcohol to me. Scotch is really, I mean, I can't really say that I'm really into Scotch. That's definitely one you're not going to get into. Scotch and bourbon for me are two tough drinks. Ooh, I like bourbon. Now, whiskey I can do. Scotch I can, I mean, what, like Canadian whiskey? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Or some smooth Tennessee whiskey? Anything. Okay. But scotch is really, Scott's the one that burned your throat a little bit, right?
Starting point is 00:40:49 It can. I mean, it's got like a peedy, dark, smoky flavor. Yeah. It's a little different. And certainly if you're 21 and just starting out drinking, you're, there's no way you're going to like Scott. You've got to start with training wheel stuff. Like, for example, a margarita, vodka cranberry,
Starting point is 00:41:03 Long Island iced tea. It's right slamer. I'm just naming, I'm just naming things, Matt likes. That's right. Like a Bartles and James wine cooler, if you will. That's not me. Oh, man. Well.
Starting point is 00:41:14 I didn't do Zima either, by the way. There was people I knew when I was younger that would steal those out of their parents' fridgers. Not me, of course. It's your sister. Yeah, yeah. She's never had a drop of alcohol in her life, actually. Really? Correct.
Starting point is 00:41:27 Is that she doesn't like the taste of it? We've had a deep family history of alcoholism, so she stayed away. Well, it's funny that you say that in all seriousness, I mean, I had two parents, two grandparents suffer emphysema slash lung cancer. Yeah. And watching them go through what they did. I've never smoked a cigarette in my life. Yeah. And no, I don't miss it.
Starting point is 00:41:47 I don't begrudge those that do. I just have never thought, man, I can really, I'll at least want to see what it's like. I don't say anything to myself. I've never offered her a drink. I never been like, Rachel, well, you have some of this? Yeah. No, I respect her decision. Okay, so for food, it's olives.
Starting point is 00:42:00 Is that what you're saying? Olives are pickles for me, but still I'd take the tests. Over-eat one of those two things. I'm sorry. I would take those over the test. I'm just telling you, I'm not afraid of finding out if I have it or not. I just don't want to have something that people say, I've heard at the very lightest, it's irritating, at the very worst, it's painful,
Starting point is 00:42:21 and makes you just want to take a nap because it's such a pain. Have you had a COVID test? No, I have not. So what's the food for you? What is the food that we're really questioning whether or not you don't have three COVID tests in a week? There's nothing. I would eat anything that's edible. I'll put it that way.
Starting point is 00:42:37 You ever had liver before? I haven't, yeah. You okay with that? I'm not talking about gross foods. I'm talking about regular foods. Like if I'm saying, eat a grasshopper. I'm not,
Starting point is 00:42:46 I'll eat it. The crickets that they serve at the Mariners, I'll go there and try them. I don't think. Are the crickets or they grasshopper? There are crickets, I think. Aren't they or no?
Starting point is 00:42:57 I think they're grasshopper. We had to call Julian Morales, but she's busy on a beach. Exactly. All right. So that's, I just thought it was interesting that I gave him the chance, and I didn't even say a spoonful.
Starting point is 00:43:05 Ross, toasted grasshoppers, you're right? I said teaspoon. Yeah. small little amount of just a little little something something you could even do it you know how like you have a shot and a chaser you could really like he could drink like a a sip of a cul-aid or whatever whatever he really likes eat it and then shoot it and then chase it with something done man melanie on twitter you lost me when you said you don't like dr pepper
Starting point is 00:43:30 you lost a lot of people when you said that i get it i'm a minority i get because it's it's very it's it's low floor high ceiling very good the texture Yeah, I get that. Like biting in an avocado makes me just think gross things. We'll throw salt on it. That sounds good. Yeah, Dr. Pepper, I will take the loss on. Okay.
Starting point is 00:43:50 And sweet tea, I'll take the law, especially in Texas. Yeah, you don't. It doesn't make any sense. You just haven't had the right sweet tea or something. What's the last time you had sweet tea and where was it from? It happens in the drive-thru constantly. Oh, okay. I get at least one swig of sweet tea a week.
Starting point is 00:44:02 I go to McDonald's and get the dollar 32-ounce when I come home from work sometimes. Yes. And yesterday I went to the one on, Ell Boulevard in 290. All right, no, Eliborvard in 610, and they gave me a sweet tea. So I constantly drink it. And I always say, this is unsweet, right?
Starting point is 00:44:18 Yes, sir, unsweet. Yeah, I have to make sure I enunciate when I... I kind of prefer unsweet, but if I get sweet, I'll drink it. But I double check it. I say it at the drive-thru, and then I go back and when they hand it. Unsweet, right? Yeah, no, unsweet. Take one sweet, sweet.
Starting point is 00:44:31 So I'm tasting it a lot. Yeah, that happened to me, Chick-Fleye a couple weeks ago. Chick-fil-I made a mistake? Yeah, it happens. When? I actually had... Chick-filet. I never makes mistakes in my world.
Starting point is 00:44:40 It literally happened to me. You just did? Yeah. That's a news alert. Yeah. And the chicken soup was cold. They say your pleasure, or my pleasure? Yeah, of course they did.
Starting point is 00:44:49 Okay. 1256. Woj gives us an update on what's happening in the NBA, and do not go anywhere. 25 minutes from now. Oh, baby. We got one hellaciously good sports MT theater involving two whack-job baseball players,
Starting point is 00:45:04 one that plays and one that's recently retired. 1257 on Sports Talk 790. Now, the Skydive Space Land Weather Center is the Matt Thomas show. Man, I'm getting some serious hate on my Dr. Pepper. Ouch. I like root beer. Is that okay?
Starting point is 00:45:35 Root beer. How do you like root beer and you don't like? I mean, they're not the same? No, they're not. One's got caffeine. None of it matters. Do you have a bad memory? with Dr. Pepper Matt.
Starting point is 00:45:43 No, I actually have a... Show me on the doll where the Dr. Pepper touched you. I got creepy all of a sudden really quick. I do not like Mountain Dew or Mellow Yellow. I drink... I drink... Really? And so much so that I can't drink it anymore.
Starting point is 00:45:59 I don't know if I've had more than 10 ounces of Mellow Yellow in my life. It's basically the same thing as Mountain Dew. Give or take. I remember not liking Mountain Dew because I would drink... My cousins had something. We'd drink and go play basketball. And then you just would like... You have a film on your mouth of Mountain Dew.
Starting point is 00:46:11 It's disgusting. Do you know what I drank? I went to Guy V. Lewis's basketball camp in 1983. Okay. This shows you how nutrition is changed. Okay. We had two choices of drink. Water?
Starting point is 00:46:25 Or ginger ale? You chose ginger ale? I did. Wow. They didn't have any tang for you? I was a fat kid. I was like, all you could drink ginger ale? Oh, hell.
Starting point is 00:46:37 So I've started to drink a little bit of diet ginger ale lately. Okay. How do you like it? It's delicious. They actually have a non-diet, which is a ginger ale lemonade mix that's just chalk full of sugar. That's delicious. Okay. Go try that at your local store.
Starting point is 00:46:51 I'm good. I'm not a big carbonated drink guy. Yeah, I drink nothing but diet at this point. Not that it makes a whole lot of difference, but at least there's no sugar in it. All right. Second hour of the Matt Thomas show, we look forward to having you guys with us until 3 o'clock. 713-212-5-790. If you want to get in, 7-1-3-212-5-790, we have, are we ready for the Matt-Tomas-Mas?
Starting point is 00:47:12 SportsMT Theater in 20 minutes? Oh, should we do some? Yeah. No, we're going to play in 20 minutes. Okay, yeah. I'm going to play the role of the guy that plays or the guy that doesn't play. I forgot. You were doing Tyler Bauer, I thought.
Starting point is 00:47:25 Don't, you just blew the name. Sorry. All right, I will be Tyler Bauer and Ross will be Aubrey Huff. Mr. X. Yeah, Mr. X or Mawbrie Duff. Oh, you were going to say something else, weren't you? And I know it's Trevor Bauer. I got corrected by Brendan.
Starting point is 00:47:48 Tyler is what Alex Breggman called him. Yeah, we call him Tyler. When he, uh, he quote tweeted and said, thanks Tyler. So we call him Tyler. Yeah, we call it. It's a running bit. All right. Uh,
Starting point is 00:47:57 so Woj puts, you know, when Moge is dropping four sentence tweets? They're not bombs. No, normally not. There are explanations. Usually the bombs are one sentence.
Starting point is 00:48:08 Dwight Howard is signing with the Hewson Rockets per source of all those Sam Amyick broke that. Yeah, Amick got that, which Chris Brousard then sent 50-50. Oh God. Do you know Chris Brousard's got over a million followers. Yeah. How? I don't know. See, I have, my Twitter account has been cleansed a little bit.
Starting point is 00:48:26 Has yours been to? I've been dropping you. So I'm at one of my lowest numbers ever in the last couple of months. And I noticed, I went and there's a site called, you know, who follows you, you and follows you, because I want to see if it was something I had said. You want to see people who were unfollowing you. Well, yeah, I mean, you do see it. So I click on them. It's like, okay, what did I do wrong, they're all deactivated accounts or no longer working or not real accounts begin with. Okay. Which, again, I want my Twitter account to be as pure as possible. I don't care.
Starting point is 00:48:56 Let's come see, comes up. All right, here we go. Adrian Wojahowski. As coronavirus testing for players heading to Orlando starts today, teams are bracing for significant numbers of positive tests. One Western Conference playoff team had four positives in the past few weeks per sources. Full training camp start July 11th at Disney. Let me continue.
Starting point is 00:49:19 It's a bigger concern for non-guaranteed playoff teams to lose players to extend in quarantine before Orlando. Playoff teams worried less about seating key players for seating games in August, have more time to get players back to shape. All are worried about soft tissue injuries. All of this, of course, is hoping that those players testing positive experience little if no symptoms. While statistics are on the side of healthy,
Starting point is 00:49:43 young NBA players not becoming seriously ill because of the coronavirus, there are no guarantees. And remember, among those six teams trying to reach the playoffs via playing, none believe this restart is worth risking injuries on players that could carry in the next season, i.e. Davy Spertons of the Washington Wizards. So one team, Ross, that Adrian would not announce who they were, said four players in the past few weeks have contacted and gotten the Rona. Yes.
