The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - The Matt Thomas Show 1-14-20

Episode Date: January 14, 2020

The Matt Thomas Show w/ @SportsMT, @SportsRV, and @ProNickLow 1/14/20Jake Kaplan Discusses The Astros Punishment and Firings (22:47)Who do the Astros hire as Manager and GM? (34:32)Aaron Reiss Discusses Bill O'Brien Maintaining Control of The Texans (1:05:14)Pete Rose weighed in on the Astros Cheating (1:44:23)

Much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas show. 1201 in H-town. It is the Matt Thomas show. What's happening? Lunch timers. We come to you today from Memphis and from Houston.

What have I got to do to make you care? Fans, sponsors, community. and the city to all be proud. With that being said, there's two very important points I want to make today. I have higher standards for the city and the franchise, and I'm going above and beyond MLB's penalty. Today, I have made the decision to dismiss

A.J. Hinch and Jeff Loon out. We need to move forward with a clean slate, And the Astros will become stronger, a stronger organization because of this today. You can be confident that we will always do the right thing and will not. Quickly look for someone to manage the team as soon as we get out of here today. Certainly we have possibilities internally. We'll also look outside. The baseball operation I will oversee.

We have a number of capable guys that can run that operation. A number of them were interviewed for GM spots, one in particular. And so we'll sit down today and start working on that and move us. Listen, it's a stiffest penalty that any team has ever taken or given. And we accept that. We're going to move forward in a positive way. I'll let the commissioner determine how I hand it. and it's getting more and more

I'm sorry So sad Yeah, why can't we talk about Oh, it seems to me Oh, we're going to Oh yeah, we are It's a show Sports RV

Sometimes I'm sorry It's the hardest word And I think the Astros You're saying sorry The Astros are I'm not man for To who? I don't care

Oh my God What a mess. I mean, I was preparing myself for the worst of suspensions for the general manager. I was prepared for loss of draft picks. I was prepared for a suspension for AJ Hinge. I was prepared for a fine and a loss of draft picks. I was ill prepared for the manager and the general manager to be fired. And the worst part of it is I told you yesterday on your very successful nightcap show. Hugely successful. Well, let's not over embellish that here.

I was at about 23,000 feet over southeast Texas somewhere heading up here to Memphis when I found that part out. That was the one that was the bomb show. So how was the back half of the show yesterday, Sports Harvey? The Matt Thomas show? Yeah. It was good. I mean, actually, the whole thing with the dismissal of Jim Crane, I mean, the dismissal of Jun Crane, I mean, the dismissal of Luno and Hinch happened while we were on air. Nick Lowe, our great producer, just got in my ear, and Adam Wexler

actually was hosting the last hour with me. He just got it in her ears and said, Jeff Luno fired, AJ Hinch fired. I was like, what? I was like, Adams, will you speak for a few minutes? I didn't even know what to say. My head was spinning. That's right. I mean, I guess I didn't think it was outside of the realm of possibility because we kind of talked about it a little bit earlier. With Jeff. Especially with Jeff, because talking about Jeff, because talking about the, I mean, Manfred, I mean, basically taking straight shots at the Astros organization and the culture fostered by Jeff Luno. So that kind of led me to believe that maybe there would be a cleaning of the house, at least

from his end. But reading the stuff about how AJ tried to deter it and he tried to break the monitor and he didn't approve of the scheme and all that type of stuff made me think he was going to be retained and the fact that, I mean, he's a great manager and he's great at his job. Right. But they're gone. They are gone, and we are just left here to process this and talk about it here on the Matt Thomas show. And here's the thing.

I mentioned this to you yesterday after having a chance to comprehend it a little bit after when we got here to Memphis. Save his job. It maybe even save a full year's suspension. We'll say, knock it off. Stop us. We're not going to do this. We're not going to do this, and we are going to pray no one catches us. didn't do it

yeah there seemed to be I mean reading the report it talks about how the Rob Manfred believes if AJ Hinge wanted to put a stop to it he could have so he was negligent and there was I mean some talks about how around in the team they were kind of scared of getting caught and there was some paranoia

and then they thought it wasn't even worse that's the biggest part the biggest takeaway to me Matt was the line that says they didn't even know let me try to pull up the exact wording here. They didn't even know if it was effective at all. Here it is. Some Astros players told my investigators

that they did not believe the sign stealing scheme was effective and it was more distracting than useful to hitters. And now the Astros organization has been torpedoed by the MLB for something that probably didn't even work. And by the way, and by the way, do not go to ESPN at all today or FS1 because I was in the room and I wanted to get the national perspective. everybody and their mother has done one of two things Ross

and I'm talking about every show not just the normal gab fest that you see in the morning they want at minimum an asterisk next to the World Series team which I believe they're going to get now it's not an official asterisk it's just in our mind an asterisk and then some want the Astros to have their

World Series title pulled which again you know how we feel about that when we talk about college championship when you pull it you can do all you want but the memories are still there. But that is the overriding thought. And I'm going to be honest with you, Ross, if you and I were doing a show in Denver today or Atlanta or Miami or San Francisco or any other city, we'd be saying the kind of exact same thing, right?

I don't want to be hypocritical. Yeah, I would think so. I mean, it's, well, luckily on ESPN right now, they're on NFL Live, I think. So they're not talking about the Astros. That would be crazy if they talked about them on NFL live. Let's just put this in perspective. Oh, by the way, pro football talk talked about it live today. Oh, wow.

Really? It was Mike Florio and Peter King were talking about. What did Florio? Oh, gosh, and Peter King? Wow, that's... Well, you know, if it was... Soap boxes in the world for the two of them. Yeah, you know, if it was Floreo was going to be some sort of snide,

holier than now. I'm better than you kind of bar rant. Oh, sorry. Did that come out loud? Former friend of the show, Mike Flore. Not really a friend of the show, Mike Flore. Not really a friend. They wanted a friend.

Okay. Not a friend. Well, he was on the show a lot. Correct. We used to have one every week back before he blew up and, well. And then became. Well, and raised his. Yeah.

Well, I don't care about this. Okay. So let me just give you the last 24 hours of the Matt Thomas sports life. And this mostly includes everybody else in Houston, too, but there's even a little extra caveat to it. So the Texans blanked the bed in Kansas City. We hear the press conference in Bill O'Brien yesterday where it sounds like there's going to be no corporate, there's going to be no team restructuring. And then there's the John McLean column

today that basically says he's got to change his tune, but they're not going to because O'Brien and Easterby are running the franchise, probably more so than even Cal McNair is. So there's another positive. You have the Astro situation and getting completely crushed by everybody in America

and probably deservedly so. And by the way, Rossi Alex Corr is not managing the Red Sox this year. There's no chance. He might not be affiliated with baseball ever when this is all said. He's probably going to get the lifetime banishment. You think he's going to get the Pete Rose treatment? I don't know, but speaking of Pete Rose, he was on with Sean Salisbury this morning.

We're going to play some of that later on today because, from what I understand, it was a very good conversation. If there's anybody that knows about cheating, it'd be Pete. How do you like the Astros World Series odds? Did he comment on that? Oh, too soon. Too soon. All right. Sorry.

So then the cherry on top of the Sunday, for me, is it Derek King and the transfer portal. He's going to leave the university Houston. that. Well, he must have wanted to get away from the culture of cheating that's been going on at the University of Houston Couters. That's enough. Or maybe the guy who takes his test graduated. That's enough, too. Now, you know, you've asked me this five million times that I think that Derek was a guaranteed stay, and I said no.

It just smelled fishy. It didn't make sense, right. But the problem is. For him to red shirt out of nowhere. But the problem is, 24 hours ago, he was in team meetings. Hmm Maybe not 24, 36 Well, he must have heard something bad in the meeting

Or he slept through it My guess is this is Mom and Dad pushing this more than son It would be my guess Sometimes you know You got to listen to your parents, Matt So So let's put it this way

Texans Double down on the current leadership Because we haven't heard from Cal Cal was going to fire Bobby would have done it yesterday Right? Today. yeah i mean he's

bill is going to i'm waiting for the which friday is the extension going to get announced is what i'm at well yeah i mean because if they're going to restructure everything you you know do some more moving around

we're losing you intermittently matt to say that sentence again we lost you for a couple of days okay i was just going to say if they are going to restructure again then he's going to get more power as compared to less i mean what more can he do

There'll be no general manager again. Well, there actually is a general manager. It's him. It's him. And whatever this Jack Easterby does. I'm not even worried about Nicka Casario, because they don't need a Nicky Casario, and you got a Bill O'Brien.

Well, you've got to switch to Irish if you're going, Bill, Brian. All right. So Derek King's gone. The Astros have no general manager, no field manager, and no president of business operations, although Jim's son,

apparently it's going to inherit a lot of that role. Go Rockets? Well, as I said on Twitter about three hours ago, Ross, I went to James's room and Russ's room. And actually went to every rocket room. And got promptly kicked out, I imagine. And I bubble rocked every one of them. That's not going to help, Matt.

You need flexibility on the basketball court. You need health. And these things happen in Terribles and threes. They better not happen in fours. Well, if it's a Houston sports, it happen in tens. That's true. 713212-1-2-5-790. Jake Kaplan from the Athletic at the bottom of the hour

to talk about his perspective on this whole Astros thing. We'll get to Aaron Reese on the Texan side of things. Pete Rose's conversation from Sean Salisbury earlier today and your phone calls most of the way. Plus, Rossi, as a consolation prize, we're going to give away three pairs of tickets today to see Lionel Richie for a 9-minute-made park. You can watch him play all night long.

Apparently he puts on a hell of a show. Really? Really? Wasn't you here just recently? Yes, over at Smart Financial. Now he's going to be at this Minute Made Astros Foundation Gala event. We're giving way tickets to that. They need some money. $5 million fine. They probably need some positive publicity. That's what we're here for. And I think Lionel Rich you can do that.

713-212-5-790. The Matt Thomas show from Memphis and with Ross and Nick back in Houston. This is Sports Talk 790. Hey, it's Jeff Blum. Blum fact number 14. I was on the White Sox in 2005. Yeah, sorry about that sweep, H-Town. But we're all good right now, right? World Series champion! Back to your lunchtime champion, Matt Thomas. I'm walking with my feet, 10 feet off a beer.

Walking in Memphis. I do like Memphis. I know that I may be in a minority in that sports rave. Great bars. Went to a couple of them last night. Oh, yeah? You're borrowing? How many Long Islandese did you have?

I had three, actually. Wow. Yeah. How you feeling? Great. I went to sleep as soon as I got to the hotel. Well, that's... And then I got up at 3.30 in the morning, so...

Why? Because I just couldn't sleep. I'm a terrible road sleeper. Hmm. Interesting. Maybe you should bring, like, a blankie or a stuffed animal with you to keep you grounded. A blankie? Okay. All right.

I got you on that. But I'm coming here. The food is good. Bars are good. The arena is close. And the guys, as soon as we landed in Memphis, went right from the bus at the hotel or at the airport to St. Jude's to visit with the kids. And that's always a great opportunity for those kids that are obviously going through life,

altering illnesses and whatnot to be able to have NBA players come and visit with them. So it's always a very cool part of our yearly trip here to Memphis to see the kids face. is when the James Harden, Russ Westbrook come to visit with him. So Rockets in Memphis tonight. We'll have it for you here on Sports Talk 790. Who has the Rockets launch pad at 6 sports survey? That would be yours truly, Matthew. Okay.

6.30. We will have the network pregame, and then I'll have the call at 7. Mike Dan Tony for a half hour tomorrow here on the show between 2 and 230. Jake Cap, on the bottom of the hour on the asterisk perspective. We'll get more to the Texans. And, oh, by the way, here's how we're giving away the Lionel Richie tickets today. You will hear some bump music coming back from one of our breaks today sometime between now and three o'clock. When you hear in Lionel Richie song, callers 7, 9, and 11, 7, 9, and 11 will get the tickets to see Lionel Richie at Minutemate Park this Friday as part of the Astros Foundation.

