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

Episode Date: November 19, 2019

The Matt Thomas Show w/ @SportsMT, @SportsRV, and @ProNickLow 11/19/19This Harden - Westbrook Combo Ain't So Bad (0:00)Making Out Near Airports (38:37)Aaron Reiss Joins Matt As The Texans Prepare For The Colts (1:02:44)NBA Ratings Are Dropping Heavily (1:21:03)

Much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas show. In H-Town, what's happening in lunchtimmers? Good afternoon to you, and welcome to a Tuesday edition of the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. We are split up today and the rest of the week. I'm here at Hobby Airport. We're later on the day the rockets will head off to Denver to take on the nuggets.

Then the clippers on Friday. Ross and Nick are back in our Houston studios, and we will be with you all the way up until 3 o'clock this afternoon, where we will get into the Texans and Colts with our friend Aaron Reese from the Athletic coming up at 1.30. We will get into this Yankee fanboy that is just out of control with the astro allegations, and we will get into the Rockets, winning yet another game in a row sports RV. This hardened Westbrook combination ain't so bad, is it? Yeah, it was working last night, wasn't it? Especially, how about James Hardin with a little bit of efficiency?

It kind of helps to be more efficient when you get all of your horses back, so that was good to see. And then despite some of the three-point shots that he was taking, other than that, very efficient. He's going zero to 60, taking care of business and distributing the ball, getting rebounds like crazy, which, as I talked about on the post-game show last night, you know, when he was a thunder, a thunderer, a thunder clap, a thunder clap? when he felt the thunder? Whenever he was a thunderer, he's saying, oh, man, he's just taking a bunch of uncontested rebounds. He's not really rebounding that much.

But you look at him in a rocket uniform, and now you see him every night. That guy's flying all over the place for rebounds the whole time. He's really, really a huge help on the rebounding front. No question about it. He continues to have some of the best zero to 60 speed I've ever seen of an NBA player in my life. His shot just not very good right now. And I don't know if it's because of the hand. I don't know if he's kind of pressing.

but he did do a much better job yesterday attacking the basket and not settling for that mid-range of three-point shot, although he had a couple of three-point shots early on. So rocket conversation certainly can be in play on the radio program today as well as a variety of other things. We'd love for you to be a part of the show. You can do so by joining us at 713-212-5-790. That's 7-1-3-212-5-7-90.

If you'd like to reach out to us via Twitter, you can do that as well, at SportsMT, at Sports RV at Pro Nick Lowe. Rossi, do you have any Texans Baltimore hangover or is the perfect elixir a Thursday night game with the Indianapolis Colts for supremacy in the AFC South? I don't think I have a Texans Ravens hangover. I don't even know that it's because there's a game coming up Thursday night.

I think it's just because at some point, maybe like in the third quarter of that game, I said, you know what? I think I'm checked out as thinking of this. team as an elite team. So let's go, let's go back to same old Texans mode where they're just going to go 9 and 7, 10, and 6 win the championship and win the AFC South championship and then not really do much in the playoffs. Can I, I want to be, look, I lie to y'all sometimes, but it's just more like a fib than anything quite often. Yeah. I want to be really honest and true.

I don't want to be that person that you just described, but I am that person that you just described. I would kind of, you know, look, we've had a pretty good run of things here in Houston. We had the Astros very successful on the field. We have had the rockets in the playoffs year after year after year. We have had the Texans, well, at least get to the playoffs, but it hasn't had a lot of success. So I was kind of hoping that everything that one sport's success could translate to the next sport, to the next sport, to the next sport, to the next sport.

and I don't want to be your favorite friendly midday host that comes in and says, hey, everybody, there's a game tonight, and the Texans are going to play XYZ team, and either they're going to be a prohibitive favorite or they're going to win because they're better or it might be close, but at the end of day, let's not worry about anything that things are coming up because in January they're going to blank the bed and they're going to do what they normally do. Because why would I want to do that? Why would I want to be that kind of sports host, Ross? but the Sunday set back to the Baltimore Ravens

made me think that this is the same old Texans that this is the team that ultimately is going to beat up on the Tampa's and the Tennessee's of the world and the second tier squads. But they're not going to be able to win an elite game. So let me ask you this. Are we putting too much into a regular season game to ultimately determine who they are for the postseason?

I think my first blush answer is no or not because this is a Texans team that while has a very good offense, and does Sean Watson can do some magical things, they're literally running out of players defensively, and really good football teams are going to expose teams that are literally running out of football players on the defensive side, especially. And another reason we're not overreacting is because how poorly it went. Like if they didn't went up there and lost on the last second field goal by Justin

Tucker or if they were competitive at any point in that game, At any point, did you ever feel like, wow, the Texans are really showing up today? No, they just went up there and just got kicked up and down the field. I mean, the first quarter was close because nobody scored. But after that, it was just a, it was blowout city from the Texans. And so if they could have gone up there and shown some fight and shown me anything and got even remotely close, and this is a game where like I think about like last night with the, with the chiefs and the chargers, that was a close game despite the Chargers turning it over like four

for Philip Rivers interceptions. There wasn't a game like that. It wasn't a game where you just fumbled it away a few times or you had a muff pun and the other team turned that into points and stuff like that. You had the two turnovers, but it wasn't just a comedy of errors. You just, there weren't excuses to make. You just got out physicaled. You got beat up and down the field.

There wasn't any weird, funny, crazy circumstances that you could use as excuses, it was just an ass kicking. Well, you know what you wanted? You wanted a last second loss in New Orleans is what you wanted. That kind of game. Yeah, remember we came on this show and we said we're actually, it's a loss, but we're encouraged

by what we're seeing from the Texas. That's right. That's what I, you know what? And maybe that would have been asking too much for the Texans to go to Baltimore and win that football game. To go up there and show up would have been nice. But to show up would have been wonderful. So I'm going to throw this out at least early on the conversation today. I don't. I don't

don't want to be, I'm not here to influence you. This is a show which involves interaction from you guys on Twitter at SportsMT, at SportsRV. It involves you guys calling in because you can set an agenda too. You can call right now if you'd like. We'd love to have you early on at 713212-5-790 and say, hey, I didn't expect them to win against Jackson or the game against Baltimore, but they're going to come home to NRG and they're going to beat the Colts in a short week.

they're going to prove that this New England team isn't the New England team of yesteryear and they're going to win this and they're going to do two and one just like i you i being you out there predicted they were going to do when you took a poll quote you answered my poll question on the Twitter account because two and one is still possible so i guess what i'm asking ross is if we are if we were of the belief they could go two and one during this super important three game stretch it's still possible for that to happen or did the loss the way they lost and how they looked against a team that they're likely going to have to face come playoff time was it so bad that even if they win the next two games that the houston texans

having to jump on a plane going on a road to play a good team like baltimore or playing new england it's just not going to pay off it's going to get a very similar result and that's what i'm definitely afraid has happened now i'm not talking about the entire hundred percent of the texans population texans fan base there are some that will no matter what they do they're the best team ever and they will always win in their hearts and minds and souls. And we know who that group is. Then we have a certain group out there that without a doubt hate the Texans under every circumstance and will never give them the benefit of the doubt, will never give them any credit.

I mean, winning at Kansas City was a very, very big, nice win, even though Pat Mahomes is not 100%. Going to London to play in a foreign territory for the first time win the game against a team that was pretty hot at the time in Jacksonville. Now, maybe they're a little bit more, we know who they are now after what they did last week. But that was a good win. I'm just not going to be that there was nothing productive out of this season. But as I say all that, it is an absolute kick in the teeth. How I'm supposed to come on this radio show, Ross, you do the same on this show and on the nightcap,

and try to sell the audience that this is a different NFL team than years past. because in reality, when you go to Baltimore and get your ass kicked by 34 points, it is the same football team. It's like going to a restaurant again, Ross. I always bring up food in this segment for some reason. It's because it's noon. People are hungry. It is.

And we continue to accept the mediocre food and the mediocre service. Because that's the only restaurant close. It's within walking distance. Like, for instance, you ever go to a small town, Ross, and you're at a Best Western? Yes. And there's only two choices to eat. There's a subway and there's a waffle house. A waffle house all day there.

You know how we feel about the waffle house. But the waffle house has been dicey. We don't know if they clean their utensils. You know what I'm saying? They probably don't, but that's okay. It's part of the charm. We've had some sassy service. They've butchered the order before because they never want to write it down for you.

I have been in the Waffle House fights YouTube wormhole as well. Well, who hasn't gotten involved in that? But yet there's nothing else to go to, so you're going to, by default, go to the Waffle house and that's what we're doing we're by default going all right yeah i guess we could have some scattered covered hash browns but man i would certainly would i'd really like for them to have a great t-bones steak oh they ran out on t-bones i'd really like to go to the waffle house and then not screw the order up but yet they always do yes they do so i want to know who is out there like there's going to be 70 000 people at the game on on thursday night right yes well is that who are those

people. Is it going to be 100% full? No, because I don't think Texans games 100% full anymore. I think the secondary market is showing a lot of empty seats before games. But who are those 70,000 people? And can I get those people to come on my show and explain to me that when they get in the stadium and they sit in their seat and they drink their beer and eat their food and they wear the various mask and paint their faces, are they doing it because they just want to be Halloween characters 12 months? months a year? Or do they really believe when they sit down, they're going to watch this football

team be something that hasn't been for any point in its NFL history? And that's a legitimate contender for an AMC championship. Someday. Because you know what I'm, it's easy to be, well, I don't go to games, I don't care. That's easy guy to figure out. I want to know who 70,000 fan guy is. And girl, who are those people? And what do they think about their beloved football team going to Baltimore and blanking to bed at the Ravens. We will discuss that today at 713-212-5-790. The Rockets were excellent last night. If you're a rocket fan, want to chime in on that conversation, you can as well.

And Rossi, I got to be honest with you, and we'll get into this later on. I'm kind of getting tired of Tom Boy, or whatever the hell his name is. John Boy? John Boy, Tom Boy. It doesn't matter what his name is. I'm not giving him any run. I'm not putting him on my radio show. Well, you did give him a little run just now.

but it's not good. I'm not going to speak well of him. Okay. I can tell you something. Tom boy, John boy ain't making love to a woman today. He might. Maybe he's got a girlfriend. There's no chance.

No chance that man has touched a woman in years. So we got that for us. I'm just kind of getting tired of every little thing that he thinks he sees is an act against the Astros. This is tearing me up, but I'm not letting that gibrony. I'll let the athletic crush. my dreams and hopes. I'll let S.I. and ESPN do their thing.

I'm not letting Yankee fanboy running to his Twitter account saying, ooh, there's a buzzer. That dude ain't ruining it for me. He's not. 713, 212, 579. 5, 4, 3. At 2.

Dave, Joe Green. The Matt Thomas show continues. 3-quarter, nothing but. On Sports Talk 790. Melon! On your Rockies. Matt Thomas with you from Hobby. Ross is back in our Houston studios along with Nick Lowe. This is the Matt Thomas show.

We greatly appreciate you spending some time with us today. I want to know, Ross, who the 70,000 people are that go to the games. I want to meet those people. Is that a group of people that are diehards? Is it a group of, well, I have the tickets anyway, I might as well go? Is it, I only go for the social aspect? Is it I only go to the, you know, just a drink and have a good time in tailgate? Rossi, who do you think that seven?

thousand people are. And that 70,000 are they into and really believe their team can go to the Super Bowl? I think at least a third to half of them are diehards. I think you got a lot of large chunk of people who are like friends of the diehards. Like, hey, this guy give me a ticket or whatever. We have some tickets that we're going to go. And I think a lot of them are just going to get free tickets from somebody who has tickets and just wants to give them away and has season tickets. Hey, you want tickets to the game this week?

I can't make it. It's a Thursday night. I got kids or whatever. And I think there's also going to be some people in the secondary market who are just looking to go for cheap. Yeah. I mean, how much do I have no clue? How much do you think you can get a ticket to old Texans versus Colts game on Thursday for? You know what? I'm not even really specifically talking about this Thursday. I'm just talking about the general who's in there, honestly, if the game was Sunday. I mean, yeah, okay. Yeah, I'd like to meet that person.

Because you could do this exact same thing with the Astros or the Rockets. If you took a crowd, let's go the Astros of 2012. Remember the awful Astros? You know, the ones that would lose 100 games every year? I mean, that was just a diehard group of people that wanted to go and a mix of the other teams that had fans in this city particular, you know, that wanted to come to Houston. I can get Upper Deck In Zone tickets for 35 bucks Thursday.

