The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - The Matt Thomas Show 11-13-19

Episode Date: November 13, 2019

The Matt Thomas Show w/ @SportsMT, @SportsRV, and @ProNickLow 11/13/19The Astros Sign Stealing Scandal (0:00)Joel Klatt Weighs In On The College Playoff Rankings (37:58)Ian Eagle Discusses Texans v Ravens (1:18:28)Non Florida Stories (1:37:57)

So much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas show. And what's happening in lunch timers? Good afternoon to you and welcome to a Wednesday edition of the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790 alongside Pro Nick Lowe, our producer, our friend. A comment on odd topics, sports RV. What? Comments are on odd topics. He just, he's an odd man on topics. I don't know what he does.

That's in my job description. That is, it is. I'm Matt, Ross, Nick, we're all here. Yeah, the gang's all here. We've got a really good show today. Of course we do. We have Joe Clyde, joining us from Fox Sports at 1 o'clock. The very talented I in the Eagle, the voice of everything on CBS. Yeah.

We'll call the Texans and Ravens at 2 o'clock. He'll join us. His son is actually here in town to them. today. Really? 22-year-old Noah Eagle is the voice of the Los Angeles Clippers. What? First year, yeah. Wow.

So there's that. Non-Florida stories coming up on the show today. By the way, I've been given the same non-Florida story by multiple people. And it's so gross, it's not going to be done. You're not going to do it. Okay. And I'll just give you the first three words of the non-Florida story. That's the reason we won't be doing it.

Okay. A hot diarrhea. All right. That's what I was going to do. It says, no, you are not doing it. You let him do what he wants. If he wants to try to win that way. You want to do it, that's fine, but it's gross.

That's how you know the bits catching on, because we always get people sending us stories. So if you guys got any non-Florida stories that don't involve diarrhea, send them to me. My email address, mt.attsch.com. Or Ross at Sports790.com. I don't have to go send them there. If you want me to win. The lead story continues to be. whether or not the Astros use video tactics to steal signs.

The story has really taken off early since the start of our show yesterday when the report first came out from The Athletic. Here's Jeff Luno yesterday. This is audio courtesy of ESPN, and this is, I guess, two different clips, answering questions yesterday at the general manager's meetings in Phoenix about the sign stealing allegations. Just yes or no?

I mean, specifically, I'm not going to get into exactly what I knew or anybody knew at this point. So, I mean, we're just going to have to wait and see what, I'm sure there will be an appropriate time to answer that question directly. I'm not trying to avoid it. I just think at this point, we are, you know, we're going to investigate it and figure out what the facts are, and then we'll respond after that. Are you concerned this has been to muddy the reputation of what has been the greatest success in the history of the franchise? I hope it doesn't. We have a lot of good players. We have a really good manager. We've got a great fan base. And we've accomplished a lot. And I think that stands for itself. I'm hopeful that we'll find out exactly what happened. And we'll address it if there's something to be addressed and we can move on.

I mean, we've got the reason we won the World Series in 2017 is Jose L-Tuba and Alex Bregman and Joseph Berliner, a lot of great players. And they do things the right way. And we as an organization, that's what we aspire to do as well. All right. I think everybody by this time has seen every story that's on the local news or national news. Many of you have probably read this story. There's the video that's out there by the one person on Twitter that has the Danny Farquah, the Chicago White Sox going against the Astros. So I don't think there's anything out there at this point that people haven't seen that pretty much at this point can, you can make up your own mind about this.

Jeff Luno, yesterday, in those two soundbite, sounds like we need to figure out how we're going to say that we're sorry for doing this and that we got caught. I mean, it's not going to, and this is just, this is me speaking. This again is AstroBuddy since 1979. This is man that has done thousands and thousands of Astros pre and post games over the years, celebrated when the team was really, really awesome like they are right now, and depressed as hell when they were losing 100 lost seasons. This is a terrible look, but it's not a look that's going to tarnish the 2017 World Series run.

It's just not. It's just one another storyline after what has already been a pretty turbulent month for the Astros. when we should have at the end of the day been celebrating again, an American League pennant going to Game 7 of the World Series. We've had the Brandon Todman situation. We have this going.

It's just been a difficult look for the organization. And I feel sorry for those that have nothing to do with this because it is tarnishing some of the greatness that has been the last three years of Astros baseball. Yeah, it's definitely going to take some of the luster off. The question is how much? Because right now we're going through it, right? It just came out.

This is basically any story that comes out. When Roberto Osuna was first moved here, There was a firestorm. There was people with think pieces, and there's people getting all upset, and female Astros fans saying, I'm never watching the team anymore. And then, you know, you let the months pass. And some of that, you could just say time heals all wounds, and it goes away. And I think that's what's going to happen with this.

Because the same thing happened with the Red Sox in 2017 in the Apple Watches, right? Right. Nobody says that tainted any 2018 things that were going on. And this specific story, whether you want to debate what happened and how much they did or whatever. The fact of the matter is they cheated. So how widespread was it?

How much did it matter? How many other teams are doing it? How many other teams are doing it is also something we can debate, but they did cheat. It is a little bit of a black eye, but I'm with you. I mean, there's not going to be an asterisk. They're not going to take away the World Series rings. You can't take away the fact they did what they did.

They said even in the story that they stopped during the playoffs. So this is just a bad PR hit that the Astros. they're taking it on the chin right now. What I would like for the Astros to have is fewer PR hits. Yes. I'd like to be able to say, hey, the Astros did this, or acquired this guy, or traded for this person, or signed as a free agent. I don't want so many of the negative stories that have hit the Astros in the last 30 days to continue.

Fact of the matter is, I think Major League Baseball is going to use the Astros as an example because I'm also of the belief that a lot of Major League Baseball teams, if not all, are doing something artificial to try to gain intelligence against the opponents. I think there is a lot of teams that are doing similar things that probably today are going,

whew, I'm glad we didn't get caught. So, with all that being said, I love my Astros, I love this baseball team, I love to talk about them, but sometimes in the good times and the bad, we have to talk about them. And today is a day

that's going to be a day still for a lot of people to react. I don't think the easy line is everybody does it, move on. I don't think that's the case. I don't think Major League Baseball is going to say that. I also don't believe that if you're the diehardest of diehard Astro fan, that you saying this is no big deal when if it was the Yankees, the Mets, the White Sox, the Cardinals, the Mariners, you would be crushing them.

Right. If we found out that the Nationals were doing this during the World Series or something like that, it would be complete bedlam in Houston, Texas right now. Astros fans coming for blood, full pitch forks and torches, storming, I don't know, Minutemade Park or storming the offices of Manfred. I don't know what they would be doing, but it would be, yeah, like you said, you would be crushing them. So anybody that comes to you and says, oh, this is no biggie. You know what, in a few weeks, it will be no biggie. and if majorly baseball finds them a quarter of a million dollars or finds them a draft pick, well, then you know what?

That's probably what they deserve. But this notion of everybody does it, I can buy that. But to say that you wouldn't be treating the opponents differently than you're treating your hometown team is a different animal. And that's honestly and everything. We have favorites in our teams. We have favorite teams. We love the rocket. or we love the Texans or we love the Astros.

So nothing that our teams do could ever really be, quote, unquote, that big of a deal. Right. It's just trying to trivialize something that you can argue that everybody does it. You can argue that maybe it doesn't even help that much because the Farquhar game, they scored one run the entire time. You can argue all that. Sure, if you want, but the fact of the matter is they still cheated. And if it doesn't help at all, why are they doing it?

The fact, they cheated. Unless you were one of those people. There's people, Matt, there's still people with their head in their sand saying, saying, I need to see more evidence. I need to see before I believe. You've got Mike Fires admitting it. He was on the team. You got Farquhar who had met.

You've got the video evidence. You've got multiple sources who haven't come forward. But I don't think Ken Rosenthal and Evendrelich are just making this up. This obviously they did it. The Astros cheated, period. And this is just like when our favorite college teams do something wrong, like improper activity or benefits or something that would get the incident of all laid, the razor flag.

Oh, it's no big deal that our school did this. It's just, we're all being selective. We're all hypocrites when it comes to this. For sure. Yeah. Like, great example. The Kentuckies and the Kansases and the North Carolinas, they're all cheating. But that doesn't mean just because you got caught that everything's okay.

And it's not okay. Just because everybody's doing it doesn't mean it's fine. All right, if you'd like to get your two cents in, our friends at Channel 2, are you guys leaving already? They've had enough of you. Man. Okay. Channel 2 is here. Matt wants a full hour expose on himself.

I want to, yeah. That doesn't sound terrible. The ratings disagree. Days of Our Lives is leaving, so I can fill that spot. I mean, come on now. Are they on Channel 2? They are on Channel 2. Okay, good.

Yeah, by the way, days of our lives, all their cast members were told we're not paying your contracts anymore. Are you going to be okay? I haven't watched it show since the mid-90s. You know why I've not stopped watching it? What happened? When Marlena got possessed by the devil, I said, I'm done with it. And I was done with it.

Oh, wow. Then you were out. I was out. Now I'm on the young and the restless and the bold and the beautiful. Okay. On another station. That's very difficult to keep track. 713-212-5-7-90.

If you'd like to get in on the conversation today. Can we just be grown-up about this and say, yeah. Our team that we'd love got caught. There's no if-ans or butts. we can call Mike Fires a bitch, which we probably should. Well, let's not add him on Twitter like some people have done. No, I'm not saying that, but he did snitch. Yeah.

And maybe there's some sour grapes on his part. Maybe. There are lots of sour grapes on his part. Right, but that is, I mean... If he had zero grapes, he wouldn't have gone and told the athletic. Right. But his grapes were sour. Very sour.

These grapes are awful. Let me go tell the analytic all the stuff that I used to do. He's definitely a snitch and he's terrible at fashioning his facial hair. But that doesn't mean he's lying. No, it doesn't. That's the unfortunate part. Matt Thomas returns on Sports Talk 790. Baseball, football, basketball, and Houston.

Home for your home teams. All right, so if you had a chance now to look at everything on this story on the Astros, are you outraged, or are you sad? Are you mad? Are you like no big deal? again, I think it all comes down to the perspective in which you perceive this story. As an astro fan, as a sports talk show host, as a

astro buddy, on my scale of 1 to 10, 10 being this is the worst thing I've ever heard in my entire life, and I'm embarrassed and I'm no longer considering being an astro fan, and one being this is nothing move along, it's about a 4 to me, maybe a 5? I think that's probably fair. Because here's the thing. What I think as someone who loves the Astros, there should be fine. There should maybe even a draft pick lost because they've got to,

somebody's got to take the heat for this so it doesn't happen again. I don't frankly want to talk about stealing signs via video ever again. Yeah, I think you, in the first segment you made the excellent analogy that I'll probably keep going back to. It's like if you're a fan of U of U of H, I'm a fan of UT. If some other team or if UT gets dinged for paying recruits or for having athletes take tests or having people take tests for their athletes, which I probably happened when I was at UT. I might have known somebody who knows somebody. So if a school gets dinged for that, you say, you know what? We're cheating.

Everybody else is doing it. We're the ones that got caught. We have to wear it. So you have to take whatever sanctions come down from the NCAA. The Astros are going to have to take down whatever sanctions come from the Major League Baseball. and say, we know everybody else is doing it, but we're the ones that got caught. We have to take this. We have to grin and bear it.

We have to take whatever fine. And like you said, draft picks or whatever, you just have to take your punishment. You have to sit there and take your lumps. So if you have a comment one way or the other, 713-212-5-790, your voice could be heard tonight on channel too. Is they looking to get a couple of reactions from some folks? 7-1-3-2-5-7-90. If you want to reach out via Twitter, you can do that as well, at SportsMT, at SportsRV, and at Pro Nick Lowe. I've got a question for you, Matt.