I like this. Okay, what do you think? So all you're going to do is listen to the show. And if you like Lana Richie, and again, Ross, I'm telling you, I'm not the biggest Lonno Fritchie fan, but if you're not the biggest Lonno Fritchie fan, but if you're not. someone said, hey, here's some tickets, go. I would go. And I'm sure, and what I was told, the Smart Financial show was amazing. He's saying his stuff plus some Commodore stuff, too.

So my guess is he'll do much of the same this Friday at MinuteMade Park. So be ready for that. I'd rather see the Commodores for some real funk rather than some of this soft Lionel Richie stuff. But I'd go see it. But my guess is, again, he's saying his, he's saying his Commodore stuff too. That's good. Is you a brick house guy? Is that your jam?

Yeah. Of course. mine is i would have to say my favorite song involving lano ritchie might be easy yeah that he was a member of the commodores yeah that was commodores as well yeah so we should nick we should mention nick nick nick is picking the song nick it has to be he can be commodores or lano ritchie but the next time you play either one of them callers seven nine and eleven get to go to the concert okay we'll do it's a huge responsibility in your part let's go to some phone calls see what you guys think we've got one line open if you want to

join us. 713212.5.790. I'm just going to say flat out. I'm sick to my stomach about this. They got caught. They were guilty. They admitted as much. And literally the Astero's front office organization has been cleaned out. And I don't know who the new manager is. I know that Joe Espada has been mentioned. The bench coach has a potential. Ross, if I say Jeff Bannister should be considered, would you be up for that? Former Ranger manager, U of H grad? I guess so somebody asked about Craig Vigio I doubt he would do it

but I'm sure that Jeff would ask Jim's not asking Jim is Jeff's not doing much of anything he's a little longer on his vacation Yeah my point is I don't whomever it is My guess is they're going to get a one year deal on this So that they can just get it

The spring training is a month away one month away, pitchers and catchers are down in Florida. You've got to get this done quick. 713-212-5-790. Let's go to John and Needville on the Matt Thomas show.

John, what do you got today? Good afternoon, guys. Jim said in the reason about hurting for record that somebody in-house has already put their hat in the

for a position. And I was just wondering I have a couple of things one would that possibly be could read Ryan become the GM of the Astros that he, you know, comes his position. And then also, you know, y'all was speaking to how AJ was supposedly busting a monitor and this and that, and then they did it again and this and that. Well, then to me, AJ should have went to Jeff.

Jeff should have put a halt to it or Jeff shouldn't then even went to Jim Crane. and had a locker room and a whole organization meeting and said, look, we're not going to do this. We're not, you know, I don't blame Jim Crane for washing his hands of it. They were cheating. They're cheaters. No matter if it was directed to Kenya or Correa, excuse me, if he, you know, was the mass, whoever, they were caught cheating just as Edith was caught, Clemens was caught. You know, I'm glad you're not doing it to, they're not to,

spending the players because as Ross and USA and other people said, they thought that there was a distraction and we don't know that. That's you say. But I don't, I hate seeing this happen, but at the same time, I don't blame Jim Crane and I applaud him for sitting there and saying as long as he's part of this, as long as he's the only, it ain't all happening again. And I was just going to get y'all starts on it, but I think maybe Reid Ryan might be become the general manager of Astro.

You're having a good day. Thank you. I would consider that at about 0.1%. Now, Jim, I mean, Reed has still an advisory role with the team, but he was essentially to let go as the president of the business side of things because Jim wanted his son involved in it. I mean, I don't really know any other way to spin it, but that. Reed doesn't have the experience running a baseball side of things.

Reed is exceptional as a business side of guys with the minor leagues and, of course, the many years with the Astros. You're going to hire someone that has run drafts. You're going to hire someone that has made trades. You're going to hire, in theory, you're going to hire somebody that has been a general manager or been at least in the baseball operation side of it. And it may be somebody we've never, I mean, my guess is Ross, it's somebody we do not know we've never heard of. Right. or somebody that's, you know, again, there's maybe an underling in the organization,

and maybe he's going to get the opportunity for a year, but I would not want to hire and put an intent that Reed's not a brilliant guy and great baseball, been around all his life, but it's kind of a pipeline when it comes to that side of the baseball side of things, and Reed was just on the other side of that. He was more on the business side than he ever was on the baseball side.

Yeah, we can just move on from that. It'll be, I think it'll, I would like it to be somebody who was under Aluno, We try to kind of feed off of that magic that Luno had and some of the principles. I mean, I don't think for the most part, there's not a problem with the way that he selected players. There's a problem with the culture that he created around the Astros. Well, think about this. I mean, his lieutenant is gone.

He is gone. And I don't really know. There are a couple other people that have since left. If you go to the fourth guy on the Jeff Lino, Deputy. chart if that guy is qualified to be a general manager. Again, that's the kind of stuff that's kind of out of my pay, Greg, because I don't follow that stuff as closely as some other people do. But, no, I, I, I, there's, there's going to be candidates out there.

There's an assistant general manager somewhere that's probably ready for his, his opportunity. 713212.5.7.90. We go to Jake Kaplan from the athletic. He covers the Astros on a daily basis. We'll talk with him about his thoughts. You guys, come on in, line them up on the phones at 713, 2,1. 1.22.5.790, we want to hear from you as well. 713-212-1-2-5-790 is how you reach the show.

Stop that wave. Busting the wave since the stroves were in the dome. Who are you going to call? Wave Busters. Houston Sports Talk continues with the Matt Thomas show. 1233 at the PM here on Sports Talk 790. Ross Fia Rial with you on the Matt Thomas show. Matt in Memphis with the Houston. pockets.

Oh, do we have Matt? Matt? I'm here. Okay. How you doing, Matt? I'm fine. I'm fine. Okay.

Just trying to, you know, just take all this in. And we invite our good friend, Jake Kaplan, who is a Friday contributor to the show. We love him more than life itself. Let's not get crazy now. That's true. He is a Sixers fan. Jake Kaplan from the Athletic on Twitter at Jake M. Kaplan. Jake, tell us what you.

were thinking the moment that Jim Crane announced that A.J. Hinch and Jeff Leno were both relieved of their duties. You know, I don't remember exactly what I was thinking. I do know I was very surprised by that. I was not surprised by the sanctions, MLB. You know, I thought those were more or less in line with what I expected, but the first real surprise of the day yesterday I thought was crane announcing, you know, that those two have been fired. And from what I understand, you know, not many people knew about it, even those who worked for the Astros until it happened. So it was a complete shock to really everyone, you know,

and it was, you know, he was breaking news to a lot of people at the same time. Do you think he was getting any pressure for? from Commissioner Manfred to do something like this? Or do you think this was just, you know what, this has already put a black cloud over the organization. I need to really cleanse the entire organization, especially from the baseball side. I think it could be a lot of things.

You know, I think we have to remember that Jim Crane also has, he's not the only owner of the Astros. He's the top guy, but he has other owners to answer to, in the Astros ownership group. He has other owners around baseball that have interest in this. And then there's Rob Manfred. So, yeah, I mean, I think there's probably

some components of all those things. But, you know, ultimately, you know, his rationale was that, you know, they didn't, and neither Luna nor Hinch, you know, devised this game, but they didn't stop it either. So, you know, positions of power, you're held responsible, you're culpable for what the people under you do. I don't know if you can answer this, Jake, but there is a story this morning from Jeff

Passing over to ESPN saying that there are some people around baseball that are angered that the penalties weren't severe. Do you have any sources or as you guys got together with the athletic that were trying to figure out what those people wanted? What did they want? Do they want the Astros World Series title taken from them? Do they want longer suspensions, bigger fines? When they're asking for more blood, what would they,

looking for? The biggest one I heard was about the length of Leno suspension. You know, there's, I think the rationale being the teams in place already, the Astros aren't spending any more money. They've said that, which means they don't have much room to operate at the tread deadline either. So if you're suspending Luna through only the beginning, you know, through the World Series, you're not really impacting as much as you could. I think, you know, maybe some people thought, you know, suspend Luno for the next off season, which is really like the next big thing for the GM when they have all these free agents. That would have had more impact.

So that's the biggest one I heard. You know, I'm sure there's some who thought the money was light, although it was the most Manfred said he could do. I'm sure there's some who expected international money taken away. I certainly was surprised, but there's. It wasn't. But, you know, the thing, like, to reiterate, I think the biggest one is probably the Luno aspect, given where they are, you know, in the time, in the calendar and what a GM, you know, the heavy lifting of the GM's job for the offseason is over.

Jake Kaplan from the Athletic on the Matt Thomas show, Jake M. Kaplan on Twitter, if you'd like to follow his baseball insights. Jake, no players were put into this because, from what I'd read and kind of interpreted, there were too many of. them, frankly, is what I'm kind of reading between the lines on that. Are you surprised that no players were suspended as part of this? I think we had kind of heard a little bit of that a couple weeks ago. There were some reports about that. So I wasn't surprised yesterday. I guess it would be difficult to do because there's so many of them. Many of them are on other teams. And as MLB kind of indicated in their report, you know, they needed information from the player. too in all these interviews.

So, yeah, I mean, I wasn't, I guess I'm super surprised by that, you know, but it is an interesting part of it, especially when one of those players is now in a position of power as a manager of the Mets. I think that probably presents an interesting decision for the Mets. But as far as those who are still playing, you know, I guess they, you know, they have to deal with the consequences of what this meant. for AJ Hinge, for Jeff Luno, but in terms of individual punishments, they escape there. Looks like we lost Matt there in Memphis, Jake, so I guess I'll just take this over from here.

Where do you think the Astros go from here as far as, I mean, are they going to hire someone within you, think, for the general manager job and the manager? I mean, this is just obviously unprecedented. Where do the Astros go from here in Jim Crane as far as the hires they're going to make? Yeah, I don't think Jim Crane knows yet based on. You know, yesterday it sounded like he was definitely going to consider internal candidates for both the GM and the manager's spot. You know, I think, you know, it depends on what he wants. He didn't sound like an owner who was about ready to clear out everyone else aside from the two that you fired.

So if he wants to keep everyone else around, an internal GM would make sense because you maintain the infrastructure that you have in place. You know, the manager one is a little, I'm a little less certain of, you know, Joe Espada is there as a logical choice. But at the same time, if you just vowed to, you know, have a clean slate, can you promote the bench coach of the 2018 team that was just proven to be cheating also in addition to 2017? So not that Joe Espato was implicated. in the report, but he was on the staff. So those are things that they'll have to sort out. I'm not sure which way they'll go. And like I said, I'm not sure that they know at this point.

I think that'll, you know, a lot of this week will probably be figuring that out. Do you think it will be, Jake, just a, you're in charge this year with a grand plan of finding somebody for the long term? Or do you think they'll take a little extra time to maybe hopefully find some people, both for the general manager and for the manager? and for the manager's spot for the long term. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if they did like an interim situation. For example, Pete Patilla, who's their only assistant GM left, they could say, hey, you're the interim GM. It's partially a trial. It's partially just a placeholder.

We'll see how it goes. If it goes well, maybe you're the GM, but we're also going to keep our options open. And they could do the same thing with Joe Spada theoretically. So, yeah, I guess I could see that scenario. the manager hire is probably a little more pressing because of spring training being in a month. And like I said earlier, the GM duties, obviously they need a GM, but they're pretty much done with the roster, which obviously it's been a quiet off season on the transaction front anyway. So I could see it going in a number of directions, really.

They've lost a lot of players. The front office is gone. The manager is gone. George Springer's $5 million away from the number that he wants. wants an arbitration. From a PR standpoint, is George in the catbird seat on this? Or could this get ugly between the two of them? Because, you know, that's a pretty significant amount of money that's different between

what the Astros believe his value is and what George believes his value is. Yeah, it depends who's in charge of that now, right? I mean, it's all up in the air with Jeff Lino being gone. So, you know, my guess is that they go to arbitration and the three-person panel decides which salary Springer makes next year or this year. But yeah, I don't know. Do you, you know, over, do you give them a huge offer for a monster extension to ease the PR? If you're Jim Crane, does Springer want that right now with all the uncertainty about the team?