Starting point is 00:50:16 That's a very high number for a one basketball team. I agree. So that's the glass-have empty field. The glass-half-full is, well, those guys are going to be fine. They're going to jump on a plane to Orlando. They can't get there fast enough now once they have gone through the Rona, because apparently once you get it once, it takes you several months and potentially get it a second time.
Starting point is 00:50:35 Yeah, so, I mean, apparently there will hopefully be some level of immunity. And, I mean, but the one question would be the long-term effects we're still learning about. that there's possible long-term lung capacity issues and stuff like that. And then also there are two Phoenix Suns players who have tested positive for the coronavirus. You and I don't go out, right? We've not been to a bar in forever, the two of us. Yes, I have been once.
Starting point is 00:51:07 You've been to one bar in the last couple months. How busy was it? Very busy. Nobody was wearing masks. And I honestly call me a wuss or whatever. I didn't feel comfortable there. Okay. Did you social distance?
Starting point is 00:51:19 No, not. I was sitting with people that I knew, though. Here's, if you're an, again, I don't go out, so I don't know this to be true. But if you were to go to a bar in Midtown today, are you going to see professional athletes out there? Because here's my point on this. Are there a certain number of professional athletes are like, I'm young, I'm an incredible shape, I'm single, I'm young, or I'm just dating. I've got to live my life. I'm sure there's absolutely people.
Starting point is 00:51:52 group of people, especially professional athletes. Because if there are a regular 9 to 5 guys doing it, we don't care because you're just a number. But when you say two Phoenix Suns players, that carries more clout, whether it should or not. That professional athletes getting it. Because I'm guessing if you just go to the grocery store and you stay at home and that's the only two places you go, maybe the gas station, whatever, that your chances of getting the virus is very, very limited. I wonder if the two players that were Phoenix Suns were like, I'm a grown-ass man. I'm going to go to the bars.
Starting point is 00:52:25 I'm going to still see my friends. I'm going to still see people I want to go out. Oh, I mean, we're getting record numbers every, is it 11 straight days of record numbers in Texas? I mean, obviously, it's happening. And to some extent, it is your own right if you want to go and put yourself at risk. And you're not going to, if you're young and you're healthy and you're not one of those high-risk people, that's go ahead and go for it. And I think they're probably certainly some Phoenix Sun's players that feel like that, that they can just go ahead and do. it, whatever they want. And if they're, they know the risks and they're willing to put
Starting point is 00:52:56 themselves into those risks. And that's their choice. But does the average mindset of an NBA players say, all right, if I get it, I'm a finely tuned athletic machine. This is not going to so if it costs me being down a week, maybe I'm asymptomatic. Maybe if I get the cold and sniffles. And part of them may could be thinking, Ross, hey, if I get this now, it's making me even free and clear for Orlando now. Well, like any population, there's not going to be 100% of people that feel that way. There's going to be some. I'm certain. There's going to be, of course, in 450 NBA players or whatever 22 of them is going to be, it's 22 teams. There's going to be some who are taking it way more seriously than others. I do feel encouraged a little bit that of the NBA players that have said, thanks but no thanks to Orlando, both of them, Davis Bertans, the Washington Wizards and Trevor Rees of the Portland Trailblazers, both are saying, at least publicly, it's not COVID-related. One is over parental. watching on the summertime as Travis and and in DeVis's case,
Starting point is 00:53:56 he wants to make sure that he can go make a serious coin next year in free agency. So taking a chance of getting hurt down in Orlando probably isn't the best thing for him. Already had multiple ACL injuries. Why risk another and cost yourself millions of dollars? So we have not yet at this point had anybody say, I'm afraid of the Rona. I'm not going to Orlando. Correct. Nobody has declared, I'm afraid of the Rona, correct. So Trevor Riza, I watched this yesterday.
Starting point is 00:54:20 By him not finishing out those. eight games is going to cost him $1 million. If the Blazers were to make the playoffs, he could be missing as much as $1.8 million. Another question for you on Trevor Reza. For those of you don't know, Trevor Reza apparently is in a custody battle with, I don't think his ex-wife,
Starting point is 00:54:40 I think just a woman. And the woman has said, if you want to see your son during the summer, you're going to see him in July. She's apparently not ready to make any sort of accommodations for Trevor to go down to, to Orlando where he can't bring his family down. If Trevor Reeves is playing for the Houston Rockets and they're a three seed,
Starting point is 00:54:59 do you think he changes his view on this? My feeling is in this particular case, it doesn't matter to Portland Trebo. I think he's always been a very, very good father the times I've seen him as a rocket. My guess is the million dollars to him probably doesn't matter to being able to spend a month of the sun does. But we don't necessarily automatically know that because, again, the Blazers are very much on the outside looking in. If he's playing on a team that's won 50 games so far, does he change his tune?
Starting point is 00:55:27 Yeah, that's really up for him to decide. That's a question for Trevor Reza. We don't know. I do believe, I feel very confident answering for DeVs Perthons. If the Washington Wizards are the number two C in the Eastern Conference, he's taken a chance. I definitely believe that. And it's funny that both of these players are on teams that are basically in the nine spot in each of their respective conferences. And on the outside looking into the playoffs, and even if they got within the amount of games,
Starting point is 00:55:51 they would have to win twice before losing once. And that just earns you the right to get your brains beat in by the one seed. Yeah. Uh, buddy, Tom and Downstown, Tom and Downtown says, I'll tell you this is a single man. I've seen a lot more urgency from the ladies since the lockdown was lifted. Ross, explain to the audience what urgency is. Uh, horniness? I mean, what he's saying?
Starting point is 00:56:16 I, I've heard. If a woman says, if a woman is showing urgency. Let's roll play this. She's climbing the walls. I'll be the girl, you be the guy. Okay. Go ahead. What are we at a bar or what are we doing?
Starting point is 00:56:32 Hi, I'm Ross. Can I buy you a drink? Let's just get the drink. Take me back to your apartment. I don't think that's happening. Wait a minute. Tom and downtown says there's more urgency. I just made it an urgent matter.
Starting point is 00:56:43 That is, I didn't say, extreme urgency. Ross, these ladies have some semblance of self-respect. That's your name? Is that what your name is? My name is Ross. Hi. What's your name? May I pull your hair?
Starting point is 00:56:55 No. I don't like that. You can run your fingers through it. Ross, do you find me attractive? Yeah, you're hot. What is your name? Matina? Let's go back to your room.
Starting point is 00:57:05 How far do you live? Can we Uber back to your apartment complex? Yes, we can't. Do you have a mask? No. Are you going to make sure we're in proper positioning and to avoid droplets? No. Oh.
Starting point is 00:57:18 I'm going to rock your world, though. Have you been social distancing and wearing a mask and distancing and sanitizing your hands? You want me to take my shirt off now or later? Now's fine. I'm showing you urgency. I don't think that's happening in bars across the town, Matt. Maybe it's happening with Tom. Tom said urgency.
Starting point is 00:57:38 Cases are up. Some kind of urgency is happening. Some kind of people are not social distancing. If you're a woman, are you urgent? Oh, gosh. We don't have that many female listeners, so I don't think they want to answer that. question. 713.
Starting point is 00:57:51 212. Don't call if your girl and say, yeah, I'm mad at an emergent. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. At Brendan Riley underscores our producer's Twitter account at SportsRV. I'm at SportsMT. We present to you.
Starting point is 00:58:08 SportsMT theater. Next, 113 on Sports Talk 790. 118 on the Matt Thomas show. Good afternoon, Houston, Texas. If you'd like to get in, 713. 212-790 713-212-5-790 if you want to get in at Sports RV at SportsMT
Starting point is 00:58:32 at Brendan Riley underscore if you want to tweet at the show Dennis Dodd, one of the premier college football writers joins us in 40 minutes from now. Now, before we get to the official unveiling of sports MT theater on this Tuesday, we need to set the tone with a little prelude. Yes, that would be
Starting point is 00:58:50 Trevor, don't call me, Tyler Bauer, was tweeting yesterday. after everything got voted down by the players. He wanted a little bit of a Twitter rant. He was upset with the players. He was been railing against the owners. And now, yesterday, he was railing a little bit against the players, talking about all the things that they gave up in order to get to, in order, or they rejected,
Starting point is 00:59:14 in order to just go to a 60-game season. So he's talking about baseball in the long-term effects and all that types of stuff. And then he ended his rant with, I have so much more I want to say about this whole. thing, but out of respect to my fellow players, I'm going to continue holding my tongue. If anyone would you like, any of you would like to talk about it, please hit me up privately. And that's when this whole thing started, another SportsMT theater. Good afternoon and welcome to SportsMT Theater. Today, playing the role of at Aubrey underscore Huff, Ross for the real.
Starting point is 00:59:56 Thank you. Thank you. Playing the role of at Bauer Outage, me, Matt Thomas. Thank you. And now, Spalt's M.T.
Starting point is 01:00:13 Theater. At Aubrey underscore Huff. Can we remind Bauer Outage of his career four plus ERA, three and a half base on balls per nine innings, in 10 games over 500 winning percentage as a fourth, fifth starter salary in MLB
Starting point is 01:00:34 and maybe keep quiet before he's exposed. Please and thank you. He's a great tweeter. MLB pitcher, that's debatable. At Bauer Outage. Say, bro. Trying to tell someone not to tweet as well, shall we call it out,
Starting point is 01:00:53 odd, bra. Coming from you, obbs, have some more attention. I'll forward some followers your way, bro. Attention is all you crave, Trev. I never had a social media when I played. I was a team player. I wasn't trying to build an outside brand for players to suck my bleep.
Starting point is 01:01:14 You're a cuck. You have low tea. I suggest you inject yourself with a bit of testosterone. Oh, no. A random Twitter account word vomiting at me, whatever shall I do. Apparently connecting me with fans of bad things you days days you, who knew?
Starting point is 01:01:33 Thanks for recognizing my brand building a building through aubb's about the nicest thing I've ever seen you tweet, Redheart. The fact that you said to your first tweet, all forwards and followers your way tells me everything I need to know about you, Bauer Outage. You'd rather build a brand than when. That's why I have two World Series rings and you blank off, please yourself, to analytic spin rate geek fans like Keith Law.
