The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - The Matt Thomas Show 1-27-20

Episode Date: January 27, 2020

The Matt Thomas Show w/ @SportsMT, @SportsRV, and @ProNickLow 1/27/20The Shock of Hearing The Kobe Bryant News (0:00)Justin Verlander's Comments On Astros Being "Technologically and Analytically Advanced" (43:33)The Astros Managerial Search is Widespread (1:04:02)U of H Baseball Coach Todd Whitting Discusses the Life of John Altobelli (1:39:50)

So much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas show. 1201 in H-Town. Good afternoon, everybody. And welcome to a Monday edition of the Matt Thomas show. I'm here in Salt Lake City with the Rockets. Tonight they'll take on the Utah Jazz, SportsRB, Pro Nick Lope, back in our Houston

Studios. And what has been, frankly, a uber surreal, profoundly sad 24 hours in the greater sports world, transcending sports. And it unfortunately

hit close to home as well as a cougar alum was among those that perished. And we'll talk about him a little bit later on in the show. But first things first, I just want to relay just what my day was like. yesterday as

news came out we got to the year the game was at 1 30 mountain time and I want to say I was on the floor just kind of just talking to some people hanging out before the Rockets Nuggets game and that was about oh 1220 1230 mountain time so an hour back where you guys are Ross

and I think I got the group text and you were in it And it just said, Kobe, question mark, question mark, and let's be brutally honest, I said, WTF. Like, we all know what that means. And so when somebody does that, you run to Twitter immediately because it's a celebrity. It's a star. It's a sports star. And I didn't know what it was.

It could have been he wants to return to play basketball. He is going to be the coach of a particular team. Want to be a general manager. I mean, there's a variety of different things. I mean, you could even even thought maybe he got a speeding ticket or something. Who knows? Not in a million years, Ross, what I have anticipated going to Twitter about an hour before tip time and seeing that Kobe, according to TMZ, had perished in a helicopter crash.

And I told the people I was sitting with. I was with a couple of scouts. I was with one of the assistant general managers. And I was with John Lucas because he was waiting for players to come on the floor to get the pregame shoot in. When TMZ reports something now, Ross, in 2020, it's accurate. And I remember the first time that I had to as a radio host trust TMZ, or at least give them some sort of credit, and that was when Michael Jackson had passed.

And I was living in Minnesota at the time. In fact, it happened while I was on the air. TMZ, you can say what you want to say about how they get their information or what they pay for or what kind of ethics if they have any, but they get the information right. now there was a lot of subsequent erroneous information that was put out by news authorities that were frankly they have better credentials than TMZ but not in a million years Ross what I have thought that I was going to look at a Twitter feed and seeing people retweeting the TMZ had reported

that Kobe had passed away so as soon as that happened there were some guys on the floor getting some shots up as they would normally do an hour before tip time. I just took my phone over there and showed a couple of them. And you know, you hear this moment when you win that phrase jaw dropping moment and you think, oh, that's just kind of a cliche term. Jaws dropped, literally. And it was the most surreal, bizarre, sad day as a broadcaster for me because here it is 1230, 1240,

mountain time and we're going to be playing a basketball game 45 minutes later with one of the greatest athletes in sports history one of the greatest forgetting about just basketball but the entire world of sports is dead and he is less than five years removed from playing in the NBA and Rossi this team this rocket team is littered with connections to Kobe Bryant Russ James both in the LA area James has spoken ad nauseum about how Kobe was one of his heroes. Russ went to UCLA, both those guys from L.A. Austin Rivers, you know, shared the same building for a couple of years when he was with the Clippers.

Doc, clearly, as you heard in the press conferences yesterday, there's a special tide there. Eric Gordon spent time with the Clippers, has a home in Los Angeles. These guys run together. Now, they're not saying they're all best friends, but they have mutual respect. It is a fraternity of about, give or take, what, 450 people that get to call their careers NBA in a particular season. And Tyson Chandler, who grew up in Los Angeles, went to high school there, went right from the high school to the NBA, just like Kobe did.

Just as bizarre and odd and sad and listless as I've ever been to Ross in a sporting event in my entire life. Yeah, I think just unprecedented and shocking and disbelief, I think. like you said, I was on the same group text with you, and my first feeling was disbelief. And I think I'm still kind of there, Matt. It's still kind of, I think it's going to take a while for it to sink in. But like all those things you said there, this is just unprecedented from the fact of an all-time great, an all-time NBA great, dying this young so suddenly from something like this, and somebody who has close ties to the game,

who's been around the game, who's affected. so many people who was, I mean, people are talking about how, and it's true, he's basically, I mean, Jordan was what he was in the 1990s. In the 2000s, it was Kobe Bryant. And five-time champion in that decade. That's what he is to this generation of NBA players and fans. And a lot of people, you know, there was a love-hate relationship more with him than Michael Jordan. But I don't think there wasn't a soul who even if they hated Kobe Brian and what he did to their teams. There wasn't a soul who didn't respect his game, didn't respect his work ethic, didn't respect his passion,

and then especially later in life, what he was becoming as a father and as an innovator and an artist and an Oscar winner and all these types of things where he's diversing himself, making himself more diverse. And it's just there's just about not a more respected guy around basketball circles, and now he's just gone suddenly in a flash. So I think we're all still kind of just in disbelief.

Yeah, this will be one of the, those situations that, you know, and you all, we can't get about Ross and me and how I've been around a lot longer, but I don't know how to do shows like this. I don't. The last set of athletes that died,

and look, there have been athletes that have passed away because of drug overdoses or, you know, unfortunately, wrong place, wrong time, the Sean Taylor's of the world, you know, the who's the Loyola of Marymount basketball player that was the,

Hank Gathers. Hank Gather. I mean, but that was even before I really became a sportscaster. You know, when you think of the unforesaken deaths in sports, you think of Thurman Munson back in 1979 when he was piloting his own plane. You think of Roberto Clemente

as he was helping out aid in the early 70s, and that was all obviously way before either one of us. I don't know how to handle this. All I can tell you is that, and again, I have to, because of confidentiality, just respect for the organization. I don't speak a lot of what my life is like traveling with the team. But it was a very quiet plane ride yesterday. And the most bizarre thing of it all was we landed in Salt Lake Airport yesterday. And we land and we have two buses that wait for us, one's for the

players and one's for the support staff and I'm in that group. And we took an extraordinarily long time getting off the bus and getting to our hotel here in Salt Lake City. And I didn't realize what it was maybe it was just somebody was you know maybe they were just finishing a meal or bathroom or whatever the case may be or maybe they weren't ready to let us out and i found out from the director of security from the rockets bryant savage that uh we landed in an area where and i put the picture up on my twitter account we landed in a spot that was a landing spot i don't know how they work at salt lake airport but the landing spot was 24 and all the players apparently caught on to that and that's why we were delayed a little bit because a lot of guys

were taking pictures of how surreal this was that here we are landing in Salt Lake with so many players having so many relationships with Kobe that we have all places land and it wasn't gate 24 it was just some sort of landing spot in a private part of the airport that said 24 to it so it was just a really odd day I don't know how they're going to handle it here I would presume Ross tonight we'll get a same sort of thing that we got around the NBA yesterday where there'll be a 24 second violation intentionally put into play There will be an eight-second call because those are two as two numbers.

The Jazz have not played since then. And there was some early rumors yesterday that games are going to be postponed because of it. The fact is we were already in the arena. Fans were in the seats. There was no inherent danger for any of us to, you know, not be in there. It wasn't like there was a gunfire outside of the arena or some sort of mega collapse. So the game went on, but as you probably saw, and I certainly called it, it just was not anything like I've ever called in my four years of doing NBA basketball.

Yeah, what was that feeling? Like, what was the feeling in the arena and then with the players and all that types? And then, of course, the moment of silence before the game. What was it just like being in there? We'll give you more on that coming up. We'll do a break here. We'll play the PA announcers read that we carried live on our broadcast yesterday. And you can tell his voice is clivering.

And I can tell you if I was doing the PA responsibility for Kobe, which I'm sure I'll do this Friday when the Rockets take on the Dallas Mavericks. His voice is quivering a little bit, and mine would probably as well. So we'll get to more of that. I also want to really quickly mention that John Altebelli, a longtime coach in the junior college level in Southern California was in that helicopter when it perished. His wife, Carrie, daughter Alyssa, were also obviously in the fatality count.

John Altebelly is a University of Houston baseball player. Pass was an assistant coach for a year before becoming this longtime assistant. Todd Whitting, the coach of the Cougar baseball team right now is going to join us at about 220 this afternoon and he's going to spend a couple minutes talking about John because there are obviously lots of different folks that unfortunately lost their lives yesterday, nine of them and ultimately his wife and his daughter were among those that pairs.

So I think it's only right that we try to get a local perspective on this and Todd Winning was obviously devastated to hear the news of a Cougar alum and friend of the program who brought a lot of players to Houston from John. John's program in Southern California. If you'd like to give us your thoughts on this, how you spent yesterday, how you watched the game, how you reflected on a lot of things. And like I said, I'll give you the thought of the arena when we come back.

713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. I mean, the most important thing is the game. Can't lose sight of that. It's not what people think of you, right? But it's the game. Are you leading the team the right way? Are you doing the necessary things?

to study your craft, to put your team in the best possible situation to be champions. That's the only thing that matters. That's just the way it is. Champion, philanthropist, father, remembering Kobe. 1218 on Sports Talk 790. I'm Matt here with you from Salt Lake City, Rockets, and Jazz tonight. And we can get into, we've got other sports things to get to over the course of the next couple of hours, including quite a few things on the baseball.

side that doesn't have to do with the Astros cheating scandal, ironically enough, although there is another managerial add to the mix. We'll get to that a little bit later. As I said, Todd Whitting is going to join us to coach the U.H. baseball team to talk about the passing of John Altebelly, the Orange County junior college coach that was a former cougar and sent a lot of kids from his junior college to the University of Houston. And we'll visit with him coming up in towards the back third of the show.

713, 212, 790, 713, 212 5, 790. So, Ross, it was weird because the game was at 130 Mountain Time, 2.30 back where you guys were. And I didn't know if it was a somber crowd because it was a Sunday. Because, you know, look, the Rockets play three day games a year, maybe, sometimes even just as few as two, depending on television. So I had asked the engineer and I asked a statistician, I said, you know, was this, is this crowd normally like it's like on a Sunday?

Well, Denver's one of the great sports cities in America. I mean, at 2 o'clock on a Sunday during football season, the Broncos crazy. They've got great crowds for their hockey team and baseball. He says, no, this is, Kobe's passing has kind of just put this game in a complete murmur. And that's what it was. I could tell on the layup line that things were tough. I could see the video of Tyson Chandler and Austin Rivers trying to keep their emotions in check.

You had a lot of younger players, especially the Denver side, that grew up watching Kobe. And then you had, you know, Russ, who's out there trying to play this basketball game without his buddy James, who had the thigh contusion and didn't play last night, probably isn't going to play tonight. Those two guys in our L.A. combination. So, yeah, it was, first of all, atypical there weren't an NBA building on an afternoon. And then on top of that hearing word, literally, like 45, 50 minutes prior to tip time,

that one of the greatest players ever in the history of the NBA passes away, suddenly at a young age, it sent shockwaves throughout the arena, that's for sure. Yeah, I think surreal is the word we're going to just keep using it. Sure. There's just, I don't even know. Like I said, I'm still kind of in disbelief. I think it's not sinking in, at least for me. And it's we've never, I mean, I think you brought up the name of Roberto Clemente.

That's really the only one I can think of that, I mean, somebody as great. Like, think of all the all-time NBA greats. They're all, I mean, they're all still here for the most part, except for Wilf Chamberlain. I mean, Michael Jordan, Bill Russell, Kareem, Magic, Larry. Duncan, etc. Oscar Robertson. They're all still here. And even the ones that are older,

like this is just, I mean, Kobe Bryant is in that class and he's in that group. And then now, I mean, he is a worldwide star. And now he is just gone tragically. And of course, with the daughter as well and the other people on board. Just don't want to forget them as well. Just unspeakable tragedy.

And I think you can, obviously, obviously agree with this, Matt. One of the worst things that could probably happen to a person is to lose one of their children. And to do that and to lose your husband. Right. You just, I mean, the thoughts are definitely with Vanessa Bryant and the pain that she's going through right now. And I believe the youngest child is, what, seven months old? I mean, that daughter will never know who her father was, ever. I will have no memories of him.

So, yeah, a lot to be unsettled on this. Frankly, Ross, you've got the, Lakers are supposed to play tomorrow against the Clippers. I can't imagine. Actually, I can't imagine what's going through LeBron's mind, the Lakers' family's mind. I mean, LeBron just passed up Kobe. What was it? Saturday night against the 76 years.