I think those are all questions that no one really knows the answer to. I would expect that they just go through the regular arbitration process and then go from there. but, you know, it kind of adds a whole bunch of wrinkles to everything. And they do have a lot of other free agents after next year, too. I mean, the whole outlook of the team is different now. Last question. I don't believe Alex Cora manages the Red Sox this year. I think he's up for a long, long-term suspension.

How long do you think before AJ gets a chance to manage again? And will Jeff Lillan will ever be able to be a general manager of a baseball team again? You know, I'm not sure how long, but I do think A.J. Hinch will get a chance to manage again somewhere or maybe be in a front office, whatever he decides to go. I think he has enough clout around the game. Obviously, the stains his reputation, but I think someone would give him a chance down the road. Jeff Luno, you know, I could see him just walking away from baseball. I don't know anything.

I have no inside information, but, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if that's the last we hear from him from the DM standpoint. You know, but I don't know. His reputation is not as strong around the game. You know, obviously people respected what they built, but the way they did it, he was often criticized. So, you know, those are tough questions, and I'm honestly just speculating. I don't know anything. Yeah. But that would be.

be my guest right now. Great stuff as always. Thank you very much for the time. We will talk with you in about 30 days down in Florida, my friend. Sounds good. Thanks for having me on guys. Thanks. Jake M. Kaplan on Twitter joining us.

And again, a lot of speculation at this point. What would you do if you were the Astros? Would you go short term or take the extra couple of weeks and try to find a long-term solution? My guess is they find people to run the baseball side of things for just 2019, for 2020, and then go from there. kind of a trial by fire or temporary basis. Good morning, strippers. Shower with the Matt Thomas show.

Wash off the glitter and daddy issues. Time is 1249. It is the Matt Thomas show. A reminder again, we've got three pairs of tickets for you to go see Lionel Richie as part of the Astros Foundation gala this Friday. The next time you're either a Commodores or a Lionel Richie song as a bump. Callers 7.9. and 11 we'll get to go to the concert.

713-212-570 to join us. We'll go on the Texans beat with Aaron Reese at 130. And just a lot of your phone calls, a lot of frustration, a lot of aggravation. That's it. That's who we are today as we are still trying to wrap our mitts around quite a devastating time in Houston sports history. The Astros, the Texans setback, the fact the Texans that appear will not do anything in terms of massive changes in their front office. because the front office controls the front office. And Derek King, for those of you that are Cougar fans,

have entered the transfer portal. He is looking to go elsewhere. Lots of rumors, Ross, about where he might end up among the schools being talked about, Arkansas, LSU, and Oklahoma. Yes. So once again, U of H is the farm system for the rest of college football.

And all I say is, you're welcome. Stop taking what is already ours. 713-212-5-790 if you want to get in 7-1-3-21-2-5-790 Frank and Wes Chase on the Matt Thomas show hi Frank Hey good afternoon fellas how are you guys doing? Good what's going on? Man I don't know I don't know I'm feeling a certain kind of way here Just taking it

I mean it was just a few weeks ago that you know There were multiple teams that were alleged to cheating and using science stealing electronically to get by. I just kind of find it funny. Maybe it's a conspiracy theory, but I'm finding it funny that all the punishment was dropped yesterday before one of the most anticipated national title games in almost 20 years. What's the connection there? Say it again?

What's the connection there between Astros and then college football? Because you bury I mean you buried the story I mean it's a Now we're just talking about the Astros And no one Now Boston now that the consequences Relates but I mean

I think that What MLB That's everything All right I think we're having the issues there Yeah that's that's on him No Let me tell you some I got news for you Ross You know this wow you know what it was Matt

The deep state cut off his phone call too He's calling it about conspiracy theories and then immediately his phone goes out. Yeah, that's right. Trust me when I tell you this, they being major league baseball doesn't care what else is going on in their sports. Right, yeah. That's why I asked what the connection was.

There's no connection. There's no connection. Franklin had to have been happy if they had dropped that Friday on a news dump. You know how that's how the big stories are? Right. But no, yesterday, if you got to your television, say 435 o'clock, it was, yeah, there's a national championship going on, but you wouldn't believe what major league baseball did today. So trust me, the timing of these things, again, Major League Baseball didn't call

Bill O'Brien and saying, are you having a press conference today talking about your future? It seemed like it, though. It did. Did you think Deerick King called Ron Manfred and said, I'm going to drop this transfer portal bit on everybody? Is it okay if I do it today? They're like, how do we properly space out all this bad news? We're about to dump on the head of the Houston sports fan base.

Yeah, that's why I'm telling you. I'm bubble wrapping all the rockets, except when they play on the court tonight. Let's go to Bob and Beaumont on the Matt Thomas show. Bob, how are you? Hey, Matt, I'm doing great. Matt, with asking about the Astros manager position, the bench coach is spotter.

That seems like a natural and seamless transition on one hand. But how is Chris, when Crane says he wants a clean slate, does it make sense that he would go outside of the organization and find someone else? And on top of that, now, what is the, what's your opinion on the difficulty level of finding someone in a short time span? Because it seems like to me you've got to get somebody here within a week, or am I off on this? I just want to hear your comments on that. Yeah, Bob, I think the time frame is right. I think it'll be done within a week.

there are plenty of candidates, plenty of candidates. You get a chance of a major league baseball team, a manager of a major league baseball team that just won the American League? Trust me, you'll get some good people. They'll be bench coaches,

there will be third base coaches, they'll be pitching coaches, they'll be minor league coordinator. I mean, there will be plenty of people that the gym, and I was going to say the rest of the organization, what's left of the baseball's life, will be able to choose from.

So there'll be great qualified candidates. This is not like in college football, Ross, where you get hired as a coach at a school and then you're looking to try to find a staff. Anybody in their mother that gets a chance to be a major league manager, the teams that have those coaches already under contract or staff will let them go interview for the managerial job. That will be the issue. The question is going to be how much cohesiveness do you want? Do you want to get a guy like a spotted who's been around the last couple of years? do you want him with these guys so this awkward transition will be as less awkward as humanly possible? So these are the things they're going to have to go with and in search.

And I mean, if Joe is, I have to figure, he's the leader in the clubhouse, right? I would think so. I mean, he's been around. He's been a bench coach. And I mean, the guys you're going to be interviewing have probably been either fired retreads or guys who've been bench coaches under the wing of successful managers, which Joe Spotted was. So he's definitely going to be in the mix. Well, the name that I think is being talked about a little bit is Jeff Bannister,

the former Ranger manager who's now a special assistant with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He has managerial experience. He knows the American League West. He has obviously Houston ties having gone to the University of Houston. I just don't know how much interest there is. I just don't. But those are the type of people that will be available at this point. But frankly, to be honest with you, Ross,

Alex Corr is not going to manage the Boston Red Sox this year. No, he's not. So there's going to be another spot available for somebody. That's a good thing for the Red Sox can get out ahead of this, right? They can just start quietly talking to candidates because they've got to know the hammer's dropping on him pretty soon. And honestly, I don't know the answer is. How do you think the Mets feel about Carlos Beltron's name being littered in this whole bit? I think they're just happy he didn't get suspended.

That's right, because all players were not. Yeah, then they have to decide if they're going to keep them or, I mean, what's going to go on there? They're probably relieved, I would say, because this will blow over for him. Yeah, unless other teams get dinged for it. I just mean, it's not going to matter is what I mean. It's not going to affect the on-field product of the Mets. He's very lucky. He's very lucky as a part-time player he didn't get, you know, he was under the, well,

we can't ding the players because there's so many of them and why punish another baseball? Because that would be the thing. If you are punishing a player that's not with the organization anymore, then you're really punished, Well, I don't know. You're punishing the Mets in some respects, although you don't know if he's a good manager or not. I just know that Alex Corr is not managing the Red Sox this year, or may not mail to manage ever.

Yeah. I'm on my ways. Is the Matt Thomas show. 102 on Sports Talk 790. I'm Matt Thomas with you from Memphis, Tennessee, where the rockets are taking on the Grizzlies tonight. We'll have it for you at 7 o'clock. Ross and Nick are back in Houston.

if you are listening to the show all day long we thank you for that and remember at some point during the show today you're going to hear a bump for a lino richie song when you hear that song you order call our contest line if you try calling the calling the calling line you're not going to be in any spot let me give you the contest line number i'm going to give it to you twice so when you hear the song at some point today of alon ritchie song you can win tickets callers 7 9 and 11 get to go to the astros of foundation event that has the concert with Lionel Richie. That'll be called her 7-9-11 when you hear our Lana Richie's song. The contest line number is 7-13-2-212-33-99. Ross, tell the audience again that contest line. 7-13-2-3-9. That's for Lana Richie, 7-1-3-2-3-93. Rockets, by the way, Ross, taking out a Memphis team. They've won five straight.

They have won seven their last eight home games, and they're one of the hottest teams in the NBA. John Morant, pretty good basketball player, pretty young team Memphis in the 8th spot in the Western Conference. No Russell Westbrook tonight. He will sit out tonight as part of the back-to-back. Rockins home tomorrow to take on the Portland Trailblazers. 713-212-5-790. We're talking a lot of Astros. We'll get to the Texans at the bottom of the hour.

If you want to mix in a Texans talk point as well, you are certainly well to do so. 7-13-212-5-790. reaching out on Twitter at SportsMT, at SportsRB, and at Pro Nick Lowe. Ross, did you see the article that Jeff Passon wrote this morning asking that majorly baseball executives were mad? The Astros didn't get penalized more, or as they say, in the business, penalized more? I did not see that, no. Oh, my gosh.

What do they want? Do they want the roof taken off the stadium for good? Do they want the Astros to be contracted? I mean, help me out with this. $5 million fine, two, I mean, two, four drafts. picks two first and two seconds pulled. You fire their manager. You know, you suspend them and then then get fired. You suspend and fire the manager. General manager, that's a lot, right? Help me out with this. Anything else they want? Yeah, I thought it was huge. I mean, but, you know, Jake Kaplan, as he mentioned,

we had him on last hour, I guess he wanted Luno to be suspended. They wanted Luno to be suspended for a longer period of time because one year for a general manager at, because it was going to be, it wasn't even going to be a full year, right? It was going to be from yesterday until the end of the 2020 world series. And so basically, for all intents and purpose, for the most part, the offseason is basically almost over. And so he wasn't going to miss a whole lot of offseason time. You're really just missing the draft and then the trade deadline.

But I think that seems pretty significant to me. But I guess other teams feel like they should have been penalized a little bit more. But it doesn't matter now. You could have wanted him suspended for 10 years. He's gone. not the general manager of the Astros anymore. How interested were you when Jake thinks that maybe Jeff may not be in baseball again, that he may try something else?

That actually makes a lot of sense to me because, I mean, his background before getting into baseball was, it wasn't in sports, correct? Yeah. He started as some kind of like a consultant or something like that. Oh, he'll find something. Like financial consultant? Yeah, he's got an NBA from Northwestern. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Look, Jeff's successful. Just, I don't know. I felt like a little bit of his statement was like, I didn't cheat, I didn't know about this. Everybody in the field knew about it except me, and I'm sorry, it's on my watch, but I'm being unfairly railroaded on this.

Yeah, here's according to Wikipedia, prior to baseball, he worked as an engineer, a management consultant, technology entrepreneur, and worked for a consulting firm. And as general manager and vice president, of marketing for pet store.com. So maybe we get some doggy treats or something out of this. Yeah, I don't know.

Whatever he wants to do, he's going to be successful. The man's very smart. But I think lessons have been learned especially, I'm both the gentlemen. Five years from now, if we went and got coffee with Jeff Leno, he would, he'd come correct and say, man, we lost control of this. Maybe not. And I know AJ would for sure. Yeah, AJ would.