Okay. What's the face value of those, you know? I have no idea. I would guess like it's probably. I'm going to assume that's way more than. Probably like 75 or something. I would yes. Because man, you know, I want this show to be welcoming to anybody,

but I also don't want to, because here's the thing, if you and I go on the show and say, hey, the Texans beat the Colts this Thursday, and the Texans beat the Patriots, and then they finish off the season with those four very winnable games, hey, Ross, this is a legitimate Super Bowl contender. That might please a section of the Houston fan base. It's not happening, though.

But that also might be, I might be pissing. off those that are like, Matt, will you please get real for a minute, please? It's, it's not, yeah, please get. Please get real. I think would, I think, would be the sentiment of most logical people. The Texans, from what I saw on Sunday, and I mean, it's been an up and down season, right? I mean, they, they lost to the, to the Panthers, the way they did. And you didn't think they're going to bounce back and win the way they did the next two games, especially with the win against the Chiefs. But it's just, they're just so up and down. I can't, I mean, this is very well a loseable game on Thursday. They could very well go, I would more like they go, oh, and

They'd lose the next two, then they would win the next two. Oh, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, I can't imagine anybody bumping around town going, I can't wait to go to that Sunday night game against the Patriots and watch Tom Brady throw for 350 yards and three touchdowns or watch Deshaun Watson get sacked four times and throw two interceptions. Because frankly, I'm more concerned about the Patriots defense than I am about anything offensively that Tom Brady does.

Let's go to the phones at 713-212-5-790. David's with us on the Matt Thomas show. David, how are you? Well, I'm well. So if I was still David in Galvest, instead of David in Vegas, I would still have my PSLs, my season tickets, and I would be one of those 70,000 people there Thursday night. And I think you're being a little too harsh on believing in the Texas. I mean, look, another history of the optimistic. Now I'm one of those people that would have voted that they would have lost all three of these three games that we were talking about when you were bowling that.

I think there's a chance they won't make the playoffs. It's not that I'm, you know, the Belichick, but to quote, you know, the Belichick, it's about getting into the tournament. The playoffs are a tournament, and once you get in there, you've got a chance. I know our history, if we win the division again, we can often usually win a home playoff game,

and we go to Baltimore and New England, and we are demolished. And not predicting anything particularly better, but that's the reason you play the game. I mean, if I was going to give up on the Texans, just because of the current state, it would be like saying, why don't, and you know what, kind of a Rockets fan? I'm just a huge Rockets fan. But, I mean, I could look at the situation and say, why do we want to get in the playoffs?

We just play Golden State and lose to them every year. Well, you know what? There's a lot of people that, David, that have felt that same way, is that, you know, as awesome as the Rockets have been, there's this 800-pound gorilla standing in front of them named the Golden State Warriors that's never going to let them get through. And so what I'm saying in describing the Texans could be very easily described about, you know, the Rocket fan in the last handful of years is, why do I care about this team winning 55, 57, 60 games when I'm sitting there watching Steph Curry and Dremont Green and Clay Thompson knocked down three-pointers up to three-pointers. So I'm not saying this is exclusive to the Texans. But the Rockets also were able to go deeper in playoff series and were able to be competitive against the goal. in states and get to the Western Conference finals where the Texas not only have not gotten

to the conference championship, but they have very rarely ever looked like they were competitive interdivision around game. And that's where I'm saying that's the consistency that we've seen for more than a decade now. And I was going to give you that point exactly because that's certainly true. Having said that, it's a tournament. That's why they play the game. Stranger things have happened. Bigger upsets have happened. So you root for your team to get as far as they can in this thing. Thanks, David. We'll see you. I thank you for the phone call. my friend, I get you. But they have to see my buddy David there, that's David in Vegas.

That's not David that goes to the games. I would like to know what that group is that go to the games. He did say that he would go to the games if he still lived here. That's true. That's true. He was a PSL owner. PSL guy gets some serious credit from. Because you're paying a surcharge on top of them.

Yeah, that's ridiculous. What a nice scan that is. Do they still do PSLs anymore? I think so, right? I mean, I mean, are they going to have PSLs for, how are you going to have a PSL for a charger game? Nobody in LA cares about the chargers, ever. I don't know. How many PSL?

I mean, I can pretty much guarantee Las Vegas will have them because you know what the Vegas will do? The casinos will buy those tickets up. That'd be nice. You think they'll have craft tables in the stands? That'd be cool. You know how you can like, you know, you can have drinks sent to your room to your chair, you know, the dial up mobile apps? why don't we have like a blackjack table like a mini blackjack table a woman can wear a blackjack table around her her waist and during timeout you can play yeah that'd be nice i'm telling you this lost instead of them throwing peanuts at you they can throw you a stack of red chips

yeah and like you know a roulette you walk up instead of going to get a coke you get to you go spin at a roulette table why why couldn't you have oh oh how about during timeouts on the big screen there's a one big roulette wheel for Everybody. And then you can all bet on numbers like from your, from your, from your, from your section. Oh, I got two syllables for you. And the entire place gets into it. Keno. That's what you do. Keno. Nobody cares about Keno. Yeah, they do. People love the Keno. If you were under 70 years old, you do not play Keno. When you go to the breakfast restaurant of your choice at 1.30 in the morning and you still can't do enough gambling, what do you do? You ask for a Kino board.

I know. I've never asked for a Keno board. Now, it's a sucker bet. I understand these things. But I'm telling you, if you're talking about timeouts at a football game in Las Vegas, keynote is where it's at. How about a iPad attached to each chair and you can make live prop bets? That's a little pricey. You should have people use their phones. You stick your credit card in.

Yeah, but the problem is you're talking about a heavy iPad cost. People trying to like cut the wire from it. Yeah, 80,000 iPads is going to run you a little bit. Casinos have a lot of money. And remember, once a Raider fan, normally a criminal. That's true. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90.

Rick in the Gallery will get to you. The rest of you come on in and join us as well. It's 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. Aaron Reese talks on the Texans in one hour from the athletic. Also, this tomboy dude, or I should actually call him by his right name. What is it? John Boy? John.

He's pissing me off, and I'll discuss that next as well. When I listen to the Matt Thomas show, I don't even understand the eclectic nature of the show, the dichotomy, the ostentatiousness, the perfunctory that sounds about as smart as LeVar Ball. Back to the Matt Thomas Show, whoever he is. 1234 on the Matt Thomas Show with you from Hobby Airport. Ross and Nick are back in our 790 palatial studios. Aaron Reese joining us at 130. Do you see Stephen A. Smith getting sideways with Eric Reed about the whole conference. Colin Kaepernick situation.

Who was getting sideways with Eric Reed? Stephen A. Smith. Oh, no. No, I didn't. Good, me either. 713, 212, 5, 790. 713, 212, 5, 790. Let's go to Rick in the Galleria on Sports Talk 790 at 1235. Rick, thanks for holding good afternoon to you as I punch you up right now. Hi, Rick.

Hey, guys, how's you going today? Good. do. Fantastic. I know you get that question on the time. Listen, I think what you're looking for, I think pro sports in general anymore, it's like an anomaly. Everybody's going to these games, not to go for the actual game itself. They're just going just to hang out, and it's something to do, and it really has become a disfall for a lot of things, in my opinion. I grew up with the Astros and the Oilers back in the day, and going to the games meant something.

And now it's like as soon as, you know, the Houston Texans, I think that's the dumbest name on the history of the planet. When the Oilers left this town, it turned this town into the football town. And just we hope that it was going to work and it just, it's not anymore. But the people that go to these games, it's like they stop free ticket or they're just going to go. They don't pay attention. And I see it all the time. Everybody's on their phones. And it's boring.

I don't even go anymore. I used to be a season ticket holder and I don't go anymore because of the fact that it has just gotten out of. control the sports world that we live in today. Nobody cares about it anymore except for the money people. And it's really daunting to know that this is what we pay to see in these babies that come out of these leagues and stuff that still can't even spell their names probably. And they get this type of accolades. And I'm tired of it. I think the sports, you know, needs to really, these owners need to get together and start really controlling the environment again.

because this is turning into the highest paid pitchers in the world quarterbacks that haven't done anything. But the problem, Rick, with the things you just said, Rick, and I'm not trying to just point you in your own little world, but the reality is that there are thousands and thousands and thousands of Houston Astro fans that are dying for the Astros to give Garrett Cole every single dollar he is deserving of it in a new contract. we don't generally speaking care about the outrageous money that is being spent on these athletes as long as they're helping our home team win.

So it doesn't really matter about what they make. It doesn't matter if they are heroes in the community. I mean, you're painting with a very broad brush when the reality is the fan that I deal with, the fan that fills stadiums up, are fans that want to win. that's the most important thing is that they don't need and they don't particularly care about how much anybody makes just win, baby. Well, I understand that. You know, and I want the Astros to win more than anybody

because that's my team. Baseball, if you can hit a curveball or a fastball, I don't care who you are these days, you're somebody. And, you know, if you're a pitcher that can actually put out the, you know, the K's and the wins that we need, yeah, of course. We've been dying for something in this city for a long time. And, you know, and like I said, to me is, the NFL is, I don't even hardly watch it anymore. I mean, I don't even care.

And if you're a Patriots fan, God bless you, man. You suffered all the years and you got the best team out to the best coaching staff, the best ownership that actually cares about what they're doing. But when it comes to us down here, it's like, you said it earlier. You know, it's like, hey, hoping that the rockets go, or whoever said it, I forget, the rockets, they'll go to the playoffs and they'll get beat. Why do we consistently do that? It's like, well, we get there. They tease us just enough and then we find out and it's you know we move on to something else and we got to start over or it's not rebuilding it's like we want to replenish it's like in college football you know you got to replenish you can't rebuild every year like if you're the texas longhorns i'm just using

that as an example yeah from what i see in life it's just you know man it's it's it's great if we win but we're not winning you know the astros are which is great but look look deeper into it and i think it's it comes down to a lot of you know the cheating scandal i mean i don't know what's going on with that. But my God, think about it, everybody does it, right? I mean, are we just, are we going to get caught on that? Or what are your thoughts? I was going to ask you that earlier. Okay. Thank you for the phone call. I think our philosophy, Ross, has been pretty consistent about this. We believe that every single team in baseball is doing things for a competitive advantage. And stealing signs is very legal, trying to grab intelligence on the field,

making sure it's not done via electronically or with illegal sources like cameras and whatnot is not what we can don't and not what the Astros should be doing, nor should Major League Baseball. So it's too simplistic for me to say everybody does it so the Astros just got caught. Because I don't know if there is evidence in baseball

that other baseball teams are having assistant general managers sending out emails or video cameras are being installed in areas that should be installed in order for this to happen. Yeah, that's the thing. I mean, you can say everybody's doing it, but you have to qualify that with what. Everybody's doing what?

Is everybody setting up a camera and getting a system with a trash can and signaling their batters? Is everybody having, like you said, assistant general managers, email scouts and say, hey, why don't you get the video cameras and the binoculars out and tell us what you can see? Is every single organization going into the depth that the Astros did?

and as widespread. This just seems like this was just throughout, and everybody knew about it within the Astros organization. I don't know that every... We can't say that every baseball team is doing that. That's just irresponsible. What I will say is this. Every baseball team is having a closed-door meeting

or have done so or will to say, you better tell everybody that you know current employees, past employees, I guess more importantly, current ones. Let's make sure we're not the next victims. We're not the ones that get caught next. because I think, and we've said this before, I believe the Astros will be used as an example

to make sure this never happens again, and I believe the penalties will be extraordinarily harsh. With that being said, with that being said, this tomboy, whatever the hell his name is, I don't follow him. I will not follow him. I will not put him on my radio show. I'm not here to give him clicks or to get him new fans.

this latest round of, well, do you see this buzzer? Now he's just searching because he knows he's got people that are looking for his next move. I will say this over and over again. I don't want to know what really went on with the Astros, but I'm going to find out. But when I do find out who's doing these things, it's going to be because Major League Baseball told me them, not some Yankee fan boy. I'm over y'all retweeting his photos don't do it please do me a favor

do not retweet or retweet with comment his stuff I don't want to see it I think I muted him when he put out the thing about people whistling during the world series and he was thinking it was coming from the Astros dugout

when there are 40,000 fans there cheering and whistling for their team that's right I just don't have any interest. I don't have any interest in what he's got to say. Yeah, you've already mentioned him too much, honestly. All right, I'm done. Leave him, yeah, leave him alone.