Yeah. What do you think comes out of this? I mean, other than the punishment that may be levied on the Astros, I'm talking about anything to combat this league-wide. The only thing I could think of is maybe having the umpires do a walk-through of teams dugouts before every game to make sure none of these types of systems are installed. Certainly umpires. But the problem is, if you did it, let's say, 10 minutes before the first pitch,

the game's at 7-10. If you really wanted to get some intelligence put in there, you do it at 720 when no one sees you. You know what I mean? I don't know if a pregame check is going to change that. My guess is random audits probably will be in play with all 30 major league baseball teams, right? I think maybe something like that. But then I guess there is, since they clarified the rule in 2017, in the article in the athletic, they talked about how they ramped up security.

They have MLB officials sweeping the games and looking for video equipment. So they have ramped up trying to stop this since 2017. So we don't know that it's been happening the last couple of years or as much. Let's go to Willie in Westview at 1225 on 790. Hi, Willie. Hey, I appreciate the time. And I'm going to say this. I'm going to take the approach of any enterprise level sport,

meaning the professionals, the best, the best of what they do. There are guidelines, there are principles that will trickle down. Whatever the, I would say the elites in this instance do, Lower levels, college, high school will do it in excess. I'm for enforcing the penalty to ensure that the lower levels of whatever sport see, hey, if you do this, this is what will happen. I understand it's happening across the board. That doesn't make it, you know, the matter that we still don't have to address. I love the assholes.

I'm a die-heart guy for Houston. However, I look at it as across the board. It's football, basketball. These lenders guys are seeing this. they're seeing what they can and cannot get away from. And if they don't address this the right way, M-LB, I just think it's just going to pollute the entire sport down the line. And I'll think up and listen.

Thank you for the phone call. I think we're going to see massive audits, massive security sweeps, even more so than it was previously discussed. In-game, different parts of the stadium, I think you're going to have, this is unfortunate, it, but I think it should put everybody's mind at ease that you're not being taken advantage of. Because, you know, that's what the Astros philosophy was two years ago, is that we put our guy in and around clubhouses and around dugouts because we were afraid that other people were stealing our stuff.

Yeah. And then we talked about yesterday, Justin Verlander, who has been talked about even without people on base. Like, most guys only change up their signals when somebody's on base. Justin Verlander was changing them up all the time. So I think he's been aware of some stuff like this going on. And what I mentioned earlier, so in 2018 in the playoffs, that's when the MLB had dedicated measures in place,

according to the Ken Rosenthal article. He said the MLB placed league employees at the park to attempt to monitor what teams are doing. So they have beefed up security and they do have people trying to keep an eye on these types of things. And maybe they'll ramp it up even more now. All right. And again, I'm sad that my team is going to get caught with this.

but it's not going to derail who they are in my mind at the end of the day what they've accomplished and what they're going to be. Mike fires, though. He's going to get booed lustily next year. Don't they open with the, no, they open with the Angels. But then whenever the A's come to town, look, we have all been around people, whether it be in schooling, whether it be at your job, whether it be with your friends, that have had some unethical, maybe slightly legal activity.

Right. Most times people kind of keep that to themselves, right, Ross? Especially when you are benefiting from some situations. He benefited from this. Yes, he did. Whether he wants admitted or not, he benefited from the sign stealing. I mean, maybe it's just a matter of he was asked a question and he said, you know what? Yeah, this is what happened.

I mean, does it have to be really on him that he confirmed what was happening? He could have said to no comment. He could have. He could have been easily said there because at that point, if he says no comment, the article's not going to say, we asked Mike Fires. Mike Fires said no comment. I'm not going to mention Mike Fires' name at all. That's true. But all he did was tell the truth.

I mean, do we need to fault the guy and get mad at him for just telling the truth? The truth will set you free? unless you got a ring, unless you got a ring, you got that ring, you got that World Series bonus check. And then he did have the further comments where he said he wasn't comfortable with it and all that type of stuff, but he didn't necessarily wasn't uncomfortable enough to say anything at that time. Real fast, do you know this about me? There is a, when we play cards, if I can see the person's cards next to me, I always say, please move up your cards.

I don't ever want to see your cards. I give them one warning and then after that I'll look. Oh, no, I'm a multiple warning guy. One warning. Y'all hear that? When y'all play cards with Ross and me, I'll give you plenty of warnings to say that I see your cards. Ross gives you the one check. That's on you.

That's a different scenario. If you're the one showing me your cards, I'm going to look. That's free information. Why would you give anyone a warning? See, Nick? I'm nicer than Nick. Because I am an angel. Oh, and for your information, May 25th, the,

Astros start a four-game series with the athletics here in Houston. They do play them before that. They play them at March 30th, but that's in Oakland. All right, let's go with one more call before. Let's give Channel 2 punting good material here. Let's go to... Look, we're just taking care of you, Channel 2. You know what?

You should be the Matt Thomas show on Channel 2. Forget about AT&T Sportsnet. Hi, Jason. Hey, gentlemen. Okay, one thing, had these accusations been validated, is there proof that there was a camera in the outfield? It's just simple, yes or no. Well, that's to be determined.

Angelie Baseball is currently investigating that. Okay, good luck on that one. Number two, baseball, you've always stole signs, whether the second base in the shortstop, try to get some type of headway to stop the pitcher from doing his job. It is the truth. My problem is Mike fires. You waited two years.

You cast your check. You got your ring. You didn't say nothing about it. For some reason, he is. not happy or his conscience has come up with this saying, has anybody else who has left the team said anything in regards to this? I believe Beltron had said that was not true. I think Beltron had said that they studied film every day on the picture to try to pick up some sequence of their signs. So if this is a one-man show coming out and saying this, or there are multiple

reports of different players who were there and actually, seen and participated in that. Well, the answer to that question is there are multiple people within the organization. He just happens to be the first player that has been talking about. Or former organization members, yes. But the only one on record, the only two people on record, to my knowledge, are Mike Fires and Danny Farquhar, the opposing pitcher. Yeah.

All right. Thank you very much for that. If you want to get more into the conversation, we'll come to you following this short timeout, 713-212-5-790. Joel Clatt on the college football rankings at 1 o'clock from Fox Sports. Iron Eagle, one of the great voices of CBS, will be on the call for the Texans and the Ravens. He'll be with us at 2 o'clock.

We've got 9 Florida Stories at 2.30. And we got you at 713-212-5-790. Here come the Rockets. Hey, it's Joe Green. Man, this is Ais time. This is my town. This is Sports Talk 7-90. Home with your Rockies.

Rocket news for you tonight. Eric Gordon had his surgery today. will be out six weeks. Great. Wow, that was a heavy side for that. It's early. He just started making his threes in the last two games. He was just getting going.

But you know what? Last year he came out, he missed a little bit of time with the injury, and he came back, and he was shooting great. So let's get EG 100% healthy for the stretch run. Yeah. What do you get in a multi-million? Yeah, he makes $20 million in here. He should still be sending you gifts. That's true.

I didn't thought of it that way. You know, when you ever get invited to a really, rich friends party what do you bring um i don't know anybody that's really rich okay sorry you're the richest person i know matt well you got a good new set of friends i'm gonna tell you uh 1236 of the bat tautubes show sports talk 780sael kingwood estate palatial like five cars mm a lot of debt that's why i'm working these nine jobs it's fine All right, 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90.

So we mentioned, oh, by the way, tonight, I have not heard word from the Clippers about whether or not Paul George and or Kawhi Leonard are going to play. I'm going to presume that Kauai is going to, and that Paul is either playing tonight or tomorrow, but everybody at least had been saying it's going to be probably tomorrow against Oklahoma City. I don't know if it's been official or not. But Rockets and Clippers are going to the game tonight's early 6.30. We'll have the coverage for you beginning. God, at 5-3, which means Wexler.

and Clant again are not working a full show today. Are you shocked? It's going to be every East Coast Rockets game. Or every game period. And then you throw the Astros games in there. Every show there's is maybe two hours. Two hours max. Grinding.

Grinders. They're working on Rockets pre and post games as well now, though. That's true. That's true. They are grinding. And actually, Wexler came in and filled in from a few days ago, half hour early because he knew I was on my deathbed. See?

Team 790. Yeah, Matt. I call everybody out all the time. Yeah, but they deserve it. I'm scared to hear what you say about me behind my back. Here's the problem. I would say it right to your face. Ricky and Sugar Land at 1238.

Hi, Ricky. Hey, guys. Here's a probably unpopular question, but any possibility, this whole shenanigan story had something to do with Reed Ryan and his emotions, being the president. Typically, you know, presidents kind of know everything about a team of what's going on.

What are your thoughts on that? Zero, Ricky. This story with Ken Rosenthal and with Evan Drellich has been worked on for months. There's no way that Reed Ryan's departure this past weekend would have fast forwarded this story at all. So I would say there's 0% chance the two are are side by side. And then the second question I got, any chance that would obviously put a mark on the World Series Championship, but it'll still be ours in the books, correct? Yeah, they're not taking a World Series trophy away.

They're not. No chance that either. Let's go talk about something else. What would I talk about? Um, that's real I was on my mind. I would like to see the Aggie. Oh, whoa, whoa, wait. So you said, hey, let's talk about something else.

I come to you and say, what would you like to talk about? And you just came back with me with, well, that was what I was on my mind. So obviously we got to talk about what people were talking about, right? Sure. Okay. Or we'll talk about the Aggie's beaten LSU. How about that? That's, I would actually love that.

I like the way he's thinking. Rick has good stuff, my man. Talk to you soon. When's that game? Does it matter? This is not this week, is it? No. No, LSU.

He's playing Old Miss. A&M's got South Carolina. Are the Aggies going to beat LSU if you, if you, no. They're going to Death Valley in two weeks. Is it the Friday? Three weeks. Is it the Saturday after Thanksgiving?

Is that one that is? Yes. No, please. Yeah. Probably. A&M has got. that seven and five schedule earmarked right there. They'd get that thing locked and loaded.

Well, they're six and three. Yeah. Their remaining schedule is home for South Carolina at Georgia. Loss. And at LSU. Loss. That'd be a little seven and five actually. And then, you know, you win the Liberty Bowl or whatever.

Outback Bowl. I'd die for Liberty Bowl right now. BFo Brady's Bowl. I'd die for any bowl. My squad might drop the last three games the year and end the year at three and nine. I'm thinking we're going to see Texas in the good old-fashioned Texas Bowl again, so I won't have to travel far to go to that one at least. Do you even look at bowl projections anymore?

Why would I? No. Nobody wants to look at bowl projections. Okay, fine. I can look at them. Let's see what we have for a little Texas Longhorns. Now, if you're Baylor, you can't wait to look at the bowl projections, because you're thinking maybe a New Year's Six Day Bowl.

Oh, they got A&M in the Texas Bowl. Against? Oklahoma State or Kansas State. camping world bowl against Notre Dame for Texas Tony the Tiger Bowl Oh wait that's in El Paso We've already talked about that

Oh Alamo Bowl I've been to an Alamo Bowl Are you kidding me If there's anything that marks Texas football The last 15 years It's either the Holiday Bowl Or the Alamo Bowl It's been the Alamo Bowl as recent

That's the Mac Brown Invitational But now it can't be A Charlie Strong Invitational But it can't be the time I'm an invitational. Didn't you all have fun last year the Sugar Bowl beating that George ass? Schedule's tough, man.

Just got a nice win against ranked Kansas State at home. Let me tell you some. You know who your most viable player is? Sam Mellenker. Try again. Kiante Ingram? Nope.