Yeah, there was, I don't know if you saw. Did you see the interview from him? I mean, he was just, it's very interesting and chilling, actually, to watch after it all happened. Right. I mean, he talked for four straight minutes. You know, Matt, you get a sound bite from a guy from him. Especially a guy of LeBron's stature. You get 10, 15 seconds.

if you're lucky. He talked for four straight minutes about how much Kobe meant to him, how much Kobe helped him in his career. He talked about Kobe giving him a pair of shoes and he wears 15s, but Kobe wore 14s, but he wore him anyways, just because it was that special and how he looked up to him and all that type of stuff. And so he hasn't come out and said anything, at least on his Twitter account, or I don't follow his Instagram, but you know he's got to be hurting and it'll be interesting to see going forward what happens there because, I mean, he just passed one of his idols and then he just passed away the very next day.

Just crazy stuff. Yeah, I don't know. I don't even know if you looked at anything on ESPN. I know that Ramona Schoberg was on one of the ESPN talking shows today, and she is very close with a lot of members of the organization with the Lakers and she just hasn't reached out. Doc, clearly Doc Rivers, the coach, the Clippers was, I mean, rarely speechless in his life.

And he was when having to address it. yesterday and again tomorrow night the lakers and clippers are supposed to play my guess is and this is where romaona showburn said today they will take the lead of venezsa uh coby's wife and decide you know would coby want the game to be played uh is there just too much grief uh on both sides especially the lakers side especially with lebron you know frankly it's let you that it's good because of the fact that these are two sit there are two teams that are play in Los Angeles. You just have to find an open date when both aren't playing, but you could clearly find another date if you wanted to reschedule. I think people would understand that.

I don't know. Grammys yesterday were at the Staple Center where obviously there was a huge tribute to that. I will tell you this, Rosson, and we got into Salt Lake yesterday about to 715, 730 our local time here. A bunch of us went to go eat after, and I did not even get to see a sports center, a Scott Van Pelt Sports Center, until about 11 o'clock. your time 10 o'clock here and man it was and i have no relationship with coby um any more than any of you do listen to the show right now we watched him we admired him we got mad at him a lot we knew about some of his transgressions we knew about the kind of uh player he was in his competitiveness we knew that there was some issues clearly during his playing days being a teammate

um and you know there'll maybe be time for that down the road but that isn't today that isn't probably for a long time. I can just tell you that watching 45 to 50 minutes of straight sports center basketball or sports center on Kobe's passing, and the way he not only impacted the NBA with its players, but he transcended so many sports. I thought, and I, you know, we always tease about not watching the pro ball. Apparently yesterday Ross, the pro ball was littered with various tributes to Kobe because he was, I mean, you think about the, the connect the dots relationship, and if I'm missing somebody, Ross,

please fix me on this. Michael Jordan to Kobe to LeBron, right? I would say so. I think that's where the torch went as far as NBA and greatness. And obviously Michael and LeBron will have carried it longer, but if you were to take the primes of all three of them,

they're right there. I mean, five NBA championships. Five of them. Yeah. I mean, scoring championships, the scoring versatility, the All-Star appearances. The will to win,

the all defensive nine times all NBA first team defense which people don't talk about as much. And here's the thing. I don't think, and again, I've never spoken a word to Kobe in my life. Maybe I've asked a question and interview session. Nothing comes to mind.

But my thought on him is this. He would not ask anything of his teammates, of his coaches, of his people in his life, that he wouldn't do himself. I think of him as one of the master motivators of all time. given amazing athletic skills, but early Kobe Bryant Ross wasn't ready for the NBA. He had to work his ass off to become one of the greatest of all time.

He was naturally talented, but there was a fine, you can ask us to anybody that knew him back then. And by the way, I just reached out to a couple of ex-players and a couple of ex-coaches, and they had respectfully sent to me via Texas. I said, look, it's just a little too soon, and I respect that too. So we, you know, you'll hear people talk about it. And we'll certainly get a couple of folks here and there. Matter of fact, tomorrow on the show, Ross, and you're going to be going to Florida. Mark Medina writes for USA Today.

He did, I believe, the last journalist printed interview with Kobe Bryant before his passing. So, um, Uber surreal for Mark and he will join us tomorrow on this radio show. But yeah, um, the early Kobe Bryant showed flashes, but there were air balls. There was poor shooting. There was turnover. there was, you know, immaturity. And then he grew to a maturity level when I think Shaq was around him. And obviously, their relationship was up and down.

There was the closure of the situation involving the incident in Colorado. That it took a long time for people, for him to repair his image on that. And then all of a sudden, as soon as he retired, you know, that farewell year, I mean, Rossi, to score 60 points in your last game. That's how the great to do it. That's, yeah, one of the most surreal. No, I'm going to go ahead and say it. The most surreal basketball game I'd ever seen.

It was unreal what he was doing on his last game. Yeah. So he does that. And then he all of a sudden just tunes off basketball. He's not a general manager right away. He's not a broadcaster. He becomes a father to these girls. And his oldest one, Gianna, you know, is this young basketball.

I believe he has one that's older. Okay. But Gianna is the one we talk. more about than anybody else because obviously she was in the crash as well and she was the basketball protege and they were doing the AAU and they were doing the uh the you know competition all around and so you know and then you had mentioned uh I think somebody of the previous show talked about him being uh a you know winning a winning a Grammy award and in transcending basketball and not you know being a gym rat and staying going to 25 games a year he had to be a father there was a clip that

was just shown on a YouTube or on a Twitter feed a little while ago that was talking about why he got the helicopter because where they lived, he wanted to take the kids of school, he wanted to go to practice, he wanted to pick them up, and because of traffic in Southern California, which all of us, any of you've been to L.A. know that there isn't a part of L.A. that doesn't have traffic. I mean, you can't hide from traffic in Los Angeles. That this was the best way for him to be the dad towards a talent of his NBA career and also be a successful. NBA player. And I had known for, you know, even in his last year, he was flying to and from games in the helicopter. So he had been in this helicopter hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times

with no problems. And obviously yesterday, and this is where the NTSB and the FAA will obviously get involved as well to figure out what happened. I know there's been talk of weather by it being great, whatever the case may be. Just a sad, sad day as a sports talk host, as a sports fan and for all of you that cared to watch basketball anytime over the last 25 years. He's one of the greatest players ever. An unbelievable competitor. Earned everything. Every acculate he got earned.

He just kept coming at you. There won't be many like him. That's for sure. Remembering Kobe Bryant. Matt Thomas with you from Salt Lake City, where tonight the Rockets will be taken on the Utah as we will get into that. We'll get into some baseball. So there's a lot of things going on in baseball,

but I want to, and we'll mix in Kobe throughout the course of the show this afternoon. And again, we'll also visit with the Todd winning, the head coach of the U.H. baseball team at the 220. He knew John Altebelli very well. John, among those that passed away in the crash yesterday from Southern California, wife, Carrie, daughter, Alyssa, among those nine who perished. 713-212-5-790. Let's start today.

with Geron and Rosenberg on the Matt Thomas show. Geron, good afternoon. How you doing, Matt? Okay. How you doing, Ross? Yeah, man. It was a surreal day, like these guys were saying yesterday, man. I was actually going to Luby and getting a gallery with my daughter, man.

And she was on her phone. She showed me that Tim Z is reporting that COVID-Bryan has died in the playing crash. I was like, no, no, I can't believe that. Now, no. So I went to ESPN.com. It wasn't nothing. Then I went to NBA. com.

It wasn't nothing on there. Then I said, well, let me go to Asia. Washington. Now, he's a NBA insider. Let me see if he has something. He didn't have nothing either. So I was like, I said, okay, well, maybe just, you know, people playing on the phone or whatever, you know, spreading rumors or whatever. But then another few minutes, I said, let me go back to Asians.

I know if anything, he got it. I went to agent, and then he posted it. Yeah, he died in the playing crash. That's why I knew it was for real. Just kind of took the wind out of it, man. Just sad to see that happen. That's when I just found out that he had passed away. And I was like, man, that's messed up, messed up.

Then we went to Luba's in the gallery, and they started putting it on the TV, and a lot of people sitting there watching what was going on. And then laid on a few minutes later, and said on the TMZ that his daughter was in the helicopter. And I was like, man, that's just sad situations. I said, it's just getting worse and worse. So it was just sad situations. So I went home in and started watching a little bit of the Rockets game, but I just couldn't really get into it.

I was like, man, it's just, you know, it's just more important things going on right now than a basketball game. So I started watching it, going to the news, CNN, and watching the reports and trying to get a little bit more information on what exactly happened. Why did it happen and stuff like that, man. It's just a sad situation, man. My thoughts and prayers go out to Kobe Bryant, wife and her kids. And like you said, there's a local connection with the baseball coach and his wife and his kids and the other people that were on there on that helicopter crash that parents.

Man, my thoughts of prayers go out to their family and friends, man. It's a sad day, man. It's going to be surreal, man. It's going to be, like you said, you're going to know where you're going to you were when Kobe Bryant was, you know, you know, they said that he had passed away, man. You can kind of know exactly where you were. I mean, I was heading to Lubas in the gallery with my daughter. So sad situation, man.

I was actually at Kobe's last game in Houston against the Rockets that year. I was at that game. And Kobe, you know, he had a good game, man. He's in a lot of his outside shots. He didn't have the explosive limits coming out there to kill his tenure that he had before, man. But he always had that good outside jumper, man. I think he had, like, around about 27 points. If I'm not mistaken, that game, his last game in Houston, man.

And he had a real good game. The Rockets won, of course, but he showed that he still put up big numbers at that point of his career, man. He's just a great, great player. You know, he adapted to his game, you know, being a guy that could get to the basket and explode. He became more of a jump-shooter post-game. And kind of like Michael Jordan did when he kind of lost his exposure to his man. But he's just a sad, sad, sad day, man. And, you know, he's a great player, man.

Competitive, for ralphorosious player. just hate to see he'll pass away at such a young age, 41 years age, you know, and he was going to his daughter's game at his academy. They was about to play a game and stuff like that, man. Just see it happen, man. But RIP, man,

again, to Kobe Bryant, man, and his daughter and the people that was on their claim. Thank you. Thank you, Rod. Well said, my friend. I appreciate you listening. Yeah, Ross, I don't, you know what, when you and I are in 25 years from now, I'm in the home and you're feeding me grapes, I feel like

we'll know where we were when this happened, correct? I think so, yeah. I was on my bed recovering from Saturday night. Oh, well? And I saw, like you said, well, right before the group text, I saw a tweet from Chris Gordy. And I was like, what? Gordy wouldn't put that out there unless somebody was putting this on there. So then I tried to go find it and figure out what's happening.

And then I immediately contact a friend of mine who is a huge, huge Lakers and Kobe fan. that we would get in arguments about Kobe and LeBron or Kobe and Jordan or Kobe and whoever. And I just knew he was a huge, huge Kobe fan and went to talk to him. And he hadn't heard anything about it. And it was just, we were trying to piece it together and figure out how legit is this. And like you said, once it's TMZ, I mean, they had, they were the first one with Michael Jackson. They were the first one with a number of other deaths. So it's not like they were just going to put this out and it not be true.

And it turned out. And once Woj, like, I'm like Girard. Once I saw it from Woj, that's when I knew it was really, really legit. Yeah. By the way, what was awful yesterday, frankly, was the report that all the daughters had perished in the crash? Yes. Saw that. That's part of the problem.

Yeah. There was... Saw that Rick Fox was on the helicopter as well. I don't know if I saw anything else that was flat out erroneous. The initial TMZ report said he was survived by Vanessa and his four daughters. Yeah. That was wrong as well. Oh, yeah.

How about this? The fact that there was only five on the helicopter and then we're really nine. So, man, we got to, we, and I'm talking about not you and me. I'm talking about we as a society, and it's never going to change, but we as news gatherers, and I don't really kind of consider us that. But news gatherers have got to slow down. Got to slow down. This is crazy. And this is, and then this is just a death of an athlete.

I mean, imagine how many mistakes are made Ross in the world. of just journalism, period, because everybody has to run of their Twitter account so damn fast. You know what? We all don't need to know. No one's going to be banging their chest. Hey, I was first to report that Kobe passed. Let me tell you something. TMZ got it and good for them, if that's how they feel that's why they wanted to get it.

But no one's going to remember that. Five years from now, we're not going to be spending a lot of time praising TMZ for the first one to know that Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash. And it happened. True. Yeah. And when you're wrong. They want the hits. They want the web hits.

I mean, their server crashed. I remember the website went down. That was another thing that happened. As soon as they had tweeted it out within minutes, they had crashed their server so the website wasn't working. So people were like, oh, is this erroneous? And they took it down or did they get hacked? There was all those questions as well. Yeah.