I don't know if Jeff would, just saying. Yeah, you know. All right, let's go to some phone calls. We've got a lot of folks that want to talk. We'll start today with this. hour with David and Vegas on 7-90. Good, David. What's going on, my friend? Hey, there. Happy New Year. A little late, but hey, first time I'm called this year. The question I wanted to ask you, Matt, ever since this first came up, is sort of what,

how do they ever think they were going to be able to get away with us? I mean, players, I know, you know, who it was this time, but, I mean, players leave teams all the time and go play for other teams and we'll have different loyalties and so on. You got that many guys in on it. whatever gave them the idea that this wasn't going to come out when somebody, but someone left the team, other fires or anybody else. And then the second question is, if Luno's really, not Luno, I'm sorry, Alex Cora is really kind of the villain in this thing, which is the way it smells to me, if there any insight you can give me on the personality or character of Alex Cora

that might explain why he would be so arrogant or oblivious to think he could cook this thing up and have the conspiracy not break if someone. point. I mean, that's to sort of my question. All right, thank you, David. I'm going to probably try to answer in both questions with one answer. Ross, the boys' club of professional athletes is a small private club. There's a

philosophy of what happens in the dugout, what happens in the clubhouse, what happens on the road, what happens during off-season workouts, stays with the boys. That's what I think, Alex Corey thought, I thought members of the Astros organization thought, anybody involved with this? is that we're doing this, but because nobody snitches,

we're not going to ever get caught. Yeah, I think there's some of that. And, I mean, that's the reason A.J. Hinch didn't go to the higher-ups, and maybe he should have. But, I mean, if you're going to look at to why, how A.J. Hinch allowed this to happen for as long as it did, it's because of that code. I think it's 95% code.

I think it is, and that somebody broke the code. Now, Mike fires. Mike Fires, not somebody, Mike Fires, too. And then you also, you know, you also had probably people, Ross, that were fired members of the baseball operation side. I'm not talking about, you know, Brandon Tomlin, but I'm talking about just general people, scouts, anybody that's involved in the baseball side that were ready to chirp too, that when Major League Baseball called them, they were ready to corroborate what was being

done on the baseball field, maybe X employees, maybe somebody else. but the code of we're baseball players what happens in these walls never leaves it's just inaccurate and we have a great example of that that's what i think happened is that Alex Cora old school baseball player been around the sport probably since he was 15 16 17 years old thought whatever they were doing oh by the way the talk you know the shows the talk you know the female show they're doing a story on the Astros cheating scandal right now. Literally right now? I'm not lying to you. I cannot

believe, I have it on my TV and I don't I'm not watching, but they're showing exactly what happened. The talk is talking about this. So that's like the rip-off view, right? Yeah, it's a CBS's view of the version of the view. They have much less anger towards each other

though they actually like each other in that show. I cannot believe the show is Sharon Osborne and the dancing with the and Marie Osmond and the dancing with the stars girl. They're talking about this right now. Holy smokes. What's next?

Rachel Ray Ross? Are the real hobeswise of Atlanta going to break this down? What does Giata Laurenitis have to say about this? That's what I really want to know. Oh my God. This is so, Bridget Nielsen is one of the girls on the talk today. They're talking about it. Is Face the Nation next? Good God. What is going on?

7-13. 2-1-1. I just saw that. I did do a double-take on that. Yeah, so going back to the original answer from David, I think, Ross, I think it's bro-code. I think it's baseball code. It's what happens in these walls, don't ever get out, and it did. Let me ask you this. As Mike fires, does he ever step foot in the city of Houston again? Yes. And I'm not trying to be cruel, but I'm thinking out loud here. He can't pitch at Minutemey Park ever again. He's going to, probably, presumably. if he's going to continue to be at Oakland A.

Are you sure there's not going to be a convenient way for him to skip the turn and the rotation? Why? Provided he's just, come on, you know why. No, I don't know why. You think they're going to throw stuff at him or he's going to get him? Absolutely. Why would you throw stuff at him? That's ridiculous.

Have you met human beings? I've met human beings, but I don't recall Astros fans throwing stuff at anybody ever. I mean, they did booed Carlos Beltran for like two decades, which was a little excessive. I don't consider Cardl's Beltran leaving to go to the Mets in the same vein of this is the guy that costs the Astros, a manager, a general manager of $5 million fine and an asterisk next to their World Series title. I mean, I think if it's the timer in the rotation, you pitch him. I don't understand.

Yeah, I don't think you would. Just save this piece of tape. Okay. Yeah, I can't. Why would, no, no, they'll figure away he doesn't pitch. It'll be convenient. There'll be some sort of ailment or something. Okay.

I don't know why. You don't know why 40,000 people yelling, screaming at him, booing him every single pitch he throws? What's wrong with that? That's great theater to me. Unless you think she's going to get assassinated from somebody in the rasters. No, I'm saying, I'm saying that it would be, it would be, it's just, it's too much. I think it, I, I don't, I don't.

the reason why they wouldn't pitch them. But you're looking at it from a dramatic standpoint. I'm looking from a safety standpoint. I mean, there are nut jobs out there, unfortunately. Nobody's going to be able to get all the way to the mound if they rush to the mound. What are they going to rush the field with a knife? You're worried about hotels. You're worried about, I mean, this could be, this is ugly.

I mean, unfortunately, mental health is a problem. And there are some irate people that you don't know what's going. I'm not trying to be a doomsday. I'm just being honest. I mean, if Steve Bartman is still alive, we're fine. Well, how did that go for him for a decade? How did that go for him for a decade? You're making my point.

No, I'm not making your point. Yeah, Steve Bartman couldn't go to Wrigley Field for 20, for 15 years. What are you talking about? He had to hide. He's not hurt. But my point is this. It's just not going to be a, it's not going to be a work environment. Mike Fires is going to get his feelings hurt so he has to not pitch?

Yep. Okay. No, it's not a question of feelings hurt. It's going to be a question of, are people going to throw things on the field? Are they going to try to, send things to the hotel. You know, if he's going out on the mound with his name tattooed on his forearm and a question mark beard, he clearly doesn't care what people think.

Okay. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I want credit if I'm right about this, that he conveniently doesn't pitch for the, is he still with the A's right? I'm assuming, I don't know. I think so, yeah. Yeah. No fear. No worries.

And no hair. It's the Matt Thomas Way. Houston Sports Talk continues. with the Matt Thomas show 119 of the Matt Thomas show We'll go to Aaron Reese For some Texans chatter at the bottom of the hour Ross a thought or two on John Heyman

From MLB Network Just a quick thought Um He's a guy who breaks a lot of news And he used to never use capital letters In his tweets but now he does Mm-hmm For some reason it bothered you to know in

Yeah because he was trying to make himself a troll. And he did it in moments ago. Actually, he didn't do it moments ago. He did it this morning. I didn't see it because somebody retweeted it to me. At John Heyman, MLB didn't vacate Astros 2017 World Series victory, but I am.

Hereby declaring my 2017 preseason pick of Dodgers as champions as correct. Congratulations will be accepted. It's a little joke. What's wrong with that? Every little would be the word I would use. Congratulations, John Heyman. You were right.

He's just making a joke. It's not funny. It's fine. I don't think it's that unfunny. Oh, I don't. No one's chocolate. So if some team got a bunch of sanctions, okay, let's see. I don't know.

If you picked before the season Clemson to win the national championship and then it comes out, NSU gets some sanctions, you'd say, hey, they vacated the win. I was actually right. It's like a little stupid throwaway joke. It's nothing to be mad about to me. I'm not mad about it. It just shows you that he was looking to go get on to rub some people the wrong way and he worked. So he wins.

That's what Twitter is. Seems hard to me. If people want to get triggered by this and get all upset, that's on them, I guess. He's just, I just don't like him. Period. Before that. See, that's what it is. See, you got biases.

I've got no problem. I got no ill will towards John Hayman and his lowercase levels. Let me take something right now. I am full of bias. I'm full of bias. full of bias of his lowercase initials thinking it's cute and then he goes and congratulation himself on his 2017 pick i think it's totally harmless same thing with the uh with the with the with the news going with the trash can thing i think were you

tweeting oh my god that was the dumbest thing okay i'm glad you brought that up first of all local tv news generally speaking sucks morning news shows really suck hey everybody let's show you how we'll send our man on the streets out there to find Astro fan who's upset today and they look for somebody's crying

or are coming up after that how we're going to cook dinner for what should you eat during the Democratic debate we'll go to the kitchen next and then there's sausage traffic reporter and there's funny weather guy and there's lighthearted news well Philadelphia TV show

Fox News show, whatever their local TV Fox is, interviewed a trash can. Yeah. I think it's kind of funny. Well, you have terrible sense of humor, so that man can just over. Come on, Matt. Answer me this. It's not funny. Answer me this.

I have to have a question for you. If the Texas Rangers or whoever got dinged for the same exact thing, I wouldn't have a trash can on the mobile, on a mobile wouldn't call in? You would never do trash can on a mobile. Nope. That's a lie. Well, you know what then? I'll prove it to you.

Trashcan on mobile, if you want to call in right now, I'll let you come on the show. How about this, Ross? How about we have Aaron Reese coming up at 130. Okay. Actually, can we pull it up right now? Can we do the audio real fast and you all can tell if it's funny or not? Of the people? No, I'm not saying they executed it well.

I'm saying the idea is funny. Okay, I'm saying correct. But here, you know what it is, Ross? That's right. You've figured it out. We would do it a lot funnier than that day. Yeah, we'd do better. I don't know.

You know what? That's exactly what I meant to say. That's what I mean. I'll amend that. I didn't listen to the bit, so I'm just thinking of the idea. That's what I meant to say, is that the execution of the bit was terrible. Because we've had Ryan Lockty in a mobile. Yes.

And that was brilliant. What else have we had? We had the board on a mobile. That was terrible. Oh, but that we didn't execute that very well at all. But I'm saying... We're talking about Rick Smith's board. Yes.

Or was it Brian Gaines board? I think it was Brian Gaines board. Yeah, okay. I will amend that alive on the air. That trash cannon on mobile would work if it was done well. Right. And if we had... I mean, if it happened to some other team, we probably would have...

Especially, to me, if it was like the Rangers or something like that. Or Yankees or maybe Red Sox. Here's... The gist of it is, I don't trust local TV news. anything right. Well, yeah, they probably probably probably might be funny or informed or anything like that. You know what local news is do for me? Give me my weather report.

Give it to me accurately. And, uh, and attractive one. And have hot traffic girls. It doesn't hurt. Like smoke show girls. No dudes. It doesn't hurt. It really doesn't.

Like when I'm in small city or smaller NBA towns, they have like Captain Ron doing traffic for it. I don't want Captain Ron. It's giving you the surf report? No, like Captain Ron. like the sheriff from the city doing it. When I would do, I would do a college basketball game in like, say, Greenville, North Carolina and be like Captain Ron from the Greenville Police Department would be on the TV doing the traffic report. I want saucy Sally doing it for me.

You know what I'm saying? Saucy Sally? Yes. Not Captain Ron. Or lovely Lauren? Whatever. Bucks and Barbara, any of those? Just if you're going to do a bit executed and have hot travel reporters.

and give me an accurate weather forecast. The rest of it you can have. Renee, by the way, is one of our winners, right, for our Lionel Richie concert. I'm excited about that. We're giving away three. You heard the song Dancing on the ceiling. Let's go to the phones and say how to some folks.

I didn't know what song that was. You did too. I didn't. Do you really know dancing on the ceiling? I figured it was Lionel Richie. No, dancing on the ceiling? What year was that? I don't know.

I probably had 85, my guess. Yeah, it wasn't great. All night long is like playing Hotel California. Everybody knows that song. I mean, that's an actual, I like that song. It's okay. Hi, Tony. Hey, Matt.

How you doing today? Good, buddy. What's going on? Well, I said I was called, talked about the Astros, but I couldn't, you know, or talking about the Texans, and I thought we missed an opportunity to fire O'Brien and get back Leach, at least the press conferences would have been fun, you know. You kind of stole my thunder and talking about the Yelp Anister because, you know, I know he's in the front office with the Pires.

I felt like he would be somebody that could come in like right now. You know, I think he's a Jim Crane kind of guy. He's kind of a no-nonsense guy. And I'm not sure, but wasn't he one of the people that was interviewed before H. got the job? You know what? I don't remember how deep the interview run was, but it sounds like you're right. I don't think you'd make that up. I think you're right.