The Dicker. Brianne Jones? The Dicker. Dicker the kicker has been very clutched. I think he's got two game winning field goals this year already. He's single-handedly beaten. What does they call the Kansas? The Sunflower State?

The Jayhawks. and the Wildcats. And the Wildcats. He is Kansas State champion. Cameron Dicker. He's got him, he's got a big old Kansas belt around his waist right now. That waist probably is about a 22 right now.

He's very young as well, yeah. Does he got facial hair at this point? I don't think so. Okay. 1242. It is the Matt Thomas show. Sports Talk 790. We've got the Astros being very quiet.

And by the way, their statement yesterday was perfect. We're going to investigate this. We'll get back to you. That's what they should. have said with Brian the Taubbin. And then a lot of that fear would have been not nearly, well, I wouldn't have been bad, but it would have been not nearly as bad as basically

saying, we checked everything in that woman's a liar. 713-212-579, if you want to get in the conversation. Joe Clot talks from Fox Sports on the latest bowl. Rossi, I got a feeling there could be three or four one-lost teams that are going to be really pissed at the end of the year. We'll see if Joe Cloud agrees with us. Matt Thomas continues. on Sports Talk 7-19.

Your Rockets, your Astros, your voice. This is the definitive song that matches the storyline of the last 24 hours. Well done, Mr. Nicklo. I'm going to come clean. I used it earlier today,

but I was too good to not do it again. That's fine. Audience turns over every 10 minutes is what they tell us. Are you really not going to do that the hot diarrhea story? Are you for the non-Florida story? I have a backup.

I don't have a story as of this moment. Okay. If you see hot diarrhea, just pass it. Okay. Well, if y'all use my backup, then I'm going to have to use the diarrhea story. We will declare our state's stories a little bit later on the show today. Okay. Joe Clat at 1 o'clock, Iron Eagle, 2 o'clock. And non-Florida stories at 2.30 here on Sports Talk 790.

Wonderful. It's a jam-packed fun show. Rockets Clippers at 630 tonight, which means if going to the arena, get there early. Y'all did really good. I was proud of you because, you know, we're seven o'clockers. We're a little iffy. 630 they did okay Really? Yeah, I was very pleasantly surprised

The 630s were there Were they doing the happy hour again? That I don't know It's always happy hour in the Toyota Center And do you know what makes me happy He's getting out there at 840 Yeah, I bet you don't mind the 630 starts yeah I like start games at 4 o'clock if I could

Get a little sleep, listen to the Rockets wrap on the way home Me falling asleep, listen to the Rockets'clock Well, it happens No, I don't do that until I time my Gerard And see how long it's called us Well, Michael Connor will have your Rockets Wrecked tonight on Sports. What are you doing? You're not going to go?

I'm doing Friday and Saturday's game. I got no weekend. That's okay. Well, as long as you're able to carry the violin with you. Yeah, I'll be fine. Talk about sports for a living. It's fine. It's really a great life.

Hi, Jimmy. You're on 7 on a good afternoon. Hey, guys. Real quick, well, I've had a rocket's question. But on the Astros, all I can say is, who cares? I mean, if we're smart enough to feel signs, and Winter World Series and boo-hooed, all the other teams, if you're not smart enough to hide your signs.

I mean, I just feel like the media has a bone to pick with the Astros. I think maybe, I don't know, I think there's a much of likable, you know, most teams, they got a Gary Sanchez or a Jock Peterson or a Jockeel, just some total unlikable person, and I feel like the Astros are a bunch of likable guys, and the media is tired of us killing their Yankees every year and their Dodgers. And I don't know, but I'm not going to let me. that take anything away from that World Series.

We won it. That trophy is always going to be ours. Well, first of all, Jimmy, you should. There'll be nothing taken away from the awesomeness that was 2017. But, again, there's a little bit of myopathy out of there with, if it's our team, who cares? If it was another team, they're the worst people on Earth. And that's just the truth. If it's your team, it's never a big deal. If it's somebody else's team, they're a bunch of crooks.

if the Yankees were doing this today, if the story was about the Yankees doing this over the Astros, this would be, yeah, we knew those bums were bums, and now we've got further proof of it. This is, we are, the Astros are on top of the baseball pedestal, so to speak, and that means they're going to be targets for more of this kind of stuff. And when other teams are jealous of the Astros' success, they're not going to hide what they believe to be reasons for part of their success. And that's true, but a lot, I mean, I want to say, I might be wrong, but 2017, I think we won more road games and home games. That is correct. And the game seven of the World Series, the D. Darvish game, that was on the road, too.

Yeah. But it does, but it's just a lot of holes. Yeah, but I mean, so the answer that wouldn't be, well, then they should allow them to keep doing it then, right? That's not the answer you're looking for. No, that's true. Okay. So I'm just, you know, if you would go to attempt a bank. bank robbery. You don't, and that's

maybe a terrible example, but you don't, do you steal every bank's deposits when you go to attempt to steal? What? I don't know. I don't think so. Go ahead. I know where you're going. On the Rockets, and I know you work for the organization, so if you're not comfortable answering this, that's perfectly fine, whatever

you can or can't say. Okay. Did the fleet, is that just all in the past, or is that still internally being discussed? I know there was the whole con cowher thing, the owner, that whole nonsense. What was your first part?

You had a bad connection. What was the very first part of that question? I guess just is the Hong Kong tweet, is that all in the past now, or is that still Bruin internally? Oh, well, you know, I can't speak much to it because no one from the organization is, but I can tell you that it's not just a Houston rocket discussion piece. It's a league piece. And I think since that tweet and since all the things that initially happened, it's come full

circle that this is not a Houston Rockets discussion point. It's a point that it's going to affect every one of the 30 NBA teams. Okay. So yeah, that's all I got. Thanks to me for the phone call. I mean, the Rockets have not come to me and said, Matt,

do not discuss it. I think the rockets are, by example, and the rest of the league are saying, we're not going to discuss this right now. I think there's just entirely, entirely too much money versus civic responsibilities, versus human rights. I mean, it's

just got so many layers to it that I think everybody is just kind of taking several steps back on. That one was a deep one. I didn't, I mean, I don't know the whole Hong Kong versus China and all that type of stuff issues. Thankfully for me, we never talk politics on the show. Now, if we talked to politics, like if Clay Travis

skirt of the conversation, then he would be up for much more criticism because Clay loves talking politics and sports. You and me, we like talking about games. gambling girls in sports. Okay, yeah. Really in that order?

Close to that order. And hot diarrhea? No. No, we don't, Nick. That's we're not doing it. You can if you want, but at your own peril. There's part of me that want you to read the story so people can get grossed out and that you will be permanently ineligible to win a future of non-Fordistories.

It's part of the 3Ds. Dismemberment, death and defecation. And diarrhea? That's a defecation. I believe. My backup story is pretty good, though. Oh, boy. All right.

Well, we'll figure it out. Yeah. I like, you know, I like talking about games. I like talking about, I don't like talking about video cameras. Yeah, we should be full breaking down fully, the Texans versus Ravens matchup this weekend, right? I wouldn't say a full breakdown, but talking about it for sure. Rockets and Clippers. Let me ask you this.

If you're an official in this Ravens Texans game coming up, there's no in the grasp. Yeah, right. Any blood in this game. Let them play. Let them play. That's what you go with on this one. Yeah. Just let them make spectacular moves.

I swear to God, if that whistle blows one time, and we'll talk about this with I and coming up in an hour from now. The league's going to be in some serious trouble. Because those two catch, you just can't bring them back. This is, it's got to be the must-watch game of the weekend, correct? Um, the night's game, the night games are Bears, Rams. Nope. Chiefs Chargers.

Nope. The 3 o'clock games, Patriots, Eagles is decent. Yeah, but that's Northeast football. Bingles Raiders. No, yeah, this is the game of the week. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And we're going to have the gentleman calling it for CBS with us on the show in one hour from now.

All right. The college football rankings are out. Any surprises? We'll find out from Joel Clatt. And does he believe, like I do, that we could have as many as three to four, really awesome one-lost teams, really pissed. off this year when the ultimate final four is decided in college football. We'll discuss that. As hour two of the Matt Thomas show starts, is the Matt Thomas show.

102 on Sports Talk 790, the second hour of three here on the program. Our producer is Nick Lowe. My co-host is Ross Villarreal. I'm Matt Thomas, and it's very nice to have you with us. Joe Clatt from Fox Sports. We'll be with us coming up in just a few minutes. 212-5-790. 7-13-21-2-5-7-90. Headlines of the day. We got the Rockets and Clippers tonight at TOTA Center. No, Eric Gordon, out officially six weeks after he had knee surgery this morning.

Perform with my friend, Dr. Walter Lowe. Also, the Astros, just a little bit of commentary from Jeff Luno yesterday at the general manager's meetings. I don't know if he's going to speak more on it today. They're meeting out in Phoenix. We have the college football rankings out. which we'll get to Joel coming up. And we have the Texans getting ready for the Baltimore Orioles.

Baltimore Ravens on the practice field for the first time today. Sunday, 12 noon, Baltimore remains a four-point favorite. And oh, by the way, tonight, Ross, the American League Cy Young Award will be announced. It'll either be Justin Verlander or former Astro-Garrett Cole. And the winner will be? See, it's hard to forget about what Cole did in October, but it doesn't even count 0.1% towards it. I think Verlinder wins it, and it's very close.

I agree. Not that you couldn't flip it and go just fine. That's boring, but we agree. Yeah. All right, 713-212-5-7-90. Let's go to Larry on the Matt Thomas show. Hi, Larry. M.T. How are you, buddy?

Well. I have one point that I'd like to throw out there about the Sy Young for this year, and I realized that the award has only been shared one time in the history of the presentation, but I think 2019 is the second year that it really should be shared because Justin Berlander and Garrett Cole did just a... outstanding job throughout the entire year for our Houston Astros and for Major League Baseball. And I really do hope that it comes up. It probably won't, but I hope that it comes up where the award is shared by both of the

fellows. And thank you very much. All right, Larry. Yeah, it's only voted on by 30 people, I think. It's a very low total. So there is a possibility. It's never happened before anybody shared a

There's been an MVP that's been shared But not a Not a Syung I don't know How would you feel about that If it came out that it was a It was a co-winner Well if I was not Verlander or Cole

I think it'd be the most awesome thing ever But if I'm those two guys I want to win it Oh he's turning Okay yeah So I mean I think personally I guess both of them doing it would be kind of cool

They're kind of both deserving. It's so neck and neck. I mean, you have, I mean, on one hand, the consistency throughout the entire season. If you want, because I guess it depends on what you want. If you want something that was dependable, that was you could count on throughout the entire season, you go with Justin Verlander. If you want, Garrett Cole, Garrett Cole had the highest peaks, right? But he also had a valley at the beginning of the season that Justin Verlander didn't have the entire time.

So when you even it all out, you're basically talking about one, A and one B and just about as close as we've ever seen, especially on the same team, since maybe Kurt Schilling and Randy Johnson in the early 2000s. I don't know. It'll be interesting. But I'm with you. I think Verlender wins, and I think it's going to be extremely close. I mean, within two votes.

Right. I mean, I fully anticipate the headline being closest Cy Young vote ever. How about yesterday with A.J. Hinch only getting one first place vote for Ben, you know, manager of the year. That's a byproduct of someone winning 100 games, three straight years. All right, let's get some college football going. Let's go! And now, we're talking college football with Joel

Clatt. Brought to you by Dos Ekes. Official beer sponsor of the college football playoffs. Joe, I just want you to know that I support you so much personally in our friendship of the last couple of years that I actually watched five minutes of that game y'all did on Saturday. I think that's five minutes

more than my wife. Because I checked in on you at, I want say 49 to 6, somewhere in that range, and I'm thinking, because Gus is a talented broadcaster, you are too. What the hell are y'all doing in that, in that situation, especially because the other games were pretty damn good. Like Penn State, Minnesota was really good. Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, candidly, I had the Penn State, Minnesota game up on a monitor in my booth, and I got caught a couple of times not watching the play in our own game. Hey, we're not judging you, my friend. Not judging it all.