Starting point is 01:02:05 Brigh, thanks, pokey. I know some people are all incapable of doing one thing at a time. Others of us can walk and chew bubble gum sidel tamedously, brie. And if you want to talk about winning, a stat called Wins Above Replacement does that. Me, 17.4. You, 17.3. Ben-in' whining and tweeting, face throwing a kiss. These are voices involving every tweet.
Starting point is 01:02:34 I'll take these two rings over your 0.1% war advantage, power outage, emoji face with tears of joy. The fact that you value an individual nerd stat over team wins is textbook participation trophy generation. Hey, sugar teas. That's me, isn't it? No. Oh, do you still? Where'd you get your nerd stats from?
Starting point is 01:02:58 I have no idea what my career MLB war was until you mentioned it. So I had to check it out. Maybe research before you tweet. Picture of Aubrey Huff's war higher on baseball reference than Tyler Bowers. Welcome to the world of advanced stats. Oh, geez. There's a lot to learn. They can be confusing to the initiated.
Starting point is 01:03:22 I can teach you if you ask nicely, princess. Or we can just stick your point-1-1-1 batting average in the postseason on your way to earning your participation trophy, bitch. That drone injury to your hand in the 2016 World Series must have played a big part of that O-2 record in 5.40-E-R-A. I'm sure your Indians' teammates were thrilled that cool hobby of yours, Bauer Outage. The Cubs, players, and fans, thank you. hashtag participation trophy. Here, cutie, cutie,
Starting point is 01:04:00 Cooley, C, Fowrottage. I made you something. Part two is coming in a man. Make a stat about it. That's Aubrey Huff's, but... Oh, is it? You want to hear the video he made for Trevor Bauer?
Starting point is 01:04:12 Sure. Here we go. Nerds have infiltrated the game of baseball, and they must be stopped. Nour! Now we have all these nerdy gurus like Heath who wrote a book, Smart Baseball, trying to tell guys that are professional major league hitters that they need to worry about the launch angle.
Starting point is 01:04:32 Holy Snipes, Billy Bean endorsed this book? It's got to be good. So according to Billy Bean and Keith Law, the most important stat in evaluating players is the ability to get on base and take walks? I bet you I can get a couple walks a game. Okay, according to Saber metrics, this pitcher likes to get ahead with the first pitch curve on. This spin rate is 165 revolutions a second. That's excellent spin rate.
Starting point is 01:04:55 Here it comes. Here it comes. All these worthless stats like OPEA at Major League Baseball, it's when the movie Moneyball was released in September 2011. What the movie Moneyball failed to mention was there was these three starting pictures,
Starting point is 01:05:10 all three of which were Sight of Young Award-type guys. Oh yeah, and let's not forget about League MVP Miguel Tejada. All he did that year was hit 308 with 34 home runs and 131. won rb i's you know stats that really matter all you baseball fans out there want to know what really wins baseball games in the major leagues pitching defense and timely hitting there you go video from obri huff they're both nuts yes i mean like clinically ill that's what makes it so entertaining he did another video part too but that's enough of from ovary huff videos why is obrey and he's
Starting point is 01:05:55 trending on Twitter, by the way. Do you see that? Yes. 19,400 tweets in Texas alone. In Texas alone, that can't be accurate. Says trending in TX. Hmm. At least what my account says. Okay.
Starting point is 01:06:10 What has happened to him? Does he just lost his mind? The United States has 19.5,000. I think that's the total number. Okay. Man. And now, for for Tyler Bauer to get in fight with somebody,
Starting point is 01:06:23 that's a Monday or a Tuesday. But Aubrey Huff has just gotten I mean, he must be incredibly bored. He's been getting crushed by. He came out and said he's never going to wear a mask and it's his constitutional right and all that stuff. So people are upset with him on Twitter for saying that type of stuff. Oh. That may have maybe one of our longer ones and yeah, I may have changed my voice five or six times.
Starting point is 01:06:47 I just thought you were going to hurt yourself there. I just can't keep the same voice. I can't do California guy. That's the reason why I had to go to different voices. But that's, you know, you get the gist of it. Trevor, don't call me Tyler Bauer, and Aubrey Huff don't get along. Thankfully, one of them doesn't play anymore, and the other one could be throwing at Major League hitters any moment's notice here.
Starting point is 01:07:11 Come July 26th. And that was a sports empty theater. I don't think we're going to win an Oscar for it because Dustin Hoffman doesn't change characters midway through a movie. I changed my voice halfway through it. Well, he did in Tootsie. No, he played two of... Did you see Tootsie?
Starting point is 01:07:27 No. I know he goes, he dresses in drag, though, right? Yes, he does. That is a great 80s movie you need to watch. Okay. Do you know what it's about? Well, I mean, isn't it kind of like Mrs. Doubtfire, but different? Yeah, it's, he's trying to secure a role.
Starting point is 01:07:43 I don't mean to be a spoiler here. Oh, Matt. Don't spoil the 40-year-old movie. Too bad. It was also had a very, I'm Ross. I'm not kidding you on this. This is shows you how old this movie is. A ridiculously hot Jessica Lang.
Starting point is 01:07:59 Okay. And. I want to say Gina Davis was in it too. Don't hold me to it. But both of them wearing underwear predominantly in parts of the movie. Gina Davis says April Page, a soap opera actress. That's what the Google machine says. So basically, the Google says right.
Starting point is 01:08:17 So basically Dustin Hopping can't get any roles as an actor. So he puts drag on and he becomes a major television star on a soap opera. Interesting. It's very funny. We ought to do one night. We ought to have retro 80s night. Tootsie Night? That sounds a little odd.
Starting point is 01:08:39 We could educate Brendan. I'm sure he's never seen Tootsie either. Probably never heard of Tootsie until just now. He's shaking his head. He didn't know. Yeah, but how did you come up with Tootsie of all movies? Well, I knew what it was about, and he ran out. I knew he'd won a best actor Oscar for him, I'm pretty sure.
Starting point is 01:08:52 Dattney Coleman was in it? Very, very funny movie. Really, really funny. But I digress. 128 on Sports Talk 790. I love this show. I don't think enough people do. Let me see.
Starting point is 01:09:07 Line one, do you love the show? Line 2, you a fan of the show? Line 3, how much do you enjoy it's 12 to 3 on sports talk? I think we're taking care of a very small minority. Matt, what are you talking about? 713-212-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. If you are a part of the small minority that likes this show,
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Starting point is 01:10:28 Hold up. Me on 3rd 3rd, sit down. 133 on Sports Talk 790. It is the Matt Thomas show. 713212-5-790. If you want to jump in, 7-13-212-5-7-90 on Twitter at SportsMT at SportsRV and at Brendan Riley underscore.
Starting point is 01:11:02 We could get some news on baseball as soon as tonight. Now, it feels like to me that what we're not hearing is protocols. everybody's agreeing on terms of conditions, when to a report, when to, where to show up, what's going to happen? Will the 67-page manual be satisfactory to both sides?
Starting point is 01:11:23 Short of that, I think we're going to get a baseball season of 60 games. So if there's any concession, and this is not saying a whole lot, baseball owners have been pretty consistent. They wanted to be in the 48 to 52 game range. They're going to go ahead and say, we'll give you the 60 at full proration.
Starting point is 01:11:40 Pretty much. Yeah, they're waiting. The owners say if the players agreed to report July 1st, if they agree to the protocols, the season will be triggered. Do you think that you make it nice and simple and just play everybody in your own division 15 times? Or do you try to expand it to get a few games with perhaps your counterparts in the National League
Starting point is 01:12:01 or just random teams that are close to you? If you're not expanding playoffs and when division championships are going to mean that much more. I'm okay with that. As you and I have discussed, this is a gimmicky season. Yes.
Starting point is 01:12:19 Somebody has to win it. Yes. But there's going to be an asterisk next to it. Yes. And the word gimmick he's going to be put next to it for a friend. And look, if the Astros win it, we'll celebrate and enjoy it. We'll hang up a banner. It'll get rings.
Starting point is 01:12:29 You'll have a replica rings given out. If it win, fans could ever get back in the stands. We'll do all night. We'll do all night talk like we did before. Ooh. I like that. We did it once. That's true.
Starting point is 01:12:38 We were ready to do it twice. I was out at, uh, I was out by minute made it, little woodrow was at like two in the morning. I was in New York City when the Astros won it, landed in Atlanta, and then jumped on the phone and joined you guys right after that. Michael Connor was single at the time and he was holling at some ladies on the phone. We probably don't want to go too much further into this just in case Sabrina was. It was over the air. I mean, okay. Well, but Sabrina, they're comfortable in their relationship.
Starting point is 01:13:01 Okay, that's fine. I'm just saying it happened. This is years ago. They weren't dating. Yeah, but still you don't want to hear about old relationships. Okay. I'm sorry. Well, Sabrina, as you're listening to the Matt Thomas show at 136, I apologize.
Starting point is 01:13:13 I'm just saying, I just want to make sure he's, you know, we don't get people up in people's feels. What was they going with this? Oh, as far as the schedule is concerned, I don't care how they do it. There isn't a, there isn't a play everybody in your own division 12 times and then play the rest of the games against the nationally. I don't even particularly care because this is going to be nothing authentic about this year. Except for that fans have said the urgency is right there. That's probably the only true benefit of playing a 60 game schedule is that the urgency kicks in so much faster. But who you play?
Starting point is 01:13:46 That doesn't really matter to me. Frankly, are the Astros better served by only playing the American League West over and over and over again? Because the Rangers, I don't think, are considered a contender. The Mariners might lose 50 of the 60 games. It's true. The A's are going to always be a contender because it always feels like they are. And the Angels, I still think, are a player two-way. It should be better, but yeah, they're going to be.
Starting point is 01:14:08 I mean, Angels aren't going to be great. Yeah, this is great. Now, is it as great as getting to play in, say, the A.O. East, where you got the Orioles and the Blue Jays and the, well, I guess those are probably the two worst teams. Yeah. Central's maybe the worst, right?
Starting point is 01:14:23 White Sox could be better, but I mean, come on. White Sox, Tigers, Royals. I think Minnesota's going to win the division by seven or eight games. Yeah, you get the White Sox Tigers and the Royals on your schedule? 15 times apiece. That's a nice easy 40 wins. Say again. If you get the White Sox.
Starting point is 01:14:39 the tigers and the royals on your schedule. The problem is the Astros aren't going to play any of those games. I know. That's what I'm saying. That is just, man, Minnesota could have the number one record in the American League Ross this year, and it's only because of, first of all, they're good, but secondly, more importantly, they're close to those sucky teams. The Astros are in the worst division. I mean, the Twins are in the worst division, which means they're going to get fat and heavy.