I mean, Bannister, again, had U.H. Ties, was a long, was he an assistant, was a coach for a major league team before he'd join the Astros. Right. Yeah, I mean, again, I don't know what Jim's looking for. He wouldn't say, and I kind of respect that. He's got to figure this out pretty quick, but it would be silly to at least not kick the tires and see if there's any interest on both sides. Well, I mean, I've known, Joe, I coached him in the ninth grade, and I coached football

with his dad at Lamarck, and he, you know, just, you know, the quality of guy is. And I don't think the Rangers gave him good help from the front office. as a right personnel to be able to win. I mean, I thought he did as good as he could do as the Rangers, but I don't feel like they gave him everything he could. And I just, you know, maybe, you know, obviously I think I'm biased because he's a hometown guy. Sure, sure. I think if you look out there what is available right now,

unless you go look within the organization, Jeff might be the best guy out there. You know what? My gut tells me, and thank you very much for the phone call, my friend. I appreciate it. I think Joe Espott is going to the job this year, Ross, just a gut. Because, again, I think that whomever gets this job, it is very much on a one-year basis. So what kind of, would Jeff pick up everything out and leave to come to the Astros to manage if it was only just for one year? I don't know.

It may limit the type of candidates you may want to get in here. It's a great job, clearly, but I don't know if anybody's going to come here just on the, well, you've got one year to prove yourself. You think it's going to be a proven type of deal? I would figure they would try somebody long term. I mean, they're scrambling. You know what? I don't know. I don't know.

They're scrambling right now. But as I said before last hour, I think it's a great job. I mean, the first three months is going to be a little awkward, but still a great job. But I don't know if Jim is prepared to hire a manager, get him up to speed and get him to spring training in 30 days and want to invest three or four years in a particular person. I could be wrong. But I'm just thinking right out the top first. you know, first inclination. I mean, you could fire whoever after one year if it's a disaster or something, but I don't

think you're going to get the top level candidates if you're saying, hey, we're going to take you for one year. All right. Here's what we got. We have Aaron Reese going to join us in the athletic to talk some Texans. Rossi on line five, there is Trash Cannon Mobile. So we. You asked for it.

We didn't set this up. We didn't ask for it, but we're going to get it anyway. Trash Cannon Mobile is going to join us in about 20 minutes. This is Craig Ackerman. Rockets, get the job done. Oh, here's another new catchphrase I have for you. Good gracious. Good gracious!

You're listening to the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. All right. Rossi, I'm somewhat anticipating, somewhat nervous about Trashcan and Mobile joining us in 15 minutes. We'll see. We'll see. That's exactly what it. It's a we'll see. It's a we'll see moment.

Let's go to our man who we know won't let us down. Aaron Reese, final regular season slash postseason appearance for him here on the Matt Thomas show from the athletic. Aaron, thank you for the visits all year long. Let me take us to the press conference yesterday when Bill O'Brien was asked a bunch of questions. He didn't have a lot of answers, but the one thing I did get was that there will not be any sort of massive restructuring that he kind of likes the way that the organization is put together. What was your impressions after he said such things? Yeah, on one hand, I think that it's worth you to remind him, actually, like, you know, what he does in public and versus what happens is always, like, things can change, right? I mean, I'm sure at the time of the end of last season, he wasn't talking about fire and Brian Gain and, you know, this team has obviously taken a million turns.

But on the other hand, I mean, I think it's not all that surprising. You know, they, he's obviously been bolden to have this power and I don't necessarily know. I've always kind of thought, why would a GM, if you had the options to go be a GM in a bunch of places, why would you take the job here where you'd have to work with the coaches turn through to GMs and obviously his mortgage in the future and kind of the main pillars of the team, and Watson and Tunsell and Hopkins a lot. They're all kind of in place. So the team building challenge and the kind of legacy building of the job wouldn't really reside so much in that GM.

So, yeah, not too surprising, but obviously it was not what fans wanted to hear. I'm sure fans would want to hear that O'Brien was going to be. get fired not get to hold on to kind of more power than most coaches in the league have. How often do you and other members of the media ask to speak to Cal and is it a fast rejection every time you do

so? Yeah, I don't know how many times like the request is put in every week or whatever. But I mean, obviously when people have asked, it's been a rejection. Yeah, and I mean, I I asked, I remember at an owner's meetings I think to talk to him. I didn't talk to me.

talked to John McLean, obviously. That was the only time he's talks that since his dad passed away. So that was kind of the only time he's spoken publicly. But, yeah, I mean, it's kind of an interesting thing that he's not going to talk. I was talking to another reporter, though, you know, before the game in Kent City. And they said, you know, maybe, like, maybe Cal is going to talk after this game, you know, if they win, you know, because it would be kind of a validating moment for not only O'Brien, but, you know, what Cal bought into with O'Brien and all these things.

And it was over time when he was going to kind of break this. period of silence out of yet. Obviously, that did not happen because they did not win. So the idea that he was going to trot out there after that game was pretty much zero. So, yeah, it's basically kind of understood. You know, he's not going to talk. Well, I'll say this, Aaron, and I give the Texans credit because may he rest, but Bob only spoke really when the team was winning and when you were losing you, didn't get to talk to him.

And I find at least there's consistency with Cal. He doesn't speak in good times or in bad, so I have a little bit of respect for that. Yesterday on the show, before all the Astro stuff hit, we talked about the field goal going for it, and you could justify that. There just wasn't any sort of realistic understandable recognition why you go for the fake punt where they were in the field. The biggest travesty to me, even as big, if not bigger than the fake punt, was in the fourth quarter down 17 when Bill sends the punt unit.

out there when clearly they were in Kansas City territory, down three scores with less than 13 minutes left to go in the game. I don't know how you saw it that way, but that was the biggest, are you kidding me moment in the Bill O'Brien coaching of 2019? Do you agree with that? Yeah, you know, I think you're right. I mean, that is in some ways worse than the, you know, the fake, the other fake pun or, you know, that's taking the points there.

But ultimately, probably isn't getting as much attention simply because, you know, I mean, if we're being honest, did anyone really think they were going to win it at that point of the game? You know, like, after everything that happened, I think by that point, everyone kind of resigned says, all right, well, this game's over. I mean, I certainly got down to that point that game was over. But it doesn't make sense.

And that kind of is one of a few examples that, in my opinion, you can't justify, you know, going for the fake punt because you said, you know, I didn't think we could punt that many times in the game, which they said after the game. Didn't think he could punt that many times after the game. And they needed to score 50 points, which you then walked back a little and said,

maybe hyperbole, and I kind of believe them, because I mean, you probably said 50 because they scored 51 or whatever, but you can't say, like, you know, you need all these points, you're not going to punt and then do what you're talking about there, punting in that situation. And in my opinion, I know if you think that it's more excusable, how do you not have a a play call ready for, you know, fourth or one? And there's a round game at the King City 13. And how do you, especially not have a play call already after you take a time out? It's just like, it didn't really make a ton of sense.

And, you know, if you're going to be that conservative, if you're that conservative throughout the game, in some ways, I think it's harder to criticize you. But then when you, the next possession, called a fake punt, it just makes everything came so much worse. Aaron Reese from The Athletic on the Texans beat with us here on the Matt Thomas show. I'm going to put you in the speculation monitor here. Is Romeo Cornell back next year? Based on what O'Brien said, he's back. So we'll see for now. I'm going to trust that that's what's the case.

And so I'm trying to think, will there be any significant staff changes that you can think of right off the top? I mean, will Bill any point, as he said a lot during his press availability yesterday, reevalued everything, will he take some of the stuff off his plate and trust to other folks? Or do you think that he has molded, he along with Jack used to be, the kind of organization they want? I think that they believe in what they have, they have working here. Maybe there are some changes, but I don't think, I don't necessarily know if it'll be anything that would a rise level of kind of fan recognition, right? I mean, even if you changed, you know, a director of college scouting or something. I mean, that's not, that's not me reported.

I'm just saying, you know, if you do some sort of thing like that, I mean, I don't know if fans, you know, care or notice that sort of stuff. I mean, it matters certainly, but I don't think you're going to see any sort of major changes necessarily. He speaks really highly of Tim Kelly, the offensive coordinator, and believes Tim Kelly can be a head coach one day and gave Tim the ability to call him plays in the preseason and does Tim runs a lot of meetings, which is at least one area where he seems kind of deferred to someone else because of the other responsibility he has.

Maybe, you know, he gives Tim more ability to call plays move forward, but, you know, I doubt it. All right, I'm going to have you get your prediction head on. How much are we going to go? to spend talking about Laramie Tunsell's contract and future and how much are we going to spend about Deshaun Watson's contract in future this offseason and how much pressure will it be for Bill to get both of those guys signed before the start of next season? A ton.

I don't know how much, in some ways I don't know how interesting the Tunsell thing is because unless he's going to reset the market by a million, because I mean, everyone I think kind of knows what the deal is there, right? I mean, he could not have more leverage if he wanted it. And O'Brien only adds to it every time he says, you know, we want Laramie back here. I thought that that's, you know, breaking news, obviously. You don't give up all the things they give up together if you don't expect to have back.

But I mean, he has a little leverage in the world, even with the penalties and stuff, when he made his first pro ball, even if he did make his first pro ball, and they gave up everything just as a saving face sort of move. They have to sign them to a long-term deal. So I think that's, in my mind, that's kind of like a foregone conclusion, Unless Laramie tries to drive up the price to some, you know, astronomical unheard of some number. Watson is a little more intriguing to me because obviously Mahomes is up for a contract extension too.

And I wonder what sort of, you know, waiting game there might be there of one guy resetting the market than the other. But there's an event's pressure on them to get it done one way or another, whether he goes before or after Mahomes. Because, you know, even if they wait, like the price for quarterback only goes up. I mean, the price and most positions are in football. I mean, the price only goes up with time, and given the team-building challenges that they have, you know, if you can get some of that money out of the way earlier, before you're really starting to pay the price for not having these cheap, younger, impactful players that first-round picks can be. That's important.

So, you know, I think the urgency is certainly there. And beyond those, too, I'd be interested to see what they obviously do with DJ Reeder and Zach Cunningham, too, is another guy's extension eligible. All right, we'll leave it at that. Hey, we may bother you when breaking news sets on the Texans. Thank you for your Tuesday visits all year long. They've been great. And we appreciate it.

Enjoy that I think we'll be a very busy off season for you and the team. Thanks for the time, as always, Aaron. Yeah, thanks, sir. You got it, Aaron Reese with us from the athletic. Aaron J. Reese on Twitter for all Texans news. Back? Oh, yep, Trash Cannon Mobile is still there. This could be Radio Gold or a complete disaster.

Astros, buddy. of H grad Tex-Mex connoisseur. Well, is there anybody more Houston than Matt Thomas? No way. Back to the Matt Thomas show. 149 on the Matt Thomas show

in the final hour of the show. We will play, believe it or not. Ross, what is today's category on, believe it or not? Get the crickets ready. All right, we'll leave it. We'll leave it at that. LSU football? Famous Burroughs?

Let's do LSU football. We have not really spent much time on them because obviously we've got a lot of the things going on. Congratulations to the LSU Tigers. Go Tigers. Go Tigers. At Orgeron. Although I think Chris Fowler kept calling him Orgeron. I think he was mispronounsoron.

At Ogeron. I mean, that's how it's spelled Orgeron. But the R is not pronounced. At Ogeron. Yeah. Ed Orjorn. Benardrick McKinney. Benardrick McKinney.

Benardrick McKinney. Benardrick McKinney. Benardrick McKinney. Who lives off Pinemont? Yes, he does. 713212.579. Also, Sean Salisbury visited with Pete Rose today. We'll hear that conversation in the 2 o'clock hour as well.

Let's go to the phone. [phone]. Two lines open if you want to join us. 713-212-5-790. Trashcan on a mobile line. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Maddie Light, Ross. I'm a little disappointed, Matt.

You know this is going to be Radio Gold, and of course I'm going to hold for 20 minutes for you. You invoke the name of Traskan on a mobile. But I don't know much anymore these days. So our 94-95 championship from all my Dallas buddies, they remind me that we only won those because Jordan was deciding to play baseball. And then, of course, 2017 now.