And maybe, you know, look, you know, they do get things right. I do know that Michael, you know, and I was on the air live. So I'd remember it being, you know, them being accurate. So maybe, you know, but I don't go. And again, I'm not a consumer of TMZ. Frankly, the only time I ever seen anything for TMZ is when someone retweets it. I don't go there daily to check on things. I don't know if people do.

Obviously they do because it's one of the most successful websites in terms of clicks that you'll find in entertainment in sports today. But, yeah, they got it right, I guess. And then you had ABC News going on and saying that all the daughters were on the – it's just ugly. Just put a lot of extra fear into people front. And then Rick Fox was talked about as well. So just a real, real tough day for those that try to maintain that, you know what, journalism is still out there.

And you know what? Twitter isn't journalism. Twitter is just run to something fast as you as long as if you think you've heard something. And if you're wrong, just say you're sorry. Yeah, it's unfortunate. But I think most of all, just like us, I mean, we were like, okay, TMZ has this, but we don't know if this is official, official. So I think most of us know that we're not going to run with the first thing that we see. That's right. 713-212-5-790.

We're going to come back, and Nick, why don't you come out of the break with the PA announcer in Denver and how he announced the passing because we carried it live on Rockets Radio. And like I said, it was the most anticlimactic. And I use the word listless broadcast that I probably have ever had as a broadcaster, and certainly the players on the floor were doing the exact same. 7-13-212-5-790. 7-1-2-7-90. tragedy has befallen the world of basketball. Earlier today at the age of 41, Kobe Bryant

was killed in a helicopter crash. In 20 seasons with the Lakers, Kobe was a 17-time All-Star, two-time NBA Finals MVP, two-time Olympic gold medalist, and five-time NBA champion. The NBA and the game of basketball will mourn this loss together. Please, join us in a moment of silence for Kobe Bryant. Rest in peace, Mamba. That was yesterday in Denver before the Rockets game with the

Nuggets. Matt Thomas, with you here from Salt Lake City. Ross and Nick back in our Houston studios. Yeah, just, again, Sunday afternoon crowd. Don't know if it was if it would have been any different, if not of the news,

but there just was zero buzz. It was almost like, like Ross, you know how there were some problems in Baltimore in baseball a couple of years ago where they had to basically play a baseball game with no crowd? That's how I kept thinking this was because there was a big crowd of the game yesterday, but there was, you know, when the mascot would do his thing and they put some dance music on or anything, there just wasn't much to it. It just was kind of a haze of I can't believe the news we just heard of less than 90 minutes ago.

Yeah, I don't know what to say. I mean, it's just to be expected, I suppose. Yeah. Very, something that I'm sure will always remember. So, I don't know, I have not heard any word from the NBA yet as to what they're going to do if they're going to play. There was some original reporting. Again, there's another thing about Ross yesterday that was erroneous is that there were rumors that the NBA was going to cancel all games. And none of them were canceled.

In fact, the tributes were amazing. The team's taking the 24-second violation. The team's taking the 8-second call. I would almost 100% guarantee that's going to happen tonight because the Rockets. The Jazz have not played a game since then, and I don't think anybody had thought of that because it was just so close to tip time that that had not been thought of. And by the way, I need to give you an update. Some good news, James Hardin goes from doubtful to questionable for tonight's game with that left-thigh contusion.

The bad news is that Clint Capel's heels just aren't very good. good. They're very doubtful for tonight. So maybe Hardin, doubtful on Capella, but there is a chance that it could be a Rockets game tonight without Westbrook, who's definitely going to be out with rest, could be without Hardin and could be without Capello. So three-fiths of your starting lineup, one is definitely not playing, one might, and one is not likely too. So this is going to be a very, very, I think, an uneasy night for Rocket fans against the hottest team in the NBA, the Utah Jazz, by the way, have picked up 14 wins in their last 15. 15 games.

The hits keep on coming, I suppose. But this is what I want. I want everybody to be healthy. I know that like PJ Tucker's been playing through stuff. Quincapella has been dealing with this heel issue. And I don't know what you observed Matt, but to me, the explosiveness hasn't been there. I think it's affecting him. I think it's affecting his rebounding.

I think it's affecting him offensively. So I would like him to get as quickly as possible. get back up to speed and get healthy. Yeah, I don't see any explosion at all. From the jumps, from the putbacks, you know, he is one of the best field goal percentage players in the NBA. Now, granted, most of those are dunks. He's 63% of the year.

But usually within about three or four feet, he's pretty good. He has almost averaged six rebounds of game, Ross, in the last nine games. It's not because I think all of a sudden he's just become a crasher. The boards like Robin was. I think he's having to get a lot of rebounds off of his own misses. Yeah. It seems like when he's getting his putbacks and when he's getting in those situations, he's rushing it because he knows one of the great skills that he has is re-jumpability.

That's a jump up and jump up and jump up. Well, he's great at that, but I don't think that's gone right now. So when he comes down with a rebound, instead of jumping back up for a put-back, he's kind of coming down with the ball and rushing it up there, just trying to get up there because I think his heels bothering him. All right. So we'll get into some baseball conversation coming up the next door. A lot of folks that want to call on about a variety of things.

And obviously, again, the Rockets today dealing with a lot of injuries and the fact that they are got some separate, you know, it's them in Dallas right now fighting for the five, one to four, trying to separate themselves a little bit in the Western Conference. Let's go to in terms of longest wait, we say hi to David and Vegas at 1250. one. Hi, David. Hey, Matt. How are you? Good.

I had a question about the Rockets tonight, and you just answered it, so we don't have to take any time for that. But, you know, yesterday I was driving around Las Vegas, and it was actually the time that the news broke was pretty much right when your show would have come on. So I'm listening to Sports Radio, but study your show at the weekend, so I got your sports national guys. So I just followed the long report by unconfirmed report and just, you know, sort of hoping there were mistakes made. but they got it, of course, there weren't. Well, the mistakes made, but they got the basic thing, right? And, you know, it's just, it's a horrible tragedy. I was a dire, I spent my whole life rooting against Kobe Bryant

because he was a thorn on our side, and he was just such a fabulous, dangerous weapon that, you know, that I had all respect in the world for him, but, I mean, gosh, you know, he was the adversary, he was, he was incredible. Just a horrible, horrible tragedy for the families. I guess I think of, you know, a little girl losing. a sister and a father on the same day or a woman losing a husband and a daughter.

She's just unimaginable on all the families affected by this is a horrible, horrible story with no good side. Anyway, I was reminded of something though when I saw your post about the game last night and the atmosphere being listless and it reminded me at the time I used that exact

word, something that I don't know if you were a part of or not. I was definitely there. But in the summit, the Rockets played a game the day that Magic Johnson announced that he had, HIV AIDS. And back in the day, with what we knew about medicine then and what he was basically telling the world then, is that, you know, he was going to die and die shortly.

And it was a shock, kind of similar to this in some ways. But also remember the game that I had my best friend from high school and from out of town. He'd never seen an NBA game before. So I was treating him to his first ever NBA game. He's just looking at me like he's saying, these people are just blissless. There's nothing. This place that's morbid. And that's what it was like.

I don't know if you were, I think. Maybe you were doing PA back then? No, I was not. In fact, I was producing the show on 950. KPRC was an afternoon sports talk show. Thank you for the phone call, David. Yeah, I was not on the air full-time. I don't think when that happened.

So I remember being told to go get a satellite feed at this major press conference involving Magic Johnson, not knowing what it was. But, yeah, I was definitely in the business very early in my career, but I was not on air. and not doing the PA at the time. But yeah, I remember where I was when that happened, and I thought, oh, my gosh, one of the greatest players in the history of the NBA

is going to die soon. And thankfully, through medicine and his well-being, Magic's still with us today. Let me get another call in before we get to the top of the hour. Let's say hi to Mike on the west side of the Matt Thomas. Mike, how are you? Pretty good, Matt. Yeah, speaking of Magic Johnson,

I grew up in L.A., 80s, early 90s. and that's exactly what it felt like. They felt like somebody punched him the gut and over and over. And I have my son, Rup Alegre fan, because of me, followed Kobe, and he just lost it. And, you know, I had explained to him. Yeah.

And, you know, Kobe, Kobe was one of those guys that, you know, I remember when he wouldn't let the team, he wouldn't let the team fall and even when people were making fun of them we got rid of the track and believe he leaving the Lakers, fans we were mad he made up for it and he won't be forgotten

and thank you Matt all right thank you appreciate your comments a little bit of L.A. perspective there let's get before the top of the hour Mike and I leave on the Matt Thomas show Mike how are you hey what's going on guys hi

hey man well it's just a tough day to day, man, for a lot of basketball fans everywhere, man, just mourning this loss of a great player and the person Kobe Bryant was, man. But I just want to put my perspective on everything, man, and what he meant to me as an individual. And I know he meant the same to a lot of other kids. But, you know, just growing up, just how he came up in the ranks to become a great, you know, not having the luxury of being a starter or just even getting playing time, you know,

but just working hard to get to that point. And then just later on, just in different ways, touching you just competing, the competitiveness that you had. And just how much if you wanted it, you just go out there and try your best to get it. No matter if you miss, no matter if you make it, you just go out there and give it you all, man. That transpired to me in so many different ways

and life in general. And, man, it's just sad that the situation, you know, couldn't be a dream or fake news. But, man, you know, he will be missed. And I used to hate because, you know, I'm a die-hard Rockets fan. And he used to torture us until I learned to respect him and really just appreciate greatness. That's all I want to say, guys. Thank you. Thank you, Mike.

Well said. Well said. We've got a lot to get to in the next two hours. We're going to flip onto a couple of baseball topics because there's three things that I do think are interesting that we need to be brought up. One is on the Astros managerial race, which is continuing to broaden by the day. May have something in fact as soon as this week. You never know. Also, we're going to maybe see the same rules for one league as for the other.

I'll explain that. And you might be able to get to hear what your favorite umpire sounds like, except when he says, and strike. 1257, the Matt Thomas Show, here from Salt Lake City. Ross and Nick back in Houston. Second hour next on Sports Talk 790. Yeah. Is the Matt Thomas Show.

Time is 102, the second hour, the Matt Thomas show here today from Salt Lake City with a Rockets. In game three of a four-game West Road trip, will be up in Portland on Wednesday to finish off the trip, winning Friday in Minnesota. losing yesterday to Denver. And then tonight, here the Utah Jazz. If you're just catching up with us today, first of all, welcome the show.

B, Clint Capella, now listed as doubtful. James Harden goes from doubtful to questionable. Russell Westbrook goes from out to out for rest. And the Rockets are going to be taking on one of the, that is the hottest team in the NBA. They won 14 of their last 15 games, the 32 and 13 Utah Jazz. 713-212-5-790.

713212-1-2-5-790 if you want to share memories of Kobe we certainly understand and have a platform for that I do want to get to a few other things as I've been talking about throughout the course of the show first and foremost it has been relatively quiet Ross on the Astros cheating front except that Justin Verlander went to go get his Cy Young Award and basically and I'm paraphrasing him saying that the Astros are among the I don't know if I want to say it here we go technologically and analytically advanced, where apparently at that point, it went to a bunch of ha-haz and quite a fit of booze

among those that were that the baseball letters. I saw the video of him making that joke, but I actually didn't watch it. Is that I don't? No. He's just having a good time. He's having fun. He's a yuckster.

Here is the quote. Let's see here. Yeah, he just says technologically and analytically advanced. as a way to praise the organization, but that phrase caused some in the audience to gaffa. You ever gaffa, Ross? What's all the thing he got fad? I've got fad here and there.

I gufah daily. I'm a guffar. Verlainer waited until noise subdued before resuming his thank you a speech. Apparently, C.C. Sabthi was there, too, and was none too pleased by this. Oh, really? By the way, let me ask you this, and I want to get to some other main... Why? Were they out of, they were out of beef or something?

You mean eating roast beef or just general beef? I don't know. They're out of prime rib? Is that C. My guess that C. Is he was not happy? Yeah. My guess is to be more upset about the lack of dinner choices as compared to what Justin Verlender would say. Exactly.

Everybody in their mother is having these fan fest, you know? Yes. The Astros had theirs a couple weeks back. The White Sox had theirs. Dodger fan fest was this weekend. A's fan fest. Marlins fan fest, like, no, just fan. Yeah, that's the one guy there was there. It was Marlins man and that was it.

Everybody is bitching. And my guess is rightfully so about how the Astros, as a group don't seem very apologetic, and that nobody's talking, and that nobody has really come out and been overly forthcoming about exactly what happened. Ross, these are smart baseball people. Do they not realize that the Amnesty Clause comes into play here on this? That they're not going to get in trouble for Major League Baseball, but Major League Baseball told them to keep their mouths shut.