It happens, you know? It happens. It happens. Okay, so I brought this up, and you tell me if I'm right or wrong, could you envision, and I feel like every sportscaster says this time of year, are we in for three or four really awesome one-loss teams going to be really pissed when we have the final college football playoff standings? Or do you think this will, like most years, shake it out properly? Well, I think what we always, what we always tend to do is that we sit here with, you know, three, four, five weeks left in the season. And we just assume like, well, it's chalk is going to go down, right? It's going chalk in the last few weeks.

Right. And it never happens that way. So while it looks to us like, yes, it's going to be just a giant mess of one lost teams, some conference champs, others not conference. champs, then what you're going to have is, you know, this big debate over four teams that we all feel like should be able to go compete in the playoffs. When in reality, it's just not going to work out that way. Auburn might beat Georgia this week. You know, you never, listen, I know this sounds crazy. I'm not convinced LSU is not going to be in somewhat of a kind of a dog fight with Ole Miss after last week's emotional win, back-to-back road games. If they come out and just

barium, then kudos to them, right? And they're talented enough to do that. There's no doubt. But the nature of 19 to 22-year-olds suggest that they probably won't play their best game this week. I think Minnesota is going to lose to Iowa. So there's things that are going to happen. I think that are going to disrupt that type of projection, Matt, and because chalk never happens down the stretch. We have a lot of LSU co-workers. I was in New Orleans on Sunday getting ready for the Rockets and Pelicans game. And so, While LSU fan was boasting and excited about the big victory over Alabama, they also spent as much time worrying about whether or not Alabama was still going to be in the top four.

Why were they so concerned? Is it because they're deathly afraid that they can't beat Alabama second time if it happens to be the Crimson Tide sneaking into the college football playoff? Or are they thinking, you know what? Alabama, that was a close game. They're still really good. and once two it gets to 100%, they might be one of the best four teams in college football. Well, I think that that's a great question.

There's so many layers to this. Let me just start with the fact that it's really tough to beat a really good team twice, right? And they have felt the sting of this exact type of situation playing out when they beat Alabama and then had to play them again for the national championship, and it did not go their way. I believe it was unfair to LSU that year to have to try to beat Alabama twice. It should have been Stanford or Oklahoma State in that game, which probably ends up with an LSU national championship, which they earned based on the fact that they beat Alabama in the regular season in Tuscaloosa that year.

I would say the same thing this year, Matt, that I'm with LSU fans in terms of if it was up to me, I would not allow anybody into the playoff that didn't win their conference championship. That means that what they accomplished on Saturday would actually mean something. We don't know if it meant anything from this point moving forward because of this past that the committee may or may not give to Alabama. All that that win gave to LSU was the right to have to go play another game. This is why the system is so broken. Why would we take teams that don't even win their own division or their own conference to the playoffs when they're not even tasked with playing the 13th game.

It's crazy. It's like, candidly, I think it's the thing that is most broken in our sport. Is Alabama a great team? You bet. Did LSU earn the right to not have to see them again? Yes, they did. Yes, they did. And I think that's where it comes from, right?

When you talk to LSU fans, why are they worried? Because it's exceptionally hard to beat a team twice. In particular, a team is talented as Alabama. any lasting effects of watching that LSU game obviously on DBR as you were traveling back. What did you, anything surprise you between those two teams? Nothing surprised me. I think that the fashion in which LSU was dominating early, I guess, would be the biggest surprise if there was one. But Matt, I think my biggest takeaway is that I think Joe Burroughs got a great chance to be the number one draft pick in the drafts.

I know a lot of people were saying Herbert coming into the year or Tua coming into the year, and it was a lock and this or that. Well, the only lock that I can see right now is that Joe Burrow is most likely going to win the Heisman trophy. And I think that he's got a great shot to be the number one draft because I think the evaluation of all these quarterbacks up at the top of the draft, candidly, is going to be a bit all over the place when it comes to which team has which player, number one, which team has which player number two, three, four, so on and so forth. So I think Joe Burrow is doing more for his future than anybody else in college football over the course of the last two months.

Do you give Baylor any hope of beating Oklahoma this weekend? I think it's going to be tough for them, Matt, because they just don't play, I don't think, at least explosive enough offense. Look at Baylor, right? They had to force overtime with a 51-yard field goal in the final minute. their offense has been held to 26 points in regulation over the last two weeks and only 204 yards in regulation. To beat OU, it's pretty clear that you've got to have the ability, the capacity, if you will, to go score 40 plus points. Because even when their offense is not great in the fourth quarter, which it wasn't last week, OU's, I'm speaking of,

Iowa State still had to score 40 plus points to be in the game and to ultimately have a shot. So I'm going to lean Oklahoma here because I just don't think Baylor has the offensive capacity to go out there and win in the shootout. You know, Clemson's coach, Davosweeney, was a couple weeks back, you know, berating the fact that his team was number five in the rankings, and now they're up to number three. You've never been, I mean, you look, you appreciate what they've done, but you've also been the leader of that they shouldn't be in the top four. How do you think they're feeling this week now that they're position number three in the rankings? Well, I think that I've been maybe leading the charge of, hey, let's actually evaluate what's going on in the field and not just what we thought perception was coming into the season, right? And I firmly believe that. As evidence, if we felt like Minnesota was the 15th best team in the preseason or 14th best team in the preseason, you really think that they would be eight right now?

No. And everybody tells me, you know, what I would say like, hey, these AP polls, these preseason polls, they're too influential. not right. They're biased. They're not good for college football. What ended up happening? Well, Minnesota is number eight right now because of that. You can't tell me that those 13 members in the committee room don't watch college football without some framework or frame of reference in their head, right? It's just subconsciously how we view the sport. So, let me get back to Clemson. Everyone thought Clemson should just be ranked number one just because. Well, they weren't playing like that early, which included,

a game in which they won by a point over North Carolina. So now everyone moved them down, which they should have. I'm here to tell you that since then, they have been dominant. Matt, they have been a great team ever since. In fact, Trevor Lawrence in the last three games, he's completing 77% of his passes. He's had three touchdown passes in five straight games. And in three straight games, he's been 11 TDs, no interceptions. So their defense has held all opponents, all nine of them under 300 yards.

I think that they've earned themselves that distinction with Ohio State and LSU as one of the teams that has separated themselves out, actually, in the top three. And now what I think is going to be the most important distinction of the final college football playoff rankings is not actually who is number four, but it's actually going to be who's number two. What is the value that the committee is going to give Ohio State for potentially beating Penn State and Michigan and the Big Ten West champion? because whoever is number two is going to have to play Clemson. And that's going to be a far tougher semifinal game than whoever the number one team plays out of that fourth slot and the other semifinal. So just food for thought as we kind of roll down the back end of the season here. Last question. How odd is it for you that Rob Mullins is the athletic director at Oregon is the CFP selection committee chair?

He has his team to contend with. He's got Utah right behind him in his own conference. and yet he's got to recuse himself from the room. I mean, how bizarre is this whole selection process when you've got a school that's heavily involved in this thing with its lead dog having to lead the room when the team is being discussed? Yeah, listen, this is a totally broken system. And I feel like, just bear with me for a second.

I know I'm long with it. Do you have a heart out? Just let me know. No, take your time. Okay, so part of what the committee will say to you, Bill Hancock told me this right to my face. He said that the strength of the committee, the integrity of the committee is not in part, but in full due to its composition. All right.

So they were composition of these 13 members. They want to make sure that the people have integrity, have character, and represent the sport across regions, across affiliations as far as administration, journalistically, football-wise, both coaches and players, so on and so forth. There's some, you know, people that I would say are just kind of dignitaries, if you will, that you find themselves on the committee. So they talk a lot about this committee composition and how it is the strength of the committee and the integrity of the committee. And that's all well and good.

As soon as you recuse someone, now you've changed the composition of the committee. And you've ultimately changed the power of each vote. In a 13 variable equation, each variable accounts for about 7.7% of the final. answer. And then so on and so far that goes to 8.1, then 9. So, you know, some right around 9%, then 10% if there's 10 committee members in the room. Well, that's changing the composition of each vote. And it's also changing the composition of where each vote is originating from both geographically and from a standpoint of what their background is and who they're affiliated with. My question would be, just like in the movie, a few good men, when Tom Cruise asks Nicholson, hey, why is the reason for two orders?

If Santiago's life wasn't in danger, because you said he wasn't to be touched, why did he need to be transferred off the base? My question would be the same for the committee. If you tell me that the integrity and character and trustworthiness of the committee is due to its composition, then why the need for the recusals? because what you're doing is you're affecting the direct thing that you think draws the strength of the committee. So I know that was a long-winded answer to tell you, like, it's fatally broken. And the fact that Rob Mullins is not in the room when they're discussing Minnesota and Alabama because Oregon happens to be slotted near them is a major problem.

Oh, man, what a mess. Next week we're going to give you the definitive opportunity to tell us how you're going to fix it. So you've got seven days to figure that out. Good luck with the Michigan State Michigan game. I feel like you should get an apartment between Columbus and Ann Arbor because that's where I feel like you are every week. But I probably should. It may be one in Norman as well. That's true.

Thanks, Joel. Safe Travel to talk again next week. You got it, but. All right, that's Joe Clap from Fox Sports with us here on Sports Talk 790. If you did not hear what Jeff Leno said or when Aston answered about the current Astro State of Affairs. If you missed it yesterday, we'll let you hear a little bit of that audio out of the next time. time out. Our time is 119. It is the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. If you'd like to get in, you can do so. It's 713-212-5-790. It's Matt, and he's back. The Matt Thomas show on 790. Houston's home for Houston teams. Again, there's about two different comments here of about

65, 70 seconds. This is from ESPN yesterday. They had a Cameron at the general manager's meetings, Jeff Linnell, on the stealing allegations that have riddled the Astros organization here, not only yesterday, but the last couple of years. Were you aware of any of these allegations going on at all? Just yes or no? I mean, specifically, I'm not going to get into exactly what I knew or anybody knew at this point. So, I mean, we're just going to have to wait and see what I'm sure there will be an appropriate time to answer that question directly. I'm not trying to avoid it. I just think at this point, we are, you know, we're going to investigate it and figure out what the facts are, and then we'll

respond after that. Are you concerned this has been to muddy the reputation of what has been the greatest success in the history of the franchise? I hope it doesn't. We have a lot of good players. We have a really good manager. We've got a great fan base, and we've accomplished a lot. And I think that stands for itself. I'm hopeful that, you know, we'll find out exactly what happened and it, you know, we'll address it if there's something to be addressed and we can move on. I mean, we've got the reason we won the World Series in 2017 is Jose L-Tuba and Alex Bragman and Joseph Burlander, a lot of great players and they do things the right way. And we as an organization, that's what we aspire to do as well.

All right. That again, Jeff Leno yesterday at the general manager meetings. So let's fast forward this for a second. Okay. As compared to figuring out what the punishment's going to be, is it a big deal? How does Astro fan feel compared to what this has done is put the Astros in the, We Hate You category. The Astros were already firmly in the We Hate You, I think, especially, I mean, amongst Yankee fans, I think amongst other fans in baseball.