I've had to mute all of my Dallas contacts. Really, the only thing I know anymore about the sports world is the best thing to come out of Dallas is I-45 South. But I did want to call in since you guys invoked trash can on the mobile. And Matt, I do appreciate you broadening your horizons and taking this call here. Ross, what do you want to ask him? Well, did trash can, I guess just take us through this whole thing? How did you start at Mint, May? Did you have any previously stops?

I mean, were you anywhere else before going to Minute Maid? And then just take us through up to where this whole scandal started. Well, because I am a trash can, I spend most of my time in Dallas. There's plenty of work to be done up there. But made my way down, you know, made my way down to Minutemate Park because that's where from real baseball was being played. And it kind of snowballed from there. So now it's a reputation issue going.

on. So I thought I'd call in and try to clear my name just as best as possible. All right. I'm glad you did that. Let me ask you one simple question. Then Ross is going to have a follow-up as well. How does it feel to be used? Depends on who's doing they're using. You know what I'm saying, Matt? Well, unfortunately, it was the guys in the Astros dugout. Well, see, here's the, okay, so because I'm a trash can on a mobile, fill me in on this here. I understand it's the technology of steel. signs. I understand baseball.

I've coached it. I'm instructional. We've got three boys. I get the game of baseball. Where was the actual infraction? I mean, were these, who was recording what? And why was it, why were we just the only ones that

had the ability to do so? You have three little trash can babies? You have three little trash can boys? Little ones? Yeah, they're now all grown up. They're kind of BFI-sized dumpsters. They grew up from wastebaskets to BFI dumpsters.

That's beautiful. That is beautiful. They grow up quick. They do grow up. I have a sophomore in college. You left today. I understand these things. Other teams will, other,

here's the thing, you had extra cameras put into place, as you know, because you were a part of it. You had a relay system of some sort, especially with guys at second base and whatnot. So, you know, there's just a variety of different things that it was a finely-tuned system involving players and technology and the ability to do it very quickly using your can. Actually, not using your can, using you.

And that's why I asked you, how does it feel to be used? Well, you're going to. Because, you know, litigation, they're going to complete the fifth in this case. But the aster's will be back, and it hurts. It creates some hotburn. And then real quick on a side note, now once you guys go, I've got to get back to work,

head back up to Dallas, plenty of work to be done up there. Maddie, my favorite call that I've heard was your free chicken sandwich call in the fourth quarter a couple weeks back at the Rockets game. I love it, Bubble. Thank you, buddy. Thank you, Trash Cannon, Will. The free chicken bit, Ross, are our friends of Chick-fil-A? It's becoming legendary.

It's growing. There's nothing like the energy of a TOTUS and our crowd in the fourth quarter of a 30-point blowout than watching a pair of free throws a pair of free throws missed by another team. It's high drama. I love it. Trash can, he sounded subdued.

Yeah. Did you notice that? He used and he didn't really understand the whole breadth of the situation and why this was, you know, happening to the Astros. But that's okay. He's just a trash can.

Yeah, he doesn't know these types of things. Let's go to Brian and Edo before the top of the art. Brian, how are you, sir? Hey, good afternoon, M.T. And happy New Year to you and Ross. I haven't talked to all since. Thank you.

Hey, real quick. I think the first quick question, you may not know the answer, and it may not change. And I know it's not that big of a deal, but it is kind of a prestigious award to get to manage, say, the All-Star game. I'm guessing that goes to whoever manager X is for the Astros? Or do we think that's something that MLB could take away? and just say based on, you know, your organization's performance, you guys don't get that. I mean, I know it's not specifically to A.J. Hinch since he's no longer there. Right.

My guess is this. It'll be one of two things. It'll be one of two things. It'll either be Aaron Boone or they will make a special provision to say whoever the manager is of the best record at a certain length of time like they do in the NBA. but I don't even know if that's been addressed because it's so far in the in the calendar but that's a great question what would you do Ross if I gave you the title of commissioner would you give it to Aaron Boone to do it or would you give it to the manager of the best record say by July 1st Aaron Boone that's what I was thinking to I'd give it to Aaron Boone so Brian my guess is and no one's

had brought it up I would think I don't think you'd give it to Joe a spot or whomever the manager I don't I don't think that would be the case That would be really odd, would it not? No, I totally agree. And I think all the questions they would get would be, you know, not about, you know, hey, this is your first All-Star game as a manager, all that stuff. I think it would be, what was your role? What did you know?

Right, right, right, right. You know, there was just something I thought about, you know, I was like, I wonder how they're going to handle that, you know, if they would just give it to Aaron Boone's, like, well, they were the CS runner-up, so just to cut down on it. you know, or how that would work. But I think Espada, with the current group of guys we have, I think Espada would probably be the best.

I know he wasn't there on the 2017 team, but I think with his current group of guys, I think it was all about, you know, the clubhouse and that. And I think that's why AJ was so good with these guys is because it was, you know, everybody loved to play for him. And my guess is that Espada is probably very similar to that. So with your pregnant, and I wonder if that would have maybe help in terms of keeping Springer around saying,

well, I feel comfortable with a spotta, you know, I don't know how, you know, I know Jim Bowden mentioned Bruce Bochy. I don't know if he would want to get back into it. I know it's just the name being thrown out there.

Yeah. Or if they even go and look at like a Brad Osmith or somebody like that. I mean, I know he's already had two failed manager attempts, but. Yeah, good stuff. But I think if Spada would be the guy.

to go with. Yeah, from a comming, from a cohesiveness standpoint, and I've told you guys this, I think a clubhouse, very volatile time, my guess is Jim will call Alex and say, is Joe worthy of it? And I think Alex will be willing to give him a true honest answer. Final hour of the Matt Thomas show, more of your phone calls.

We'll hear from Pete Rose to join Sean earlier today. We've got to believe it or not to get to as well. 713-212-5-790. If you'd like to join us, two lines. It's open 713212-5-790. This is the Matt Thomas Show. It is 202 on Sports Talk. 790, the final hour.

The Matt Thomas show here from Memphis. Rockets and Grizzlies tonight. As the Rockets will go without Russell Westbrook, he will rest because tomorrow night the Rockets take on the Portland Trailblazers. Memphis coming in 5 and 1 in the month of January. They have won seven of their last. eight home games, and they are right now on the eight seed in the Western Conference. Our coverage begins at 6 o'clock.

Ross will have the launch pad, network pregame at 630. The tip is at 7 o'clock, and I'll be on the call here on Sports Talk 790. News of the day, Rossi, really the only news that we didn't discuss yesterday was Deerick King has now decided to enter the transfer portal. For those of our Cougar fans, we knew this was going to happen. It just sounded too good to be true that he was going to just take the rest of the season off, work on his schoolwork, and then be ready to come back full 100%. I'm disappointed because I like him a lot.

Good kid. Really nice player. Good student, graduating. But none of us are surprised. The hand running was on the wall. Oh, he graduated? I think so, yeah. Oh, congratulations to him.

Or close to. Or congratulations to his test taker. Okay, that's rude and not true. Oh, man. I'm looking forward to these jokes for the next decade. Let me tell you something. If he's already graduated, he doesn't need a test taker in the next school he goes to, right? Yeah, so he's fine.

I'll probably take ballroom dancing or something. Good for him. You better make sure the 40 acres are clean. What do you mean? You better be really, you better be really sure. I'm sure all 90 of the players there are taking their own tests, Matt. Every one of them. Tell me about Vince Young's career at Texas.

I was a cool. and high school work? I think it was a Big 12 academic all honors. You think? Are you just making it up? I might be making that up. Okay, very good. Nobody's talking about that, Matt.

You don't have to change the subject. We're talking about U of H. And they're vacated. We're talking about U of H who will get back to Bull prominence this coming year. We'll be a contender for an American championship and certainly in the mix for a New Year's Day 6th bowl game. Well, you said that at the beginning of last year,

so it kind of rings hollow. Well, I mean, some things, you know, there was some questionable. Very bad officiating in like 9, 10 of the games or whatever. How many losses were there? Don't forget about weather. Weather was a factor two on natural conditions. Mm-hmm.

All right. 7-1-3-2. I'm trying to stay away from the asteros for like two minutes. It just makes me sad. Because here's the thing, Ross. We're not surprised by this. You and I predict- Remember how people were getting mad at us?

Like, stop talking about what could be happening. Stop. We were right. It was worse than what we speculating. It was worse than what he thought I was going to be. Yeah. A.J. Hinch, besides being an upper echelot manager, now he was he perfect? No.

Were people pissed that he didn't use Garrick calling game seven? I get it. But he was an upper echelot manager who was, and here's, and I'm really going to peel the curtain back. Do you know that Bill O'Brien is not a nice person? Go ask his employees. He's not nice. Did you read McLean's column today? There are people in that organization that have to walk on eggshells because he's just not nice.

And usually, unfortunately, sometimes good things happen to bad people. In his particular case, very average things happen to bad people. Who fuck you, fuck you. I wish he was nicer, but maybe it's impossible. Maybe that in his DNA he just can't be that person. AJ was a decent human being frankly Ross beyond decent I agree

pleasure to deal with pleasure to deal with every week what's that even when we didn't have him on there was a year we didn't have him on he was pleasant well yeah that wasn't our fault that was somebody else

full by the time here nor there his name rhymes with shmadam shmashmada we're not going to go back in the past he's talked about it has he okay I think but maybe not Don't open up out that can of worms. We're trying to be nice.

Let's move on. Well, AJ's fired, so it doesn't matter. But I like good things happen to good people. And unfortunately, good people make terrible mistakes. And AJ made a terrible mistake. And it hasn't admitted so much. So it's, from a selfish standpoint, he's a good person. And he made a terrible, terrible mistake.

And it was good having him out because he gave us insights that, frankly, 90% of managers and 95% Ross don't give to their fan base. Let me take it so. We didn't pay him to come on the show. He did it because he wanted to be a good partner with this radio station. And he's gone out. That's just the truth. And he's gone.

It's the truth. He got fired. And it sucks. And how about this? Would any of you ever have thought that Bill O'Brien would have outlasted A.J. Hinch? Just just, just mull that over for a minute. I mean, of the. of the three in Houston,

Dan Tony, O'Brien, Hinch. Hinch had to be, have that safest, the safest job. It was because he won. It wasn't because of win-loss. I mean, it wasn't because of win-loss record. It wasn't because of decisions. It was because of, you know,

illegal activities. All right, back to it. 713-212-5-7-90. Let's go to, in terms of the longest wait, James and Alvin on the Matt Thomas show. James, thank you for holding good. Good afternoon. Hi, James.

Yeah, thank you for accepting my call. Listen, in 2017, Fred Bampert, he awarded the St. Louis Cardinals, $2 million to the Astros, two draft picks to the Astros, and they fired St. Louis executive, one of their executives, indefinitely out of the game of baseball. I'm quite sure somebody blew the whistle, and the whistleblower was Jeff Luno. So now he has a target on the back. I am sure somebody in baseball said, I'm going to get this guy.

AJ Hinch just got caught up in it, and the rest of the other guys caught up in it. AJ Hens ain't done done wrong, but by the reason, and let's make no mistake about it, all the baseball still signs. It's not a game that you can watch where when they have a meeting on the mound, everybody covering their mouth, everybody looking at it, different ways and it's in the game of baseball. That's just a... But somebody had a vendetta to score with Jeff Luno.

Unfortunately, A.J. Hinch got wrapped up in it, and some other people going to get wrapped up in it. And with that being said, what do you think? I say it's a conspiracy. Who blew the whistle? How did the commissioner of baseball get all this definite information? James, James. Where the hell have you been?

James. Listen to you guys. James. To you guys. Mike Fires started this. We want to blame Mike Fathers, but Mike Fathers ain't the one. It goes deeper. Mike Fives.

Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa. There's been a, there was a nine-page report, James. You can't speculate. There's the evidence. Nine pages, thousands of emails, hundreds of player, executive, and people associated with the organization interviews. There's no more time to speculate. We know what happened.