Well, and they're going to speak, right? At spring training at some point. Yeah, Jim Crane said they're going to speak. It's just not on the timetable that everybody else wants, I guess. Yeah, I mean, what's Andrew Friedman, the general manager of the Dodgers, says the asteros have not reached out to the Dodgers personally, and that they felt like that there has not been enough remorse put out there by the Astros as an organization. I don't know. Firing a general manager and a manager is not a sign of how remorseful they are?

You want more on that? Yeah, Jim Crane literally fired the two figureheads of the entire organization. Yeah. Here's what they want. They want Carlos Correa and George Springer and Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman. They want them to all come out in front of a microphone and said, on this day we did this. On this day we did this.

And on this day we did this and we're sorry. Ain't going to happen. Ain't going to happen. Yeah. Because it first of all does them no good to do that because they're going to permanently tarnish their legacy. And on top of that, again, Major League Baseball got the goods on the Astros in large part because they told the Astros,

tell us what you know, and we'll leave you out of this. Why doesn't anybody understand that? Why doesn't anybody understand that all the information that was so forthcoming from the players on that baseball team in 2017 is in large part because they were given protection against any personal penalty? Because people aren't paying attention. And people always want restitution, Matt.

Anytime anything happens or what, like if people get a fit, like Matt, if you came on here and you said something, offensive to somebody else. You know what they would want? They would want you fired. That's going to make them feel better. That's going to make what you said come back. That's going to make any, like, do anything.

Everybody feels in 2020 and 2019 or I don't know when this turned, we feel like if something bad happens or something hurts our feelings or whatever, we are deserved a justice or revenge or something like something needs to happen and heads need to roll in order for us to feel better about ourselves. and just I just don't get it. Here's what I don't understand. Actually, I do understand. In 2020, when you are in front of a microphone or you play or you're a politician,

you're not allowed to make any mistakes at all. You're just not. Now, some mistakes are obviously reprehensible. I mean, I'm not trying to play off as any mistakes being, well, just, you know, sweep it by. But there are going to be things that are going to be slipped up and said that are going to be done without any malcontent. There's going to be things that are going to be controversial things that are there are meant for a statement.

I mean, I constantly, this is peeling the curtain back on the show. And you do the same thing, Ross, because you're with me more on the air than you ever happened before. But we are always very cognizant of what we say or would we say something that we really truly feel that is, you know, that can't come across as well, somebody's going to get mad because my philosophy is now in the last 10 years of my broadcast career no matter what you say somebody's

going to get mad at something you said it's just what we are and I think there's a certain small very small segment of the population that's ready to pounce on you for that thing that you think you thought was saying being open and honest and not being hurtful where

others could take it as well let's run with this so it's hard yeah it's you had to be very and that's why sports talk radio frankly, can it be at times very vanilla? Because if you really wanted to say what you really wanted to say, you'd be in big trouble. Because I'm not saying that what you'd really want to say would be hurtful to somebody or it'd be something that would be said that would cause pain to others.

But there are going to be some things that you know or believe or have been told that don't justify the narrative that's out there. And if you do that, prepare to face the consequences of a group of people, maybe 5, 10, or 5,000. that are ready to pounce on you. And I don't know how we got into this conversation. But, oh, I know what it was. We're just talking about people wanting something. Yeah, they want.

The Astros don't owe you anything. They really don't. They are going to come out and they're going to apologize. They're going to talk. But, I mean, they don't owe the GM of the, what's his name, Freeman from the Dodgers. They don't owe him anything. They're taking care of their own business.

They fired their own guys. They're going to come out and they're going to say something. I mean, what else do you want? They want their heads on a bladder. Do you want them to give you the World Series trophy? Because that ain't happening. Usually they want Ross, and I'm not kidding on this. They want the trophy.

They want the rings. Yes. They want the Astros record. Well, they can have the parades. They want the eraser on the Astros record books. Ain't happening. It's not. A couple of real quick things before we get to the managerial stuff.

It sounds like Jim Bowden, former general manager in baseball works for ESPN now, says that he believes by 2021, not this year but the next, that there will be a DH in the National League. By 2021? Yeah, that everybody plays by the same rules. Which, here's the thing. I don't mind pitchers hitting.

I know some people get annoyed by it. It doesn't bother me. Actually, I like the double switches. I love that a manager has to make a decision about whether to keep a guy out there for an extra inning because his spot in the batting order is coming up. But I'm not anti-DH. I'm not like, oh, this is the worst. I remember when the asteros moved to America League,

oh, I'm never playing America. Like, this DH thing sucks. It's the worst thing. I'm never going to watch a game. D.H. doesn't bother me. What does bother me, Ross, is that leagues are played by two different sets of those. Right.

So even if I'm not the biggest D.H fan in the world, which I'm not, I need both leagues to play on the same rules. And one of the thing, before we get to the timeout, we'll start taking some more phone calls. One of the things that I think I'm about one of about five million people that suggest to this. You know, when you have instant replay in Major League Baseball, you have a lot of, you know, it's either safer out, ball caught, ball not, goes second base,

and you don't understand really what's behind it. Apparently there's going to be microphones given to these umpires now, from what I understand if I'm reading this right, that will explain what happened, why it happened, and how they were able to, if they needed to give you a rules interpretation of such ruling, which I think is great. Let us hear from them. Part of the reason why we like your NFL officials is because we hear from them.

The basketball officials are a little different because they can come to me as a PA announcer and they can just say, hey, tell the audience this. But in baseball, there's none of that. And apparently there's a lot of movement towards giving umpires a microphone to use to explain why they made such a decision. Which I think it's a very, very wise decision by Major League Baseball. Yeah, that would be cool. That'd be interesting. So those are kind of a little bit of nuggets that I saw today on the world of Twitter. And I like them both because, again, I think you should play. under the same roles whether you're a National American League

and I do like the fact that you can be able to hear what the umpire says and decide why he'll tell you why he's made such a ruling. 713-212-5-790. Is there any other astro-managerial candidate? Apparently there are, I think there's nine at this point now, which is crazy how deep they've gone to replace AJ Hintz. We'll talk about that.

We got Ryan and Sugarline wants to talk about Kobe Bryant. We got the rest of you as well. 713-212-5-790 is how you reach our show. 7-13-212-5-790. The time is 113. It is The Matt Thomas Show, and this is Sports Talk 790. The Houston Lunchtime Sports Conversation most respected by head coach Bill O'Brien. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Matt Thomas.

In his career here in Houston. Of sorts. The Matt Thomas Show. Ross, I had forgotten how well Bill O'Brien spoke of me. You don't remember that? We just played it five seconds ago. One of the rare liners that speaks well of me. It was for a different mat.

Fair enough. Shab. 713. Can you know he still in the NFL backing up the Atlanta Falcons? Yeah, Ryan. God. It's going to be great when he makes the Hall of Fame. Of what?

Virginia Cavaliers Hall of Fame. Oh, there's no question. Isn't that? Just think about how much money at the end of the day he's going. to have made in his career. We'll try to look it up. Go look it up. I think you really want to a stop dead moment in the show when you announce when you figure

it out how much money Matt Schaub has made in his NFL career. Now, granted, there was a six-year stretch, give or take, that he was a very productive NFL quarterback. Maybe not even six years, maybe four or five. But point being is that he was really good for two or three, okay for two or three more and then the one pick six after the other, after the other kind of hurt. So. All right.

Let's get a phone call on if you'd like to join us. $94 million. $94 million? Yes. He never has to work a day in his life again. No, he doesn't. Nor do his kids. And my guess if he plays his cards right,

his grandkids will never have to worry about working a day. As long as he's not pumping out like 15 kids like Philip Rivers. That's why Philip's going to play next year. He's got to take care of his children. Yeah, exactly. He's got 12 or 13 at this point? No, I think he literally, I think nine or ten? Can I just say he's quite powerful, and I mean that with all due respect?

He's fertile? Maybe too fertile, Ross. He's got nine children. Poor Tiffany Rivers. They're all hers? Yeah. I mean, they just, once you get past a few of them, they just fall out, right? Well, I believe he is a devout Catholic.

I think there is no birth control at all in their relationship. Clearly. Because that's the way the Pope would want. it. Well, you know, frankly, he can afford nine children. Most people can't. But he could. Can't. I can't afford to feed myself. I'm having a tough time with these three that I got on raising right now. That's why I got all these jobs. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. A lot of folks still want to have their perspective on the passing at Kobe. Ryan and Sugar Land on the Matt Thomas show. Ryan, how are you, sir? I'm doing great.

I just kind of want to share a story about Kobe. I never really understood why people got sad over athletes or celebrities until yesterday. I'm 32 years old, a Hispanic 32-year-old. And the last thing I can remember like this was when Selena died in 1995. My dad was actually shedding tears on my mom's birthday when Selena passed away because it was just gut-wrenching. But I have a quick Kobe story. I believe it was 2005 or 2006. it was right after Hurricane Katrina, they had kind of like an all-star game at the Toyota Center

and had different players. They had Rashar Lewis there, LeBron James, Carlos Boozer, Kevin Garnett, Kobe was there. Steve Francis was there, but he was not playing. And I think it was like a benefit game fundraising for Hurricane Katrina. And my family and I, we got tickets, and we weren't refugees or Hurricane. victims at all, but we were there at the game. And my little brother, who has special needs, was with my dad, and when they were doing the lineups, the lights went out, and you can hardly see, and my dad decided to sneak down

and get closer to the players, and we were literally right behind Kobe Bryant. My dad was holding my little special needs brother, Caleb. And Kobe Bryant, when the lights came back on, we weren't in our seats that we were supposed three, but Kobe Bryant turned around and just took a picture. I told my dad, do you want me to take a picture with him and took my little brother and captured a picture with him and gave him a hug and a high five and just made all of our day. And so that was a special moment. And I think his life is bigger than basketball and he's a legend.

And he'll be missed. Thank you, Ryan, for the phone call. Very well said. We can't possibly comment anything you all to say because you all have your own personal stories and just like Ryan has in some of our earlier callers. So if you want to convey anything away, we're happy to do that today because this is going to stink for quite some time, a long time. In fact, as I mentioned earlier, the Rockets will be here in Utah and the jazz have not

played. Rossi, I love this 24-second, eight-second tribute. I think, you know, I don't know who thought of it, but who, and I think it was the Spurs. Was it Spurs Toronto that did it yesterday? Yes. They did it with the 20. They were the first team. I think they both. Did they do a 24 second on either side, I think?

I think so. And then I think somebody else added the 8 second, which, I mean, just, I mean, really classy, perfect standing ovations. If you take any positivity out of just looking at the miserable day to see how the folks celebrated his life. I mean, it was just a small little heartwarming thing that you saw on each video of teams that did it. So I'm going to presume the Rockets and Jazz will agree to such.

an event well. My guess is that every team until they get a chance to have a home game is going to try to do this. I wouldn't be surprised if Friday night's game of the Rockets and the Mavericks

through the exact same thing. Mark Cuban, by the highway, how about that? Mark Cuban is going to retire the 24 years. I saw that, yes. So tribute's coming in there and also apparently ESPN

is saying they're going to play a Kobe's final game where he scored 60. That's going to be on ESPN tonight at 8 o'clock central. Okay. So you should listen to me. Maybe watch some of that.

You can just record it. Me or them? The Kobe game. I mean, you could record me too. That'd be a little weird, but that's fine. You can go old school and get a Walkman with a record button on the cassette and get the radio. I used to do that back in the day. I used to record songs off the radio all the time.

Yeah, I used to do that. And one of the times my dad had a really bad cough, so you could just hear him hacking up in the back of my mixtape. That was kind of brutal, but that's okay. Well, my key was I didn't want to have. And this is terrible because I work on radio. But, you know, there's little sounders that we play like, Sunny, 99. I would want to make sure that that was not on my song. So if I was going to listen to who would be a good 80s rock band.

Like if I want to record an Aerosmith song, I didn't want to get that on my tape. Right. I had to press the record and the play at the same time just to make sure I didn't get that little sounder. there. No disrespect to our friend at Sunny, but Sunny wasn't playing Aerosmith in 1985, so I'm not overly concerned about it. Now today's kids, Ross, they don't have to worry about any of that kind of stuff. You should go straight to Spotify or Apple Music or whatever. Yeah, they can download for a buck or get a subscription service.

They just don't know how we had it, Matt. They just didn't, you know, there's not going to be another kid with their dad hacking up cough in the middle of a Michael Jackson hit on his cassette tape. Yeah. Yeah. There's not another kid that's going to put their baby in a dresser drawer and call that a crib. What? Is that how you grew up at?

I might have slept a few nights in the second drawer. Okay. I mean, perfectly with oxygen. I'm okay. I'm here with you now. Did they stuff you in there with the socks or the underwear? That actually explains a lot, Matt. You know, the worst thing was my mother told me this, and she was horrified because everybody did it back then.

but in the early 70s, when car seats weren't nearly as, I don't know if they were, I would say they were abundant. I don't think they would be not abundant, but a lot of people would put the baby carriages on the, on the passenger side, down where you put your feet. Hmm. It would rest the babies there. Interesting. I don't think it's affected me at this point.