Starting point is 01:15:09 even if they play the National League Central teams, a little of them. Cubs contenders, yes, Cardinals, Brewers. Who else is in that division? Reds and pirates. Six wins right there. Man, the Minnesota Twins could win 50 of their 60 games. Yes, I could. I mean, well, the Astros are going to beat the Rangers a bunch of times.
Starting point is 01:15:30 I am fascinated about what Globe Life, is it field or part? It was one and now it's the other. Yeah. Which one is it? It's, uh, because I think it's global life field now. And it's basically Minut Made Park North. Mimic Made Park as people are calling it. Okay, I don't care what you called it.
Starting point is 01:15:51 I'm just telling you, if you guys go look at the video, I'm sure Texas Rangers.com has it. In fact, one of their vice presidents used to work for the Astros. Do you think he would have grabbed the, like the plans of the architect and said, hey, just add a bunch of blue and red to this stadium and call it a day? I mean, it's a little overblown, I think. Oh, for sure, but it helps us for a bit. It's a nice little bit to make the Rangers fans angry, but there's not the arches. It's the same as far as the roof sliding over the top. So that's the same thing.
Starting point is 01:16:20 That to me is the biggest thing that's very similar. And there's a hill at 436 feet away from straightway center field. There's Torchies, tacos in right center field. And a shake shack. And a shake shack. And, oh, by the way, you can get a bunch of fruit juices there if you want. I can go for a shake shack. Sounds good.
Starting point is 01:16:38 Can I tell you something? Hmm. Overrated. I think it's good. Is it the best burger ever? No. Is it better than In and Out? No.
Starting point is 01:16:47 Overrated. Okay. What's the most overrated hamburger for you? Again, if someone walked in and said, here's Matt, here's some ShakeShack, I wouldn't say no. The most overrated hamburger. I like Shake Shack. I like In and Out. I love Waterburger.
Starting point is 01:17:01 I love In and Out as proper rated as the co-goat with one of them. Well, yeah, that's, well, people are going to get upset. I'd rather have a double double than a water burger. I'm sorry. I'm saying co-goat. Because let me taste something right now. I don't care. If you want to get angry on me on Twitter.
Starting point is 01:17:17 I'm being honest and true because that's what the show is about is being honest and true. The barbecue bacon burger they got going on right now is very good. It's so delicious. If I put a water burger with the way you like it in front of it, regular water burger, not as limited time only. I put a regular water burger on one on a plate and a double double on a plate and funny. Which one you grab? I mean, both. You can only grab one.
Starting point is 01:17:37 with my left hand I'll go with one with my hand or hand or the other I just can't I can't right now Matt I can't you're true feeling you just don't want firestorm I can't do it okay you're fine I can't do it because that barbecue bacon is like I'm addicted to that hamburger and the problem with in and out is and I love it and you know much we love in and now their fries are terrible it's also an hour and I have to get food in the drive-thru I can't wait an hour and a line's still really long every time I drive by there there there are and oh by the way there's one the closest to me is 50 miles away so you got me a gift card I just haven't been able to use it because I haven't been able to get to Stafford.
Starting point is 01:18:07 Yeah. And then this, this thing, I tried the chicken sandwich with the strips. I was talking about the other day that's the barbecue. Oh, you've never had that? I had it last Friday. Oh, there's the first time you've had the barbecue chicken strip sandwich from Butterberg. On the Texas toast? Oh, my God.
Starting point is 01:18:22 It's amazing. We can redraft the Fantasy Five of sandwiches. Well, yeah, that was the very first one we did. With fast food items. Yeah. I had the A1 Thicken Hardy Burger. I had red beans and rice from Popeyes. I don't remember what else.
Starting point is 01:18:36 one though. Can I tell you guys as someone still relatively new to Texas, that the single best thing that you guys do here that I had not seen before is burgers on Texas toast. Isn't that good? Very good. I would never want a regular hamburger bun again if I have a choice. I don't disagree with you. Buttery Texas
Starting point is 01:18:52 toast. Just amazing. Like the patty melt? I mean, onions, cheese. Yes. Two meats. They're a little special sauce. Oh, the best. Again, we find ourselves eating on this show not entirely. It is a lunch. I feel like we end up talking about food every day, but it's a lunchtime show.
Starting point is 01:19:09 And now I'm very hungry. Yeah, 142 is our time. 20 minutes away, we will spend a few minutes with Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports on the future of college football. So you got a hamburger in your hand. How about Shaw's jewelry? Fine piece of jewelry in your right hand. If your wife is looking for a diamond ring upgrade, go to Shaw's Jewelry at West Grand Montrose. If your wife is looking for a new set of earrings, go to West Graham Montrose, the home of Shaw's jewelry.
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Starting point is 01:20:10 That's Shaw's Jewel at the corner West Gray and Montrose. When I listen to the Matt Thomas show, I don't even understand the eclectic nature of the show, the dichotomy, the ostentatiousness, the perfunctory that sounds about as smart as LeVar Ball. Back to the Matt Thomas show. Whoever he is. Hell! Yeah. What? 147.
Starting point is 01:20:42 Why did I give out Pacific Time? 147 here. The P.F. Sports Talk 790. Matt Thomas Show continues. Matt Thomas Ross v. Real with you, folks. Somehow, what percentage of the shows would you say, Brendan, that we just end up getting on some kind of food conversation? I would say at least like 60% of them.
Starting point is 01:21:01 So I've been here, what? Right about like 17 days, I think. Well, is your 17-day anniversary? I think congratulations. I think today is 17. I think three full weeks. What's the 17-day anniversary gift if we should have gotten? I don't think anything.
Starting point is 01:21:14 But I would say you've talked food 12 of those days. 12 of the 17 days that you've been on the show. That's probably about accurate. That's okay. It's a noon to three show. We have to eat lunch early, Matt, so you eat like 11 o'clock by about 1.30. You're starving. Seriously, 11 o'clock lunches, either I'm six years old or 76.
Starting point is 01:21:37 And then that's like when you're in elementary school and you used to have lunch like because you were the early ones. Yeah, you're like 10.30 a.m. 1047 lunch. What? Get your square pizza and your chocolate milk. My elementary and my junior high used to make the best rolls. I don't know where they came from, but they were the best. Part of the reason why I'm a carboholic to this day.
Starting point is 01:21:59 It's because of elementary school rolls? Yeah, the pizza, the rectangle pizza sucked. But the rolls with the chicken fried steak, they know the patties, little brown gravy, mashed potatoes. You know, I used to bring my own hot sauce to school, and that would make everything. taste better. What?
Starting point is 01:22:17 Yeah. You mean a little Ross, Villa Real? No, like in middle school, in high school. Would you put it in your backpack? Yeah. Have a little thing of hot sauce and bring it to lunch. That way the crappy bland food tastes it a little better. Did anybody ever ask you to have some other house?
Starting point is 01:22:31 Oh, absolutely. The whole table would share. Unless I was sitting by myself. What was the cheapest your lunch ever was? Did I remember? I remember the cheapest. Well, because of income, applications free.
Starting point is 01:22:46 That would be the cheapest. Hmm. Asked and answered. Mine was $1.35 in elementary, and I think it got up to $2.10 in junior high school. Okay. I remember being like $1.35. In high school, I have no recollection because we did everything out of
Starting point is 01:23:09 cart. You could walk to one little area and get some food, one walk in the area. And I went back to May Creek a couple of years ago, my high school, and the cafeteria they have, is, and I'm not exaggerating, 500 times better than what we had. 500 times. 500 times better. So I just was like, damn, these kids, no, one of their not successful in school,
Starting point is 01:23:36 that is big fat lunches at noon, and they're falling asleep by 1245. If I ate the way that the kids, high school kids ate today, I'd be in asleep by six period. These kids just have it so easy, man. They do. They don't have to learn cursive anymore. everything's on computers. I think all get tablets. Terrible.
Starting point is 01:23:57 Yeah. All right. 7.13. Where are we going on this? I don't know. 2.1-2-5-7-90. They're in the 58th minute spot and Kag have not scored a goal. We've had 10 players flop in the first of 40-something minutes of action.
Starting point is 01:24:11 Is that it? Only 10? Yeah. Probably had more than that. That's fine. And don't act like James Hard doesn't take a foul and then stay down for like five minutes. Yeah, but he rallies. He gets up.
Starting point is 01:24:20 They're getting up. It doesn't, well, it takes him 10 minutes. They have to bring a stretcher out there. And then here's the thing about soccer. There was not been a stretcher this entire game. They put him on a stretcher. They roll him over and then they miraculously get back up. They dump him off on accident.
Starting point is 01:24:32 Nobody's been stretchered off this whole game. I don't think. Well, I'm the one paying more attention to the game than you are. This is low-level Italian soccer. So I'm watching anything else on. Isn't there an NBA classic game or something? There might be some Premier League on or something. Jeez.
Starting point is 01:24:46 Give me something I can, like, sink my teeth into. There you go. Lester City versus Brighton-Hove and Albion. your thoughts. Oh, imagine this. 88 minutes into the game and there's no scoring that either. Well, these are two crappy teams. Oh, so that's what we're going to say.
Starting point is 01:24:59 The good team score goals. We watched the game yesterday. It was 5 to 0. Did you not see it? No, it wasn't paying attention. And you still owe me from the over under. We bet. You said over under one goal.
Starting point is 01:25:08 They scored three. All right. I'll get you a honey chicken barbecue sandwich. Thank you. With Texas test. Honey butter chicken? Oh, both. Oh, wait.
Starting point is 01:25:14 Okay. Yeah, both. Get you the biscuit or chicken biscuit. Or the sandwich. Either one. I told you. That thing is classic. Oh, so good.
Starting point is 01:25:20 All right. So we've got a 60 game schedule that could be in a couple hours. We're going to get to some college football at the top of the hour. Dennis Dodd from CBS. But let's go back to baseball just a second. Baseball. What is spring training supposed to be like? Are we going to hear from these guys?
Starting point is 01:25:36 What are they the media access is going to be? Very little. I think maybe they're going to say you can come to this certain conference room maybe, separate by six feet. There'll be no one-on-one conversations. It'll be at a podium. Or maybe they Skype. these interviews.