Who cares about him? 1243. Matt Thomas Show from Hobby Airport continues here on Sports Talk 7-9 if you want to join our conversation. Hey, Rockets did pick up another win. Ross, was their last loss at Miami, that ass kicking? Was that the last time they lost? I'm trying to think. I don't remember another loss after that.

because that was a bad one. That was an embarrassing one. And since then, they have won every single game. James is playing at an unbelievable level, and Russ got himself a nice, efficient triple double last night, despite the fact he didn't shoot particularly well, at least early on. Was it Brooklyn? I think it was Brooklyn.

No, Brooklyn was first. We went to Brooklyn. Oh, is that right? Yeah. So Brooklyn, Miami were back-to-back losses, and I think they haven't lost since. I was seven or eight in a row. You lose track of these things.

It's a good problem to have. 713-21-2-5-790 7-1-3-2-1-2-5-7-90 Tyler White here Back to Matt Thomas And it is gone And sports talk 7-90 Home of Astros baseball

Ross, would be too much to ask for have current athletes Do my liners on my show We have some But we haven't played any in like years Like we have... That's not true. Russell Westbrook was talking about How he didn't get his style from me literally like yesterday.

What are you eating? What are you talking about? I hear you. I don't know what you're talking about. Okay, good. All right. Ross, Matt, Nick, we're at the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. 713-212-5-790 if you want to get in.

7-1-3-212-5-7-90. I'll take you to two and then go on with the Rockets to Denver. Ross will have the final hour of the show or hopefully his mouth won't be full of food. Wonderful. My mouth isn't full of food. Cinco in Rosenberg on the Matt Thomas show. Hi, Sinko. Nostra Thomas and Rostradamus.

How y'all doing, man? We're great. Thank you. Hello. Cool beans. Hey, Matt, does it still fascinate you watching the planes take off and stuff? It does. I'm glad you remembered that.

Yeah, that's pretty cool, man. I've flown quite a few times, and it just still amazes me to see that. Let me ask you this real question. Let me ask you a question for you ask yours. Ross, you jump in this. Have you ever gone to Intercontinental or a hobby where they have, like, the sitting area, you can watch planes take off and land. Is that intrigue any of you out there?

No. I mean, it does me. Is there a place specifically for that? I believe on Lee Road, at Intercontinental, there is an area where you can sit and watch. I don't know if Hobby has it, but I know that Intercontinental off of Lee Road does. Sounds like something you do in an 80s coming-of-age movie.

Let me ask you this, though. Let me tell you this. What you should do is you should take the girl and say, hey, let's go watch planes take off and land. and then it becomes, hey, baby, you look good today. And she says, oh, what? Yeah. It could be like that.

Or you can just take her to your bedroom and you don't have to go against crashing, thundering planes. Oh, man. I think Matt's been creeping my life through a fish eye or something. Was that Wayne's World Day did that? I've been married 20 years to her now, but when we were, when we were court and when we were dating and stuff, we went to, I did specifically that. at Hobby Airport. I took her kind of over, took her kind of over to the telephone roadside. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and sat there. And then, you know, we chitch at it for a little bit, and we didn't get to get hot and heavy because security guys came over and ran it off. Well, you know what? That's why you, Sinko, you're a blood brother to me because you share the same sentiment. I bet you, I bet you, Rossi, the 25% of our audience is made out near an airport.

Well, yeah, near an airport motel. All right, Sanko, what was your question? That's something else entirely. Yeah, we got way out track, right? Yeah, we did. It was public address announcers. I never heard why maybe I've just been to sleep for a long time. But why don't they let the public address announcer do the play-by-play

or hire somebody to do the play-by-play. So, like, especially like texting the games, won't be so boring when you're there. And it would even help baseball when I'm there instead of having to carry a, headset and listen to it on the radio. Or why don't they do a live feed from you guys to the Astros games since y'all are the official sponsor? Yeah, Cinco, that would be highly annoying. I do play by play.

I love doing it, but you have to take a little effort to say, I want to hear every single thing. I couldn't imagine being in a stadium, football, basketball, or baseball, and having someone talk to me for three consecutive hours without letting it breathe. I mean, that would just, that's just not a possibility. No one would want it. It would be highly irritating very quickly.

Yeah, but I do it every day 12 to 3 with you guys. Touchet, my friend, tusha. Sanko, thank you for the phone call. Don't be a stranger to the show. Yeah, Ross, as much as I love the sound of my own voice, I could not imagine me giving the play-by-play of, I mean, could you imagine if, so I'm sitting here calling a game, and I go, all right, little left corner for three.

way off the mark. He wouldn't be able to focus. What a terrible free throw attempt that was. Oh, what a bad shot. How about the Rockets box out once? Yeah, that would not work out well. Not at all. You get a little emotional sometimes, or you say a little

one-liners, which I like Matthew? Yeah, but that's the difference between one-liners and speaking for two and a half hours straight. I guess. I want to talk more about making out around airports. I'm intrigued by how you think this is actually having. You think people are going to the hobby area and number one, not getting stabbed, and number two, making out?

I'm going to call out people right now. If you have ever made out in an air, what would they call the area, observation area is what they would call it. Hmm. I would like you to call and tell Ross that it indeed, that's, I'm not saying the large part of the audience that were done it? You said 25%. That's a pretty big chunk.

That's not that big of a chunk. That's a huge chunk. Okay, so how am we supposed to care? How are we supposed to figure that I found if I'm accurate or not? Make a Twitter poll. Okay, here's what I'll do. I will make a Twitter poll right now. Have you ever made sweet love?

No, no, no. I'm not asking you to have sex in your car. Have you ever jammed your tongue down somebody's throat near the airport? Behind the jack in the box on telephone road. Oh, f. Nick, have you ever made out near an airport within one square mile of an airport? Not that I can recall now. I don't think so.

I usually don't hang out around airports. They're usually not the best part of town. Yeah, Matt, what do you mean? Lee Road? Lee Road in the hobby area? Nobody wants to be around there. No, no, no, no, no. Lee Road is by an account of Learport.

I know. I know. I know I'm taking, saying both. I know which one. I'm naming both. And I would think, now, I would think probably hobby would be off a telephone. So, yeah, you're... Well, I don't mean to stereotype parts of town, but it'd be Broadway, right?

Broadway. What else would be around? Park places right there? Airport Boulevard? Yeah, Airport Boulevard. Nobody's on Airport Boulevard. All right. Making out at 2 a.m. or whatever.

I'm just saying that... Unless they're paying for it. It's cheap. Some people think it's cool to see planes take off and land. I might be in that category. I'm going to put this poll quick. I'm going to give it two hours to see. Great.

Let me go vote no from all my burn. I haven't put it up there yet. Just relax. 713-212-5-7. 790, 713, 212, 579. The second hour, the Matt Thomas show starts in a matter of moments. Yeah. Is the Matt Thomas show.

Second hour of the Matt Thomas show here on Sports Talk 790. Ross, the whole question has 26 results in so far. Question is, have you ever made out near an airport? And I put in printies like in an observation area. 31% have said yes, 69% said no. It's early. Yeah, and I would have to say this. And Des, our friend ATX-Hovergrowth, probably makes a fair point.

Smaller cities with airports probably would be more applicable than saying hobby intercontinental. But now you think about this, Ross, we now have the cell phone waiting areas at airports, too, that we didn't have back when we were younger. You go make out and there? That would be a little creepier because that means you just can't. You can't wait. I'm telling you observation areas at airports have been, hey, isn't as cool? Look at this plane take off. Look at this plane land.

And, hey, you smell good, babe. I've never, ever even really heard of that, except I've seen it in a couple of movies, I guess. Okay. Well, I've never been like, you know what I'm going to do with my free time? Go watch airplanes. Well, it's cheap. That's true. It's true.

So, yeah. I mean, again, I said 25% of it 31. Now, things could change. your poll questions do change, but go make your results known at the sports empty. Probably people feeling sorry for you or something. Why would people feel sorry for me? It's just a simple question. How much time you got?

Oh, that's true. All right, 713, 21, 2, 1,000, 5, 7. I know you got lots of folks that want to say hi. We got Aaron Reese from the athletic coming up at the bottom of the hour. Michael and Katie in the Matt Thomas show. Michael, thanks for holding. Good afternoon. Good afternoon.

I'm kind of depressed. I know that you guys were going on the airport thing. I've got some stories there, but I'm going to, I'll share those for a different time. But I'm just wondering, well, first of all, Matt, let me ask you this. Do you remember what I don't remember the exact year? I lived in Houston since 1974. Do you remember the whole Mike Scott fiasco and what happened and how he was accused of cheating? I've told the story to the audience before, and I want to tell you this story.

May I do this before you go on because you brought it up? Sure, absolutely. I was a huge fan. I mean, I've been a huge fan of the Astros since 1979. I'm not kidding about this. This has been my baseball team. And I was a diehard fan of Mike Scott and 86 Astros. And that was in my eighth grade year where they won the West and all that kind of thing.

I went to the game in which he threw the no-hitter. Years later, I went up to someone who I trusted and I said, hey, can you please help me out with this. I have defended Mike Scott and him scuffing the baseball for a long period of time. Please tell me he didn't do it. And as soon as I said, the person said back to me, this person who I trusted this, and if I said who told me this, you would know who he was immediately. He said, oh, hell yeah, he scuffed the baseball. And he got away with it. So cheating happens even to our heroes, even to our favorite teams. And I was a grown adult male when I was told this and it still kind of hurts this day because I love Mike Scott. I still will always

love Mike Scott. But when a former person closely associated with Mike Scott tells me these things, I have to kind of believe him. And so, and that kind of brings me to my point. You know, because I carry, you know, I'm Houston and everything. So I carry a lot of pride with the teams and everything. Like who was the guy? He was from the Yankees. he had so much whatever dunk on the side of his neck it was hilarious

that he didn't hide it as well as he should and he was trying to oil up or Vaseline up or whatever the baseball for the Yankees and this only happened a few years ago and so much as we think of the New England Patriots

all those were cheaters because they do this and then the Yankees with their tactics or whatever I don't want the Astros to be one of those and I'm scared that what is happening

I heard you the other day give your maybe it was yesterday maybe it was the day before but it's like hey look you know the MLB is coming after the Astros I'm just wondering what is this I would hate to have tainted

to put an artificial asterisk and that to me that means where people oh yeah yeah I remember that to me you know it's like with A-Rod and the are even buried bonds with San Francisco Giants. Well, I'm going to give you a chance to answer your own question.

When you think of the New England Patriots, do you think of Spygate? Do you think of the Patriots stealing information video videos? Does it not say ruin, but does it make you think of them and that at the same time? Or does the excellence of the Patriots supersede any sort of video surveillance they were trying to do on the other team? It makes me think of both. And one of the things that I remember, and you didn't mention this, but Tom, oh, my God, who's the head coach for the Pittsburgh Steers? Mike Conlin.

Yes, Mike Tomlin. Okay. He said, I remember he was in a conference at the end of the game. This was a few years ago, and he said, he was asked, is it, he was asked, is it, true that the headsets went out for the visiting team. And he said, I'm not going to use that as an excuse because it always happens. And so if it always happens, then it has to be anticipated. There's something like that.

Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Michael, for the phone call. I want to react to some of the things you said. I think it's in the eye of the beholder, Ross, if penalties are severe about whether there is an asterisk next to it. My guess is Houston Astro fans, myself, including in that mix, will not put an asterisk by it. But I believe baseball fans in the other 49 states might do so.

I think the Patriots analogy is a good one. I don't think anybody at the end of the day, once the years pass and we get further removed from this, is going to talk about an asterisk or it didn't count or anything like that. because, I mean, unless there's just red-handed proof and hard evidence and you can prove it for 100% that this happened. And even then, I just don't know that there's, there's just no precedent except for the Black Sox scandal

for them doing anything like this. And that was 100 years ago with a gambling scandal. So I just don't think that this will be, it's a huge story now, but in a couple of years, we won't remember it as much. Which is basically everything. Right. For everything that the Patriots have done,

being mean SOBs, being Bill Belichick being difficult, through the Aaron Hernandez, the cheating of the video. I still think of them as the greatest football team ever to have played. Because they win. Because they win. So that's just one person's opinion. Now, you might get New York Post writer, or you might get Chicago Tribune writer,

or you might get a person that works on FS1 that says this, I mean, Rossi, are you fully prepared for hot take, Skip Bayliss to say that the Astros should have their World Series? I'm sure that'll happen. It'll happen. Or Stephen Aism and Max Kellerman and all the talking about it. One of those guys who just can't wait to jump on this sizzling baking hot take story. Let me go to thank you, Michael, for the phone call.