But yeah, this is going to get, this is going to add even more fuel to the fire for sure. Now, I won't add fuel to the fire for Ace fans because there aren't any. It's true. They won't add much fire to Ranger fans because the Rangers are just, well, the Rangers are going to think they've got fire, but they don't. They're going to be a 90-loss team again, per usual. But Yankee fans are going to be ready for us. Red Sox fan. Red Sox fan had Apple watches, though. Yeah. So that's what's going to be. It's, it's all the anchorman getting together, you know, in the big scene in San Diego. And they're all going to be like, well, I've got my Apple Watch.

Well, I've got my video camera. Let's go. Yeah. I mean, I feel like there was there, there was national widespread hate for the Astros anyways because of the way they do think. I think people they're very forward thinking, right, with the analytics and all that stuff. So I think old school baseball fan in, you know, St. Louis, Missouri doesn't care for the Astros because, ah, they just care about numbers. They don't care about old school baseball. That's what I like.

And then there's the Roberto Osuna thing as well. I think there's a lot of people who are upset with the Astros for going along with that. Roberto Osuna carries a lot of clout. I don't think the Justin Varnander not talking to Detroit reporter doesn't carry much except for media elite. Let me pull the curtain back. I mean, not peel it. I'm pulling. Baseball media are the most pretentious, uppity, snobby, hollier-than-thou media of all.

All the medias. I can agree with that. This is not even debatable. Baseball media guy, like beat guy, is, I've done it for this long. I've been in these wars. I mean, because you know what? They work more hours, anybody else does. They get to the ballpark at two.

More entitled. They leave at midnight, so they're naturally grumpier. That's true. They're entitled. I have to have my wife. workspace. I mean, they are, I wouldn't say awful, but they're pretty damn bad. McTaggart, I'm going to give McTaggart a lot of credit for being as chill as he is. Most of them are elitist a-holes. They really are. I think I can agree with that. But also, we were listening to

things, the Brandon Tobman thing was not a good look for the Astros. Tomlin look is bad. Well, sooner look is bad. The 2017 having the member of the organization in the Red Sox dugout isn't a good look. Alex Bregman's brashness, I think, rubs some people the wrong way. I think there are people out there who don't like Alex Bredgemon because of the way he acts. Okay, but then at that point, then you're just nitpicking, I think. Okay. Because every player is going to have some cockiness to us.

Alex Bregman is one of the more cocky players in baseball, though, don't you think? Yeah. But I don't think anybody goes, I hate the Astros because he's too cocky. I think on Twitter there are a lot of people Do they hate Juan Soto? Oh, yeah. Astros fans? How many tweets did we get about I want Juan Soto earhold?

Let me tell you about Juan Soto. No Astro fan of who Juan Soto was before the World Series started. So calm down on that. There was, I would say at least a dozen tweets of people saying, what's up with this Juan Soto guy? Why don't think he year hold? He was arrogant.

Yeah. But he's not any more arrogant than Alex Bregman is. That's true, but I think that's a reason. it's because it's our guy here. I think there are people. I think there are Nationals fans or Yankees fans 100% Yankees fans that don't like Alex Breggman because of the way he acts.

Plus he's on the Yankees three straight post seasons. Yeah, absolutely. So I think it's it's accumulating. Yeah. Oh, yeah, the stuff is growing. This doesn't help. But the ring is still going to firmly be on the right hand of the Astros. That's another reason to hate the Astros.

They win. That's right. cares about teams who are losing 110 games. No one's worried about the stealing of signs by the Cincinnati Reds. Nobody cares, right. It wouldn't be a huge story. And that's the thing is when you win, you're going to have more people bouncing on you.

It's like more companies that, you know, hey, why is that restaurant down the street doing something? They must be doing something illegal or something. You know, you're always looking to find why your competitors are outperforming you. Yeah. There's even in that article from The Athletic, there talks about how other organizations don't like the way Astros go about their business. They think they're arrogant.

So, I mean, this is just everywhere. Every turn, there's reasons people hate the Astros. And I think reason number one, of course, is because they're successful. If the Astros are running the organization the way they do now and they weren't winning games, nobody would care. That's right. Hey, it's Joe Green from Clutch City.

Fires another three. To Crest City. And the Astros. This is Sports Talk 7-night. Home for your home teams. A lot of rocket injuries. into tonight's game. You've got

No Eric Gordon for six weeks. Gerald Green's done for the season. And I think that Russell missed either Friday's game with Indiana or Saturday's game at Minnesota because I think they're keeping him on load management.

James doesn't believe in it. And that's, it sparks a lot of debate about whether or not James Hardin should take a game off here and there. Okay. I will just say two things. Yes. And maybe they're correlated? Maybe they're not.

Okay. James doesn't believe in load management and has had played a lot of minutes over the years. And James Hardin's shooting percentage and three-point percentage have dipped in the playoffs. Do you think that's more because he's wearing terror or it's because the competition is so much better? Could be equal, right? I mean, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant and LeBron James go against a harder competition in the playoffs. And their numbers aren't as down as significantly as James Hardens. And they didn't take the games off either. Michael Jordan didn't for sure.

Yeah, LeBron James and his prime didn't either. Yeah. I'm saying it couldn't hurt. I'm going to say this. Selfishly, I wish James would take five games off. Absolutely. I would love it. Play the long game.

It worked so long. I mean, we have evidence of it working. Kauai Leonard got his load management last year and he was spectacular in the playoffs. All right, you being the Vegas hound that you are. Okay. Do you take the games off that you might win? 52-48? Yeah.

Or do you take the games off? You absolutely know you're going to win, but if you don't take them off and you play it, it only furthers your chance to win them. Yeah, I would take off the 52-48s. You take the sure thing. If they all count the same, unless there's some kind of division tiebreaker

or something like that that you're worried about, they all count the same in the standings. And that's a pride thing, right? You say, oh, wow, the Lakers are in town. I want to be prideful. I want to play this game. If you had a back-to-back, and one was against the Lakers

and one was against, I don't know, know, whoever is a bad. Well, Phoenix is kind of good now. Who's the worst team in the Western Conference right now? The worst team would be like Sacramento. Pelicans. Okay. Yeah. Then if it was a back-to-back and it was Lakers and Pelicans, it's better to play against the Pelicans. Okay. Yeah, I don't, I'd be very comfortable if he took five, I mean, five games. Yeah, okay. That's, or one a month. That's six. I'm with it. I'm with more than that. You know, miss parts of backs of backs and do what I mean. If you have three games in four nights and stuff like that,

or take off one of those or even three games in five nights. Yeah. Maverick's owner, Mark Cuban, by the way, says he's got no problems with resting players for quote-unquote load management. He told reporters earlier this week, the dumb thing would be to ignore the science. The problem isn't load management per se. I think teams have to be smarter about when to load manage. I'm all for management, worse than missing a player

in the regular season game is missing him in the playoffs. He says it's all data driven. We're not going, okay, let's just mess with the league and our meal ticket to fans and do something just because it might be interesting. We spend so much money, not just on analytics for predictive reasons, but also for biometrics so we know how smart we can be. Porzingis, by the way, did a load management for the Mavericks. That's the reason why he was asked about that. I would expect, look, we hate Mark Cuban here in Houston. he's pretty smart dude.

Do we hate him? I think at least for a year, I hated him. When he would get all in the court, when he was always sitting in the front row and screaming at refs and coming on to the court and making a general ass of himself, I think since he won that championship in 2011, he's kind of backed off a little bit.

But do we, if he was our guy, would we love him? Of course. I wouldn't love Mark Cuban if he was the Houston Rockets owner. He's the Dallas Mavericks owner, so I hate him. For instance, like Steve Balmer throws up his hands all the time. Yeah. Sit out, shut up.

Our owner, man, I love the fact that our guy is so into it. Yeah, if we're Clippers fan. I mean, I don't really hate. Balmer's kind of entertaining to me either way. To me, I've never. He gets so into it. Now, has there been time where you want to tell Mark Cuban to go sit down in the corner and be quiet? Yeah.

Yeah. But I've never, I don't think I've ever hated him. Wasn't there, yeah, I've hated him. Wasn't there a time when, like, Les Alexander, he got up and like talked to a ref or bumped a ref or something like during a playoff game, yeah? Not a playoff. It was just a regular season. And he got fine. I want to say a million bucks.

Well, never mind. Don't do that. Well, I thought that was cool, though. Part of that was... It's like, Les is fighting for his voice. Part of his like, I'm selling the team at the end of this year. I'm going to do some things on my bucket list. It's trying to get a little wild.

Yeah. One of them is, I'm going to go tell referee how awfully is right to his face. He like came on the court in the middle of the game, right? Like, while the ball was live. Was it or was it not? I think there was a dead ball. It was a dead ball. He got out of his chair, walked to the ride. And as a referee is trying to put the ball back into play, I think is when he whispered like, oh, you suck.

You go less? It's not my million dollars. Speaking of weird things that happened in the NBA, we didn't talk about this here today very briefly. So the rockets committed turnover in their front court. I think it was Russ through the ball to jam. Somebody was involved, where the ball went to the back court.

Yes. And it was going to be a back court violation. It was going to New Orleans, Pelicans basketball on their end on their baseline. So the ball is rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling. And before it goes out of bounds, I start to see Alvin Gentry, the coach of the Pelicans, and a couple of assistants stand up.

Like they're going to go stop the basketball. Well, they didn't think about doing it. They did it. And if you guys saw the game or heard the game here on 790 a couple nights ago, you cannot, unless you play on the court at the time of the game, you cannot pick up the live ball. Alvin Gentry picked up the live ball and got a technical foul for it. as well he should have.

It was a very, once in a rare, rare, wild thing, but I knew as soon as he did it, he was getting the tea and he got the team. Yeah, I didn't ever recall. I was watching that live as well, and I don't ever recall seeing that ever. And I was like, is Alvin Trenchie about to pick up that ball? Because he got up.

And there was also, there was a player who was waiting out of bounds, who was going to pick up the ball once it went out of bounds. Correct. And Gentry just scooped it up right in front of him. And honestly, on its face, the ball's going out of bounds anyway. So in theory, if this was a pickup game or something, in theory you're absolutely right. Nobody would have said anything, right?

You just toss the ball back and play. But league rules are not built on in theory. Not in theory and not on pickup rules. So not only was that the boneheaded play in the night, but the play right after giving New Orleans a basketball. That's true. You can't presume that ball was going to go out of bounds. In theory, you're supposed to.

Right. Should have been a jump ball like you said. And Dan Tony's like, I need to jump ball on this. And he was right. They messed that up? Yeah. Just some weird. A little quirky moment.

Weird, wacky stuff happening in the NBA. 144 on the Matt Thomas show. All right. Are who's going to win the Cy Young Award? We'll discuss that. Ion Eagle from CBS in 15 minutes. It is the Matt Thomas show. Next time, tell Alexa.

Playing 790 on IHeart Radio. Wherever you are, so is Matt Thomas. All right. I must ask my co-hosts a question here at 151 before we get to Ion Eagle, the CBS Sports of the Top of the R. So when the Siong gets announced tonight, and either Justin Verlender or Garrett Cole is going to win, are you going to congratulate them on Twitter and say,

man, all these postseason awards are rolling in. I wish we had a World Series banner to have with all this excitement. I think I made my point the first time, but maybe I will. If Alex Bregman wins the MVP, maybe then I'll spring back into action on that. But I imagine Mike Trott is a favorite, but Bregman made it. This is the same thing in both races. Garrett Cole made a really strong case for himself down the stretch. Alex Bredman made a really strong case for himself down the stretch.