Starting point is 01:25:53 There was a story written. You tell me if the general public, because I want you to play general public for a second. There was a story written by a columnist in the Atlanta Journal Constitution about how media is going to change because of this and how you won't get backstories, you won't get interviews,
Starting point is 01:26:08 your relationship building between these athletes and media will be taken, we'll take a down a notch. Do you think of general public cares? I don't think so. Because let me give you the defense on my side. All I'm going to tell you is player face-to-face relationships ultimately help that that person's media, first of all, to spread the message, but to get fun things and interesting things done.
Starting point is 01:26:40 Think about the relationship. I mean, Alex Bregman and I, we've been covering him for four or five years. Bregman's a great guy. We've got to know him not because of Skype interviews, not because we've exchanged to text, it's because we've been face to face with each other. So I think in a small, small part, some of the backstories, some of the fun, interesting things, we're not going to be able to see. Look at Julian Morales's job. You know how the players love her and they love her back? There's things that she gets from players in terms of interviews
Starting point is 01:27:10 and anecdotal and funny things that she's not going to get because she's not going to be in a position to be right next to them. And again, to my core belief that most of the people that are listening to us right now don't particularly care about that. But I still think there's a little part of the sport that's going to suffer because when you do find athletes that do understand that they are the media is the avenue to the play to the fans, it opens them up, it gives them an opportunity. Skype meetings are cold. Skype meetings are distant. Skype meetings are impersonal. And I think we'll lose a little bit of that, at least for the foreseeable future. I think we are going to lose some of that. But I guess the question is how much is that
Starting point is 01:27:45 affect interest in the sport? How much are how much are people tuning into here, Julie Morales's stories. It definitely adds color to the broadcast. It adds a little something. And how much of it is, maybe it's subconscious. Maybe you take those away and somehow the broadcast becomes 10% less interesting and you're not watching as much. I don't know. These are all a lot of things that we can't
Starting point is 01:28:04 really put our finger on. And we're going to kind of find out about. Ultimately, the most important thing is we get the games. Now, some of the athletes are going to love this. Like Justin Vernanard is not a huge fan of the media. He'll do it because he knows he has to because he's one of the most recognizable players in the sport, but he doesn't, he, he's not the biggest fan of jumping in front of a microphone.
Starting point is 01:28:27 And he certainly isn't going to give you behind the scene stuff unless it's sponsor tag, to be honest with you. Unless he, unless you cut the check. No, well, it's because a certain, or because he has to be obligate it. Right. Like he went on Ellen because he knew that millions of people watched Ellen. Justin Verlender's never going to make a live appearance on this show. Yeah, is he a zero time?
Starting point is 01:28:51 I know we had them on a, we had them on a Saturday show. Yeah, because it was you. That's fan fest. Yes, because he had to be there. Well, you know, the sports RV show ratings matter just astronomical. Well, I mean, you do get to the players like no other, nobody else can. On Astros fan fest. We had all the heavy hitters.
Starting point is 01:29:08 We had Seth Beer over the years, Dustin Garneau. How was this year's fan fest? Remind the folks about that real quick. We had Josh James. Josh Flames James. Dustin Garneau. Yes. continue
Starting point is 01:29:23 Kyle Tucker sure let's just say it was a forgettable afternoon I can't remember after that if you really well let's go
Starting point is 01:29:34 to be accurate let's go back to the by the way Lester City and Brighton and finished in a zero zero tie there's a stutter that's unfortunate
Starting point is 01:29:39 the asteros were getting crushed no player wanted to come out and play nobody wanted nobody was in a good mood we were yeah our biggest name
Starting point is 01:29:51 scheduled was Bregman and he you ducked out. He had a prior obligations. But Alex during this time has been very forthcoming. He heavily involved in charity. We had him on during spring training. My hope is, as soon as we get to baseball, I'm going to start reaching on to some players. Okay. I don't know if they're going to come on, but I'm going to try. Because we do need to start hearing from them. So we'll see. And Alex has always been a really good guy. And he's been very, very out, very personal on Twitter and
Starting point is 01:30:18 doing a lot of things. And so if there's anybody that's really tried to kind of change It's been pregnant more than any of his other teammates. 157 is where we are on the clock. One hour remaining left on the show. We start the final hour with a visit with Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports on the state of college football. Ross is going to work on, believe it or not, all things? Aubrey Huff. Are you wanting people to go to Wikipedia to get their information or what?
Starting point is 01:30:45 I don't want anybody to get in. What do you mean? You want to stump them like a mutter. Yeah. You knew here? Yeah. Don't go to Wikipedia. Ross won't go to any of the Wikipedia for any of the questions.
Starting point is 01:30:55 I would never do that. On Aubrey Huff. 157 on Sports Talk 790. It is the Matt Thomas Show. It is 201 on Sports Talk 790. We are happy to be joined now by one of the premier college football writers in the country. You can find them at CBSSports.com on the college football beat Dennis Dodd here on the Matt Thomas show. Dennis, it's Matt.
Starting point is 01:31:27 Thank you very much for the time. Are you as confused as I am about every conference and what there's doing and saying and acting? Because I feel like there's no uniformity, and I think it's a recipe for disaster this fall. Do you agree or disagree? Well, I agree with your first take because it's true. There is no uniformity across the board in terms of how to approach the virus, how to test for the virus, how to bring players back to face the virus. getting a handle on what the procedure is going to be during the season.
Starting point is 01:32:02 So, as I wrote in a piece yesterday, I think, the old philosophy by the stateholder of the major college football is crossing our fingers. You know, get a plan, hope it works, because as you see, you know, it has reemerged in about 29 states that are spiking right now, and all you can save yourself is, thank goodness there's no football being played, because we might have to shut it down right now. Yeah, Dennis, Dennis, down with us from CBS Sports. I was blown away in May, Dennis, when Mark Emert, the president, instead of LA said, we're going to leave it up to each individual conference.
Starting point is 01:32:38 I'm assuming you're not surprised by that, but what kind of message was that when he sent that out that he was not going to be the leader, the grand poobah, and say, all right, we all need to be in this strange time that we're in some uniformity? What was that like when you saw that? And did the SEC and the Big 12 and the Big 10 have different reactions to what Emmer did say? It was a collective eye role. It was no kidding. You're not going to mandate it because you can't.
Starting point is 01:33:04 The NCAA doesn't run major college football. It's the only sport that they don't conduct a championship in. They set play and practice rules. They set some bowl rules. But that's really about it. The college football playoff has a business arrangement with those 130 schools in the SPN, and they have a championship. The conference conduct their own conference championship games.
Starting point is 01:33:27 So for him to say that was really, just sticking his nose in where it didn't belong. The NPA couldn't mandate a return to play because it can't. You know, the schools and the conferences were going to do whatever they want. Do you think college football will ever get to that point? Because I feel like, Dennis, we need a leader. We need someone to say, all right, you can't do this in the SEC or, hey, what's going on in the Pact 12?
Starting point is 01:33:52 I mean, is there at some point we're going to get a true commissioner of college football, or is it just because there's too many different power? or five and the group of six that it's just impossible to try to regulate under one governing body? Well, there's two questions there. The first is when we ever had a commissioner. I'll say never, but we're talking about a group of leagues that can't even agree on how many conference games to play. You know, how do you expect them to agree on the big issues? That being said, a lot of people can see the Apollo 5 breaking away from the NCAA to form their own division.
Starting point is 01:34:28 Because they get to keep all the money. I mean, look at the hit that everybody took when the NCAA tournament was canceled in March. Now, obviously, it should have been canceled because of medical concerns. But now if information comes out, the NCAA was properly prepared insurance-wise for that short-fallen money. 200 million of their rainy day fund had been allocated for legal fees and all these big losses they're fighting. I don't know that's the best way to run business. To the point, Matt, that if, you know, I think you have to think about if next year's permanent is impacted at all by the virus, there's going to be a lot of people ask. What exactly are we getting from the NCAA?
Starting point is 01:35:13 Dennis Dodd from CBS Sports, one of the premier college football writers joining us here on Sports Talk 790. Dennis, the 23 positive test at Clemson, we've seen LSU self-quarantine, we've seen Kansas State get hit, University of Houston. and some of them are testing ahead of time, some are not. So there isn't any common pattern. Is there or are you sensing a pattern right now? Well, the only pattern is the question has to be asked. I open up too soon. I guess I thought that, and it was June 1st,
Starting point is 01:35:46 that schools and conferences could open up the facilities to voluntary workouts and football. Some went that day. Some still haven't opened up. Oklahoma was going to open up until July 1st. But I didn't expect more than 100 because that's where we all are now across the nation to the point that there was an outbreak at LSU after players went to a bar. Kansas State shut down things two weeks after they had 13 positive. Houston shut things down. And we're hoping that we're hoping that.
Starting point is 01:36:24 He's hoping that. Yep, you there? We're losing to you a little bit. Okay. I talked to a coach this afternoon. He said, you know, if this is happening now, maybe that's a good thing. It's burning through the team, and we get hurt immunity. Well, I don't know if a coach or a dumb sports writer like me, even knows what her immunity means.
Starting point is 01:36:44 I know what it suggests. Yeah. You can catch it and develop an immunity, but I don't know the particulars on that. All right, Dennis. So we're about, what, five, six weeks away from some more camps opening up and starting some sort of college football season. What's the next step? I mean, I know I'm asking you as like you would have the answer,
Starting point is 01:37:02 but are we going to see our schools, I mean, how are conferences handling it? Is the SEC dramatically holding out different policies as compared to what's happened to the ACC, the Big 12, the American, or is there some uniformity when it comes to how every conference sees their membership going in terms of reopening their campuses? Right now, it's up to the schools to test and how frequent frequently they test as they welcome players back in.
Starting point is 01:37:31 They have a protocol where somebody tests positive and they're isolated, contact tracing, perhaps stuff like that. I think once the season starts, I think the Power 5 at least, but at least competitive-wise, would like to be all on the same page as the type of testing. In other words, let's make sure, first of all, that there's universal testing. Everybody's testing, let's say, twice a week, the same days. And then uniform testing. They're all testing the same way.
Starting point is 01:38:03 And they didn't get into an ethical issue where it's Friday and, you know, Vegas dropped the line two points because the starting quarterback for the opponent doesn't look like he's going to play. Nothing in the media because the schools aren't bound by privacy laws. If somebody tests positive or can't play, they don't tell anybody. So do you have to tell the opposing coach ethically because this is a national emergency, a worldwide pandemic, our coaches this week ain't telling nobody. This is ball.