Good conversation. Let's say hi to Gio on the north side of the Matt Thomas show at 108. Hi, Gio. Hey, how's a good one, guys? Good. First time, caller. I've been listening to you guys for about a month now, so I'm kind of a new listener. And I just want to see you guys do a great job, man.

I love listening to you guys. Thank you. Awesome job. Thank you. And as far as the airport making our thing, man, I was in high school around 2011, my senior year. Yeah. The observing thing right off of Lee Road, that was my spot back in the day.

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. That's why you're a blood brother, my man. That's right. I'm talking about. You take a girl out to eat. You take her to the movies. You know, you guys don't want to go home. hey, let's go off of Lee Road with a quick for a couple of hours.

That's how it goes. I love it. I love it. That's how it goes. But I got a hot seriousness. I wanted to ask you not about the Rockets, man. I love the Rockets. We're doing real great right now.

But it's kind of like this. Every year we do great. We're all in the headlines during the regular season. But soon as that playoff push comes, man, we kind of just fade away from the greatness that we, that we showed during the regular season. And I wanted to ask you, do you think this year is going to be different? Do you think that we're equipped to make a serious run?

Well, first of all, and thank you for the phone call. I'm glad you may admit it to us, Lee Roe, my friend. You are always welcome on the program, Gio. Thank you. There are no guarantees, but I will say this, and Ross, you can agree or disagree. The pathway, even with LeBron and Anthony Davis in L.A. And all the superstars are the clips. This is the easiest pathway that Ron.

rockets will have had in long time because there has been an 800-pound gorilla known as the Golden State Warrior standing right in the way. Yeah, absolutely. The unfortunate thing is you had your best run in the midst of the dynasty, in the midst of a dynasty. Yep. Which has happened all over the place in sports. I mean, the 97, 98 jazz made the finals and then ran up into Michael Jordan's Bulls.

Let's see. The Oilers of the late 70s running into the dynasty of the Steelers. stuff like that. I mean, we can point all over the place. And then the rockets are one of those victims. The best run that the rockets have, you could argue the best run they've ever had. Of course, they went back-to-back championships.

But as far as regular season, the best regular season runs they've had have been over the last few years and you just run up against a buzzsaw. Yeah. So will there be intense competition? Yeah. Will the Western Conference be filthy,

especially top heavy, top four? Yeah. but you know and look we got 70 games left to go here so it's hard for me to get to tell you today what's going to happen four months from now we got a trade deadline we got injuries we have meshing you know of teams and lineups and guys together

but this is this is good this is going to get the dismantling of golden state because of injury it's in free agency has given a window of opportunity not only for the rockets but for the lakers and for the clippers and some of the upper echelon teams in the NBA thank you geof for the phone call. Rossi, did you realize? I didn't realize how popular Lee Road was. Oh, what? I might have to take a loss on this. I didn't realize that all you degenerates

were going over there to the airfield to make out with people. Yeah, it's 65% no, 35% yes. And El Serpico 1, 2, 3 is asking how about second base? I don't care about what base you got to. Did you take the girl to Lee Road at Intercontinental? Or telephone over here at Hobby. And say, hey, baby, you look good. Aw. Thanks for taking me out to dinner tonight. Thanks for going to movies. Isn't this plane beautiful?

Boom. Ross, try it. See what happens? Never know. Unless I'm packing heat. I'm not going to hang out by a hobby airport. I would suggest maybe going Intercontinental and Lee Road, maybe a little safer. Even then, I don't think that's the nicest.

We've either. Sam, why are airports in bad parts of town? Real estate, right? Yeah, probably. Cheaper real estate? Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. 713212-5-790.

7-1-3-212-5-7-90. This is Carlos Correira. Back to Matt Thomas. It's your home. Fasters baseball. Ross has got an email from our buddy old-school mix. He says, Matt, I'm a season ticket holder of five tickets, two parking passes. I spend $500 a game.

since day one, got to the point where I can't even sell my Colts tickets for under face value. People want something for nothing. Um, are we surprised by this? Are we surprised that after a 41-7, Shalacking the tickets are going to be readily available for a Thursday game at 7 o'clock on a workday? Not surprised, no. Disappointed? Honestly, and I don't go to a whole lot of NFL games because, first of all, the television cameras are significantly better than anything you can see in person.

Plus, if you go to a game, especially the noon games, you got your fantasy football going and you got your three, you know, you got four or five different options, especially if you have Sunday ticket. I would only go intentionally to games that were starting, that were by themselves, like a Sunday exclusive or a Thursday exclusive because you're not competing with anything. And this is first place on the line of the AMC South, right?

But it seems kind of hollow, doesn't it? I don't think if you're, the Texans, you sell first place, AFC South, battle on the line. That's what you sell if you're a Fox or NFL network.

Oh, I think you sell Deshawn Watson rather simple. Mm-hmm. Simply. I think you sell Jacobi percent. You put the two of those guys together, although obviously Deshawn's got much more of a name. By the way, T.Y. Hilton looks like he's going to play in the game Thursday, which you know what that

means. No, no. That's what, six for one, 14, 14, and two touchdowns? Well, at least the Texan secondary has been really good this year. You ready to see Vernon Hargraves make his Texans debut? Sure. I'm ready for the reclamation projects. That's what the Texans are trotting out there. Old veterans and reclamation projects.

Because there's no way that Lonnie Johnson plays this week, right? I don't think so. I mean, you gets rolled up and he has to get carried off on a cart. You don't have that kind of miraculous McCarver unless you're shooting up with something, yes? Which could very easily happen. It is illegal. Is Justin Reganville? go this week?

Another great question. I mean, is Jonathan Joseph one small turn in a wrong direction away from getting hurt again? I just tried to Google information on Lonnie Johnson, and apparently there is an American inventor named Lonnie Johnson who holds more than 120 patents and is the inventor of the Super Soaker Water Gun. Well, when we do a Lonnie Johnson, believe it or not, we need to hold on to that for dear life. I used to love the Super Soaker. I'm sorry, anyways, Texan Secondary.

I'd rather talk about the Super Soaker Okay, go ahead Um Super Soaker You know what, let's not Because I was thinking about going down a road I don't want to go down too Okay

Wow, you can buy used vintage Super Sokers on eBay for like 90 bucks Apparently Was a Super Soker so powerful that it would actually hurt people? No, it wasn't that bad Okay, wasn't that bad It was just, I mean You went from the little water, pistols to the giant super

soaker which you could just get in battles in for a much longer time. It was a fun time as young and having the super soker. So super soccer was more about what amount of water as compared to power. Yeah, both power and volume.

Oh boy. This is getting awkward. Wow. And let's talk sports at 713-212-5-790. Of the water. Correct. 713, 212, 790. We'll have Aaron Reese, thank God, coming up at about eight minutes on 790. Don and Lake Jackson on the Matt Thomas show.

Don, how are you? Hey, I'm good. How are you? I'm wonderful. Good. Hey, you're talking about this making out at the airport stuff? Yeah. Well, let me tell you, I'm 82 years old, and I grew up in Kansas City, Missouri.

And back in the 50s, we had a place called Observational. and point, looked right at the main airport, right at the Missouri River, and my girlfriend and I used to go up there every night. Every night? I'm damn part of the knowing. Every night? Every night? Every night we rode our bicycles up there, and we spent a couple hours up there every

night. How many kids you have? Oh, well, I didn't marry the girl. Yeah, I know. How many kids have? And there were no kids involved. But I just went, yeah, we wrote up there and the observation. Point in Kansas City.

You rode your bike up there? Yeah, we rode our bikes up there. We were about 10 blocks from it. I lived about 10 blocks from it. Yeah. So you rode your bikes up there, you held hands, you saw... You saw hands and, you know, and made out a little bit. Yeah.

And then when it got 10 o'clock or so, we rode back to the house. and her mom and dad were waiting for her yeah yeah so that's okay so let's put this in perspective you're 82 how old were you when you were doing this were you 20 no no no we was uh let's see 16 rossie 66 years ago our caller was a stallion i don't know about that now Yeah, but matter of fact, every year when I go back to Kansas City to visit, I always go up to see if observation point is there. And matter of fact, now they've taken it away and they've made it a FBI building. Probably so because of the criminal activity you started. No, no, no, no.

Everybody was up there, man. Hey, Don, let me tell you something. I want to hear more stories from the 1950s as often as possible, my man, because I don't know. bet, you know, we make fun of 2019 kids. I bet you kids in the 50s were something else. Well, we were. Of course, we didn't have cell phones. We didn't have, I'm sure there was a lot of dope running around, but we never heard about it.

But I took off and ran away from home when I was 16 and joined the Navy, and I spent 25 years in the Navy. Wow. Thank you for your service. You're welcome. And then a glutton for punishment. I got out of that and went to work for the Texas Free. prison system. Good Lord. Don Ross, I feel like we should just pepper Don with questions, don't you think? That's been 20 years working in prison system. Yeah, I worked for the prison system for 20 years.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to put Don on a location and have an appearance. We'll go to a restaurant and just sit and talk to Don, ask questions about being a prison cop and a guy that served our country for 25 years and made out with girls on a bike when he was 16. back in the 50s. Don's the OG, Ross. Yes, he is. On a variety of levels. We just don't make him like they used to, Matt. They don't. Today's kids don't even appreciate what kind of player Don was back in the day.

126 on Sports Talk, 7-90. One more call before we get to our next guest on the show, which will be Aaron Reitz, talk all things about the Texans. Braden and Humble on the Matt Thomas show. Braden, how are you, sir? I'm doing good Go ahead You're on

All right Well So this Astros thing Yep So Watching the games You can see That all teams

Have access to The live broadcast That's going on They've got iPads or I mean Whatever device they are But they're on delay

They're on a significant delay I've read that the iPads actually are not video as well. Those are pictures, and the MLB controls those. Okay, okay. So, all right. Well, I mean, do you think that that's a lot, do you think that that should be allowed? I mean, considering, you know,

I mean, tipping pictures and all that kind of stuff, I mean, I don't know, the stadium is way too loud to hear a bang on a trash can if you think about it. You know what I mean? Especially during the World Series. I mean, you've got 45,000 people in the stadiums. I never would have ever gone back. Thank you for the phone call.

I never would have ever thought about that trash can would have been able to indicate such a thing. But I'm just naive. I don't like to think about people cheating in sports. Did it ever cross your mind, Ross, before this? That something like this could be possibly going on? And I wouldn't say to cross my mind. I guess it's always in the back of your mind

that people are trying to steal signs and all this type of stuff, but did I think that they were setting up video and banging trash cans and whistling and using electronic buzzers and emailing scouts about it? My guess is we will see all forms of television monitors largely gone from every dugout within a certain number of feet from the dugout would be my guess.

The only video monitors you'll be able to have will be the ones in which bullpins are hard to see where the manager and the coaches and the people in the dugout can see the bullpins with guys warming up. But I think short of that, we will not have any opportunity. You will not have a television monitor anywhere close to a dugout ever again. Just to make sure there's no temptation of, hey, let's get a peek into this. But yeah, television monitors in and around baseball games and stadiums

are supposed to be on a significant delay from the game action itself just for the things that Brayden was just talking about. that you just couldn't look up go, oh, there's the sign. I'll whisper to somebody. They're supposed to be on, what is it? Probably in the press box, it's probably 15 second delay. And my guess is that's what everybody else is around baseball. That when you go to any other ballpark, you're watching a play 15 to 20 seconds behind everybody else.

Has it perturrent? Is it eliminated all thought of this ever happening? Obviously not. And remember, as we said before, I think every team in baseball is doing whatever they can. to gain a competitive advantage. That isn't the issue. The issue is, did the Astros use video that was told by Major League Baseball not to do so, and they did so anyway?

And did they do it in 2017? And did they continue to do it in 2018 and 2019? That's what Major League Baseball is trying to find out. Houston Sports Talk for lunch. Matt Thomas returns on Sports Talk 790. Aaron Reese covers the Texans for the Athletic, and he's with us here on the Matt Thomas Show. Our time is here 133.