I think the argument for Bregman was stronger than Coal making up ground on Verlander. Because Bregman played the final month of the season. Yeah. Breggman was putting up huge numbers. He accumulated the numbers that he needed to, yes. So getting over 40 home runs and certain RBI numbers. and all that type of stuff. Are you really bummed that AJ got finished fifth and managing?

I'm not bummed. I just think it's... Not fair? I don't want to say it's not fair because, I mean, does it matter if he finishes... Does it matter if he finishes third or second or fifth if he doesn't finish? I think it's just a little odd. I don't even want to say disrespectful. But I think to say that he's the number five manager out of 15 in the American League,

I don't... Well, it's almost like you have to absolutely suck, before that winning year after year does not give you any chance of winning the award because you have to be a team that turns a team around from say 70 wins to 95 wins the next season. I think repeat success like Greg Popovich all those years never was a routine winner

of the coach of the year award, wasn't he? No. Phil Jackson went a bunch when he was running things with Lakers with Chicago Bulls. Popovich only won it once or twice. I think Phil Jackson didn't win it that much. either. They should really in the award.

The NBA Coach of the Year award is usually actually been a death now. I think most of the guys who win it get fired within the next couple of years. Because it's so up and down. I mean, was Rocco Baldelli just some tactical genius who was just winning them games? Or did they just bash a crap ton of home runs? Well, again, they went from a team that was, were they in the playoffs the year before?

I don't think they were. No, no, no. They went from a team that was in the playoffs, a team that won almost 100 games or run at 100? It's because some master stroke strategies by Rocco Baldelli, or did they just hit like a billion home runs? You were going to say strategi, weren't you? I was going to say strategums, but...

That's a bigger word. I like strategie. I sometimes, yeah, it didn't matter. Anyways. But yeah, the award should be, hey, you sucked the year before you came in and fixed things. Here's your nice plaque. Sustained excellence as a manager, never wins manager the year award. Hey, guys, go out there and hit more home runs than every other.

team. Okay. That's what they did. Good job. Good job, twins. Great managing Rockobaldelli. And by the way, thanks for playing in the playoffs against the Yankees. You once again were futile for like the 19th year row. They're couldn't even win a damn game. Come on, man. They're like the Cincinnati Bengals of football. Get into the playoffs and don't win. That's just the truth. That's what the nationals were for years until this year. Sorry. And now you're depressed us. I'm sorry. Factory of sadness Oh well

Yeah they hit 307 home runs more than anybody That's basically why they were winning games Mm-hmm Okay whatever Raquel Baldelli manager of the year We're going to scoop up all the awards Except the most important one

The World Series trophy Which by the way I submit The worst major trophy major sports with all the flags on it. It's so big and what do you want to live on? I don't know. I think the Lombardi's way better. Larry O'Brien to me is a pretty

good special trophy as well. If you were to stack awards. Stanley Cup's probably number one. Stanley Cup is because you don't know what's been in it. That's why it's good. Yeah. You got to disinfect it. Cereal soup. Yeah. A good stew.

Whiskey. Lots of beer. Yeah. Perhaps a deer meat chili. Yeah. And, you got to disinfect it. Let's see. What else is there? Rank the awards. Stanley Cup 1. I go Larry O'Brien 2, which probably is unpopular. Most people probably go on Lombardi.

The reason why Lombardi is good because you can hold it with one hand. Yeah, that's true. I just love the way the Larry O'Brien trophy looks. I'll go Lombardy 2. I mean, those pictures with Elajuwon and Drexler and the two Lombardy O'Brien Awards. It was just beautiful to me. Lombardi 3.

I'll go NBA 3. Okay. You know the World Series 1 makes you nervous is you're afraid that you're going to lose one of those flags. Yeah. Yeah, it's just... It's like a puzzle piece. Yeah, it's a dumb trophy. Yeah, it looks like something you would build out of Legos.

Like an operation? Operation game. My phone was ringing on Vibrate. That's okay. People can't call you during the show. It's spam. Okay. So the worst trophy of them all?

Baseball. Are you going to disagree with me? I don't know what the MLS Cup looks like. Yeah, what about the various golf trophies? Anything, anything really good? The Claret Jug? Mm-hmm. That's a good one.

Yeah. I guess you get a master's jacket. You don't get a trophy, dude. I could go for a green jacket. They get a little, like, a trophy for that? I don't know. But they get to dinner once a year and they get a green jacket. Yeah, that's true.

I mean, green jackets are bumping around town. Not a lot. Not a lot. Good. I'm calling to say I missed you guys because when the outro's lost, I had to take a break and just not listen to anything sports. My heart was broken. Then I caught the flu, so I haven't been in my car for five days,

so I haven't even heard your lovely voice, and I missed it. I heard this a story about the Astros, and again, I'm just not caught up. This is the first time I'm alive in days. I'm feeling much better. Kelly, the flu is a bitch. I can be honest with you on that one. I'm going to be real honest with you. So you're back to 100%?

92. I'm glad you're feeling back, Kelly. 92. Well, Kelly, I want to... What happened with the Astros? They did nothing wrong. It's a bunch of media conspiracy out there. That's all there is to it.

Don't believe a word. Anybody has to say about it. The Astros would do nothing wrong. They would never steal signals via video. Ever, ever, ever, ever. They're my angels. I know. They're, and hell, as the kids would say.

Don't lie to her, Matt. Kelly, can we be real here? Yeah. You and I have a special bond, Kelly, so we can be real about this. Absolutely. I think they got caught cheating. And here's the thing, Kelly. I'm going to have to check on that.

Kelly, Kelly, it's not going to ruin 2017. They're not going to take the World Series banner away. They're probably going to maybe find the team a little bit. Maybe take a draft picker away. But Kelly, oh, Kelly, Kelly. Kelly Kelly, Kelly, Kelly. They're still our Astros. We still love them.

And hopefully they have learned from what has turned out to be two months of PR disasters. Short of that, things are great. Is the Matt Thomas show. Ones of the NFL on CBS. I would have to say, though, and I think Iron Eagle is going to agree with me, this might be the second best theme that CBS has ever had, because I was in Chicago last Sunday, getting ready to head to New Orleans for the Rockets, and the Detroit-Chicago game was on, and Ian Eagle promoted the NFL at the half,

and he mentioned Phyllis, Irv, and Brent Musburger. Ian, it was such a choice move by your part. I don't know if anybody caught it, but as a 47-year-old man watching the NFL on CBS, I caught every second. I mean, for that. I appreciate that. Oh, yeah. No, we are definitely the demographic for that line.

Matt, that 45 to 60-plus-year-old that lived off the NFL on CBS with Summerall and Madden and Brent and Irv Cross and Phyllis George at Jimmy the Greek and Jane Kennedy. So it just struck me in the moment when I'm promoting the halftime that in a Lions Bears game for a faction of the audience, this is what they knew. This is the only thing they knew. They knew that and they knew murder. She wrote. Yeah.

Frankly, if it's Detroit and Chicago, it should have been. Tim Ryan and Johnny Morris doing the game. If you're really going to go deep into the CBS archives, you're going to think about it. Oh, wow. Now you're really showing your depth of knowledge of regional broadcast. Yeah, I can't believe I'm talking to you when an Eagle is actually in Houston, Texas right now. That's right. You're going to get a chance, I believe, I hope.

Yeah. To meet my son tonight who's been working with the Clippers and the fact that I have a son old enough that would be allowed into an NBA arena and meet and greet other media members. is kind of mind-boggling ended up itself. Well, I just want to make sure he knows that he's got worked ahead of him. You got the Alberts. You've got the Burnhamins, you got the Bucks, and now you have the Eagles.

So congratulations to you and your son and his success. Hey, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. I know you've been bouncing all over the country here. Let me get a thought about how you probably should point out to the officiating crew that there should be no

under any circumstance in the grasp calls in this Sunday's game. Would you agree with that? Yeah, that's a great way to put it. You've got two dynamic talents and their highlights waiting to happen. So from a play-by-playman's point of view, you have to be ready for the unexpected that what would normally be a quarterback going down or a play falling apart or a QB that would just toss it away. That's not the norm. That's not the MO of these two guys. legitimate MVP candidates. I know there's a lot of hyperbole. There's a lot of hype when it comes to the NFL week in and week out. This is legit. These two guys are very much in the conversation with Russell Wilson, and they're both very unique talents. And the other part that I would say, just from a personal point of view, when you meet with these guys, there is a presence. There is a little extra something. There is an it factor. We're really fortunate on the TV. side to sit down with the head coach and the QB and another playmaker on offense and a defensive

player. And when they walk in the room, there's a difference. You can sense it. There's an aura. There's a presence. You've done a handful of Baltimore games the last couple of years. Lamar Jackson when first drafted, you know, they were saying, okay, guy can run a little bit, but can he throw in the NFL and can a running quarterback survive? He goes from that when he gets first drafted to, oh my goodness, he's a top three contender for an MVP. So through your eyes and the limited times you've seen either in person or on tape, what's changing his game from at that point to where he is right now? Yeah, I think the perception was that we've seen quarterbacks that can run,

come to the NFL, and all of a sudden the speed doesn't translate. Michael Vick stood out as someone that just was faster than everybody else and had some innate abilities to make guys miss. The questions with Lamar had nothing to do with his ability as a runner, but whether or not he would be able to adapt to NFL style of offense where they're going to take something away from you. And what he's done is develop as a passer, and he is better. He's better today than he was when I first saw him last year,

and he's probably better today than he was when I saw him earlier this season. There's just a comfort zone that he's found as a passer. Now, that hasn't changed anything about the way that he runs the football when he needs to run the football. He'll be the first to tell you that's not his goal. He doesn't go into the game thinking, I need to rush for 100 yards. He wants to be a complete quarterback. He wants to be known as just a quarterback, not a running quarterback.

But the highlight from last week, which was video game-like and dazzling and broke the Internet, that's just a special quality. That's a different level from other players that we've talked. about that have made the NFL with a shot of maybe becoming an all-around QB. This guy just has some other level of talent that you just don't see. It's one of those things that stands out. You just have to watch him play. You see him in person. You walk away saying, all right, he's just different. He's different. The Great Iron Eagle with his son from CBS here on the Matt Thomas show. He'll be on the Texans Baltimore call. You can catch him on T&T coming up with some NBA broadcast

down the road. Of course, you see him on NCAA football and, or to say basketball, and is one of the voices of the Brooklyn Nets. I and you called the Texans Chiefs game a few weeks ago, and granted, that was Pat Mahomes at less than 100%. But I thought Arrow had nobody won in there except Chiefs games. So let me ask you this. Is Kansas City more vulnerable than even if Pat Mahomes is 100%. What's your portrayal of them so far this year?

Yeah, I think they are. I think we've seen some of their faults. We were expecting them to be better defensively, just based on a new scheme, a new mentality, new coach. new voice, and it hasn't happened. It's basically the same issues of anything. They're not getting to the quarterback as often as they did a year ago, and it's not seemingly getting better. So they've still got time to fix it. They've still got time to try to polish it up, but those same questions are going to be popping up. They're starting to find a little bit more balanced. That was a huge problem

early in the season offensively. They were not running the ball. In fact, they weren't even trying. to that point where Andy Reed just wasn't calling for running plays. It's funny. I think the injury to Mahomes, and I was in Denver when he went down with that injury, and it certainly felt like it was going to be more serious than it turned out to be his reaction, the reaction from the team, and then some positive news later that night that carried over into the next couple of weeks that he's going to be able to come back. But it may have strengthened them in a way that Matt Moore came in,

and it was a little bit of that circle the wagons. We don't have Mahomes and his arm strength and his innate ability to just rely on. And I think they benefited from it. So when the smoke clears, they might be in better shape just based on the individuals now understanding that, hey, this is a collective effort. We just can't sit back and watch the MVP do his thing anymore. Does the wrap things up? We feel like the Texans' next three games here, Ian, are super important. Not only the Baltimore game, the home game against Indianapolis on the short week and then the New England home game.