Starting point is 01:38:36 Okay. What about this? What do I just say, Dennis, why don't we call every AD in this country that's playing Division I football and say, look, we're not ready for this? We've got another wave coming. Why don't we just put the kids in camp December 1st? We start the season, January 10th, and we crown a national championship first weekend. of April or second week. I mean, any logic to that at all? That's one of the options. Everything's on the table. A late start to the season, two-semester
Starting point is 01:39:03 football, spring football, which is what you're talking about. I'm told that the spring football option is a last resort because then you start getting the eligibility issues. You're going head up against the draft. And if you're starting a season on January 10th, I can almost guarantee that a Trevor Lawrence is going to be playing football. You know, why isn't he or rest of the money not being paid for a $35 or $40 million payday come late April? Okay. And the seasons might still be going on. That really complicates things.
Starting point is 01:39:34 But that is an option. What about the fact of fans? I'm always curious about payouts. We're seeing astronomical numbers for Kent State to go play Auburn, New Mexico State to playing USC. I mean, I'm just throwing examples out there. Can these schools make these outrageous payouts if their stadiums are? are not full of 80,000 fans? That's a good point.
Starting point is 01:39:56 I think right now these contracts are going to be honored whether there are fans in place or not, and that's a good question to ask. As far as fans being in the stadiums at all, I think most schools are selling tickets to some degree to some percentage and telling the public, okay, we are planning to play these games, you can buy a certain amount of tickets. If we don't play, you can either make it a donation. We will repay you, or you can put this towards next year if you choose. And that's basically the philosophy right now, because they don't know.
Starting point is 01:40:39 You know, every school, Matt, there's 41 states to play major college football. And by the way, Texas isn't looking good right now for doing that. I don't have to tell anybody. but there are going to be 41 different state health boards telling those schools how many people they can put in the stand, if any. So that all remains to be seen. A couple more minutes here with Dennis Dott of CBS Sports. Dennis, can every college school that plays Division I want to football afford to test as often
Starting point is 01:41:06 as probably necessary for these kids? No, I just got off the phone with an FCF athletic director, and all they're doing is doing the temperature thing where they shoot at your forehead. They simply can't afford it. I get that, but there's going to be an issue when some of these non-conference games, when, say, and once in a Florida Covember play at Nebraska, and that week, Nebraska may say, okay, we're going to pay you this guarantee money, but we all need you to test and take it out of your guarantee to pay for it if you can't afford it.
Starting point is 01:41:37 I think you're going to see that happen really, really soon, because you can't bring in, after what you've done, we're talking about FBS teams going to the extent they are. So you don't bring these players from FCF. You're always creating a different class of medically cleared players that haven't been tested and play in front of, if it's the case, then, 80,000, 90,000 people. So I think that's going to have to be addressed.
Starting point is 01:42:04 All right, last question. My mom and monitor, the University of Houston, is going to play, a schedule to play Washington State and BYU and on conference games. We'll just use them an example. Any rumblings of massive reschedule of conference, non-conference opponents to keep air flights down, to keep costs down, or are we too late in the game for you been thinking about that right now?
Starting point is 01:42:26 Oh, yeah. They've all been doing it to a certain extent. The Patriot League is making their teams drive to non-conference games. Well, that's an issue for major college football FBS because I think Fordham played at Hawaii. They're not going to go to that game. there's a game the Colgate plays somewhere in FBS it's a 600 mile drive they probably won't make there've already been four games canceled by traditionally historically black colleges at the beginning of the year including I think one in Houston I believe that's true and one in Memphis so yeah I mean there's already a model out there to play conference games only if the season is delayed.
Starting point is 01:43:13 If you play that, and it depends on the school, it depends on the conference. But, yeah, all that's being talked about. All right. And very lastly, get your crystal ball out, and you are allowed to, as a college football writer, allowed to change this answer multiple times the next 60 days. If nothing changes, and we are moving towards that calendar of August and September, how do you envision the 2020 college football season? Well, I've just been telling people that I think there's going to be college football.
Starting point is 01:43:41 football in the fall, just don't ask me how many teams play it or how many games those teams play, because I don't think anybody can predict that, or what a college championship or a college football playoff looks like at this point. I think it's that fluid. I mean, you might see teams in the same conference, one plays 12, one plays eight, one plays six. because the worst thing that can happen, Matt, is I've been told us numerous times. The worst thing beyond playing a season is all is having a disruption nationwide, where there's so many teams that can't play just have to stop and pause. Because you know it ain't going to be just a week.
Starting point is 01:44:17 Right. You know, it's going to be more than that. Frankly, the athletic budgets and the school just can't endure that. Well, leave it at that. At Dennis Dodd, CBS, if you want great college football commentary with no spin, you go check out Dennis at CBCB. It's a pleasure to have you on my show for the first time. I hope I can bother you again down the road.
Starting point is 01:44:36 Thank you for the visit this afternoon. You bet, Matt. Thank you very much. Dennis. CBS Sports on Twitter again at Dennis. dot CBS. Kind of sobering. Are we ready for that?
Starting point is 01:44:49 We're going to have college football. Don't know how many games. Don't know who conferences are going to play. And we don't know how to crown a national championship. Would it even matter if we had a conference commissioner of college football? Would he even have that answer? He or she, for that matter. We'll discuss that in a minute. 215-Thi-15. Matt Thomas Show, if you want to chime in anything that Dennis had to say, 7-1-3-21-257-90, 7-1-3-2-1-2-5-7-90 with a message for hoops, basketball goals, and sporting equipment.
Starting point is 01:45:18 I mentioned them earlier today. Look, you don't want your kids going to somebody else's house to shoot baskets. Have them in front of your house in a driveway or in your drive, you know, around the coldest cycle. I've got it in my neighborhood. Get with hoop. This is Cougars head coach Dana Holgerson. Matt's kind of like Shasta without putting on a costume. He's a big old... The Matt Thomas show continues on Sports Talk 790.
Starting point is 01:45:53 Thanks again to Dennis Dodd at CBS. Cell phone C, content A. Wonderful conversation. All right. I've given you a nose for Thomas 43 star. A thousand star. Was it 43? No, I'm bumping it up.
Starting point is 01:46:08 Okay. I'm going a straight of 50,000 stars on the NFL starting their season late. Okay. They're going to play. But it's going to be a later start. I can't tell you how many weeks, can't tell you. Regular season. Yes.
Starting point is 01:46:21 Thursday, what is it, September? 10th, I thought. Chiefs Texans will not start on time. Okay. And I'm not saying I want it to be because, to be honest, I want just the opposite. Yeah, I haven't made a prediction. I haven't said you're wrong. I'm hoping you're wrong.
Starting point is 01:46:36 Frankly, if they can play in 45 days, I'd be very happy. It'd be wonderful. We can't always get what we want. I'm going to make you a 55,000 star selection. I'm going to even top the 5,000 stars. College football in 2020 is going to be a complete cluster blank. I could see that. Yep, I could see that.
Starting point is 01:47:03 Let me describe what a cluster blank is. Okay, go ahead. God, I wish the show is internet. Do you want the urban dictionary? go ahead and give it to us so everybody knows what I'm talking about and I'll give you examples I'm calling the 2020
Starting point is 01:47:17 college football season a complete cluster blank go ahead and read the definition first well I'm trying I put in the wrong a huge problem or situation duh that's it?
Starting point is 01:47:31 Yeah okay you tell me if this describes a CF football season games being canceled by opponents that either don't want to travel or can't afford or worried about going into high-risk areas. Possibility?
Starting point is 01:47:52 Yes. Sure. Teams asking to reschedule games within the season because of an outbreak on the particular campus. Either one of them. I'll give you an example. Tulsa gets paid $750,000 to play Arizona State. Tulsa calls Arizona State and says,
Starting point is 01:48:15 hey, we got an outbreak here. We got to postpone our game until December 19th. I see a lot of that happening. Go with that? Yeah, but then, I mean, is that a CF moment or is that just a Yeah, no, no, that's CF, absolutely.
Starting point is 01:48:29 No, it's just, I wonder, I mean, if that keeps happening, how are they going to, where all these open weeks going to come from? Extension of season. Okay. So that's why that may not be that big of a deal. Maybe the college football says, oh, I got one for you. No bowl season. Zero bowls.
Starting point is 01:48:45 Except for playoffs. Playoffs only. Yeah. I could see that. Okay. Chunks of teams and conferences not able to play. Major Power 5? I will say Power 5 teams will play.
Starting point is 01:49:04 I got news for you, Ross. The virus does not separate themselves from Power 5 or Group of 6. There's more money at stake in Power 5 than smaller conferences. But if I have 17 players at Vanderbilt with the Vona, or I can't play. Auburn can't go play in Nashville if 30% of the team is stuck. Well, I imagine. I mean, they're testing now.
Starting point is 01:49:23 So I disagree with that. So I disagree with that. Okay. No fans. This season. Anywhere. Anywhere. I'll say that's not going to happen.
Starting point is 01:49:37 I say there will be fans some places, half full or whatever it is going to be. What else? I think no bowl season is huge. I think that's very well within the realm of possibility. And the number one thing, that makes it a CF season is there's 10 to 15 really awesome college football players that are like, we ain't doing this.
Starting point is 01:49:58 Like an opt-out. They just say, I mean, what would happen with that? Because as I brought up a dentist. Or lose their scholarship? No, you just, if they delay the season, what's in, why would be in, what's in the best interest of Trevor Lawrence, who is the definitive number one pick probably for the draft? I shouldn't say definitively and probably the same. The definitive number one pick.
Starting point is 01:50:17 why would he bother to step on a Clemson football stadium turf if he's four months away from being drafted? If he wants to play for something, because that's true now, whether if the regular season were going on, you would imagine he wants to play, you imagine he wants to play for something, and he wants to go for a championship. Okay. So I just gave you a variety of... If it gets pushed back or if it's shortened or if there's no playoffs, absolutely, he should just... All right, how about this? CF moment, you only play teams in your conference.
Starting point is 01:50:45 doesn't preclude airplane travel. I think that's very likely. I think that's very... Look at the Cougars in the American. They're all over the place. That's true. You can't even bust everywhere in the SEC. There's no conference that's only busable.