So, Aaron, you jump on a plane, you go to Baltimore, you think about this amazing quarterback matchup between Lamar Jackson and Deshaun Watson, and it turns out to be one of the biggest duds, probably since you've covered the team. How disappointing, take us through what it was like watching this non-competitive game and the reaction from the guys in the locker following the massive disappointment. I almost think that by the time we got in the locker and all the reporters, you know, about 20 or something at the game, some of these guys seemed like they kind of already processed it because the game had been out of reach for, you know, over a quarter in the

actual game. But by the time they were undress and everything and getting ready, head on the plane, they kind of had a lot of time for the defeat to already think in. And so not only do they go from potentially being a legitimate AFC contender because it would have been a quality, quality win. To Aaron now, the loser of this game is really behind the eight ball for the AFC South Race. So with that being said, I know this short game helps out in terms of getting rid of the bad memories, but this defense is pretty banged up, is it not?

Yeah, you know, they still don't have Bradley Roeby, but he did practice last week. There's a better chance he might come back this week, and then they'll add Vernon Hargraves, defensive backfield. But, yeah, just to read, you know, the heavy injury report yesterday has a concussion. So if they can't have him, then Jolie O'Day, would have to step in his place and play alongside Tishon Gibson. And it is played a lot already this season, but, you know, just to read, obviously is someone that you want to have available to you.

And, you know, they didn't really, they look like Dennis, JJ Weil a lot more against Lamar Jackson. They did against Gardner Minshew. You know, they just got basically next to no pressure on Lamar in that game. And the few times they did get the pressure on him, he was able to make a mess mostly. What about Lonnie Johnson status? Lonnie Johnson, yeah. Also, he heard his ankle in that game, and he was on crushes in the locker room afterwards. And, you know, I think that they'll probably be careful with him.

We'll see here as the week goes on. But I think, you know, with the short turnaround, it's probably likely that he wouldn't make playing the game. So in your mind, where did it go wrong last Sunday? Where didn't it go wrong? You know, I think that the offensive line had some trouble with a Raven defense that blitz a lot. And, you know, Deshaun Watson. held on the ball too long. And O'Brien says it's kind of a whole team issue.

And I think this game actually was a pretty good summary of that. Watson held on the ball for a long time. The Ravens also did a really good job covering the Texans. If you look at all the tracking data and stuff, the receivers mostly for the most part generated like below league average separation on all their targets. And then defensively, you know, I think that this run defense is still probably a good run defense. But this Ravens' offense is unlike any other offense they have to face.

and I think that caused problems for them, just like it caused problems for every other team. You know, and I do think that this defense is going to still be in trouble. I mean, they won't have to deal with a Lamar Jackson every week, but, you know, there's not much that gives you a lot to feel good about regarding the secondary. So how am I supposed to, and look, I've been trying to figure out who the Texan fan that listens to this show in particular? I don't think I've got the super diehard. I don't care who they're playing.

We're the best team. Go, go, Texas, audience. I've got an audience that's very much an wait-and-see mode and very much of an audience, Aaron, that is saying, you had a chance to go prove, at least if it was a close loss, you could say you could play, you could compete with them. The Texans didn't compete.

So where are they in the pecking owner of the AFC? Are we making too much out of one game? Or at the end of the day, if they lose this one, they lose to New England, but yet they finished the year with the four wins against four winnable opponents. It's a 10-win football team and probably going to end up in the exact same spot

under the auspice of history repeating itself. How do we shake ourselves from that kind of storyline coming up in the next seven or eight weeks? Yeah, I mean, I think that this game, obviously on Thursday will go a long way. And I think, but I think, you know, if they do, even if they beat the Colts close

and then they get smoked by the Patriots, I think that kind of is the default setting, right? I mean, there's not much else the field. That was my takeaway from the game. And, you know, I think you try to keep in perspective that there's 16 of them, so you're probably prone to overreact to all of them. But if you just think about kind of their performances over the course of this season, right? They beat the chiefs who had a banged up Patrick Mahomes and, you know, looks last night, like maybe Kansas City starting around in the form a little bit more. And then, you know, the Colts and Jacoby

Burset, who's not kind of the strength of that team, they torched the Texas secondary. Obviously, Lamar did what Lamar did. And I don't, I think that this game against Patriots of you're looking past this one will probably be, close just because New England's offense is not great. But, you know, I don't, I think that the Texans are going to run into a New England defense. That's been a buzz saw for like every other team in the league. And I'm not sure that they'll be able to overcome that. Aaron, race, with us to be athletic here on the Matt Thomas Joey with us every Tuesday at 1.30.

All right. So the Colts lose Marlon Mack to a bad hand, but their running back system has been able to provide a lot of extra help. Jacoby Brissette's back moving around. how do the Texans beat the Colts for the first time in a while? Because last time the Colts were in this building, they torched them. Last time the Texans played the Colts in Indianapolis, it was a Colts victory. How do you see Indianapolis losing this game?

And how do you see the Texans winning it? Yeah, you know, I mean, I think the Texans really need if they're going to be without Lonnie Johnson. They need Braddon's going to go back. They need Darren Conley to play a little better than he did in that last game. They need Bernardine Hargraves to have a good first showing with the Texans. I think that secondary is really the key here because, you know,

despite what happened in Baltimore last week, I do think, like I said, that the Texans still have a pretty solid run defense and, you know, the culture of me without Maro Mac, but the question is, is Dakota to decide going to do this to the Texans again? And, you know, the body of work continues to pile up in the season, the numbers for the Texans defense

over the middle of the field, they basically can make every quarterback look like Patrick Mahomes over the middle the field. I don't think that's going to go away. And so that, to me, is the question. Can the secondary finally solidify a little bit and play a little bit better because if they can, and I think you're going to see a pretty similar game to the one we saw in Indianapolis earlier the season.

Can you evaluate for me in the audience the role of Whitney Marshall since JJ's absence, and what do you think he's done right and wrong, and have we called his name enough since the injury? Yeah, you know, in that last game, I was looking it up before I got in the phone with you. He only had one pressure, according to football-focused. The team only had force.

I mean, no one really had a great game. But, you know, he obviously is the guy that needs to be the one generating pass rush for them. And I think that the production has tailed off here in the second half as the season has worn on. And not that I thought he was going to continue at that pace he had at the beginning the year, but I think you'd like to see some more consistent contributions than maybe what they're getting right now. But, you know, it's hard. There's not really anyone else to draw much attention from him. Otherwise, Charles Menning, he's a rookie, also kind of tailed off.

Jacob Martin, a situational pass rusher hasn't really done in the recent weeks. So I think everyone is kind of being affected by the lack of JJ Watt, but Winnie Mercer's obviously the one that is going to come to mind for most people, and the guy that's supposed to be the next person to step up. And I don't think they're really getting that from him right now. Where are we on Will Fuller, and is Kiki Kootie out of the doghouse? Yeah, you know, I mean, Fuller practice last week, and the Texans have tended to give these guys kind of like a gear-up week,

so that would seem to indicate that this would be the week if he was going to play. On the other hand, you know, it's a Thursday. I don't know if maybe they would have rather had two full weeks or the way again and give them the car long dress the next game. And also, you know, just with the situation with Fuller, they might handle that little carefully than some other players. As for Kiki, yeah, it appears he is. You know, he played a good amount of snaps.

And DeAndre Carter, who had obviously played some of the past two games. He only played four snaps on offense, the equivalent of AJ McCarran. So, I mean, I think Kiki is out of the doghouse for now. And he had one drop, but it got negated by a penalty. So he finished with three targets, three catches, 25 yards. All right. Give us a story line for Thursday night if you're able to look into Christa ball right now. Oh, man, if I'm going to look at my crystal ball, I think that these Texans teams,

O'Brien, he tends to kind of rally on when the backs are against the wall. The backs are very much against the wall in this game. I think that they went a close one. I don't know if the secondary does a time to make you feel great about them moving forward. but I think that'll probably be a little better than we saw in Indianapolis, you know, earlier in the season. And then I think from there, kind of it's the same stereotype we had talked about earlier. You know, maybe they don't show up really against New England, and then something uninspiring finish to the season, and then you're back in the same place with this team.

And that's the thing, Aaron, is that one and two, which would be their record over these three super important games, I'm going to steal your term uninspiring. So how do we get inspired for a team that has been beset by injuries to on the defensive? side and lack of depth. And the fact is that, look, the Texans may not be able to score against the New England defense because it's been so good. Maybe we're just in a position that, you know what, being a Texan fan is about 10 wins. It's about winning the AFC South.

But at the end of the day, Aaron, they're just never going to be in that super conversation with the New England's and the Baltimore's of the world and maybe even Kansas cities as legitimate title contenders. And that's where, again, I think that going back to an earlier point of our conversation, history repeating itself at times becomes very aggravating. Yeah, definitely. I get that perspective. I would say, you know, they obviously will continue to have Watson.

They'll continue to have tonsils. They'll still have DeAndre Hopkins. And if you kind of look at the salaries and stuff, they're going to have the flexibility to kind of remodel this defense a little bit in the offseason. You know, they'll at quarterback, they'll probably draft one. They'll pursue one in the free agency. You know, they can do some different things on the defense.

They try to find other pass rushers. But, you know, they trade a lot and have made moves that would indicate they want to win this season. And I think that at the end of the day, the season is starting to come to a close. You're seeing that maybe those moves have not put them in the same sort of bracket as the other teams that we're talking about here, Baltimore and New England. Yep. And that's why this whole thought of maybe him being a better general manager than coach, it may come back to Haunham a little bit because you can't rely on that draft, especially with all the picks gone. Aaron, thank you great for them of great material as always. We'll visit again next Tuesday.

stay and look forward to reading your work on The Athletic. Yeah, thanks for having me. You got it, Aaron Reese, Aaron J. Reese on Twitter from The Athletic. A regular Tuesday contributor here to the Matt Thomas show. Craig Ackerman here. When I'm not calling Rockets basketball, I'm following at SportsRV on Twitter. You're listening to the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. Well, I feel very confident, Ross, that I leave this show coming up in a handful minutes,

knowing that some of my population has indeed gone on an airport and made out. I must say I am a little bit surprised. 66% say no, 34% said yes. And I said originally 25%. Yeah, so originally, but you still get 66% no. So I'm still on the right side. And I will say this. I think, and some people have put some comments on Twitter,

I think September 11th has probably quashed some of that too. I think that was a joke. No, no, I think it's the truth. I think you used to be able to freely go around runways and whatnot. I think it's... These observation areas are not nearly as prevalent as they used to be. Why would they change the observation areas? Because maybe they close some roads off because of security purposes.

I don't know. Why don't we say we do a show live from Lee Road? I'm good. We have the technology to do that. We do have the technology, but no. Okay, fair enough. Oh, you want to do one for the cell lot? Do you want to watch people making out?

I mean, what is the purpose of this? We had a listener who sent me a note that said that prostitution is quite prevalent in the cell lot. I don't know if this young lady was pulling my leg or what. It's a young lady? Well, relatively young. I'm sorry. Oh, sorry. You know, I mean, a female emailed you that?

A female email emailed me and said that apparently cell phone lots are prime prostitution spots. How does she know this? Yeah, that's what I don't know. I didn't ask her. Why didn't you ask her? You know what I will? I'll send her back an email. How do you know the prosuits are hanging out there?

Just say, where did you hear that? Don't be that. That's a little more accusatory. You don't want to say, how do you know? Just say, oh, where'd you hear that? Don't say you've been working these lots or what? Yeah. Don't say, so how many times have you done it?

Like, did you? The only time of my life. How much you put on a weekend? Now, we've all seen hookers at one point in our life, right? Of course. I've been accosted in Vegas many times. I've been a cost of, costing in Vegas. I've been at

Costin in Honolulu. Honolulu. Oh, yeah. I told you that story. When I went looking for cold medicine in the middle of night, girl says you want to go out party? Oh, I got a Costa Rica too, but I'm pretty sure that was a dude. But anyways. Well, but in Costa Rica, don't they want, isn't like prostitution like encouraging? I think it is legal there, but yeah. Yeah. So Honolulu in Vegas.

But I will say when I was a young man, when I was a freshman in college, we'd go to Remington Park in Oklahoma City to go bet on the ponies. And we stay in this hotel that was right across from a truck stop. The truck stop is where all the prostitutes hang out, largely. Yeah, don't they call them a, there's a phrase for them, like truck stop lizards or something like that? Something like that. But imagine, you're a truck driver, you're driving thousands of thousand miles, you're not meeting anybody, you're lonely.