We feel like the bottom four games are a very winnable contest. So as you see them, as you talk to Bill O'Brien will be this Saturday as compared to maybe five or six, seven weeks ago. Has his demeanor change in your visits? What's it like visiting with them with now a team that has been beset by injuries in the secondary? No JJ Watt. But yet, we're to London a couple weeks ago and put together an amazing performance against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Yeah, Matt, I'm curious with Bill. Bill is very good in those meetings, by the way.

My experience with him from his first year as a head coach now that he's honest, he looks in the eye, he has a very clear philosophy on how he does things, but it's not one of those approaches where he won't listen to any of the outside chatter. I think he's aware. He's aware of what's said. He's aware of how it's being said, but he's a fighter. He does have a belief in how he does things, but he's open to other ways to do them if it might be better. Look, he's got a lot of responsibility.

There's no doubt. But when I look at their talent and I view it through the prism of a head coach slash GM, I like what I see. I like the Hyde acquisition. I like the Duke Johnson acquisition, obviously going out and picking Deshaun Watson, believing in him as the 12th overall pick in the 2017. draft when I just came off the Chicago game where they're still trying to take that that round peg and shove it into a different sized hole with Mitch Trubisky.

You understand. Houston is set up here. Deshawn is the real deal. The Tunsel acquisition, which got so much scrutiny around the league based on what they gave up, I think it's turning out to be the right thing. They realized that that was a serious need. They needed to shore it up. They needed to give Watson some confidence up front.

And then defensively, they just seem to figure out a way. They lose one of the great players in the game, and they get by. The numbers aren't going to blow you away. What they do against the run does blow you away. That's still been very consistent. But the secondary, as you mentioned, very much banged up, yet they figure it out. They problem solve week in and week out. And sometimes it's not pretty.

And I know there have been drops with the Texans where people react, but you look up right now, and they're in really good position at six and three, but you said it, the next three weeks are going to go a long way in determining whether or not they're going to be taken seriously for January football. I think they're going to be a playoff team. I'm just reading the Peelees and looking at the schedule. But there's that next category of, are you a serious threat? That's the part we don't have the answer yet.

Very last question. When you and Dan are calling games, past interference has been, I mean, clearly a topic of conversation just about any NFL game. do you even get into a deep, that should be overturned, that shouldn't be because we've seen so many of them even frequently changed? Is that still a conversation as you guys are before the game, during the game, or is it just a level of frustration not only with yourself but other folks trying to figure out what indeed should be a reversal of calls if it should be the case? Yeah, it's a great question, Matt. On a individual level, I've taken on more of the latter of what you just laid out of, hey, look, we don't know anymore.

and to speculate and to jump the gun with a very strong opinion, it would probably be fruitless for a play-by-playman. Dan has not taken on that philosophy. Dan is still resolute in what he believes, having played in this league at the highest level, going to the Hall of Fame as one of the great quarterbacks of his time, having broadcast forever and ever, and he knows what he sees.

And he is not shy about sharing that opinion. He never has been in regards to those kind of calls, and even with the rule adjustments, that hasn't changed him. So if something pops up in this game, Houston, Baltimore, Dan is not going to shy away from it when it comes to PI. He usually reacts very quickly, and his instincts tell him things that only he could really know because of his true life experience. And I don't think that's going to change anytime soon. And I applaud him for it. That's real stuff. That is absolutely visceral for him still to this day because I think he still sees it through the eyes of someone that was competing and had to deal with these things even back in his day. But now as a broadcaster, no, he's not going to look the other way. He's just going to say it like he sees it. Well, I proclaimed you the nicest Syracuse grad on the history of sports broadcasting. I'll keep it with that. I want to see your rankings, Matt.

You just throw it out there. But unless you produce a top 10, it really doesn't hold any way. Oh, my gosh. Well, you know what? When you come to do a Rockets' Nets game, that are I'll pass it to Noah tonight when I'm introduced to myself. I'll about to do it that way. Oh, now we got something.

Thanks. I'm looking forward to you guys meeting all that. That'll be great. Thanks, Ian, very much. We really appreciate it. Take care of yourself. Ion Eagle, joining us here on the show. Iron Eagle, again, seriously, one of the nicest people in sports broadcasting

period, end of story, and we thank him so much for joining us here on Sports Talk 790. This is the Matt Thomas show. Matt Thomas. On Sports Talk 790. You know, I can get into talking to network guys all the time. Like, if you just wanted to give me Ian Eagle

and Kevin Harlan in a rotating basis on the show, I'd be more than happy with that. I ain't is such a good guy. Very talented. And now, more. Eagles and a family with Noah, the voice of the LA Clippers. Wonderful. I'm sure you'll be getting your son a job in broadcasting in no time.

He didn't want it. What? I thought he switched? No, he doesn't want it. He doesn't want a veterinary school or what? He wants to work in sports. He just doesn't want to do sports broadcasting. Good.

I wouldn't recommend it. Working with people like yourself. Same. Such hate out there. Gosh, got to work out with these egotomaniacs. It's troublesome. Yeah, it is. I get it.

225 on the Matt Thomas show. Sports Talk 790. 713, 2,1, 2, 5, 790. Isn't it nice that we get to talk about sports? Could you imagine if we did a show that was political? What are we talking about today? The impeachment. That's number one trend, and it just makes my stomach hurt even looking at it.

I don't even know what's going on. I don't care. Top three trends in America right now. Hashtag impeachment hearings. Hashtag Jim Jordan, which I guess, why is it spelled with a gym? How do you have impeachment hearings the same day as World Kindness Day? Isn't that just the anti-kindness of trying to get a president out of office? And then the number four trend, of course, is Kodak, Matt.

Can you guess why that's trending? Is it the camera? No. It's also not Kodiak Bears. It's apparently Kodak Black. The rapper was sentenced to 46 months in prison. Your thoughts. What was he arrested for?

I don't know. I'm not paying attention to that. Okay. Yeah, we're going to, once the football seasons are worth, we're going to start playing a brand new game. It's going to sweep the nation. It's going to be called. why is this trending?

Trend roulette. Is that what it's called? We're going to spend the trend roulette, but we're going to try to, we're going to guess why things are trending. All right, let's do a couple of few guesses. I can guess why impeachment hearing is trending.

Yeah. You know what's funny thing is that when someone, when I was learning in school, when somebody said, we're going to impeach the president. That meant he's out, but that's not necessarily true. You can be impeached,

but not be voted out of office. Yeah, Bill Clinton says hello. And we all learned that during the Clinton administration. He impeached, yeah, he was. Did he get out? Nope. Could Bill Clinton run tomorrow and still win 51% of the popular vote? Yes.

I guess so. He can't win. But do the constitution. What are the amendment that was playing at the amendment? If you got rid of the amendment and Bill ran tomorrow, he would win. He could beat any, he could, he could, he could, he would beat any democratic opponent, including his own wife. If she just, she decided to run again. Yeah.

Are we going to get into this? No, I'm just like a lot of long. not a lot of strong Democratic candidates in my opinion. I think he's just been, he's one the most popular. That's why they lost 16. They didn't have they don't have strong candidates. Okay. And political ends in three, two, and one. Syung. Yes.

Verlander wins, yes or no? Yes, I'm going Verlander. In a close battle. And yes, as you mentioned, I've been, since I've been researching the Say Young Award voting, it's one representative for each team. So one writer, one baseball writer's Association America affiliated writer for each team. Does that feel like a big of 30? Is that

feel like a big enough sample size. I think that's fine. Do you want like the Heisman where like everybody votes and former winners get a vote and all that type of stuff? It's funny because every vote has a certain number. Like in the NBA, there's like a hundred people that vote for the award. And they don't necessarily do it by cities. Yeah, it's like Rachel Nichols gets a vote and Stephen A. Smith randomly and stuff like that.

The Philly Fanatic gets one. I don't know if he gets one. But it'll be interesting. We'll see. I can see 16-14. They've also expanded the voting. You used to only vote for first place. Then you used to only vote for first through third,

and now you vote for first through fifth. But, okay, so let's put it in order then. One, Verlander, Cole, two. Yes. Does Charlie get three? I think Charlie three, yes. I don't really know after that who I've been thinking of would be potential fours and fives.

I don't know. Mike Clevenger, I don't know. I'm just making some. By the way, have we checked it on Trevor Bauer, by the way? How's Tyler Bauer doing? Go look at his Twitter account and see if he's... Has he been salty? Has he been...

Is he blocking you or anything? No, no, no, no. I don't follow. About the Astro stuff. Yeah, he would be going nuts. You would figure. Oh, did you all not see that? No.

What did he do? He just, he tweeted it was the same video that Breggman tweeted at him to get under his skin of Breggman's home run off of him, if you recall that. But he edited it his own face to have a thinking emoji. Oh, okay. That's all I've seen. Like maybe was there trash can banging on it before? I don't know.

I didn't play it with a sound on. Look. Oh, he tweeted yesterday. It's good troll stuff from him, actually. So Ken Rosenthal has written some very interesting articles in the last couple days on the athletic. Y'all should check them out. Troll. That's a good troll tweet.

And it works. I got to tip my cap to a good troll tweet, even if it's directed at my favorite baseball team. And by the way, here's what I'm going to say about this. I do believe the Astros did some things, did the things that would cost them some sort of penalty on this. They're going to get penalized. But I'm going to tell you this, Major League Baseball, be very careful how much you brag about the Astros being caught. Okay.

Because if I can crush my own, meaning my squad, my team, I will be equal opportunity to crush your team as well. I will not say the Astros could never do this and then be, well, the Yankees did they must have. I'm an equal opportunity defender. I will be consistent in telling you the Astros, I believe, did something illegal. And so other teams, you better behave yourself. because we will come after you too. That's how Astrofan should feel today.

The Rockets have Red Nation. Matt has Maddie Nation. Things are going to start happening to me now. You made it. I'm somebody now. More Matt Thomas. Now. Time now for non-Florida Stories.

Well, Ross, Nick myself, will go through Florida Stories. The best one wins because of your votes. I like mine a lot, guys, Mago First. Is that okay with y'all? Sure, go ahead, Matthew. All right, 24-year-old Parrish Brown. Parrish is his name. Thought it was strange when he went to a Hilton Head Island McDonald's,

and he made his order, and the McDonald's worker paused when he ordered a sweet tea with light ice and extra lemon. The drive-thew worker said, extra lemon? Well, there's a story to it. he was looking to get some food and he was thirsty after working a late-night job and then a late-night pick-me-up as he worked his second job he ordered himself McNuggets, a burger, and the sweet tea with light ice and extra lemon. Turns out that extra lemon in the streets means putting weed inside the iced tea.

Oh, I've heard of this before. He had hoped for the sweet tea and kept thinking, maybe this will get better, maybe it's just me, but he got a different kind of pick-me-up. He turns out he was high and panicking at work. He called his dad and didn't want to get in trouble at work. He said it was a terrible ordeal. He opened up the lid to find out something he wasn't expecting in his tea.

Three bags of marijuana. Wow. I hope those bags were well. field. His father told him to get his manager and tell him what happened and they called police. Then Brown says it got worse. I called dispatch and the woman yelled like, what? Call 911 and I was like, ma'am, you are 911. She couldn't believe it. Brown said he had a tough time convincing his management and authorities what had happened. I swear there is weed in my sweet tea. He said the officer when he called 911 asked me why I drank. And I was like, well, I was thirsty.