Starting point is 01:51:00 These leagues are so big that nobody can just... Remember in the old Estes Southwest Conference Day? It's not granted it's old. You're all in Texas and Arkansas. You could even drive to Fayetteville if you had to. It wouldn't be any fun. No. But every school...
Starting point is 01:51:15 that was in the old SWC could drive to Fayetteville if they needed to. You can't drive in the Pact 12. You can't drive in the SEC for the most part, because you're talking about from South Carolina all the way to Kyle Field. The ACC goes from Syracuse to Miami. The American is a hodgepodge of cities. The Big Ten extends to Maryland and Rutgers all the way as far south as, you know, Iowa City.
Starting point is 01:51:43 There's no more driving anymore. You can't drive. So can you trust your cleaning and cleanliness and students and proper protocol to put 85 people on a plane or 60 people, 60 players and coaches and trainers and whatnot, and do that three or four times and not get a massive outbreak? And how much protocol is in place? And who's agreeing to this protocol? That's where the great commissioner of NCAA football comes into play. How often are you testing? Are you testing every day?
Starting point is 01:52:12 Is it every school? Do we have enough tests? to test every single football program every single day or every other day or what I mean you can test players but can you trust a can you test the trainers? I mean can you try can you test the assistant coaches it's easier in professional
Starting point is 01:52:26 sports because there's a union and there's owners and then they talk and ultimately and they've endless amounts of money too true there isn't the NFL will not ever need to worry about can we afford the test well baseball owners tell you they don't make money off their teams but that's
Starting point is 01:52:42 why I'm making an 85,000 star selection college football. You just went from 50 to 85? Yeah, it's going to be a CF this year. Okay. I'm still going to like it. But if you're, I mean, I'm using U of H as an example because I know they're non-conference.
Starting point is 01:52:58 Is there a reason to go to Provo, Utah, and Fullman, Washington? When you can play two non-conference games, or just skip those. Or just skip them. I think there's going to be a lot of game skipping. 713-212, 5-7-90. Don't mean to be Drew and Gloom, but I'm just talking about the realization of college football.
Starting point is 01:53:16 think is in a, of all the sports, isn't the biggest mess. A couple of phone calls straight ahead, 227. Sports Talk 790. Ross, no need to feel sluggish, is there? Well, how are you feeling? Are you okay? I'm kind of hungry, but on that, I'm fine. I've got to ask you folks out there. If you're not feeling like yourself, if it's kind of been a cycle and you've kind of been noticing, right? You're sleepy, you're irritable, you're not yourself.
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Starting point is 01:55:06 233 on Sports Talk 790. I'm giving you the 85,000-star prediction that college football is going to be a CF this year. I mean I don't love it. Doesn't mean I don't want it to be played. but Rossi it's a run a ship right we need a leader we need someone that's in even though there are the haves and a have-nots
Starting point is 01:55:29 you do need a central governing body and a central governing leadership do you not Jim I mean Mark Emert saying it's up to the individual conference is like it's not my problem bye well maybe that would create this is what you always have to think about is the legal implications if the NCAA NCAA mandates this or that or they have to have games
Starting point is 01:55:49 or something then somebody has games and there's an outbreak and the families can sue. God knows what can happen with lawsuits, with any of this happening. Chris and Montgomery make it to Missouri City at 2.34 on 7-90. Hi, Chris. Hey, good afternoon, guys. I got one comment and then a couple of questions for you guys to answer once I hang up. One, what good is the NCAA if all they do is punish it?
Starting point is 01:56:15 They can't take the lead to try to figure out, you know, at least best practices, right? what these conferences should do, what good are they? And then my two follow-ups are, can you guys talk a little bit about the economics behind not playing a college football season, you know, i.e., you know, if there's only a stadium full or games get canceled, at what point is, do they say, you know, it's not even worth it? We're just going to scrap the season, and I'll hang up and listen. Thank you. That's the number one thing.
Starting point is 01:56:48 Your first question about what's the use of the end? NCAA. In football, Ross, there's no use for it. As even Dennis Dodd told us a few minutes ago, the only sport they don't regulate is football because college football has become way too big for the NCAA to give authority on, which is just patently absurd. They've given the presidents, they've given the presidents and the commissioners of the power five conferences, all the power. What does that mean? Like, can they put sanctions down? I mean, that's it. But in terms of ruling anything else. They let them allow their own scheduling. They let them allow how they dictate their own television deals. The NCAA doesn't, has no authoritative power over anybody except for if the
Starting point is 01:57:30 NCAA finds out that you've been cheating. Short of that. And why do they use them? Well, I mean, what do they don't? They don't use them. Which they have to. I don't know. I don't even know. The NCAA is just like this floating cloud that I don't understand how or why it works. Yeah. I just don't understand it. It is. It is, what's a good example? Again, to put everything in perspective, they run baseball, they run basketball, they run, they run gymnastics, they run graduation policies, they run what you're not supposed to do and do. They're basically a mob boss. You don't hear from them.
Starting point is 01:58:07 You don't know where they are. They move in the shadows. The only time you see them was they show up to collect. How about this one? Like a Michael Corleone, Matt. I like it. I can make this analogy for you now. They're the high school principal.
Starting point is 01:58:22 that watches over all the kids except the cool ones. They let the cool kids do what they want. They want to skip class? Sure. They want to go out to lunch during the lunch period instead of eating in the cafeteria? Fine.
Starting point is 01:58:33 Because the principal doesn't want to mess with the cool kids. Okay. You like it or no? If they have to lay down a punishment, they will. Yeah. A big punishment. Big punishment. But just let's not.
Starting point is 01:58:46 They just let it go. Yeah, but most time they're like, okay, you guys are the most popular kids. You're the star athletes of the school. We really can't do much for it. They're always collecting money somehow. Yeah. They're always doing okay.
Starting point is 01:58:56 Yeah. I don't know what the insidable is about. Second question. I hate them. The economics, I'm not privy to numbers of that. But from what I've been told from a couple of school officials, both here in town and out, college football, if they get any fans, they'll be able to survive. They need fans in their stains. They need the games to be played.
Starting point is 01:59:15 Television contracts, especially with the Big Power Five conferences, will take care of a lot of the financial ills of college schools. It's not going to help the Mid-American conferences that much. It won't help the Sun Belt or Conference USA. But if SEC games and Big Ten games and Big 12 games get on their television sets, these colleges, they will be just fine. They'll take a loss this year, but they can put 40,000 people at Kyle Field at some point this year and be just fine. They don't have to have 90.
Starting point is 01:59:43 They'd like to have 90, but they can live with 40. They can live with 35,000 at Dote Campbell Stadium in Tallahasse, which, by the way, might be changing its name. If you saw that. Who messed up? Doke or Campbell? Well, Doke Campbell apparently was the former president of the school that had some racial stuff happened back in the 40s.
Starting point is 02:00:05 Well, that's unfortunate. You see that March Schott Stadium in Cincinnati, the University of Cincinnati's baseball team, their stadium has been called Mardshot Stadium. She made a huge donation. They have taken the name off. Oh, no. You know what?
Starting point is 02:00:18 I'm refusing to watch Cincinnati baseball now. She was a bigot, though. She was a long-lasting bigot. She was. That probably should have happened a long time. Well, I've had the longstanding principle that I do not watch Cincinnati baseball, and I'm going to stick by that. Yeah, I don't think you've ever watched. I've called Cincinnati baseball games. Oh, you really? In Cincinnati, froze my ass off.
Starting point is 02:00:35 Lee and Greenway Plaza on 798 at 238. Hi, Lee. How are going, guys? Good. A couple of things, did you catch Salisbury's show this morning that he said that the Tuscaloosa community, college football injects $2 billion into that community which just blew my mind. I don't think it was
Starting point is 02:01:00 $2 billion. I don't think it was $2 billion. No, no, billion. That's what he said. He was like, I would have guessed $10 million. It's $2 billion with a B. Go back and look it up. I'm going to look it up right now. You keep talking. Okay. So my question is,
Starting point is 02:01:15 what do you think the likelihood? Let's say college football gets going that some teams will boycott playing other teams because of Black Lives Matter. No, I'm not going to go play Ole Miss because of the Confederate flag and the rubs and all the symbolism. Or I'm not going to play UT because they play the eyes of Texas. Yeah. I don't think, my guess on that, first of all, you were accurate. Tuscaloosa, $2 billion.
Starting point is 02:01:43 That's restaurants, hotels, shopping, tolls, everything, right? You're talking to the entire city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Yeah, okay. I didn't realize Tuscaloits was that big. Well, you figure out. That's what the mayor says. I'm going to imagine that's probably a little exaggerated. Well, it's 100,000 people that go to Tuscaloose for every football game.
Starting point is 02:02:01 Are they counting all the money that goes to the Alabama program? I think they're talking about restaurants, bars, and stuff like, I don't know. Yeah. I don't think what you're talking about would be system-wide team-to-team. I don't think an entire team would say, let's take a vote. Are we going to play Ole Miss or not? I don't envision that to be, but I could see some kids doing it and saying, you know what, I'm against them. But that's up to each individual team, and that's going to be a relationship that the player is going to have to have with a coach on that.
Starting point is 02:02:30 But I can't imagine a, like Marshall University saying, if they don't do this or change this, we're not playing Ole Miss this week. I don't envision that being an issue. Yeah, I hope not. I hope we can all get through it and just, you know, start playing some sports. These are things we're pondering right now. thank you for the phone call, Lee. While we don't have it, it's worth pondering. Yeah, Tuscal-Luess's mayor says,
Starting point is 02:02:54 if there's not a single game being played, it would cost the city approximately $2 billion in loss revenue. $2 billion? Is it a home game versus Duke really bringing in that much money? I guess, I don't know. Alabama's football games generate $25 million per game during the 2015-16 season. Okay.
Starting point is 02:03:18 So how many home games have, like nine or something? Seven. Seven? Typically, so that's $150 million. Where's the other $1.825 billion coming from? I'd have to do some more research on it. Yeah, I'm just going to call. You know what?
Starting point is 02:03:36 I don't know. The Descaloosa mayor, that seems a little high. It does say, from what I'm reading, the university has over a $2 billion economic impact. It doesn't necessarily say the football team. Okay. You know what? Let's just go ahead and say $3 billion. Don't embellish.