I don't know. I'm not going to let you answer that question, frankly. I'm not going to let you that. You started this. Did they break test? you while you were down there. All right, that's enough. I would put you on segment suspension, but the segment's over with, so you're lucky.

713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. We will run through the entire list of Astro-Managerial candidates. Ross, I have to ask, when do I get my chance? I feel like I'm the only person that has an interview for this Astro's job. We'll talk about it next. 127. The Matt Thomas Show here from Salt Lake City.

Ross and Nick back in Houston, 713-212-5-790. Don't leave Matt Thomas in your car. Take him with you. Download the free I-HeartRadio app for your phone at Sports790.com. Just remember you'll have to feed him. I know as it stands now, I'm not associating with organization anymore. Can you tell us what happened, Nolan, why that is the case? Well, Jim and said to read, I guess your dad won't be involved anymore.

I said, well, that's fine. I didn't have a problem today. Are you disappointed the way this is fleshed out? Well, I'm disappointed in the fact that the fallout that we've had and some of the people that have lost their jobs, you know, I really feel bad for them. I think they've done a good job. That is courtesy of Fox 26 and Mark Berman,

visiting with Nolan Ryan, who read obviously no longer with the team, at least an official day-of-day stance. still serves as an advisor. In fact, he was doing a lot of the speaking during Astro Fan Fest and some of the caravan stops. This is the Matt Thomas Show. Our time is 132. If you'd like to get in on the conversation, 713-213-2-790, 7-1-790, 7-1-3-21-5-7-90.

So, Ross, here are the candidates. There are nine of them for the Astros managerial's position. Mark Katsay interviewed over the weekend. A longtime major leaguer, quality. I think they call him quality control coach with the A's. I don't know what that means. He was a former bench coach. Whatever.

I mean, people are reinventing roles all the time. So we have him. Dusty Baker, Joe Espada, who is the bench coach for AJ last year, Jeff Bannister, John Gibbons, Buck Showalter, Will Venable, Brad Osmiss, and Eduardo Perez. I mean... It's a lengthy list. Well, there is no consistency to it, which I think is probably good.

It's going to keep all of us guessing, that's for sure. Cast a wide net is what you're saying. Actually, Brian T said wide net on Friday. Oh, but we can steal it. That's fine. He didn't listen. I think he actually does listen to the show. I think Brian T's listening. So you said wide net, Brian T. I'll give you congratulations on that.

Well, I didn't know he said that. You weren't paying attention. It is such a wide net. And I guess it comes down to, look, we're all going to have to trust what Jim Crane wants, because it's his team, in theory, and he's going to be the one that's going to have to make the decision for not only the manager but the general manager, but it is so interesting that just when you think the Astros are going to go in one direction, they go in another.

I feel like Ross, with all of the younger guys that have just been in the interview process, that I would probably lean very doubtful towards the Showalter's and the Dusty Bakers being in that final mix. That's just a pure guess on my part. You think you're right, or do you think that maybe those guys may have a better chance than maybe I'm even giving you? I feel like you don't go and interview Mark Katsy if you've got your guy, right? If you're excited about Dusty Baker, it's a situation where, all right, this is our guy, we're going to make him an offer. And I would imagine you're probably going to make some kind of offer that Dusty Baker would happily accept.

Right. So I would think that they are one of the reasons they are still interviewing and one is because they are still looking for the right fit and the right guy and all those types of stuff. And to me, Mark Katsy, he checks a lot of the boxes for what you're looking for, for an Astros manager. Former player. It's coming from the Oakland A's, and we know that they're very analytics forward. He played with the A's back in the day, I believe, while Billy Bean was their general manager. I mean, he's been there forever.

Would know the A.O. West very, very well, I'm assuming. Some coaching experience. And relatively young. I mean, last played in 2013, so not too far removed from the game. So my guess he's probably what in his early to mid-40s, skivorty? He's 44. Okay. I'm down with Mark Katsay.

Yeah, I mean, as I said last week, and I know that, you know, you're supposed to every day come on the show with fire and brimstone hot take, bacon, sizzling opinions. There hasn't been, I mean, I'll be honest with you, the one that's probably the least attractive of them to me is probably Brad Osmos. Two failed managerial stops. Yeah, yeah. And you didn't even finish a season with the Angels. And do you remember what happened last year involving our good close personal friends? Jake Mariznick? Yes, I do. You mean to tell me that

that wouldn't necessarily raise a few eyebrows, that a guy that basically an old teammate of the guys that are currently in that clubhouse, that Brett Osmond said it was a dirty play? You don't think that would not resonate and have a little bit of an adverse effect in a clubhouse? Now all of a sudden he's one of your guys

after you took the time to rip an old teammate of theirs? And they hit Jake, didn't they? Yeah. So and look, if tomorrow Jim Crane says, Matt, we're having a press conference hiring Bright Austin, is I'm going to trust him. Because they have done their due diligence on this.

They do have nine candidates, of which, you know, you've got a mix of old school, you've got a mix of never been a broad, never been a manager, you do have analytics background in it, you've got base coming. So, it has been, even though you've got spring training coming up in about three weeks, it's probably been as thorough as anybody could humanly go to. Now, the question's going to be, who does Jim Crane, who does he

trust is his right-hand baseball man because when you don't have a general manager who it then becomes that who is like who is jim's most trusted guy within the organization his son jared is now the president of business operations but jared doesn't have any sort of long-term baseball experience he hasn't hired a manager before he hasn't been around the ballpark every single day and this is part of the reason why i think reed was moved and moved on was because they want to get Jared involved in running the organization. You don't, I mean, you've lost your top two general manager, your general manager and your assistant general manager.

You've lost the field manager. You've got the bench coach who wants to be the manager, so he's going to obviously lean towards choosing himself. We don't know it, but clearly Jim's going to put him, and there's got to be somebody that has Jim's ear. Because this is such an important decision, because not only are you going to make a decision on this, but then you have to go find a general manager

that's going to fit, is this GM going to like the decision that you've made? And if you want to be a GM in Major League Baseball, you have to accept who the field manager is. So I think it's a very intriguing time. And I guess the question, Ross, would be this. Every managerial decision is important. But when you are still, even though you have lost some key players,

namely Garrett Cole. You are still the favorite to win the American League West. You are still a contender to win the World Series. This is probably the most important decision that Jim has made as an owner of a baseball team in Houston. Yeah, I think I would agree with that. It is an unprecedented, very unique situation. And again, you don't want to oversell things, but you've got a veteran baseball team with a lot of stars. you've got some divas in that room

that rhyme with Austin Merlander he just likes things his way man he's not a diva no it isn't that what things when people like their way that makes them a diva he's headstrong

I think it's a diva he's got strong convictions diva you're continuing to add the definition a diva so this he's particular okay definitely diva then you further solidified the definition

so So this is, it's a different dynamic. It's, you don't, you don't need the guy to come in and rah-rah every day. Your lineup card is basically going to be filled out the exact same way, 85% of the time. The Astros have to figure out how many starting pitchers I've got to grab, whether it's one or two before the start of the season. There have been no significant trades. There's no been no philosophical change in how the team is put together.

you've got your lineup card as I said but essentially said you just got to be a guy that's going to be able to manage a new set of egos in a very peculiar time where every city when you go to that town you're going to be pestered and peppered with questions about if you're doing it the right way so that's why I think it's so intriguing where he goes with this if he goes old guy that's been there done that or new because that's what a j was and a jay was such a relatable

guy to the players in his clubhouse 713-212-5-790 7-1-3-212-5-7-90 we are still in the world of morning here today in the world of sports whether it be this show national TV newspapers blogs you're reading about the passing of Kobe Bryant yesterday at the age of 41 coming up in about 40 minutes we're going to spend a couple of minutes with the head baseball coach todd winning at the university of Houston very close to john altabelli who passed away he and his wife and daughter passed away in that helicopter crash as well. So we'll get a couple of minutes of perspective about a University of Houston graduate, a former assistant coach, and a guy that was with Kobe at the time of that horrific helicopter crash. 713-212-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790.

If you want to reach out via Twitter, you can do that as well. At SportsMT, at SportsRV, and at Pro Nick Lowe. Salt Lake in Houston represent today. It is the Matt Thomas show here on Sports Talk 790. Greg Bizjo here, the heart of the order is up right now. Matt Thomas is swinging for the fences here on Sports Talk 7-9. Time is 144. Matt here in Salt Lake.

Ross and Nick are back in our Houston studios. Ross, you're not going to be with me tomorrow. You're going to South Florida. Yes, sir. For Super Bowl 54 coverage. Radio Row. We're back at it again here on Sports Talk 790, Matthew. And the guest list is becoming amazing, correct?

It's growing. All right. I heard a couple of names that we haven't doing here. We don't have everything confirmed right now. Don't say it yet. I don't even want to know about it. No, I'm not, yeah. I'm not running with anything.

But I just say there's a couple of names that I think you're even going to be excited about Matt. Okay. I liked hearing that. We're going to have Mike Dan Tony with this Wednesday from Portland. And we'll do a TBA on that because of the fact that we want to get the schedule together with your guest down in Miami. and then just found out we're going to have Clyde Drexer on the show on Friday. It's Flashback Friday where every Friday the Rockets

wear those retro ketchup and mustard uniforms. Nice. I love those. I don't think love is a strong enough term. If you gave me and said, all right, of all the uniforms in the city of Houston, Oilers, Texans,

Cowboys, Oilers, Texans, Astros, Cougars, Owls, TSU, HB, any, Dynamo, anything. You give me the white uniforms with the word rockets in the ketchup and mustard and the trim, and you give me the ketchup and a mustard with the word Houston across it. Again, when the Rockets won the 94 and the two championships, and one that you wore for, what was it, about 84 to whenever they went to those ridiculous pajamas.

96? No, 95. I guess the beginning of the 95-96 season. You give me those uniforms, and I will throw away everything else. You know how much I love the rainbows. Even more than the Amigo Energy Dynamo kits? Excuse me? What? What did you say?

Amigo Energy Dynamo kits. Yeah, I don't have that, no. Oh. Well, I know you do have a dynamo. But if you, okay, so if it came down to a single uniform box. I know where I'm going. In the history of Houston Sports. It's the catch-of-a-Mutster Houston Road uniforms.

I go, I'm going home Columbia Blues. Honestly. Really? Yeah, I am. Okay. I think I'm going to put up a poll question on this. Yeah, I think you're in the, I think most people are going to go with you. So let's put together.

But I mean, Earl Campbell and Warren Moon and Lorenzo White in those Columbia blues. Ernest Givitz, Haywood Jeffries, Ray Children. Red striped socks. All right. Well, here's what, here's what we're going to do. I loved those, man. Let's do this. Let's put together the Mount Rushmore, and then I'll put a poll question up on Twitter.

So let's put, let's go down to the final four. You have the ketchup and mustard rocket Houston Road uniforms. That's one, right? Mm-hmm. Rainbow 80s, Astros. Correct? Yeah, yeah, I would think so. I'm more of a shoulder-strived guy, but those are the more famous ones, I would say.

Number three, Columbia Blue Home Orders uniform. Now the question is, what's the fourth? What goes up on the Mount Rushmore? Red, duh, Matt. You know what I do like on the Texans? Is there color rush? That's true. I like those. The blue tops with the red numbers.

Current Astros, maybe? Or are you like the shooting star Astros? No. The Astro uniform that I do like that they currently wear, they don't wear very often. And that's the blue tops with the orange down the rainbow down the sides of their on their hips. They only wore those like for some of the Sunday games.

They should wear those more off. Those are also their spring training uniforms too. Hmm. Mull that over. We won't put the poll question up today. I'll mull it over. But I'm going to think about it. I may do it tomorrow when I get up to Portland.

We may have to think about this. I'll be here in Salt Lake tomorrow for the show and then we move to Portland after the show tomorrow. But these are things we think about sometimes. Oh, that Columbia Blue is good, though, too. Those are my faves. 50,000 people there because it was back was only 50 the dome only sat 50,000 during Love You Blue. It got up to 60 when Bud Adams threatened to move the team out of town.

We're the exploring scoreboard, which did have snow good. They still left. But I digress. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. I want you to answer me a serious and honest question because a lot of the tributes yesterday involving Kobe Bryant moved beyond basketball. Ross, did you watch any of the Pro Bowl yesterday? I watched maybe six seconds of highlights on it.

Oh, so you never turned it on, was it on ABC or on ESPN? I don't even know. It was on ESPN, I think. Okay. Well, it was definitely an ESPN production. It could have also been on ABC. So you didn't watch any of the live game. No.