Yeah, lot lizards. Lot lizards. That's where I've seen. Would you like the urban dictionary definition of lot lizard? Is it clean for the sake of the radio show? Yeah, it's clean. Well, they use it a sentence is not clean. Yeah, just go to the definition then.

It's just prostitutes that frequent truck stops. Lot lizards. Trashy street-level female prostitutes who frequent some truck-stop parking lots and rest areas at night. Most lot lizards openly advertise using CB radios. Others boldly walk from truck to truck randomly knocking on doors. How about this? Also known as a pavement princess, a sleeper, leaper, or a mattress maiden. Isn't it weird how there's hundreds of different.

interpretations for the word hookers slash prostitute. Like, I listen to wrestling podcasts and the, and the girls that would hang around the ring to hook up with guys after the matches were called ring rats. Hmm. I didn't know that. Well, this is, is this harkening back to when we got

in trouble for, when we were talking about the dance team at every high school and how they had a nickname? Um, the, what, how did I get in trouble that way? We didn't get a guy whose daughter was on the dance team and he got really mad at us because we were, at every high school, Nick, did your high school have a nickname for the female dance team?

Yeah, they were the pacetters. No, I mean like a, but a nickname amongst the... Oh, yes. I'm not going to say it, though. I don't think, I don't think mine did. I think, see, Nick's had what, yeah, we did. We called them the whorec. Oh. No, that's not nice. Or thunderstice.

By the way, at Texan Jeremy says Ellington Field was a prime spot. back in the day. I wouldn't have thought of going to NASA card for that. Damn. That's for your high class hookups. Yeah, because all you're looking at that point are like Navy airplanes, right? Yeah, yeah. You go talk about some quantum mechanics and go

make out in the NASA parking lot or whatever. That's, you know, that is, that's just good, clear Lake Lovin is what that is. Oh, wow. Sorry, go ahead. Now everybody's sending me tweets about what they call their drill team. See? I'm not reading these out loud. I can't I can't read that ATXO book girl yeah ATXO girl we're not reading that out loud

under zero circumstance we gotta protect the license we got in trouble last time because the man was really the man was like nearly in tears because his daughter write a letter to our boss or something so sorry that's what they call your daughter in high school not her per se just the general what she did

are we in trouble again no you know why because you're going to talk sports for the next hour. Oh, man, PD hung up. What's your lead topic at 2 o'clock? My lead topic was going to be what PD was talking about. Which was? He's an expert on Lott Lizards. He has a Lott Lizard story. Oh, no. You want to know my really, okay, so first, the first two things out of the gate,

are going to talk about the Rockets winning, and then apparently ratings are way down for the NBA, so I was going to turn that into a bigger conversation about load management and how much you're paying attention to the Rockets and the NBA as a whole. Can I get the stat before I walk out? here? Sure. Ratings in the NBA down 27%. That is, is seismic the term I would want to use on that one, Ross?

It's significant. We'll go with that. And I think it's two problems. Golden State has blanked the bed and they're now a team that wins twice a month. And they're on national TV a lot. and there are national TV a lot and load management. All right. Well, thanks for stealing my entire first segment in 30 seconds.

That's what you've got to listen for with Ross in the final hour of the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. Is the Matt Thomas show. 0.3 in the PM air on Sports Talk 790. This is the Matt Thomas show without Matt Thomas. Ross Villarreal with you for the final hour. as fancy Matt jet sets his way to Denver as the Rockets take on the nuggets on Wednesday. You guys want to get in. 713, 2, 1,2, 5, 790 is the phone number 713, 21, 2, 5, 790.

Somehow we got into in the last couple of segments. How did this start, Nick? We were talking about, oh, we were talking about lot lizards. First of all, how do we start talking about lot lizards? Okay, this is how we start. We started talking about airports. Then we started talking about prostitutes. Then we started talking about lot lizards.

And then we started talking about nicknames for various dance teams and high schools in the greater Houston area. I believe that is how the progression went. Wow. That's quite the evolution. So, okay, first of all, ATX Hobel girl, I'm not reading that that you sent about the name of what. Well, I'll read this one. The spread jackets. That's what they used to call her team at the high school.

Chris Joni. I'm not reading that. the walking uh we'll just leave it at that it's not the walking dead uh and then adam clanton was texting in what he used they used to call their team back in high school they were the silverados and i'm just not going to i'm just not going to expound on what adam clinton said they used to call them in high school i don't know how we got into that but uh we did have pd calling in and he wanted to tell a lot lizard story so i definitely want to hear from him if you're still listening pd but anyways we can talk about some actual sports as i mentioned matt thomas is headed to utah

and he's traveling with the Houston Rockets. And if you have not been paying attention, the Houston Rockets have now won eight straight games. The 132 to 108 win over the Portland Trailblazers. And one of the reasons you can tell when a team is playing well and when they're starting to turn the corner is when they take out the trash, as it were, when they go up against a worst team.

Go up against a lesser team. You don't play down to their competition. You just blow them out and you get it over with. Right? Like you used to talk about back in the day when Magic Johnson and the showtime Lakers were playing or Larry Bird, they would say, you know what? We don't want to be playing the fourth quarter so we can get some rest for the next couple of games because we know we're better than them.

So let's just go ahead and take care of business. That's what good teams do. And that's what the Rockets did last night against the Portland Trailblazers. You had Russell Westbrook showing up and playing. The shooting numbers aren't necessarily efficient, especially from three point land. he was taking a lot of off the dribble 3s that he should not have taken. But overall, 28 points, 10 assists, 13 rebounds, pretty good stuff from him. And then a lot of people complaining about not necessarily locally, right?

I'm talking about James Hardin. Nationally, a lot of people complaining, oh, he's just taking a ton of shots and he just, he's just not efficient as a score. I'd like to see more efficiency because he took 41 shots and he scored, I want to say 49 points on those 41 shots, which isn't horrible. but how about last night 11 of 19 36 points 5 of 10

from 3 point land it's a lot easier to be efficient when you get your players back it's a lot easier to not have to carry the load and score a little bit more easily when you have Clint Capella back you have Daniel O'House Jr. back and you have Russell Westbrook back

basically three of your five starters so that was good to see from the Rockets and my question to you is how much are you paying attention to the Rockets because I know they got off to the bad start. And I was almost, seriously, I'm not normally like this with any sports team. I was nearly ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater and say, you know what? The Rockets aren't winning the championship.

I kind of don't. I don't know how much I'm going to care. Because earlier on that season, you had that stretch where they gave up 158 points to the Wizards. Then in the next game, they lost to the Brooklyn Nets, who I haven't really necessarily been paying attention to how well the Brooklyn Nets have been doing. them, but I don't think they're a very good team. I don't think they're near the top of the Eastern Conference. And then you had the game against the Miami Heat, which is just one of the biggest abominations in NBA history I can ever recall. They were down 50, I want to say 58 to 16 at some point in that game. 58 to 16. How do you get down that big in NBA game? I don't know.

And then that's what, at that point where they had lost back-to-back games, they were three and three, and he really weren't feeling good about the team. The defense was the worst in the league. I was just like, I think I might be out on this team. As far as out on them as paying attention to them as one of the best teams in the league and as a championship contender, which is what they fancy themselves to be and what they talk about. The literal phrase for the season for the Rockets is hashtag one mission.

And that one mission isn't to make the three seed. That one mission isn't to win your division. That one mission is to win the NBA championship. So that's what the Rockets are going for. and now we're starting to see it turn around a little bit. Like I said, you're winning games against lesser opponents, and you're blowing them out. The Timberwolves aren't even a lesser opponent.

They're pretty solid, and you beat them by 20 on the second half of a back-to-back without four of your top six rotational players. So the rockets are pretty solid. I'm wondering, though, how much are you paying attention? That's my question to you, because as I mentioned, as I kind of tease what I was going to talk about with Matt before, the NBA ratings right now are not good and not good even as relative to last year. So pointed out by a sports media watch, eight of the 10 T&T games have declined this season.

ESPN's airings, they've already had nine that haven't reached one million viewers. That only happened 19 times all last season. So is it a fact that the Golden State Warriors aren't necessarily the dynasty that, the dynasty that, the dynasty that we wanted them to see because this is what people complain about, right? People who didn't watch the NBA the last few years they say, well, this thing's pretty much scripted. The Golden State Warriors are a dynasty.

We already know what's going to happen before this season starts, so why are we even going to bother to watch? But now the Golden State Warriors are gone. Now there's not a dynasty. Now it's more wide open. Now I feel like there's at least five teams that can win the NBA championship.

So why aren't you tuning to the games? I think maybe some of it. I think there are a number of factors, of course. As with any problem, there's never one reason. I think one of the factors is a lot of the matchups have been lackluster. You've had some of the early games going on with the Clippers, and they've had Kawhi Leonard out, and they've had Paul George out. So, I mean, bless the heart of Lou Williams and Montrez-Harrell

and whatever else they got on the L.A. Clippers. But I don't think anybody's really tuning in to see them. What's his name, Zubbats? Okay? I don't think everybody's turning to. in to watch them. So I think the matchups have been lackluster. And I think this is part of the reason, as I

mentioned, that's making the matchups not good, is the load management. I wonder if the NBA is going to step in and do something about this. Because you had the big fine, I think it was in 2012 when Greg Popovich sat all his superstars on a Thursday

night T&T game and then the NBA fined them a ton of money. And then you had this year, the Clippers got docked. I think it was 50,000 bucks. for Kauai Leonard missing a game. So, I mean, what is it going to take?

Are you interested in the NW? in the WNBA. Nobody's interested in the WNBA season. Is that over? Somebody won the championship, right? Did they have one this year? Yeah, they had one. I think they already won the championship.

It gets over. It's congratulations. I think it was the team from Washington. The Mystics? You got me. I think maybe they're WNBA champions. I'm not totally sure, but congratulations to them.

But no, the NBA season, it's just, it feels like it's, falling flat right now. And I think even in the city of Houston, because I do these post game shows. I do the last three post game shows. I did on Friday.

I did Saturday. I did Sunday. I'm sorry, Monday. All wins for the Houston Rockets. All pretty good wins where there was interesting stuff to talk about. And I mean, I just don't know that I feel like the interest is there.

And maybe it's not going to happen now. Maybe it's not going to happen until after Christmas. Maybe it's not going to happen to the playoffs. But it seems interesting to me that interest is down. in the NBA. So I want to hear from you. What are your thoughts on that? Why are you not invested in the Houston Rock? It's 713, 2,125. 790 is your phone number.

713, 2,1, 2,5, 790. If you'd like to get in, we got a lot of other stuff to get to. How are you still feeling about the Texans and their loss against the Ravens and the upcoming matchup against the Colts? Did you catch any Monday night football last night? Is Phillip Rivers done? I definitely want to talk about that. So a number of things to get to with you folks on the phone lines at 713,

2-1-25790 tweets to at SportsRV. It's the Matt Thomas show without Matt Thomas with you up until 3 o'clock. Hey, it's Lance McCullors. Back to Matt Thomas. Turnball swinging a misstack three. On Sports Talk 790. Your home for Houston Astros baseball. Well, not necessarily breaking news.

Breaking comments from Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred. Speaking at the owner's meetings. I don't, I basically, though, Chris Gordy here in studio, by the way. Hi, Chris. Hello, Ross. I don't like anything that I'm currently reading of these comments, Chris. Yeah, so you have Chandler Rome or Jeff Passing? I'm going Jeff Passing because I think he's got more of the comments up on his,

so I'm just going to go with him. And also I know because if Adam Clanton is listening, he's going to be absolutely fuming that I'm reading his comments. Anyways, this from Rob Manfred on the Astros. On whether other teams are involved, he says, I have no reason to believe it extends beyond the Astros at this point in time. Manfred on potential discipline of the Astros, which this is the troubling one. The general warning I wish, I issue to the clubs I stand by. It certainly could be all of those things, but my authority under the Major League Constitution would be broader than those things as well.