Starting point is 02:03:52 What? That's what the mayor's doing? Tuscaloosa mayor is already doing it. I pull that number out of their ass. Okay. Two billion sounds a little exchange. That's why you were like, you were so baffled by the caller. Like, okay, no.
Starting point is 02:04:06 You know what? You're right. No disrespect to the color. No disrespect to Sean's. I'm reading the story right and sitting right in front of me. I'm calling BS on $2 billion. I'm sorry. It's funny because of the University of Houston doesn't play football.
Starting point is 02:04:19 It's going to cost the city of Houston $1 trillion. Yeah, slow your roll. Tuscaloosa mayor. Jim Bob, whatever your last name is. Yeah, Matt, we have a new statement from how much it's going to cost from the Tuscaloosa Mayor. $100 billion. Damn, inflation has gone up, big time. $100 billion.
Starting point is 02:04:44 All right, believe it or not today, we're celebrating the life that is Aubrey Huff. If you missed our sports empty theater earlier today, you missed an absolute gym. We're going to play, believe it or not next. And our first two winners today are going to win 15. gift cards to Hooters Restaurant. That's all straight ahead. Final segment, Matt Thomas Show after a message here for Oop, Steam Cleaning at 281, 822-0561. 281, 8220651. Get professional cleaning done the right way with a company that knows what they're doing. You go into the grocery store and getting one of those machines and putting the chemicals in and hurting your back and neck
Starting point is 02:05:20 and having your wife and kids scream at you because you're yelling at them. Uh-uh. 281, 8220561. dogs and cats with the rain are going to be afraid to go outside. They're going to have accidents inside. And then when they go outside, they're going to bring in some mud and the wet stuff into your house. No, no, no. 281, 8220561 to have your carpets look and smell their very best. Plus, they'll do a great job with your air ducts if you haven't had those cleaned in a while.
Starting point is 02:05:46 And they'll also take care of your towel and grout cleaning too because you have no business trying to do that yourself. 281-8220561 and online. Oopsteam.com. is Bunby and my wife is the biggest fan of the whitest man in America Matt Thomas Matt Thomas
Starting point is 02:06:01 Rackless Ratchet and don't give a Frike DJ Kallis Josh Your favorite DJ Khalid song
Starting point is 02:06:15 All of them Same Brandon was like Which one do you want to play Coming back from the break? I'm like, it doesn't matter. Just spin it. Hmm.
Starting point is 02:06:27 How about all I do is win? He's a DJ, right? Yeah. Look, nobody really knows what DJ Khalid does. He yells his name like five times at the beginning of song. He doesn't rap. He doesn't make the beats.
Starting point is 02:06:39 He's like the NCAA. DJ Khalid is the NCAA of music. Nobody really knows what he does, but he makes a lot of money. Now, you know, when we go to Vegas, we occasionally see billboards. It'll say,
Starting point is 02:06:53 come see Donnie Marie or come see Metallica or come see X, Y, Z, Jerry Seinfeld. There'll be signs that will say come see this DJ at this club. I didn't think that was a game,
Starting point is 02:07:10 but it is a game. People will go to hear someone spin records. Yeah, there's a skill to, well, it depends. There is a skill. I'm not going to argue that.
Starting point is 02:07:20 I will not argue that. that at all. But it just seems incredible to me that somebody would put a billboard up for that because that billboard doesn't pay for itself. So you're going to have to obviously charge a lot of people to come to this club to see this person spend records. Well, if, well, if you're in Vegas and it's one of those EDM DJs and you want to see smoking hot girls who want are going to go out, you go to one of those. Should we, when we go to Vegas, and we go chaperone Cameron at 21, should we go to one of those clubs? I don't think he wants to go to the, club with you. I'll go with him.
Starting point is 02:07:53 By the way, you're closer to my age and he is than you are to him. Wait, what now? How old are you? 35. I'm 48. So we're 13 years apart. Okay, and I am 15 apart from him? Yes. So, okay. I'm about in between. Not in between.
Starting point is 02:08:10 You're way closer to me. 13 and 15, as it close? It'd be 16 by the time next summer comes around. Time doesn't Matt. I get older and you get older and he does. No. Time doesn't stop for one. I get, let's help you see it. I don't get older. I just get sex here.
Starting point is 02:08:24 Okay, whatever you need to tell yourself. By the way, you've been to a DJ Khalid set. When? In 2000 and, geez, when we went to 2017? Maxen Party? That's correct. All he did was just play the songs that he doesn't even do and just scream DJ Khalid's. So let me give you my quick observations of Max and Party.
Starting point is 02:08:49 Okay. incredibly hot women with really unattractive men I think they bust in strippers profoundly unattractive men I will maintain for the rest of my life
Starting point is 02:09:03 they bust in strippers and then I'm going to tell you something and I have to protect names on this part we met up with someone that we know and work with sort of work with well they're in the media they're in the media
Starting point is 02:09:17 How do I sell how do I care? Was it Joe McLean? No. That thought his blank didn't stink. Because he had a date with another media personality. Oh, wow. You just need to pull the parachute on this. Who clearly thought her blank didn't stink.
Starting point is 02:09:42 Okay, so it was two incredibly egotistical media personalities. The girl could give two blanks that she was introducing, that this guy was introducing us to her. And this guy who will really remain nameless, Ross, gives me the bro hug and says, hey, can you hook me up with some rocket tickets? That's the Maxim party. Oh, do you remember that we accidentally got into VIP?
Starting point is 02:10:16 We didn't accidentally. We went in there just. Well, we didn't know what our wristbands meant. We went into VIP. So once you got into VIP, we're like, we can't leave because we can't get back in. they're checking wristbands now. So we just stayed in VIP the entire night. And paid a large amount for Uber ride, right?
Starting point is 02:10:31 Yeah, it was a price of Uber. From downtown to out to Smart Financial, yeah. Yeah. See, y'all hang out with MT and Ross once in a while. Things, fun things can happen. It was a good night. We can hang out with diva media personalities, and we get into VIP areas where we're not supposed to be.
Starting point is 02:10:44 Yes. And watch nothing but sexy nines and tens hanging out with twos and threes that were double their age. A lot of times, this is why I think they bust in strippers. Because there was like eight or nine hot girls just by themselves, like not talking to anybody. There was multiple pockets of that. Multiple. I think they just bust in stripper. And they all knew each other.
Starting point is 02:11:03 And some of them had a lot of tats. So I just feel like it's strippers. Five minutes left to go on the show. What should we do? We should play America's fastest growing sports game. Should we simply call it believe it or not? And here's how it works. You'll call 713212-5-790.
Starting point is 02:11:21 7-1-3-2-1-2-5-5. 790. Today's edition of Believe or Not is brought to you by Woodhouse Day Spas Purs. Print out your gift car for the gift of relaxation in Houston Woodhouse Spas dot com. The category today is all things about Aubrey Huff, the subject of today's Spolt's
Starting point is 02:11:36 M.T. Theater. I'll read you the statement about the former major leaguer. Statements completely and utterly accurate, you'll say this. Believe it. If it's erroneous football can made up, you will say this. Not. Two, believe it or not, it's in her own. All things, Aubrey Huffin win your prize. Ross, what's the prize?
Starting point is 02:11:51 Well, Matthew, we have a 50 gift card to Hooters restaurants. We can give away two today. I'm a buffalo chicken sandwich guy myself, perhaps a three-mile island, with some blue... I get a little fancy, I ask for blue cheese crumbles. And the fried pickles with the spicy ranch. Yeah, delicious.
Starting point is 02:12:08 Let's play. Ron on 790, Ron, you ready to play, believe it or not? Oh, believe it. Aubrey Huff was an accomplished quarterback in high school. He had offers from several Division I schools. Believe it or not. Believe it. No, no.
Starting point is 02:12:25 Did he ever throw a pass in high school ever? You don't know. Ross has made it up. Line number two. Jeremiah on 790. Jeremiah, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Aubrey Huff played his high school baseball at UC Santa Barbara,
Starting point is 02:12:39 where he shares the record for most hits in a sink. Did I put high school? I'm sorry. I'm sorry, college, where he shares the record for most hits in a game was six. Believe it or not. Believe it. No, Ross made that up, too. He went to my head.
Starting point is 02:12:53 And, Ross, you got a two-for-two so far. Nice work. Paul on 790, ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Aubrey Huff played 13 seasons in the major leagues, and never, I repeat, never, men an all-star team. Believe it or not? Believe it. Statement number two for the win. Aubrey Huff briefly hosted a morning sports radio show with Rick Buecker on 95-7,
Starting point is 02:13:21 the game in the Bay Area. Believe it or not. Believe it. That's a win. How was the show? It lasted about eight months. I wonder what Deucey Programme put that up. Oh, I think I knew who did.
Starting point is 02:13:37 7-1 now as a consultant. John on 790, John, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. During the 2008 season, Aubrey Huff filed a grievance against the Baltimore Orioles, allegedly alleging the team doctors mishandled a wrist injury. Believe it or not? Not. Statement number two for the win.
Starting point is 02:14:00 In 2006, Aubrey Huff led the American League in times hit by pitch. He had 14 of them. Believe it or not? Believe it? No, I'm sorry. It's not a very believable, though. Let us continue. Line number 5. Tony on 790.
Starting point is 02:14:18 Tony, you ready to play, believe it or not? In 2017, Aubrey Huff released a book called Baseball junkie, which detailed his career and his struggles with drug addiction and depression. Believe it or not? Not. Believe it. I've said it once, said a thousand times you've got to know what baseball players wrote books
Starting point is 02:14:37 and what the title of those books were called. Last one belongs to Mark on 790. Mark, you're ready to play, believe it or not? No, I'm not. I'm sorry. Thank you. Appreciate it. At least he was honest.
Starting point is 02:14:48 And that'll end the show. Adam Wexler. I wish they would start booking guests on their show. I mean, they can't get a Dennis Dodd on the show. I don't know what the purpose that radio show is. Wex, you got anything going on your show today? Anything normal? Yes, appreciate the time to note that.
Starting point is 02:15:07 We did have Dennis Dodd on about a month ago, but your interview was very good because things have changed. And Carlos Correa will be with us at 4 o'clock. 4 o'clock. Carlos freaking Correa! All with Wexler and Clanton, they're known as the A team, and they're up next on Sports Talk 7-9.
Starting point is 02:15:26 I'm going to be.

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