Not at all. I don't feel bad about it. No, I don't feel bad. You know what you said? You said no to the Pro Bowl, and I'm proud of you for that. I think I got so wrapped up. I think if the Kobe thing didn't have, I was, honestly, I was this, I mean, because we all talked about how it was developing and. And how many daughters came out that four daughters had passed and there was one daughter and there was waiting for Woge and all this other stuff.

It was just, I was really glued to my phone trying to figure out what's going on with this Kobe stuff. So with all this inaccurate stuff that was out there yesterday and there was quite a bit of it. Like I want to ask you one thing, Ross, and I'm not trying to start anything up here. There is the video of the MSNBC reporter. Yes. Was that made up? No, I think she says Nakers. Okay.

Because that audio and that video is very disturbing. But again, I'm not going to trust Twitter because Twitter can certainly change things up a little bit. A lot of times you can try to hear what you want to hear. When I first heard it, that's what I thought she said as well because people tweeted that. Right. I know the power of suggestion is very strong. Sure. But if you try to listen to it, there's just no reason she would just say that.

And I think if you listen for Nakers, L.A. Nakers. That's what she said. It's close enough that we're not going to play it. No, we're not. I don't want to play it. I thought yesterday, Ross, honestly, in a sad day when one of the legends in sports died, it was a bad day for Twitter. I thought it was a, you know, he passes away, his daughter passes away. There's a family without a father.

There's a wife without a husband. Other victims as well. Other victims as well. And it became a cross-reference of it, no particular order. This is things I saw. Well, there were soldiers that died today in Afghanistan, but no one talked about that. I saw that. I mean, come on.

There was, you know, Kobe Raid to girl. I saw, what else did I say? There was just a lot of ugly, ugliness that took something that I really enjoy. And look, maybe why I spend too much time bitching about it, maybe I shouldn't back off of it. But I do like Twitter because it does provide information. It does give me an opportunity to connect with some of you when I can't connect you on the radio show. but I thought yesterday was an ugly day for it. Really, really ugly.

The worst was, I would say, and again, look, Kobe did not live a 100% pure life under no circumstance. Kobe had his detractors. Kobe had certainly some off-the-field transgressions. Kobe wasn't beloved by every one of his teammates because of the way he would treat them primarily when they were playing together. I think when you get separated from, you know, when guys retire and guys get away from the sport and guys have a chance to reflect, you also have to attribute Kobe is more mature at 40 than he was at 30 than he was at 20. So it was a day of, well, why are we making such a big deal out of this athlete who died? What about the other people that passed away?

Well, of course, we're all talking about those people as well. There is nobody, none of us with an IQ, with a minimal IQ would ever go, Well, you know, sorry to hear about those other seven people, but, man, Kobe and his daughter dying was the sadest part of it all. No, every part of it was sad. Every single part of those nine people dying, including the pilot, was sad and terrible and unfortunate. But yet there are numskoles out there in Twitter that just feel like that because Kobe's getting all the attention, no one cares about the other seven people. That's not true. But America doesn't know those other seven people.

America knows Kobe Bryant. It's just it is what it is Now and coming up in about 25 minutes We're going to have Todd Whitting on for University of Houston Who knew John Annabelli Very well And we're going to hear about how great John was But I'm not doing that because I feel like that there needs to be equal time

There isn't even equal time All of them deserve equal time Nine people died yesterday in a very unfortunate helicopter crash And we're not playing favorites or who was more important than the other We just happen to know, That's it. We don't know those other people. And if we knew all those other people as we knew Kobe,

we'd spend an equal amount of time, we being sports media in general, would spend as much time talking about those other people. But since we don't, we just don't, you know, they don't resonate. Not their fault. They're just not major basketball stars. But they're human beings.

They have families, their parents, their kids, their friends. But damn, y'all. I mean, some, and I'm not talking about y'all. I'm just talking about that world. of Twitter just lost its damn mind yesterday. I thought it was terrible. It was embarrassing for America. I'm only speaking or talking about 0-0-0-0-0-0-1 percent of who we're talking about, but it just wasn't a good look.

People fighting on Twitter over things that were said and things that were typed. Meanwhile, the end of the story is nine people died yesterday. That should be what we should be focusing on, not about whether or not Kobe behaved himself as a player or what happened in Colorado or, you know, how he treated his teammates, or that there were soldiers that died yesterday in Iraq. I mean, we all suffer through these things. But it was just a nasty, nasty look for the sport or for the, for the social media world. 155 on the Matt Thomas show.

We start the final hour of the program. If you want to get in, 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Update on James Hardin. health status and his teammates as the rockets really have kind of just labored here in the month of January in fact they are seven and eight in their last 15 games it has not been a good run as of late and tonight will not be any easier as they're taking out a Utah Jazz team that is the hottest team in the NBA having won 14 of their last 15 games 713 23 212-5-790

astro managerial search new baseball rules could be coming into play we've got that to discuss as well. Plus, we'll find out more about the life in times of John Annabelli from a good friend, Todd Wooding from the University of Houston. This is the Matt Thomas Show. It is the final hour of the Matt Thomas show here from Salt Lake City. Our time is 201. Ross and Nick are back in our Houston studios.

I'm at here in Salt Lake City, where tonight the Rockets will take on the Utah Jazz, as still the NBA continues. more in the passing of Kobe Bryant. I get a feeling tonight that we'll see some sort of tribute. I don't know if the players will ask up the same thing that they've done in many of the NBA arenas yesterday, and that

is to take a 24-second violation on one end of the floor and the other team taking an eight-second violation. Isn't it so peculiar, Ross, that those two numbers were the Kobe Bryant numbers, and yet you can do what they're trying to do as a tribute to him with those numbers?

It's just so many weird things. Yeah, it is peculiar. Yeah. And you had the, who was it? Was it, Trey Young and somebody else? They'd combined to make 24 shots, and they combined for 81 points and all kinds of other weird stuff happening. Yeah, Trey Young put a jersey number eight on yesterday. I don't know what his normal number is, but he wore the number eight.

We landed yesterday here in Salt Lake City. We landed at a spot in the airport in the private runway that was... the number 24 was on the ground and all the players took pictures of that, it was just really, really, really, really odd. And, you know, just I think what it is is when someone passes, you notice little things like that. You know, you notice just the little things that you wouldn't, that you would never normally care about,

whether you were landing and arriving at a certain area or a certain shot was made. But this is going to be hit big. What do you do if you're the NBA? Do you try to play that Clippers Lakers game tomorrow, Ross? I think so. I think you have to honor him. I think

I mean, the other games haven't been canceled. I mean, you have to move forward at some point and that'll be, that'll be what three days removed or two or three days now? Do you know when the last time

an NBA game was canceled? I do not. The death of JFK. Oh, wow. So it's been a while. So it would be unprecedented. that a game would be postponed. Now we shouldn't say cancel.

It's canceling and you don't play it up. They're going to have to play each other. They're going to have to reschedule the game if they were to do so. My guess is it's probably a talking point, but probably, you know, some of it will do, will obviously be about the emotions of the players and maybe what Vanessa Bryant wants, but also a lot of it is going to be about logistics

because that building where they play, you know, the Clippers play their 41 home games, the Lakers play their 41 home games, The LA Kings play 41 home games plus concerts and all that sort of thing. So it's one of those scenarios that it might be a little easier said than done. But my guess is if Vanessa, you know, if LeBron reaches out to Vanessa and Vanessa says, you guys need to play tomorrow night, they'll play it. And again, one of those things yesterday that was erroneous that was put out there,

was the NBA canceled its games yesterday. Then the guy that put that out there, Ross, is like, well, I was told this, but then they changed their mind at the last second. Ross, I didn't believe that for a second. I don't believe if the NBA was going to decide to cancel games, they would have gone ahead and done it. They were not going to call every NBA team and say, don't play today, and then 20 minutes later changed their mind.

Yeah, it was a very bizarre time when you thought all the games, the rockets were never really in danger just because it was just, I mean, it was already, it was too late. Yeah. I mean, the only time games have been postponed, frankly, is because of security inside arenas. Like, remember that one time there was, well, there was the earthquake during the Summer League in this summer. I remember one time, wasn't there a smokeout in Mexico City?

Yes. There was a fire there. There was a, wasn't there a blizzard in Minnesota? Like maybe a, yeah, weather happens all the time. Yeah, weather happens. And then the one that was the funniest, which shouldn't be funny, was I believe there was a, and it might have been at the Alamo Dome many years ago, where didn't the water pipe burst in the, and it, half of the Alamo Dome was flooded or something? I don't want to say I'm making something up,

but there was a night where there was some sort of flood that precluded the game from being played. Yeah, that doesn't ring a bell for me. There's been roof leaks. I was at one game. Oh, yeah, those in D.C., right? Those in D.C. Yeah.

That game didn't get canceled, but, I mean, there have been a lot of different things that have happened because of life's happenstance, but not a death of a player or post-prevue. a prior player that would have forced a suspension of games. So I've been looking at the different websites today, and I don't see any thought of that. But again, I think it's probably still very close to it. And I'm seeing, I mean, I'm seeing some reports that the NBA didn't actually ever even seriously consider postponing the games anyways.

Yep. And that meant again, somebody on Twitter getting some information instead of verifying and calling the office. Because here's the worst thing about verifying things, Ross, is that sometimes it takes a while to verify something. Ross, if I give you some information, and it involves something that is extremely newsworthy, but you're only hearing it because I'm giving you his opinion. I'm not the one making the decision. Like, for instance, if Daryl Mory Ross called you and said, the Rockets are trading X and Y for Z, you don't need to go get that verified from anybody else

because the person that's making that trade is telling you he's doing it. but if somebody that's the clubhouse guy or the assistant ticket manager or the marketing officer calls and says hey ross i'm hearing that this is going down today while you trust that person and why you believe that person wouldn't give you wrong information you have to go verify that because if you don't if you don't and you make the mistake you look horrible and taking and sometimes verifying something with a source takes a while. Because if Ross, even if I told you that something was going down and I didn't get it firsthand, I was giving that to you, which, you know, we don't deal that way, but you would try to get

a hold of Darry. Darryoramori may not return your phone call right away. And I'll just run with it so I can be first. And if I'm wrong, oh, well, we'll forget about it. That's exactly the problem with sports journalism is that you don't have time to be patient and get it right because you're afraid somebody else is going to beat you to it. And that's why sports media sucks. And my guess is, Ross, it happens in the news media too.

I'm assuming that everything involving President Trump's and his impeachment trial, whatever they're calling in hearings, that's probably going on the same thing that's happening in that world of politics that happens in sports. We just happen not to care about it because our jobs and our fun and what we like to do is in the sports world as compared to the political world. but I bet it happens everywhere. You are fake news.

Only a matter of time, Nick. Only a matter of time. Don't blame me for that one. And that's something that Nazi Germany would have done and did do. Oh, I forgot. When Ross is in the first chair, he's always got the ability to play soundbites. I don't know what you're talking about. Jeff Lulnow.

I feel bad he would never get to play that again. Yeah, we can sprinkle it in. Yeah, we can play it all the time. We got it saved. That's what I'm deathly afraid of You're going to play it all the time for no reason. Wrong. I'm just happy you haven't played a Bill O'Brien soundbite in the last three days.

You are a rude, terrible person. Don't worry, Bill O'Brien. We're coming after you. Bless you. Can't wait for that big NFL draft party they're going to have. You know, they're going to Vegas. They're going to put all the draftings on gondolas. Oh, yeah, that's right.

I want the Treasure Island Pirateship out there. There won't be a Houston Texan pick on a boat for some time. I would like. Are they bothering to boat the third round picks? I don't think they're doing boat on some third round. Here's what I do want. You know, if you ever gone down in Las Vegas Boulevard, hey, rent this car for a couple of hours, like a Lamborghini or a Maserati or some ridiculously fast car,

that's, if the Texans really want to do something special because they don't have a first round pick this year, how about they announce their second round pick and put them in one of those speed cars? I mean. Yeah. No. And get like an escort to be in the passenger side? A really hot girl? Yeah.

Or just one of those guys who hands out the escort cards. I don't want to put him. Why are we putting him in the car? I don't know. Why not? I want the hot girl. I want the hot girl. Okay.

And then I want the second round pick. Shut up, Bill. That's what I want. If first round picks are coming up on a gundal and a boat. Yes. Second round picks and going to one of those rent-a-lamourginis. No, we already figured. it out though, Matt. The first round picks get the

Bellagio treatment and then you go on down the list until like the seventh round picks are getting the Orleans. I've stayed at the Orleans before. How was that? Or the Excalibur. I'm not proud. First time I went to Vegas, very fast story. Yes. I thought you threw up at the Excalibur buffet. I did. I was going to, yeah. I've told the story before.

We were looking to get buffets because that's what kids did when they were when he turned 21. It was the buffets were still cheap back then. Yeah, and you had a great time at the chicken ranch. Well, I drove, I didn't go in. I was too afraid. But we did go. Woos.