Those things, I'm guessing he's talking about various punishments. Yeah, the Passon says translation, he has the authority to hammer teams. Manfred on the gravity of the allegations against the Astros. Any allegations that relate to a rule violation that could affect the outcome of a game or games is the most serious matter. We have what is going to be a really, really thorough investigation ongoing. a little scary This is not good The fact that I mean

There's a number of things to take away here My first takeaway is everybody And if everybody is trying to rationalize this on an Astro standpoint You say oh well everybody's doing it All the other teams are involved Rob Banford just said hey we're not investigating Other teams we're investigating the Houston Astros right now

That's what we're doing So if you're hoping that this is just going to be everywhere And all the other teams are going to pop up Right now the focus from MLB commissioner's office is in the investigation is the Houston Astros. Yeah, we're not saying

other teams aren't doing this, but right now all we're investigating is the Astros. Here's the issue, though. What, how much burden of proof will they need? You know, is it three, four former players

and we're just going to take that word for it? Do we need actual video or proof that this camera existed in the outfield? Like, what do they need to be able to be able drop the hammer. I mean, don't you think, I would think enough that is in

the athletic reports would be enough. And then they're probably going to get more than that. I mean, do you think Mike Fires is a liar? Mike Fires basically confirmed everything that was going on. I think you'd need more corroboration than just one guy's account. I'm sure they're talking to Ken Rosenthal and Evandrelich and getting everything from them or not everything, but getting some stuff from them.

You have, from them, you have Mike Fires. You have Danny Farkar who had raised the issues about it. He's a former player. You have apparently multiple But the Farquhar incident is one game. Right. I mean, like one incident. Like I...

Well, if you cheated for one game and you tried to win, that's a problem. That's problematic. Okay. But also you have apparently multiple former staffers. You have this email that they obtained at the Astros. The Astros would have to come out and deny it, right? Because they're going to get asked. They're going to say they have this email from Kevin Goldstein to scout saying,

hey, can you guys get some film? What can you see from the dugout? What's happening? can you get a camera or some binoculars in there? They're going to ask them if that's real, and the Astros are going to have to lie. Kevin Goldstein is going to have to lie and whatever scouts that were emailed

that are going to have to lie. I don't think that's going to happen. Yeah, it's just, again, like, that's the question we don't know, is how much, how much, quote, unquote, evidence, how much, quote, unquote, proof does Manfred need and then to come back and say,

all right, I've got all the evidence I need, here's my decision. Yeah, well, I mean, this is not going to be a court of law. This is not going to be a beyond a reasonable doubt type of situation, which we've seen with the NFL. We've seen with... But you also realize there's hearsay at times. And you know, you can't just go with allegations. Like you've got to have some proof on this one down.

Mike Fires was in hearsay. Mike Fier said, this happened. He said, hey, did this happen? He said, yeah, it happened. And I was uneasy about it. So, I mean, I don't think that's hearsay. I think that's firsthand knowledge. And they're going to interview AJ Hinch.

They're going to interview Alex, interview Alex Cora. They're going to interview Carlos Beltran. of them have to lie and have their story straight for this not to come out. I just don't see a way of escaping this from the Astros and not getting this proven. I think the other question would be the, to what extent were they doing this and how many games was it? Yeah. You know, was it, was it a couple weeks we tried this? I'll find it hard to believe they did the entire season.

No, there's no way they did the entire season. The video, the videos that leaked out of the banging on the trash can were like mid-week. week games with a half empty stadium. It was like a Wednesday night game against the 100 lost mariners. Like, you know, and so then they want to use it as proof to say, oh, they were doing the postseason. Well, when you have sold out crowds and as loud as can be, obviously, they're not relaying signs then because you can't hear anything. Yeah, that was mentioned in the first story that, I mean, it was kind of useless on the playoffs because they couldn't really hear anything and you couldn't hear the trash can banging anyways. I wanted to play for you. There was a clip.

of A.J. Hinch during the playoffs, remember during the Yankee series, the allegations of the whistling came out, that the A.J. Hitcher was using whistling in that game that the Astros lost. Listen to this quote from A.J. Hinch, it just, like, now that we know this story that's come out, this quote, this quote, and he even mentions sign stealing in this quote. This was A.J. Hinch addressing the whistling allegations. Brian McTaggart asked him about several weeks back. Hold on. I'm having a computer. Let me go ahead. And I'm glad you asked. AJ Hitch. What do you think of the allegations you guys were using whistles to try to gain some kind of advantage? Man, I'm glad you asked that

question. And I thought it would come up today. And it's, you know, we talked about this the other day. And in reality, it's a joke. But, you know, Major League Baseball does a lot to ensure the fairness of the game. There's people everywhere. If you go through the dugouts and the clubhouses and the hallways, there's like so many people around that are doing this. And then, you know, when I get contacted about some questions about whistling, it made me laugh because it's ridiculous.

And had I known that it would take something like that to set off the Yankees or any other team, we would have practiced it in spring training. and we would have got, you know, because it's, you know, it apparently works when it doesn't happen. So, to me, I understand the gamesmanship. I understand kind of creating a narrative for yourself or wondering how things are going. Now, the game in question, you know, we got three hits and no runs. And so, you know, nobody heard it. You guys have audio, video, people, people in places, and nothing, and there's no evidence of

anything. So to the Yankees, you know, there's, there's no, nothing bad going on. Pitch tipping is a little bit of a different story. If you don't want us to know the pitches come and don't do something that demonstrates what pitch you're going to pitch or what you're going to throw, but they're doing the same thing. So every hitter wants to know what's coming by virtue of what a pitcher is doing or not doing. The problem that I have is when other people take shots at us outside this competition. You know, when you guys ask me this question, my, you know, my face, my name is by my quotes, my opinions, my, my reaction is all for you guys to tweet out and put on the

broadcast. But we have people that are unnamed or you guys have sources that are giving you information. I suggest they put their name by it if they're so passionate about it to comment about my team or my players. there's nothing going on other than the competition on the field. The fact that I had to field the question before a really, really cool game out of Yankee Stadium is unfortunate, but we can put it to rest.

It'll be the last question I answer about pitch tipping or pitch stealing. How about that? I mean, it was interesting. Like, I was in the room and heard that at the time, and I thought, yeah, it was a joke, whatever. But now, in hindsight, after this, the news from the, the story from the athletic and all. It just seems very, one, he's very nervous.

You can hear in his voice, but setting it straight saying there is no cheating. There's nothing we're doing to mess with the game. And again, maybe 2019, there was nothing. Yeah, that's another huge point is how much did this continue after 2017, after the Apple Watch stuff with the Red Sox, after Rob Manfred issued the six-page document to all the teams and saying, hey, and being more specific in the rules saying,

no video equipment, no electro-tronic equipment. You cannot continue to do this. Did the Astros continue to do it after that doctrine was issued? That's a huge question, and I think they'll get punished much more severely if that is the case. So a lot of question marks with this. Now Rob Manfred has spoken out. What do you guys think about at? 7-13-2125-7-90.

2-1-2-5-790 is The Matt Thomas Show without Matt Thomas. Continue until 3 o'clock. Load up on those napkins, straws, ketchup, hot sauce, mustard. Oh, and don't forget duck sauce. It's the Matt Thomas Show for lunch on Sports Talk 790. Matt Thomas show without Matt Thomas. Continuing here on Sports Talk 790, Ross Villal, with you sitting alongside Chris Gordy talking about this Astros cheating scandal that will not go away.

and it's basically not going to go away for a long time, it's certainly not until punishments are handed out. And then maybe we'll start to see it not be talked about in the front of Major League Baseball consciousness. But Rob Manfred speaking today, we outlined some of the quotes in the last segment and another one coming in, this one from Chandler, Rome. So Rob Manfred was asked if the MLB was aware

of the Astros sign-stealing tendencies and schemes before last week, this is what Rob Manfred had to say. Quote, we have over time monitored various rumors that you hear throughout the industry, made preliminary investigations, and tried to satisfy ourselves that we knew exactly what was going on, but certainly not with the depth and detail. Well, that goes hand to hand with the story that Chandler had yesterday,

that basically early this season, MLB instructed video monitors, which I assume is a person, a video monitor, at the working at Minimate Park to listen for banging sounds coming from the Astros dugout. Conversely, they said a video monitor who worked in another American League ballpark told The Chronicle they were not implicitly told

to listen for sounds for neither dugout. So specifically said, hey, if you're working at Minimate Park, keep an ear out on the duck. Now, again, we're to assume they went this whole season and never heard anything. So if they did this, it sounds like it only happened in 2017

and it sounds like it may have only happened for a limited amount of time in 2017. So again, we don't know the details they're looking into it, but it is interesting. It says rumors of the aster's tactics, including banging on trash cans of signal, a specific pitch,

had circulated around baseball well before fires told the athletic about the system. Fires said they set up a camera in the center field, blah, blah. So basically, like the public is finding out about this now. But apparently MLBs kind of had an idea about this. And it sounds like they've been looking into it,

but now they're having to do a full on. Maybe they ask a couple people, hey, keep an ear out on this. Hey, we're hearing this. But now they're having to do a full on investigation. Okay, yeah. I think this feels like that's good news for the Astros. It feels like if this was happening and the league was aware of the banging noises,

the Astros wouldn't have been doing it for 2018 and 2019. Right, exactly. So not after basically the threshold of when Rob Manfred issued his little doctrine. If they didn't do it in 2018 and 2019, I think that the punishment probably won't be as severe. Then maybe we're talking about more like something what happened with the Apple Watch stuff with the Red Sox rather than anything more severe. And I think it's important that Rob Manford, when they do drop the punishment, make that distinction. and go, look, according to our investigation, it sounds like during a short time in 2017,

the Astros did this. We don't have any evidence that this continued on in 2018 or 2019. I think he needs to make that distinction because that's what people are thinking. They've been cheating for three years. That's where people, they get this idea in their minds and they want to drop the hammer. Suspend everybody, you know, that kind of thing.

Yeah, and then you have idiots on Twitter breaking down videos of people whistling. Get a life, bro. get a life. He tweets out, this is my job. Who is paying you a paycheck to do these

in-depth video breakdowns on Twitter? Nobody. Good Lord. I mean, everybody's conspiracy there is now. Do you see George Springer, when he stepped to the plate, he looked to the outfield dugout?

Somebody's like, maybe he was just looking where the fielders were lined up, you dummy? Yeah, then the Christian Yelich, the whole thing with you Darvish, did you see that as well? He was looking out to the outfield

and you Darvish is like, oh, see, I don't know. I can't, I don't know what's happening. happening. And then Christian, you know, nobody needs help to go against you. Now we've all become, you know, conspiracy theorists. It's all, uh, JFK film. We're breaking down, trying to find the, the shooter on the grassy doll. Like it's, it's just, it's, it's insane. That's, I mean, look, I've been a victim of this. I got caught up in this and I've been thinking that it's going to be very, very severe penalties for the use in Astros and all this type of stuff.

But if it's coming out that they knew about it, if it's coming out that the major league baseball said, hey, knock this off and, and they've been listening for banging noises. And then the Astros nose has been clean for the last two years. Maybe this won't be as severe as I originally thought. Well, but on the flip side, Manfred is being pressured right now. It's the biggest story in his sport in an offseason with a team that just made it to the, you know,

the World Series. So I think there's pressure coming from his side then, hey, you need to do something about this instead of precedent. And again, the crazy part about this is, and we heard the AJ Hinch quote from a couple weeks ago where he says, and when it comes to stealing signs, hey, if you think we're still stealing your signs, why don't you change up what you're doing? It makes you wonder, are the Astros really revolutionary,

the first team to think about, what if we set up a camera in the outfield focused on the catcher? Like, they cannot be the first team to ever think of this. Yeah, well, that was even mentioned in the first athletic article, that this is the league-wide perception is this is happening a lot of, the word was everywhere. That's what they said, everywhere. So I don't know how many teams that means.

Does that mean all 30 teams? Does that mean 15 teams? I mean 10 teams. I don't know. It's happening. It seems to be widespread with the Astros. So in an NFL huddle, quarterbacks, like I talk with somebody who used to play with Peyton Manning. And he said, it's funny, Omaha became such a big thing. But Omaha met different things. He's like, my first year with Peyton and Denver, Omaha was hot route.

Like, Omaha was something else. Then over time, it became a nothing. Like, so in other words, like terminology changes every year in the NFL, in the huddle and all this. can't pitchers and catchers change up signs? I mean, like, Robinson Torino's and Justin Verlander, they meet every day. Like, can't they change up signs game to game? Yeah, I would think so. Well, that's what Justin Verlander does. Especially if people are on to you and they're trying to steal signs.