There's the report. Go read it. If you're an Astro position player and a reporter as you take the microphone and you how do you reply? How do you address the question? Did you guys,

was you guys still inside? What do you? Thank you, James. Do you think James is listening to us on a podcast from like, December 15th. We got James who thinks the Cardinals are behind this. Oh, it's January 14th and we're live on the air.

There's a guy, Frank, who continues to tweet me, who doesn't follow me, but he's tweeted me like five times in the last, I don't know, hour about how this is all because of the Brandon Tobman incident and writers are coming after the Astros because of what Brandon Tobman did. No. No, we, I invite everybody to look at the, page report. This is a witch hunt, Matt. Well, it's not a witch hunt. It's just

the Astros got dinged first. My guess is Ross, in the next 12 calendar months, if somebody's not behaving themselves, they're going to get caught too, and then we're going to have another round of this. Matter of fact, the next round of this is going to be Alex Cora losing his job. Jeff

Loonow. Are you saying that Trump has something to do with this? You know what? I wouldn't put it past him, Matt. AJ, you've become very famous. I have That was a great job of skippering. Game 7 of the World Series was one of the greatest baseball games anybody has ever seen. Keep playing them.

Before I get to hoops. Oh, your thoughts on the firing of Luno and Hinch, Donnie T. We have some bad ambris here, and we're going to get them out. Oh, no. It was MAGA. And that's something that Nazi Germany would have done and did. do. See, Nick hasn't played these sound bites on the show in like four days. He's been busy playing Bill O'Brien soundbikes.

Oh, this is actually me. Whenever you're out and I get to sit in this seat, I just want to hit bites. Oh, you're the one doing it. Okay. I was placing blame on others. Welcome to the world of the media. What do you got to say about more on the stroze? Any more on the strows, Donnie? Story after story after story is bad. It's not fake news, is it, though? Jeff. Blue now.

Now. They couldn't get it on first take today. They couldn't get his name right either. Wrong. All three and were like pronouncing it differently, and they were all saying, is it that, or is it this? Is it that? Is it that? Is it this?

You shouldn't treat people that way. All right. Back at it. And bottom of the hour. Hold on one more, Matt. If Yvanka wore my daughter, perhaps I'd be dating her. Okay. There's no room for that.

There's no room for that. It's my favorite one. I got to play it. We are bipartisan sports radio. Pete Rose talked with Sean Salisbury With that conversation coming up with the bottom of the hour At least a snippet of it Snibbit, a snippet of it

Matt has eye trouble He's having trouble seeing Dallas win anything anytime soon Sorry about that friends to the north Back to the Matt Thomas show Here we go with another 40 minutes of the Matt Thomas show We thank you so much for listening Bottom of the hour We're going to hear a little snippet

about a four or five minutes stretch with Pete Rose and Sean Salisbury from the mat from his show earlier today. Tomorrow, Mike Dantone joins us between two and two 30. Here we go, Ross. Three, two, one. If you have a question for Coach Dan Tony, send it to me to Twitter at SportsMT under the hashtag AskMDA. Well, you have to tweet that out and then I'll respond to that. I'll do it. I'll do it.

I'm just definitely afraid to do it. 713-212-5-790 let's go to Matt and spring on the Matt Thomas show Matt. Matt, good afternoon. Thank you for holding. Good afternoon and a great show as usual. Thank you. I tell you what, I get the penalties, but as I understand it, it was reported in the documents you're talking about that AJ Hinge actually took a fungal bat to the device they're using on two different occasions.

Is that right? That is correct. Well, I don't know if I didn't hear any. anything about a fungo bat but no i don't know what it was but he destroyed two different i don't know how he did it but he destroyed two different monitors over this yes right okay and i heard fungo bet whatever uh what i don't understand and is is the players control over the manager and something like that but i think the players need to be held accountable the ones that identified that participated in it and i know that could be a lot of people

but there's got to be some type of penalty that guy has just accepted this signals for financial penalties. People orchestrated the mechanics of the thing. There's got to be stuff. It's just, you know, because I like Crane. He's the St. Louis guy. And the Cardinals are not behind it, by the way. Whoever said that.

I'm a Cardinal fan. But it's just sad. I mean, I think Lutthau is a great guy, and I can't pronounce his name, right? Jeff Luno. Yeah. Here's the thing. Thank you, Matt, for the phone call. I appreciate it.

They've already said the players got off on this one. They are not going to be subject to any sort of penalty or fine. And the excuse, frankly, Ross, is kind of weird because there's too many of them. Yeah, it's like, you know what? Look, there's so many players and we don't know how involved they were. They're everywhere. And some of them are retired or whatever or managing a different teams. Yeah.

Like, screw it, forget it. It's just too hard. I mean, what Ross just said is the truth. There were two, meaning that. I mean, let's be brutally honest here, Ross, of a 25-man roster, 25 of them knew what was going on. You could not be, even if you were in the bullpen and you were the last arm, if you were a Joe to beat, now that B. Jeannie would be a bad choice because he went with the team.

Chris Devinsky, he knew about it. Brad Peacock would know about it. Column and Q would, I mean, you would not be that naive if this was in play for as long as it was. everybody knew about it everybody certainly the position players and I'm almost sure the bullpen guys and the knot in the starters

anybody near the dugout which is everyone is anywhere the trash can banging which by the way it was done with a massage gun which I find interesting a what gun a massage gun I have never had it what does it look like

it kind of looks like a cake mixer except it's got a ball on it for massaging think of it like that huh It's got like a massage ball on it. I feel like if I Google... Instead of a...

Whisk. I know what you use those for. Yeah, here's the thing. If I feel like if I Google massage gun, I'm going to get one of those restricted websites that come up. No, that's fine. Just Google it. You sure?

Yeah. Click on the first video you see. I'm not looking at any videos, Nick, you sick. Sicko. What? There's video. They're all over YouTube. It's fine.

I'm going to talk to Mark and Wooderbrook. I'm going to Google massage gun. It actually looks more like a blow dryer, kind of. Excuse me? Like a blow dryer. Okay. What? You all right?

Mark and Walterbrook on the Matt Thomas show. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Clean it up. Thank you. I agree. No, as far as managers, first thing that came to mind would be Phil Garner.

I think he would fit in. And, you know, he probably wouldn't have to have something long term. And I think he could get some results. Well, apparently he went on TV today. Thank you for the phone call, Mark. and said that he had not been contacted. Doesn't mean he's not going to.

Also doesn't mean the Astros aren't would be interested either. I mean, God, what does Scrap Iron got to be now? He's got to be in his 70s? Not that that makes it a huge difference, but again, if you're looking for a short term or long term, I think. He's 70. Is he right on the nose? Yes.

Okay. I'm imaging a massage gun here. Let's take a look at this thing. Hmm. Yeah, this is what? Looks like a hair. You're right. It looks like a hair dryer.

Pulsating? Yeah, massage gun. Like, I'm not getting one. Your mom's massage your back or something. I'm going to see if my friends over at Woodhouse have a massage gun. I'd like to see how this feels. Yeah. Should we buy one and try it out of the post-show show?

Well, there's one massage gun for $82 and there's one for $5.99. $5.99. No, no, no. $599. Oh. I'd like to bid $1, please. Yeah, I bet you would. What are you trying to use Bitcoin?

Let's go to Alex and Westheimer on 7-90. Hi, Alex. Hello, how are you? Good. I was thinking Vigio for manager, and thank God Mr. Metrix is gone. What do you mean, thank God? He helped the Astros win three straight 100 plus seasons. I'm not happy that he's gone.

Is Mr. Metrix? Is that Luna? That's Luna. That's got to be right. I guess. Can we ask Alex? We need to talk a little further with Alex. Let me get back to Alex here before you get to the break.

Alex? You're glad Jeff Luno is gone? I'm no. Hinge. Oh. Well, wait a minute. Let's come out there in the seventh. The pitcher's not tired.

His pitch count is okay. He's going to pull the pitcher. Mr. Michael Manager Metrics. Thank God he's gone. And anybody out there at the trees with me calling, please. Yeah, Alex, I got terrible news for you. some of those decisions are coming from above AJ's head. I trust me when I tell you this.

I'm going to let you run get a little static there. Everything is calculated in the Houston Astros organization. Everything. Very little bit of gut feel is used anymore. Thankfully. Gutfield doesn't work in 2020. Sometimes I wish it would, but they don't use it anymore. So, no, I mean, if you're thinking,

making an AJ is doing it was making this Mr. Metrics. Mr. Metrics as you clawing, Mr. Metrix was doing this. There are charts and graphs that are littered throughout the clubhouse that were come, that came from baseball operations that knew exactly how many pitches a certain pitcher could go and when to go for him.

The only pitcher Ross that could tell the metrics to go F off is Justin Verlander. That's the only one. Yes, he's grandfathered in. Correct. We're going to hear from, Pete Rose. We've got more phone calls to get to, but I want you all to hear what Pete Rose had to say if you missed it

from Sean Salisbury. That is next here on the Matt Thomas show. Believe it or not today is coming up in 25 minutes where we celebrate. Are we doing LSU football? Is that right now? Okay. So that is coming up next. 713-212-5-790 if you'd like to join us. 7-1-3-212-5-790 on Twitter at SportsMT, at SportsMT, at SportsRV,

and at ProNiclo. plus our website again is at Sports Talk 790. Between the wind, he hit it at the buzzer. Gilles Fleeve. Hey, this is Joe Green. Sports Talk 790 is your home for Houston Rockets basketball. To a LaMette Thomas show from Memphis, Rockets and the Grizzlies tonight. We'll have it for you beginning at 6 o'clock on 790 with a tip time of 7.

Earlier today, Sean Salsbury visited with Pete Rose. You know that, Pete Rose. and the conversation. We took the best five minutes of it for you to sit back and listen, and here comes Sean asking about sign stealing. I know you're outspoken about it. Sign stealing, whether it's a guy sitting on second base or shortstop or electronically, is there a difference for you and do you care about it?

No, I really don't care about it, Sean. You know, when I played, be honest with you, I didn't want a guy on second telling me what was coming. Because there just might be a situation where he's wrong. and if he's going to tell me they're going to throw something low and away and they throw something up and in, I just got hitting the ribs.

So, you know, I look for a fastball, that's the way I hit. Now, what they're doing down there in Houston electronically, I mean, that's just down, downright cheating as far as I'm concerned. And, well, that punishment they give those guys was pretty severe, wasn't it? Five million

a million dollar fine. Two guys end up getting fired. You lose the number one, number two draft choice the next two years. That's bad for an organization because that's how you build these organizations going out there and getting those good draft choices. That's going to really hurt that ball club in the long run. It sure is. Now, Pete, with that, when you saw what Rob Manfred did with Major League Baseball and the Red Sox are next,

and it looks like Alex Corr is going to get his too. With the electronic part of the cheating, that isn't gamesmanship, it's like premeditated and playing on the rest of it. There's some people that argue right now that they didn't do enough. Is a year's suspension for both the manager and GM and those draft picks in $5 million enough? Or should they've been hit harder? Well, that's pretty severe. Don't forget, Sean.

The managers got fired. Right. Manager and General Manager both lost their job yesterday. Yep. Yeah, they lost your job. Now, who the hell is going to give them a job in the future, knowing that they were a manager and general manager of a team that cheated to try to win a World Series? I mean, who's going to give them a job?

They're kind of blackball from baseball as far as I'm concerned. I heard stories that Hinch, the manager, two times took a fungo back to that electronic thing down in the tunnel and destroyed it. So, Pete, with that, and

if you're the manager, and you're doing that and saying, guys, I don't want this to happen, yet it keeps happening. Where does that responsibility fall? Does it fall back on AJ to say, listen, one more time when we're running you out? What do you do? What do you do if you're AJH? You're absolutely right.

Anytime you have a problem with players not hustling or players doing something like that or players missing airplanes or being late to practice, that's on the manager. That's on the manager. We didn't have that problem since that because we had Sparky Anderson. You know, I don't think the Dodgers had that problem with Tommy, but sort of. when you're a good manager and you've got to respect to your players, they usually do what you tell them to do.