Sorry. And so we got, we stayed at the Excalibur. We stayed at Tropicana, which was old back then, and that was 25 years ago. And now you go to the Excalibur where you get the, it was like a taco buffet mixed with turkey legs and fried fish and really rare roast beef. Oh. You wonder why you got sick. I ate so much, and I was so excited, but I couldn't stay within five. I had to be within five feet of my bathroom at the hotel.

So then I started feeling better. I said, my buddy, Todd, I said, hey, let's go down to the casino. Let's go play some black check. And I didn't know the rules of blackjack. I just thought it was, you know, you get to 21 as fast as possible. So the dealer would have a 6, and I'd have 15. I'd hate it. We played 21 when you were like kids.

Well, I didn't play it correctly. it took me losing $800 at the age of 21 for me to fix that up. You're like my little cousins that I was cleaning up on pennies with. You're terrible taking it from your family. All right, 213 is fine. That's right. 2.13 is our time. It is the Matt Thomas show.

We welcome here insights. This is your thought of reflection of the weekend. And obviously Kobe Bryant's passing is the number one story that won't go away. In fact, we're going to visit with a gentleman Mark Medina from USA Today, who did the last interview with Kobe before his past. So it'll be interesting to get a perspective from him on that. But when we return, we've got our good friend Todd Whitting, the head baseball coach at the University of Houston,

who lost somebody in the accident yesterday. John Atebelly will let coach explain who he, who coach Attebelly was in his relationship with the University of Houston program. That's next. Our time is 2.13. It is the Matt Thomas show here from Salt Lake City on Sports Talk 790. Left side to Westbrook, On the baseline for the tie.

He makes it, and he's fouled. This is Russell Westbrook. One thing's for sure, I did not get my amazing style from Matt Thomas. Oh, hammer job. Ross? Yes. By the way, Westbrook doesn't play in a night against Utah. Clint Capella has been downgraded to doubtful with his shins.

Wonderful. That's S-H-I-N-S. got to be careful on that James Hardin has been bumped up from doubtful to questionable with his left thigh contusion so there you have it if you had to pick do you think he still doesn't play

well here's the thing if you upgrade that means he must feel a lot better today I feel like upgrades happen right before and we upgrade to questionable tonight you're still out and then you're questionable in a couple of days and then that's when you play that's just my general sense of what's been happening

I would probably say questionable means he's going to give it, he's going to put the uniform on, go through warmups, see if he can run up and down the floor. But I am, when I hear doubtful, that to me means never. Questionable means, especially if you were doubtful that the previous day that something's going on that makes you feel better. By the way, I got a suggestion from a buddy on text. Ross, the fourth jersey in the Rockets or in the Houston icon uniforms, we put Columbia Blue, Rainbow, Rockets, Ketcham and mustard.

How about the rocket black uniforms right now? People love them. I like them very much as well. I don't know. Those black jerands are good, too. And I never thought I would like the space the Space City uniform as much as I do. When I first saw them, I was like,

meh, now I really like them. And by the way, they sell a bunch. I see a lot of H-town jerseys on the road we travel. Tonight we're here in Denver or in Utah. I saw a lot yesterday in Denver. All right. And it's always a good time to visit with a good friend,

but this is unfortunately a bad situation we're doing so with. And we're going to talk right now with Todd Winning. He is the head baseball coach of our beloved Houston Cougars. And coach, thanks for spending a couple minutes with us here. John Antebelly was a friend of yours, a fellow baseball coach. Take us through what it was like for you when you had heard that your friend and your fellow coach was a part of the unfortunate accidents of yesterday. Well, absolutely devastating.

He was a great personal friend of mine in my wife. You know, I've known John and Kerry for years, and obviously he was a great player here. He was an 184-85, and then I was an assistant coach in 87, so it's just truly a huge loss for me personally in the program and college baseball. Well, no question about that. Did you know he had a relationship because of the daughters

and the baseball and the basketball team? I mean, how did you know that, did you even know that he had gone on Kobe's, Had he gone on Kobe's helicopter in the past? Yeah, he and Kobe, you know, their parents. And, you know, that's kind of their relationship is they're very close. A couple years ago, my wife and I were having dinner with Alto and his wife at our favorite spot out there called Mikaasa in Orange in the Costa Mesa.

He mentioned then that his daughter was playing on Kobe's team and, you know, how excited he was about it. And that's, you know, she said, listen, you know, was on that team for a couple of years. So they've become really good friends, you know, nothing. public, but just, you know, they can just be and parents together. From what I have read, he sent a lot of your kids to your program from there. Have you been able to reach out to any of those young men that obviously know Coach Alto very well? Yeah, we've had five guys here in the program that come directly from Orange Coast College and, you know,

four since my time back as the head coach here. So, you know, they're crushed. I mean, they're, you know, Alto is one of those guys. everybody loves him. And it's just tremendous spirit, tremendous passion for his players, you know, the game, and people in general. So they were, you know, a couple of them moved back out to Orange County. They went to the little ceremony they had yesterday at the baseball stadium. But, you know, they're obviously very upset over the whole situation. Ty Whitting, head baseball coach University of Houston talking about his friend who

perished yesterday, John Altebelling, his wife Carrie, their daughter Alyssa, part of the Kobe Bryant in the helicopter crash. What kind of coach, was coach out to belly. You knew him a little bit from sending some kids there, but what kind of style was he? When you teach at community college and coach for as long as you had, that must be a passion for those young guys that are trying to make the next step

and maybe looking to move on to play at a Division I baseball program. Well, he's turned Orange Coast College into one of the premier junior colleges in the country. He won the California State Championship last year. He was the ABCA National Junior College Coach of the Year this past season. And I'm not sure that's not the throat. He may have won that award a couple of times, but I know he's won that state championship in California. But, you know, it's one of those guys that the players love him, you know, kind of like his ex-teammates here that he's very passionate about and was still very close to.

But, you know, they had great Alfo stories. And, you know, he's just kind of a fun-loving guy. You know, I just, I really enjoyed all the time that he and I got to spend together. I would be out there a couple times a year on the recruiting trail. And, you know, we would sometimes stay with he and K or, you know, we'd meet at that, at MECOS, a person in one. lunch and, you know, just talk about the team and the program. He was a very close, obviously he had players here, but he was a very close follower, you know, what we're doing here at Houston baseball?

How often, would you speak to him during the course of a calendar year? Oh, goodness. We talk all the time, you know. He, in fact, yesterday morning before, you know, all the tragedy happened, he was actually texting back and forth from my pitching coach, recruiting coordinator, Coach Rooney, you know, about one of his kids that they weren't on right now. But we were, you know, it was constant contact with him. He did a tremendous job of supporting his players, and he would try to get his mayor to Houston as he could. I would assume that when you have a job like that at a community college where it doesn't necessarily put you on the road a lot recruiting that family, like to all of us, has been very important.

It sounds like he was very involved in Alyssa's basketball career. He was. He was a great family guy. You know, he was on at three kids. JJ being the oldest, too, was a player at Oregon. and it is currently a scout for the Bossa Red Sox in the Southern California area. You know, of course, Alyssa, who was on the team, on Kobe's team. And then Lexi also, the older daughter, you know, just great family. You know, Kay was a tremendous mom.

They were very, very tight-knit, very tight-dead crew. Have you been able to reach out to the other members of the family yet? I text a little bit with JJ yesterday. You know, and I've talked to, you know, he was extremely close, you know, with a few of his teammates here. I mean, they were like brothers. You know, a couple times of years, they'd always try to get together. Yeah.

You know, he was one of those really special, you know, of all the former player groups that we have and teams and they kind of eras, that, you know, that 86, 87, 87 bunch, you know, it's kind of held together pretty well, and they keep in constant contact with each other. I know coach, and I'm actually here in Salt Lake City, so I'd not see it. You've got the video tribute on the big board over at the stadium right now. Is that correct? Yeah, actually, I'm sorry.

in the press box looking at it. It sure do. I mean, this goes on saying this must be extraordinarily surreal time for you. I mean, this is a, I mean, just to hear of the tragedy for all of them, much less you have a local connection to it. It must be, I'm sure your wife is in a, and it Tara is in a difficult place right now

as well, I'm assuming. Yeah, it's just, you know, the whole thing is sad. You've got so many great people, you know, involved in this, and, you know, there's so many families that are affected, you know, with something like the one. like this happens. And, you know, it's just devastating.

I mean, it's hard to wrap your mind around. Something like that happened to someone which you know and love and, you know, had such a relationship with him for so long. Did Alto ever come to Houston on any sort of regular basis? He would bounce here every, you know, every couple years. You know, he would come down and, you know, those guys on that 80s, that bunch that he played with would have get-togethers here. Kay had a friend, really close friend here in the Westview area,

that she would come down and visit for him. from Tom to Tom and her, and the girl was actually stopped by one time and visited for a little bit. So, you know, he was around as much as he could, but most of the time it was, you know, our relationship was me going on the West Coast recruiting or if we're playing out there, stop by and say hello. Coach, I appreciate it. I wish we were visiting under better circumstances. I appreciate your coming on so shortly after this tragedy to you, your Cougar family,

your personal family. We wish you nothing but the very best. And please send our regard to the Altabella family when you can. Well, I appreciate you guys, you know, having me all. to talk about him. And I also want to kind of give a shout out to all the local media who's, you know, Kobe Bryant's a legend. He's one of the greatest athletes of all time.

But I think our local media has done a really good job in honoring John K. and Alyssa during this whole tragedy. Yeah, very well said, my friend. We'll talk to you soon. Bye, buddy. Thanks. You got it. Todd Wooding, had baseball coach University of Houston.

And that's the number one thing about this all is that Kobe is obviously grabbing a lot of the headlines and understandably so. But they were nine that perished in that accident yesterday. And, man, it sucks. I mean, that anybody would pass in such a situation, but to have a local tie to it, especially for Coach Whitting, who knew John On Tebelly as well as he did and his family.

Thank you, again, for Coach Witting, for spending a couple minutes with us here. Houston's official sports cliche translator. I'm working hard. I'm trying to be a good teammate. I'm trying to go out here every day and do my job. Matt Thomas. Taking it one day at a time.

Time. is 232. The Matt Thomas show continues here on Sports Talk 7 out of here from Salt Lake City. Rock is trying to get back on the winning track after falling last night to the Denver Nuggets. Ross, we've not mentioned that Mike Fires spoke over the weekend at Ace Fest. Oh, what do you have to say? Not much. In fact, he didn't want to talk about it at all. He didn't want it to be a distraction. Hmm.

There really is a fine. line you've got to walk with this, right? Who is? Fineline who has to walk. Mike Fires does? Yeah. And determining was the right thing done. Does he celebrate? Does he get to hold his ring and go, man, that was an awesome 2017.

And then he also, you know, carries a responsibility of, well, I was the one that whistleblower of my own teammates in a time where the room is supposed to be locked shut. Don't bring those kind of things out. it's one of those things Rossi you could debate you know how you if you have kids that are in debate class and they need a good topic all right you could take you could take both sides you could take both sides and you could have a completely 100% compelling and hard to defend argument on both sides of it now what you have to do i think is this if you are if you are on the side of uh i applaud him then the other side of the debate is well then And if that's who you are, Mike, and that's who you believe and you believe everything was done wrong, then why did you wait two years?

Why did you tell the media as compared to telling the commissioner's office? And why did you, the year after you left the team to go pitch for somebody else, did you probably hold that ring and celebrate everything that was the World Series? If you thought the things that were being done by the Houston Astros organization, which are deplorable, it's not disputable, the things that are. the things that were done were so bad if we didn't know Ross that Mike Fires didn't collect his ring nobody would report that because nobody would know because the Astros could say hey did Mike Fires get his ring or did Mike Fires want a ceremony before the game to get his ring

they could have easily said well Mike Fires didn't want that Mike Fires politely said you know just hand me the ring let's move on we gave it to him in the off season and no one would have thought one I owed him about it but didn't they not have some sort of ceremony for Mike Fires? Yeah, I think he did get a, he got a ring, and I remember their pictures posted of it, and he looked very happy and put his ring on and all that type of stuff, so he didn't seem to mind at that point.

So what changed? That's what, something changed. And that's why? Was it the fact that he got shelled it by the Houston Astros when he came to Minutemate Park? That's why. Because the kids, again, most of America, and I don't mean to, I'm just taking my own amateur scientific poll on this. I think most of America is applauding that Mike Fires

stood up to his own team and said, this was not right, and I had to tell somebody about it. Now, how much did he try to do that in 2017? I don't think we'll ever really know. The argument is, if you thought it was so disgusting, why did you take the ring, why did you have the ceremony, and why are there pictures of you holding the ring

in your hand in that box? that's where I think the fans, primarily Houston Astro fans alike, snitches get stitches, and you're a fraud because of the things that you all of a sudden were celebrating, now you were denouncing a year later. And you would think if he knew that this type of stuff was going on in years past with this organization, that when he did pitch against them, that he would be aware of that and he would be changing up his signs a bunch. Ross, he couldn't be that shallow in saying that the Astros ripped him against him when he was an A and that that would force him to go.