He said the officer who responded, took one glance at him and one sniff of the substance inside the drink. And they were like, oh, yes, that's marijuana. Brown said the rest of the meal, which included a 10-piece chicken McNugget, double cheeseburger was completely normal. He checked this receipt and saw that he had paid the regular menu prices for the item. The sheriff's office is investigating.

So note to self, if you ever ask for extra lemon and your favorite McDonald's, That means putting bags of pot inside your sweet tea. And it's free weed? Why am I not doing this? Yeah. How much? Do you get charged extra? How did you get this?

My question is, who's got the little small packets of weed that you would jamming an iced tea? I don't know. So Hilton Head McDonald's. I'm loving it and smoking it. Yeah. That's a different kind of happy meal. That is a happy meal. So mine is, Hilton Head McDonald's provides special happy meal.

meals to employees. Wonderful. Nick, you can learn? Yeah, I can go a few. Like, whatever. Well, my story comes from the UK. It's in the UK sun. A British gynecologist

by the name of Anne Henderson has issued a warning to women out there. And this warning has to do with electric toothbrushes. Oh, no. Oh, yes. Apparently after the Netflix show

what is it called? Orange is the new black. That's the women's prison show, I think. Apparently, one of the characters in that show used an electric toothbrush to masturbate. Okay. Do we really want to go on with this? Oh, yeah. We definitely do.

This gynecologist in the UK has issued a warning to women to not do this. Apparently, it has started a trend where this is becoming popular. And she is warning women that this could be potentially very harmful.

And I quote, I would have serious concerns about anyone using an electric toothbrush for anything other than cleaning their teeth, their structure and shape of the toothbrush, regardless of which part is used. Could potentially injure, lacerate, or cause to the delicate

Volvo. And that's enough. Particularly the Clitoris. Okay. And we're good. Especially if one of the more aggressive cleaning heads is used. And I would also add, that's the end of the quote, by the way. I would also add, you don't want to use a used toothbrush for this either.

That would just complicate things further. So, next story is don't use electric toothbrush for you know what? Self pleasure. Okay, we'll put self-pleasure. You put toothbrush story. All right, Ross. I don't know, I'm going to follow that. Uh, all right.

A North Carolina woman apparently got into some hot water. in Alexandria, Virginia, Matthew. Mm-hmm. She allegedly trespassed three days in a row at the CIA headquarters and showed up at the home of former President Barack Obama, according to a federal judge. Her full name has not been given out, but her last name is Hernandez of North Carolina.

She was charged with trespassing at an agency installation without authorization and repeatedly visiting the CIA in May while requesting to, quote, speak with Agent Penis. What? she was asked she was demanding to speak with agent penis at the CIA she also later showed up at Obama's DC area home despite the court's order to stay away from all government related facilities her lawyer is a public defender Whitney

mentor and she said prosecutors and probation probation officials are trying to find a way to resolve the case without trial and she is considering the plea of not guilty by reason of insanity miss Hernandez also did acknowledged being at the Obama home. She said, I won't go back there. Tell me what to do, and I will abide by the law. So all she did was go looking for penis? Agent penis. Agent

penis at the CIA. And then apparently went to Barack Obama's house. And that's my story. All right. So here are the stories and here's where you get to decide which the three is the best. Mine is getting... Can we just vote for Matt? Mine is getting free

weed in your sweet tea and McDonald's. Ross's is asking for Agent Penis from the CIA and I don't remember what Nix was. 713-212-5-790. You know what?

You don't need to vote. There's no way you would possibly want to call in at 7-13-212-5-790 and vote for what your favorite non-Folota story was. No, no, don't play the music. No one's calling. Actually, the lines are filling out Yeah, I know. I'm not looking.

I'm going to Line on who has the best non-Florida story. I'm going to have to go to Nick on that one. Okay, that seems somewhat safe. Yeah, let's see. 713-212-5-790. I don't remember what Nick's story was, but apparently you got one vote. Line two, your favorite non-flora story?

Gotta go with Matt on this one. Thank you. Yeah, one-to-one. It's a relief. Line one on the Instapole, your favorite non-Flority story. I'm going with Vibrating Woman. Oh, right in. See? That's two.

You're really counting? Line three, what's your favorite non-Florida story? Oh, it's going to be in the two, bro. I think at the end of the day, though, Nick's story was a good public service announcement. It's true. It's good advice for women out there. Please tell me in line one, you didn't like Nick's story. Yeah, that's fine.

I like the story with the line. Lemon. Extra lemon. Extra lemon. You know, it does it to you. It's the same color. The same color. Okay.

What's a lemon, but not a line? How about you and I go get an extra lemon after the show today? Line two, your favorite non-flora story? Boom, buy a two. No. All right. You win because you always want to win. Triumph at return.

on Sports Talk 790. Clippers tonight still have not seen word about whether or not we're going to see the one and only Kauai Leonard. I mean, we know Montres Harold. We know Lou Williams. We know Pat Beverly. This is like a rocket reunion. We got Austin Rivers on the clipper on the rocket side.

We said Chris Paul was a clipper before. It's true. There's been some. Interchanging between the two rosters. Potential Western Conference. Finals. Simi finals. Fri.

Fri. Fri. Finals. Finals. They could meet in the semis. You know, if the Rockets are the one seed and the Clippers of the four.

I never quite thought of it that way. See, Matt? That's right. That's right. Only one game back of the Lakers for the number one seed in the NBA. I'm still more concerned about how good the Clippers are going to be over the Lakers.

but that's just me. I think the Lakers are going to be good. The problem is their depth. Lakers. I think the clippers have more depth. Yeah, but the star power. By the way, A.D.

One two punch of LeBron and AD who's playing out of his mind. AD, by the way, he's doing the load management too, by the way. He's managing his load, so that's good. So why can't, can we just have a little heart to heart with me and James? Yes. Five games. That's the thing.

Everybody wants to talk. Well, you know, Michael Jordan would play 36 holes of golf and then go out and play. First of all, Michael Jordan is one of the all-time freaks of nature. second of all everybody else was playing 82 games because that's just what you did back then so you're putting yourself at more of a disadvantage if you are not going to do load management and other teams are yeah i don't there's just there's something in his DNA that says i want to play i don't know it necessarily is for chasing an MVP because that hasn't paid off he's finished what second three times yes so it's not like attendance gives you a greater chance of winning the

award. Maybe he can get second again this year to Quilander or somebody. No. I don't care if he finishes his ninth. Let's get a damn ring, right? Have him fresh for the playoffs. Are you ready for a ring? Yes.

I don't want to talk about MVP anymore. I don't want to talk about defensive player. The year coach, the year six, man. I want a ring. Look at this hand ahead. Look at this sexy hand I have. It's got room. Look.

Do you trampled recently? No, I'm fine. Okay. I have two of the rings from the 90s. They're old. They're bigger and gouty and more gouty nowadays. Imagine how gaudy. We walk around with that ring?

With three of them? That'd be nice. Me and you in Vegas with three rings like that? I mean, you'd be one of the only ones with three, right? I mean, what are the other ties to the old regime? I mean, less isn't there. There are. What's the trainer's name?

Has he been? Keith Jones, no. He's been forever, though. No. But not back then. People that you would not know. There's only like a two or three employees. employees that have connections to both.

If you're on the short list, Matt, you would have three. I'm trying to think who would be among all three. I think it would be Sarah Joseph is a director of community relations. Okay. There might be like a receptionist. And then, again, I haven't been with them consecutively, but I will have been a part of both. You bridging the gap. Yeah.

Wow. It would be nice. You'd be on the short, short list with three. My motto for the rest of the show, M.T. time for 3. M.T. 3. M.T. 4 3. M.T. 4 3. 5 minutes left to go in the show. What should we do? We should play America's fastest growing sports game show. We simply called it. Believe it or not. Here's how it works. You'll call 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Today's edition of Believe it or not is brought to you by Woodhouse Dayspons. Print out your gift card for the gift of relaxation. Houston Woodhouse

spas.com. Category today is all things about the Syung Award because one of Astro is going to win in tonight. I'll read you a statement about it, the Cy Young Award, statement is completely utterly accurate. You'll say this. Believe it. If it's erroneous, full of bunk and made up, you will say this. Two, believe it or not, to all things about

the Cy Young Award wins your prize. Ross, what's the prize? Matt, I've got one four pack of tickets to see the University of Houston Cougars take on the Memphis Tigers at TDECU Stadium this Saturday, November 16th. After that, we got Joe Rogan, November 16th at the two-goat Center also this Saturday.

Roger on 790, ready to play, believe it or not. Believe it. The Cy Young Award was called the Major League Pitcher of the Year Award until Commissioner Ford C. Frick decided to change it back in 1966. Believe it or not? Not. Statement number two for the win. The last reliever to win the Cy Young Award in either league was Mariana Rivera in 2005. Believe it or not.

Not. That's right. It was Eric Gagne in 2003. Mariana Rivera never won the award. Hmm. Nice job there, Roger. Congratulations. Jeremiah on 790. Jeremiah, your favorite part of the radio show today. You're an equal being on there. That's a good segment. All right. For the first 11 years, the Sying Award was given to the best pitcher regardless of league. It was expanded to both leagues in 1967. Believe it or not?

Not. Believe it. You listen to the show, too. It makes me sad. Not like a prize, Big. Bill! Oh, speaking to that. Hi, Bill. MT for three! That's it, dude.

I'm tired. The only players to ever win three straight SAY Awards actually did it both four times. Greg Maddox from 1991 to 1994 and Randy Johnson from 1999 to 2002. Believe it or not. May, I don't know. I ain't about this, but believe it. Believe it. The Cy Young Award is made by Tiffany and Company.

It weighs approximately five pounds and it costs $1,100 to produce. Believe it or not. Oh, man, that's a fucker move out. Believe it. Not. God, no! Get him out of here. Get him out of here.

Man on 790. Ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. The first foreign-born player to win the Syang Award was won Marischal, who did it for the Giants back in 1966. Believe it or not. Believe it. No, Mike Quayar in 1969. Nelson on 790, ready to play, believe it or not?

Let's do it. Besides Roger Clemens, every pitcher who has won two or more Syong Awards and is eligible is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Believe it or not? Believe it. No, Denny McLean, Brett Saberhagen, and Johan Santana are not in. Elwood on 790. You ready to play, believe it or not?

believe it. The youngest player to ever win the Sion Award was Vida Blue. He won the award at age 22 back in 1971. Believe it or not. That is right. Doc Gooden to deal with the Mets age 20 in 1985. Why to remind you about the High Meadow Ranch Golf card, it's on sale now at high meadow ranch golf.com.

This is the frequent player deal of the year. I'm just going to run through all the great benefits. and then you're going to say to yourself, I've got to get one of these cards. Preferred is the key. The ranch card gets you free rounds of golf. You play 10 times at the low rate and you get a free round. You get preferred rates in special high-metal ranch golf events. You get your guest at special rates.

Discounts in a pro shop. Discounts in your handicap ratings. Earlier twilight start times. And you get to play free on your birthday. I can go on and on and on. So I will. For the best golf in the area, you go to high meadow ranch golf.com. You book the tea time for yourself.

And while you're on that website, get yourself a high metal ranch golf card, which you can use for the last two months of this year in all of 2020. That's high meadow ranch golf.com where the city meets the country, high meadowrachgolf.com. Dr. Roto, Dana Holgerson, among our guests tomorrow for a Thursday edition of the Matt Thomas show. Remember Friday, Ross and I will be at the billiard factory champions location. Papa John's going to bring some pizza. over, come play some card, shoot some pool, and talk some sports with us.

That's on Friday. Up next from the Toyo Center, Toyota Center, it's the A-Team with Adam and Adam here on 7-90.