And if they don't, you try to get rid of them. You try to replace them. I mean, you can't have cancer on your team because it's going to ruin your team in the long run. Will you, when they refer to the 2017 World Series champion Astros and the 2018 World Series champion Boston Red Sox, are you going to say, will you in your mind think, yeah, but they were electronically stealing signs? Or do you think that that's overrated? Yeah, I think it's overrated, Sean.

I really do. I mean, I just don't think if I'm up to bat and all of a sudden, somebody whistles or something because the curveball's coming, I don't know if that's 100% correct or not. So I think they're making a bigger deal out of what this really is, you know, because if they were stealing signs this past year, all seven games, the home team lost in the World Series. Right.

So, you know, some, I guess Houston knew how to do it. I don't know who orchestrated that. Was that Eltrane? Was that Quora? I mean, you hate to see guys lose a job because of supposed cheating on signs stealing. So when I played,

but we didn't have all the electronics that they have today. And with baseball's going, going to have to do is either put a 10 second delay on pitches and get rid of all the stuff they have in the dugout. Every time you look over there, somebody's got an iPad, and they got this and they got that. And, you know, just play the damn game. I'm worried about all the electronic. Pete Rose's get off my long guy sports RV is what he is.

I like it. Get off the iPads. Don't use an Apple watch. Let's get over iPads and play some ball. And just puts a couple of. bets down. Well, you know, like we did back in the day. That's good stuff.

Sean and Pete Rose earlier today on Sports Talk 790. Let's go to say hi to Hal and Bay City on the Matt Thomas show. Hello, Hal. Hey, how you doing? Good. What's going on, Hal? I guess Pete Rose kind of led into what I was going to talk about, about they didn't win any of the games in,

playing the nationals, this World Series. And I got to look in about how everybody's saying that the 2017 World Series was tainted. So I got to look at the games and the scores and Houston won two of their four games in L.A. Game two and game seven. So they still had to win two of those games away from home. I don't see how that World Series could be called Tainted. Well, again, I wouldn't say Tainted is the word I would use. And thank you, Hal, for the phone call.

But there is going to be an asterisk next to it. It's going to be the team that used illegal tactics via video to try to gain a competitive advantage. Just like there's many people that believe that the Patriots, in some of those early championship years, when Bill Belichick got caught with a video that there's an asterisk to it. Now, there will not be literally one, but figuratively there will be. Ross, I'm telling you, if you and I went to a sports bar in Buffalo, New York and mentioned the Astros, how long would it take for them to bring up, hey, do you guys cheat tonight? About three seconds.

Yeah. So whether you and I and anybody listen to this show here in Houston has an opinion about whether or not there's an astric or it's tainted, it's the national perspective that you just have to understand it's going to be out there because I'm going to tell you something right now. You pull tapes of the Matt Thomas show during SpyGate with the Patriots, and I guarantee them to you, I'm telling the entire Houston audience about how there's an asterisk next to the Patriots because of the things they did. Anytime anybody's cheated elsewhere, you know, just like with college football.

Players, you know, were given money to stay at schools. We knock them. We knock other schools when they cheat. We just do. And then when it happens to our own, we can't redefine it. We can't say, well, we did it. There was extraordinary circumstances behind that sort of illegal activity. So we've got to deal with that.

Just got to deal with it. Let's go to Benjamin in the Galveston at 240 on the Matt Thomas show. Benjamin, good afternoon to you, sir. Good afternoon. And Matt, you realize that we're in Houston and we got the diehard fans down here. And you know what, New Yorkers and all these other baseball, baseball fans, they didn't like us before this. They really didn't. They thought Aaron Judge should have won the MVP.

They made fun about two-based height. We were never getting the respect we deserved before this from baseball fans. Casual fans, maybe. But baseball's got a lot of haters in it in general. Would you agree? Well, I think people, when it's not your team that does things to try to gain a competitive advantage, cheat, drugs, steal, anything? I mean, it happens with college teams all the time. People bag, you know, I've bagged down schools for doing illegal things, and when the University of Houston gets their hand caught in a cookie jar, they come back at me.

So it's all relative. We're going to, we're going to crush those that we do not root for. So it just comes to the territory. Well, you know, as a diehard fan, I think we're going to crush 20-20. I think you push a little harder when you're doing your reps. If you're what an alvarez, you know, you do, you work on your lower body. If you're, you're, you're getting a little more miles per hour on your fastball, this is a chip on her shoulder, and we're going to come out fighting,

and I'm expecting a great 2020. I hope you're right. I hope you're right. Thank you for the phone call. Appreciate you listening. 242 is our time. Believe it or not, we celebrate LSU football, because they convincingly won the national championship yesterday.

We celebrate them. We celebrate you at 713. 212-5-790. 7-1-3-21-7-90. We'll try to squeeze another call-in as well before the top of the show. A-team coming up at three. Rockets at 7-9. Right here on your home of the Rockets and Astros.

Sports Talk 7-90. Hey, it's Carmelo Anthony. The Matt Thomas Show. Continues. On your home of the Rockets. Sports Talk, 790. Yes. Hey, Sports, Sports, Every.

Beacon in Carmel. He'll be here tomorrow night. Houston. He will? As a member of the Portland Trailblazers. Is that what you're going to do, Carmelo? Is he going to get a tribute video? Wasn't he with the team like 15 games?

10 games, I think. Was it that many? I thought it was like 15. Oh, well. I mean, I could be wrong. I don't know. Somewhere in the less than 20 range, basically. Fewer than 20.

All right. No, I think I'll be nice when I introduce him. Yeah, 10 games. 13 points per game, 40% from the field, 32.8% from 3. Do you, I remember his- I mean, it wouldn't be the longest tribute video ever, but you know. No, there's no tribute video. It's not happened.

Do you, I remember his last game. It was in Oklahoma City, and it was a national TV game because Craig and I were working together, and he scored one basket in that game, and it was on a goaltend. He was like, well, if you, he was like, one for 15 or something like somewhere in that range. And the only basket he made was a goaltend. It was experiment gone awfully wrong.

He was one of 11 and a minus 18 in 20 minutes. Oh. How's he doing now? I really haven't paid much attention to him. I know he's had a couple of spurts here. He's had a couple of big games. He's averaging 16 points a game. Shooting almost 39% from three.

So there was a role for him somewhere in the NBA. It just wasn't in Houston, Texas. Good for him. I wish him the best. I, you know, I interviewed him at Media Day, and I thought it was fantastic. I did. I really got to enjoy him the short time that we were teammates, so to speak. Yeah, he's been good.

Let's go to Calvin and Webster before we play Believe it or Not. Hi, Calvin. Hey, guys. How are you? Good. What's going on? So I just, I guess keep going with this Astros thing. My question, um,

when our players that are still on the team are going for new contracts and they're looking to leave the Astros, even though we don't want them to. But when they are, do you think them being a part of the team when this whole thing went down is going to affect the amount of money that they're going to be able to pull? Not a chance. Not a chance. Awesome. Thanks for the show. You guys are doing great. Appreciate it, Benny.

Thank you very much for dialing in. George Springer is going to be what, a free agent after next season. this is his last arbitration year, if I'm correct on that. No, he won't, if he's going to go strike it rich, he's going to strike it rich. They're not going to say, well, we're going to give him $3 million less of here because he was part of the, of the video scandal. That's really, I mean, I'm trying to think of free agents that would be, you know, Bregman's locked up, Altube is locked up, Grankey Verlander locked up at least with a couple of years.

Yaron and Alvarez has five years before he becomes a free agent. Who am I forget? at this point. Anybody? Reddickson is last year. Yeah, there's just, no. There's nothing that happened in the last year that's going to, or three years, that's going to ultimately affect where those guys land.

Especially in Georgia's case, the way that he has performed the last couple of years in particular. All right, five minutes left to go on the show. What should we do? We should play America's. fastest growing sports game show we simply call it B believe it or not and here's how it works you'll call 713 212 5 790 7 1 3212 5 790 today's edition of believe it or not is brought to you by woodhouse day spasprime print out your gift card for the gift of relaxation in houston woodhouse spas

dot com the category today is all things about lSU football i'll read your statement about lSU football the statement's completely utterly accurate you'll say this believe it if it's erroneous full of bunk and made up you will say this not to Believe it or not, and all things about LSU football one year prize. Ross, what's the prize? Matt, I've got a pair of tickets

to see Tesla on February 26th, the House of Blues, or Adam Ante, the friend or foe tour. April 29th, or Ventioned, Music Center, live nation.com, for tickets and information on both. Let's play. Line number one.

Bryant on 790. Bryant. You're ready to play, believe it or not? I'm ready to play the best what game in America. Thank you, Brian. Les Miles is the LSU Football all-time leader in head coaching wins. Believe it or not.

Charles McClendon, you're right. Statement number two for the win. LSU football players wore purple and gold ribbons on their uniforms during one of their games back in 1894, and those became the school's colors. Believe it or not? Believe it. Oh, sorry, Brian. Appreciate you. If you've said it once, you've said it a thousand times, Matt. I don't. That's what I say. Hi, Robert. Here we go. LSU's all-time record against Alabama, 26, 53, and 5. Believe it or not. Believe it. Believe it. Statement number two for the win. Joe Burrell threw for 287 yards and two touchdowns. Wall as a quarterback at Ohio State. 287, two touchdowns. Believe it or not. Believe it.

Believe it. Believe it is right. Congratulations. All right. Hope you enjoy that Tesla tour. 713-212-5-790. Let's go to Kirk. Kirk on 790.

Kirk, your favorite part of the radio show today. Oh, all your Astros love, Matt. In 1958, the LSU home purple jerseys were accidentally ruined ahead of a big game against Old Miss. The team was forced to wear white, won the game, and the tradition of wearing white. at home was born. Believe it or not? Believe it. Not. No, Ross made that. I'm sorry. Thank you, though. Appreciate you listen for all the asterer's stuff. Mark on 790. Mark, you ready to play Believe it or not? Believe it. Believe it. At Ogerard met his wife, Kelly, on a blind date

while he was coaching Syracuse in Memphis for the 1996 Liberty Bowl. Believe it or not? Believe it. Believe it. Believe it. Who they played in Syracuse played the Liberty Bowl in 1996? I can't recall. The University of Houston Cougars. I was there. I was there. Statement number two for the win.

The first Mike the Tiger mascot was purchased for $750 from the Little Rock Zoo back in 1936. Believe it or not. Believe it. Why are people changing their voices on this game? Everybody's doing a coach old. The coacho. I think it hurts your voice. Start like Westwood One voice guys.

Go Tigers. Go Tigers. Sam on 790. Ready to play, believe it or not? All right. The number 18 is hallowed for the LSU Tiger football team. It began as a tradition of being handed down to players after Maddie Malk handed his down in 2003. Believe it or not.

Believe it. He didn't do an N-O impersonation there. All right, and with that, let me tell you about Big City Wings. You want to watch the Rockets game somewhere tonight? do it today at big city wings eight houston locations and the reason why you want to go tonight because the food's really good and on top of that it's buy one get one a free wing tonight you buy 10 you get 10 more you buy 15 you get 15 you get the drift on this amazing wings sauce and tossed the way that you want to personal favorite is the sour cream and onion wing i can't find

anywhere else except at big city wings they've got terriaki they've got barbecutes delicious happy hour starts right this second they go from three o'clock until six with uh two dollar beer among many of their great options there but remember tonight is the night you want to watch the game in front of the big screen televisions all eight locations have them and it's buy one get one free wing tonight with big wings big service and big on TVs and big on specials all from big city wings go online to find the big city wing location near you by going simply to big city wings dot com for buy one get one free all right we've got the a team coming up next they'll take you until six.

Ross has the launch pad at 6 o'clock, and I'll join you at 7 o'clock from the FedEx form for Rockets and the Grizzlies. We'll have it for you right here on Sports Talk 7-90. Thanks to all of our guests. Thanks to Ross to Nick and to you for joining us here. Back with you at 7, and then tomorrow at noon right here on Sports Talk 7-90.