You know what? I'm done with this. I can't keep silent anymore. Something else happened because you don't go from Holly, from a jolly and happy. Here's my ring. I'm back to get it. This is so nice to I have to go tell the athletic. and I have to go tell a written, a publication over a sports organization owner's MLB about what's going on that forced the investigation by MLB.

I don't mind the connecting of the dots. I don't mind the something's wrong and we've got to tell somebody about it. But something is fishy and I wish I knew what it was. Because right now the connect the dots to this, there is a one big space. did he ever attempt to reach call out to the commissioner's office before going to the athletic? Why did he go to the athletic? Why did he wait two years after, two and a half years after the World Series? I mean, about two years.

Why do you wait two years after? And again, this is not trying to me to be Houston Homer to defend the Astros because we've basically have discussed everything and thought it was horrible. And it's put it, it's tarnished the legacy of that team. It's good. it's going to put a tarnish on this squad for 2020, and it's put an asterisk next to the World Series championship, whether we want it to be there or not.

It just adds. But something to me isn't right, and I wish somebody could help me connect the dots. Problem is the Astros shouldn't be able to help us because, you know, I think Amnesty Card is in play here where, you know what, you've got to keep quiet and you're not going to get in. I mean, I can't go to Alex Spregman.

You know, Alex and I know each other a little bit. He's been on our show multiple times. Great guy. Ross, I don't think I can go to Alex Breggman and say, walk me through why Mike Fires waited two years for this. He may be able to tell his boys, but he can, you know. Yeah, maybe something happened that we don't know about. I don't know. Or maybe he just felt like being honest.

Or maybe he had a, sometimes you have a little bit of guilt, Matt, and you feel like you did the wrong thing. And maybe I should have spoken up. You ever witnessed something and you're like, maybe I should have done more. Maybe I should have spoken up. And maybe that got to him. and he finally said, you know what, I need to come forward with this. Because we as humans turn a blind eye to a lot of stuff that maybe we shouldn't, and maybe he just felt like he needed to come out and say something.

Yeah, I mean, let's run into a different angle. Maybe you and I worked for a company that was able to get some insider training information, and we made a lot of money off stocks. The guilt might hit one of us, Ross. Maybe not, but it might. And there have been whistleblowers on that before. Maybe the whistleblowers on, I mean, the number of things. Yeah.

Because that's the only thing I can think of. Company does well, gets inside information, exposes something from a competitor that allows them to dominate when there was really nothing wrong or that you did something, you cooked the book, something. So this is, the Mike Fires late decision to whistleblow isn't unprecedented. But we don't particularly.

care about what Joe Business does. We care about a Houston Astros team that we follow every day that is a very public organization that represents a city, that represents a sport that we love. And that's the reason why I think there's probably, in my mind, a lot more interest in why Mike delayed his decision to go to the athletic as compared to why a company's, you know, maybe they were building something

and there was a faulty part or something and the guy spoke two years later. we're interested more in the Astros public baseball team than we are in a private business these things I think about but everybody had their fest this weekend or last weekend apparently the number of tickets that Dodger fans are going to be giving uh oh nothing super major but uh Mark Berman is putting out that according to a source James Hardin was not expected to play tonight well that sucks did he call James I hope he did should I call him real quick you want to confirm Matt

so that is going to be no Clint Capella what's the official Russell Westbrook's out correct no matter of right and no James Harder I can clear my throat too so you tell me I have to get some more

filler material for the rockets getting today the pre yeah you might need to go to some stories towards fourth quarter there Maddie The line has moved to Rockets plus 12 and a half. It was 10 yesterday. Yep.

This could get ugly. So I better get my Michael Fraser bio points written down. Yeesh. Chris Clemens. Austin Rivers. Isaiah Hartinstein. Oof. Yeah, you're just, you know what?

Thanks for interrupting that. Well, sorry, Matt. It was breaking news. All right. Final segment of the show, Ross. Have we talked to anybody in an hour or so? Everybody's just kind of sitting back, I think, in a days? I think there is some of that, yes.

Okay. If you're not in the days and are willing to get into anything we've discussed, whether it be the rocket sailments, Mike fires. Oh, by the way, before you interrupted, 800 tickets have been purchased by Dodger fans to the opening Astros Angels weekend. What a bunch of losers. That means 800 losers are going to be in Southern California in Orange County.

All right. 713212-5-7-9 if you'd like to get in. 7-13-212-5-7-90. A closing thought on Kobe. The story will not go away for quite some time. That is for sure. But it was worthy of at least getting a different perspective on it, especially from Todd Winning.

Also, the rockets are down. Could be as many as three starters tonight. Yep, I'm filling material. 7-13-212-5-790. 7-1-3-2-5-7-90. It's a Matt Thomas show here from Salt Lake City. Sports Talk 790. On the trail, it's hard.

That it drops it down with a left hand hammer. This is Coach Dan Tonin. Matt Thomas is a great guy. And I always listen to the radio show. On mute. What a shot. All right, coach. It's not very nice.

He'll be with us on Wednesday. And the Rockets are we heading up to Portland tomorrow after the game tonight here with the Utah Jazz. 7 o'clock with the launch pad. Who will be the host of said, is it Michael Connor in the launch pad, Mike, uh, Ross? It will be me, Matthew. What? Eh, it'll be a nightcap.

I'm all over the place. So you got nightcap into launch pad, into network pregame, into me, into the post game with you? Yes, sir. Will Gerard called a show tonight? I hope somebody does. Will Maya called a show tonight?

I hope so. I mean, if nobody calls you, I'll talk to you. you. Oh, thanks, Matt. I mean, I might be on a train back to the hotel here, but at least I'll be, I'll listen. That's wonderful. I don't know if I'll listen. But everybody in Houston should.

Especially the Rockets win the night. This Jazz Team Rossi is, first of all, they beat up a bunch of pansies, which, you know what? They do it, and they give them credit, but they also knocked off Dallas a couple days ago. They are ridiculously hot. They've won 14 of 15.

They have the second best record in the Western Conference. the Utah Jazz, Ross. Well, the people talked about them in the preseason as one of the, one of the going to be one of the Western Conference teams to look for. Well, I'm looking at them and I'm not happy with him. The fact that Bogdan Bogdanovich is their best, is really their best player, him and bless you.

Mitchell, yeah. Bogdanovich averaging 21. Mitchell's averaging 25. Rudy Gobert is a double-double machine. Jordan Clarkson's been okay since he's coming over from Cleveland. Lefty Joe Ingalls just shoots three-pointers all the time. Doesn't matter where they are. He'll just shoot it as long as

it's from the left hand. And Mike Conlin, they made a big trade for him with Memphis and he hardly, you know, he's not, he's not even start for them anymore. And you'd be remiss if you didn't mention Joe Ingalls' Sloth-like release. Sloth-like. That's probably as accurate as I've ever heard of someone. I mean, it's not measured. Takes him a minute to get the shot up.

Yeah. You would never, you would ever call him quick trigger angles. Right. slow, methodical, take your time, easily blocked three-point shot, he'll never be catch and shoot, Ingalls, that's for sure, right? Right. All right, so thoughts and prayers the Rockets tonight. Just say a small prayer for the Rockets. Not in the big scheme of things, the Rockets are going to be fine.

It just won't be tonight if three starters can't go. Because think about this. If Hardin and Westbrook don't play tonight, Ross, that's 57 points of their offense. gone. If Capella doesn't play, we'll add another 14 of that. So that's going to be 76 points of offense. Well, 57 plus 14 is 71. 14 and 36 is 50. 50 and 26 is 76. Oh, you went, what, you said 57 earlier. I know, I was wrong. Hard. I'm just very confused. Yeah, Hart and Westbroker, 62 combined, not 50. Okay. Yeah, I'm throwing, I'm glad you're listening, at least.

glad you're listening at least somebody's got to um a lot of things out there about coby tributes we know the mavericks are going to give up the 24 for good somebody put on twitter and again it's just conjecture somebody thought about maybe reformulating the logo to Kobe i don't think you do that um jerry west is amazing jerry west still alive Jerry West has done nothing that would make you think well, now there needs to be somebody else that needs to represent the league.

There'll be something that Kobe there's going to be an award named after him, Ross. There'll be something that will be done and maybe, I don't know if it's all 24s to be retired in the NBA. That would be kind of difficult I'd think to do. Because really Jackie Robinson, the 42s, was done more for him, you know,

being a trailblazer and a humanitarian. Kobe was just an awesome. basketball player for 20 years. But he didn't save the league from bankruptcy or, you know, he didn't invent a shot. I mean, Kobe is beloved, no question about that. But I don't put him in the same category as Jackie Robinson. And that's when everybody put the numbers on. So what would be the appropriate thing to do?

I mean, I think the Mavericks, I think you can leave it up to the different organizations. Look if the Mavericks want to do it, you go ahead and let them do that. Oh, I don't think it's a problem. I'm just saying that I just don't know if you could. get that to be done league-wide. What's the best way to honor him? Because he is one of the greatest. He is one of the greatest competitors.

And 24 is already retired for the Rockets, right? From Home Alone? Yeah. I don't know. That's something I don't know if they're thinking about that. You know, you couldn't name a six-man award. You couldn't name a... Bill Russell already is the defensive player of the year, right?

Isn't that the MVP? Who's the MVP award? Is that Bill Russell? is Bill Russell's MVP award. That's right. Well, he's finals MVP, though. Does the MVP award have a name attached to it? I don't think so.

You could do it that easily. He only won one of them. Well, okay. Or what about defensive player of the year? He never won that. I don't think. What about the All-Star MVP? He was an 18-10 of those.

He won a couple of those. But, I mean, just being a participant for all those years. Right. Oh, yeah. I think the NBA will think of something. And when they do and then when they announce it, whenever that will be, it'll be something that makes a whole lot of sense. It looks like there's no name for the MVP and there's no name for the All-Star game MVP. Yeah, I'll call my shot right now.

I believe it will be the Kobe Bryant All-Star MVP Award. Or the Community Assist Award? That one doesn't have a name. But that's not going to resonate. If you do it every year at the All-Star game, I mean, say what you will about it being an All-Star game and what? how much importance it overall is. Somebody's going to hoist a trophy that's going to have the word Kobe Bryant attached to it.

That's going to be a big deal for a lot of people. How many MVP awards did he win? One. Yeah. This is what they do in the NBA offices. They go, how do we properly memorialize the life and times of Kobe Bryant? I would say the All-Star MVP Award

would be as good as it got. That I would think would be perfect fitting and respectful for him as compared to the other grades of the game. These will be things I'm sure the NBA will discuss. Plus tonight, I'll be curious. We'll get on the show tomorrow and see what the jazz and the rockets do to honor his memory. You are off to Florida tomorrow, so you will not be with me. Correct.

Which means more Nick Lowe on the show, which I'm very scared about. How many say you got to have like a, you can only have a certain number of segment suspension cards that you can play. You can't just do it every time. There's four segments in an hour so it can be suspended four times. We're looking at about 11 to 12 suspension. It's total depending on awkward things he says. I'm going to shoot for 12. It's just to give you one an hour.

You only get three segment suspension cards. And if you use it up in the first three segments, like you're done, he gets to talk the rest of the time. Well, Mark Medina from USA Today is going to join us. He was the last writer to do a story with Kobe. So he won't be suspended during that segment. Well, we'll see. I think the continent has been, the challenge has been placed down. Yeah, don't challenge me.

All right. Hey, speaking of challenges, the billiard factory, We've got some great news. We're going to announce it probably when everybody gets back from Miami on the road trip and you get back from Florida. We're going to have a pool tournament in the month of March. And there's no better table to play pool in the city of Houston than at the billiard factory. They not only have great pool tables.

They've had them since 1976 all throughout the city of Houston with four Houston area locations. But now they offer amazing home entertainment furniture. Like, how about this? 15% off theater seating. How about the opportunity to get buy now and pay later up to 60 months of no interest financing? How about dart boards? And you've got the ping pong tables. You have also the, what's the game Ross that we play that I lost with you, 5-0 early on?

Foozeball. That's what it is. Foozball. Yeah, they got foos ball. They got everything there. It's a man cave heaven. all of us that are trying to fill out our entertainment centers. And if you buy a pool table between now and the end of January,

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where they got game. A team is up next. Talk to you guys tonight at 8 o'clock here on Sports Talk 790 for the Rockets and the Jazz back noon here tomorrow on 790.