Why not change it up every game? You remember that story? It wasn't even earlier this year where Justin Verlander, they were talking about how he changes up his signs. Like most pitchers only change up their signs with the catcher when somebody's on base. Right. Justin Verlander apparently changes up his signs like all the time. Yeah, you should change him in game.

So they're like, wow, maybe he's being paranoid, or maybe he's been around what the Astros have been doing since 2017. And he knows, hey, if our guys are doing it, probably other teams are doing it. So he's been changing up his songs. But again, like if the paranoia is, oh, my God, everybody's cheating. That seems like an easy fix because it's like, you know, if they're deciphering, hey, every time they throw down this thing, it's going to be a breaking ball. Well, that seems like an easy thing to fix. Yeah. What do you mean by changing up the signs or you mean by?

We'll change whatever the signal is for whatever pitch you're calling. I thought you might maybe were alluding to the thing that Justin Verlander wants the earpiece thing. Yeah, I still don't know how an earpiece would work because it would have to be pitcher just a catcher because the catcher can't talk back because he's standing two feet away from the batter. Maybe he can cover his glove and in whisper. Whisper? Yeah. Yeah, a little careless whisper into the ear of Justin Verlander.

I don't know how that would work. Would the catcher be shaking off the pitcher instead of the other words? See, that's what I was thinking. But then you change the dynamic of 100 years of history because, I mean, if you have some young pitcher coming up from, you know, Forrest Whitley's coming up, you'd rather have Robinson Trinos guiding him and calling the game rather than Forrest Whitley just blindly call. Hey, do I throw a slider here?

Yeah, but NFL evolved. I mean, they've got the headsets inside the lineback. Linebacker and quarterback's helmets now. Yeah, I mean, maybe you can get something in his, inside the helmet of the catcher where it's really not that audible if he's just speaking lowly and he can cover his mouth his glove or whatever and then it's not going to be that big of a deal. He's still standing two feet from the hitter.

Yeah, I don't know, but I... Hey, can you step out of the box real quick? I need to talk to my picture. You're right in front of me. I'm sure that I can cover my mouth and say words softly and you won't be able to... Maybe it's like Morse code. He can like tap on his...

I don't know how that would work. I think it could work. I mean, Justin Verlander came up for the eye with the idea, so I figure it has to work. Yeah, I think they should absolutely explore that. And to me, bigger picture is if this is the big conspiracy and people are cheating, well,

there's an easy way to fix the cheating. Change up signs, more often. Yeah, right, change up the signs. Or even if you do get an earpiece, you're that predictable. You probably have somebody hacking into the frequency of whatever the earpiece is at, and then they're trying to listen in and do that, all that type of stuff. I got it. Just let the catcher and

pitcher text each other during the game. Right, a little text like a and how certain emojis mean certain pitch. Yeah, you hide that. Okay. I think that could work. I think, I mean, like, the other part is, like, it is part of the game. Like, people got all paranoid when the Astros, remember, I think it was the Yankee series.

When they were talking to one another, like, that first inning, somebody got a hit. Yeah, they were all whispering. They're covering their mouths. Yeah, they're talking about what pitches they're seeing. That's part of the game. That's always been part of the game. Like, every NFL coach ever is covering their mouth with their Denny's menu. It doesn't mean, like, that's.

something untoward is happening. It means they're just trying to talk without having their lip thread. Like that's, that's the crazy, like nationally people are acting like stealing signs is cheating. Right. Stealing signs is not cheating. It's going above and beyond to steal the signs. Right. Well, using electronic equipment to steal signs. That's where the issue is cheating and that's what they apparently did. But we'll see how widespread it was. How long did it happen? These are the questions that the Major League, that Major League Baseball is going to have to figure out and determine how severe to, severely do punish the Houston Astros. All right. Quick. break here. It is the Matt Thomas show. Matt Thomas is a jet setting out to Denver with the Houston

Rockets. You guys want to talk about anything we just talked about. 713-21257. 97-13-21257. I need to see you on hold. We'll get to you next here on the Matt Thomas show. When I listen to the Matt Thomas show, I don't even understand the eclectic nature of the show, the dichotomy, the ostentatiousness, the perfunctory that sounds about as smart as LeVar Ball. Back to the Matt Thomas show. whoever he is. It is not the Matt Thomas. Okay, it is the Matt Thomas show.

Matt Thomas is not here, though. Thank you, Stephen A. Appreciate you. Ross Villarreal with you, folks. Matt Thomas is traveling with the Rockets to Denver as they are set up for a Western conference clash tomorrow here on Sports Talk, 790. But in the meantime, you have me, Ross Villarreal, with you until, well, wait, what? I was going to say with you until 7 o'clock.

It's not a nightcap, although I will be on a nightcap, 6 to 7 o'clock, and I will be with you from 6 to 7 tonight. So get ready for that. 713, 2,1, 2,5, 790. The phone number. Let's go to go for Dennis here on the phone lines. What's up? Dennis? Good afternoon, fellas. How are you doing? Well, what's up? Hey, just real quick on the Astros, did Manfred say they got busted cheating after he warned the league not to cheat electronically? He did not say that. He said that there's an ongoing investigation and it's going to be very thorough. That's pretty much all he said. Okay, don't you think the big thing that'll get? there's probably a loss of draft picks and a big fine.

I think the biggest things that you can do to them would be, yes, draftics to me would be the biggest hammer that would come down on the X and Astros. Then, I mean, a fine, I don't know what the finances of the Astros are, but she would just pay that. And then also international pool money, I think, would be a big way to get at the Astros. I mean, I think if the Astros got warned and they got caught after that, that's stupid on them. I mean, that's just dumb. But anyways, the reason why I hit the NBA, it's, I mean, the labels do whatever it takes for the Lakers and the Celtics get in the finals.

And those are the two teams with some of the best records in the league. I grew up in Minnesota. Tim Bowles fan, do you think any player wants to go to Minnesota now? And I can add that to Orlando, Memphis, Toronto. I mean, come on. They realistically have a chance to go into the finals without any of these big players going to their cities. and I also think I also think guaranteed contracts has absolutely destroyed the league.

I mean, players have way too much control and the product that you've seen on the court, it's terrible. I mean, I have no interest in the league anymore. The NHL is a lot better product, the NBA, by far any day of the week. All right, Dennis, thanks a lot. I appreciate you getting in.

I will say, first of all, the Lakers have been a disaster for, like, the last eight years. So I don't know that they're just trying to fix the league to get them in. Same thing for the Celtics. I mean, they haven't been a disaster, but I mean, they haven't been consistently good

since Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett and company left. I will definitely agree with you, though, that the players have wrestled a little bit too much control. When you have guys like Kauai Leonard and Anthony Davis and Paul George just forcing their way out of huge big money contracts that they themselves put ink to paper on, it's just kind of crazy to me and puzzling. But you have some of that.

NFL as well. I mean, Leveon Bell faced his way, forced his way out of Pittsburgh. Antonio Brown forced his way out of Pittsburgh as well. Jalen Ramsey forced his way out of Jacksonville. So the players have a lot of power in a number of different leagues. So I don't know. To each of them. I asked the question and you gave me your answer,

so appreciate that. 713, 2.125790. Let's go next to Marvin in Madagorda. Want to talk about the Astros and Stealing sign. What's up, Marvin? Hey, Ross, I've been listening to it. I had really called or made a comment on it, but, you know, being around the game pretty much in my whole life with different capacities. I just, in the three or four weeks, you know, this is something that's been going on forever.

And as they want to call the Astros out on it, but the problem I have with it is the time frame from the time. And, I mean, if you sit there and you analyze the game, go back and look at, you know, let's say Volansom, for example, or call or anybody, from the time they take a period, or accepted or calling off and get set and come to the, I mean, do they really have time to relate something? I think if you'll interview the players, you may have some of them if they said they did it, but a lot of the players, they're like, no, I don't want to, I don't want to even hear about it. I don't want to know about it.

This is going to mess my timing up. And, I mean, I just can't believe that they were all willing to accept to do it, especially players like Al-Tube where I've seen the ball bounce two foot in front of the plate, and then he takes it down in the line for a double, you know? Yeah. Thanks a lot, Marvin. Appreciate you get in. Yeah, that's the thing. I mean, there's a lot of levels to this. First of all, this hasn't been happening since the beginning of baseball. Yes, sign stealing has been happening since the beginning of baseball. But I don't think Babe Ruth had a dude with a video camera and relaying it in real time to somebody in the dugout and then having them signal from there within the couple of seconds between a signal that whether or not a breaking ball or fastball was coming up. At least to my knowledge, I never read that. I didn't see that in Ken Burns baseball, Dick. I don't know if you caught that. that Babe Ruth was stealing signs via video or Thai Cobb. No, and I don't, I mean, the technology that is available nowadays is going to tempt and entice teams to make use of it to try and gain that extra little edge.

Whether they're willing to risk the potential consequences is, I mean, obviously they are. Yeah, and I mean, there's just a lot of questions. The biggest question to me is how much did the Astros do this after 2017? I would also wonder how much in 2017 did they do it. Was it once or twice or was it throughout the entire year? There's no way they did it throughout the entire year. I feel like that would have been way too obvious. I think you maybe only do it with certain.

First of all, you're only doing it with certain batterers. Like even the first article that came out with Evandrelich and Ken Rosenthal said, not everybody wants this. Because there are some batters who will tell you they don't want. want to know what pitch is going. And I agree with Marvin. Marvin brought up the name of Jose Altuve. I don't think Jose Altuva, you look at some of those swings that he takes and the fact, he's hacking up there no matter what it is. And he just happens to have such a, such a preternatural hand-eye coordination that he can do things that other people can't do. So whether it's breaking ball,

whether it's fastball, Jose Al-Tuva can basically hit anything. He was basically put on this earth to hit baseballs. His hand-eye coordination is amazing. I don't think Jose Al-Tuva is one of the guys. that would need the help with the sign stealing. But the guy that's in the example of the Danny Farquhar game, Evan Gaddis, I would put Evan Gaddis. That's the funny thing is the first, before that video even came out, and I was looking up and down the 2017 roster, and I was trying to pick out who guys would be,

who would want to steal signs and want to know what's coming, and who wouldn't. First thing that came to my mind was, man, I bet you that Evan Gaddis is one of the guys on the list, and it turned out it was him. I'll throw another name out there that I don't think, just looking at his at bats and look, don't get me wrong, I'm a big time Carlos Correa defender, but did you see Carlos Correa's at

bats in some of these playoff games? Do you think he knew whether or not a breaking ball was coming on or not? No. He looked completely lost out there, okay? Like, look at some of those at bats with Carlos Correa came back in the Tampa Bay Ray series. I will guarantee you. He

had no clue if it was going to be a fastball or a breaking ball. That dude was getting fooled on basically every at bat. So I have confidence that at least in 2019, Carlos Correa was not stealing signs from other players. So, I mean, how deep does this go? How long did they do it? And how many games did they do it?

And did they do it after 2017 when Rob Manfred issued his manifesto or whatever you want to call it? These are the questions that need to be answered. these are the questions that are going to determine how severe and how deep the punishments are going to go against the Houston Astros. I think a lot of it's on the table. There's no doubt in my mind.

First of all, the first one that you don't have to think about, Astros are getting fined. No matter what. The Yankee, I mean, the Red Sox got fined in the Apple Watch thing in 2017. You know, the hacking thing that we've brought up with the Cardinals in 2015. The Cardinals got fined for that. And so the Astros are going to have to pay up. Jim Crane's getting hit in the wallet.

That one is for sure. Will there be draft picks? Will there be international pool money? Will there be suspensions from AJ Hinch? Will Jeff Luno be suspended as well? Those to me are the biggest questions yet to be answered, but it sounds like at least from the words from Rob Manfred today, that there is an ongoing and thorough investigation

when it comes to looking at the Astros and these allegations. All right, that's going to do it for the Matt Thomas show here on Sports Talk 790. My name is Rosvia Rial. Thank you very much for listening. I appreciate you. I also appreciate the producing and the production stylings of one Nicholas Lowe. Appreciate you. Next up here on Sports Talk 790 is basically the greatest show ever. It's Adam Wexler. It's Adam Klinman. It's the A team. They'll be with you until 6 o'clock. And then guess what? You're going to get more of me with an eye cap coming up at 6 o'clock right here on Sports Talk 790. your home for the 2017.

They'll never take it away World Series champion Eust and Astros.