The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - The Matt Thomas Show 2-10-20

Episode Date: February 10, 2020

The Matt Thomas Show w/ @SportsMT, @SportsRV, and @ProNickLow 2/10/20Rockets' Heartbreaking Loss To Utah (0:00)What we like and don't like about the XFL (9:32)Mike Bolsinger Sues The Astros (42:39)Tom Verducci Discusses His Exclusive Interview With AJ Hinch (1:20:20)

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You said! Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas Show. Good afternoon to you and welcome to a Monday edition of the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. Mitchell steps right, comes back on top to Ingalls, left-hand quarterback Donovitch, right back to Ingalls. Shock-lock down to six. Ingle's on Westbrook, down to four. Now to Mitchell. Good defense. Mitchell pressured. Spins around a double, fires up a three, a runner. No good. Rebound Houston. Hardin has it. Comes into the front court.

Hardin drives. Back to Covington. A three to take the league. Good. Robert Covington does it again. Rock is by one. Time out of Utah. He hit two clutch threes in the fourth.

In L.A. against the Lakers. 11. 110. Rockets down one. Here's Hart. Down to left baseline. To the rim. Turn back by Clarkson. Place it back out to House.

House to Westbrook. Westbrook into the paint. Wrap around the corner. to Tucker for three in the lead. Yes! Yeah! Tucker! Knocks down the quarter three with 1.6 to go.

111.13. 1-11 Houston. Timeout Utah. Ingalls are doing the honors inbounding. It'll be Tyson Chandler to defend the inbounder. Here we go. Engels looking to get it in. Looking to get it in.

Comes to Bogdanovich. Tough three. It's in the air. Oh! He hit it! Just hit the three at the buzzer to win the game for Utah. These buzzer beaters are becoming tired. First, it was Nevina B. Elisa, the Sacramento Kings, and then Boyan Bogdanovich.

There's like 50 syllables in those two words, those two names, and two rocket losses. That sucked. But it will not be the essence of the show today. We do have some positive things to get to. But, you know, REM just doesn't get enough run. What happened to them? They have three or four major hits. I think they're still around.

Yeah, I'm sure I can go get him to see him a dosi dough if I wanted to. Sure. Get a good chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, gravy, and a concert. You know, I've never been to docee dough. Nor have I. I think I want to go. I don't know if I don't want to hear this song. The thing about the Rockets' loss.

We got a lot to get to today. 12.06 on the Matt Thomas show. Ross will be here just a second. He is out with Legacy Ford, folks, so he's going to be here in just a couple of minutes. What an interesting sports weekend, Nick Lowe. I mean, so many layers to get to. We have rockets. Rockets amazing Thursday night against the Lakers.

And then they sucked on Friday against the Phoenix Suns. And then you had yesterday's game, which I thought was, I mean, forgetting about the last second Boyan Bogdanovich play, that was a really fun, interesting game against two teams that might very well see each other in the first round of the NBA playoffs. I mean, a knockdown, drag-out, haymaker, throw one punch after each other kind of game. And that was it.

There was Russell Westbrook, who was out of his mind. Robert Covington did a great job. PJ Tucker got his mojo back. James was perfect inside the arc. Outside the arc. Just a very entertaining basketball game. Donovan Mitchell was a star. Rudy Gobert did his thing, at least early on.

Jordan Clarkson and I've got nightmares from. He was just going at it. Something called George Nyang was hitting corner threes like a mutter. So it had a little bit of everything. And if not for, a contested with two different rocket defenders on him, a contested, difficult 12% usual success made three-pointer, the Rockets won a hard fought game yesterday and you're feeling a lot better about yourself

because you gain a game on the Utah Jazz. Instead, the Jazz gained a game on you. And unfortunately, you are kind of sitting in that number five spot and comfortably there with six and seven coming at you. So that was that. We had the Houston Cougars put on one of the best defensive efforts I've ever seen in a college basketball game in my life. I know Ross had before in your squad.

But it was... They played a good defense. They just can't score. 40 minutes of... Long words, I mean. Yeah, I mean, the first half you did fine. Second half you didn't want to be fine. Okay, we won't.

But my cougars were awesome yesterday against Wichita State. And firmly putting themselves in the incident of a tournament, hopefully as a high seed. And hopefully to get me to the final four this year, which I believe is in, where is it? It's in Atlanta this year, I think. Yeah, because last year it was in Minneapolis. I'm ready to go.

in Boise. It's no final form, Boise. They've had regionals in Boise, but never a final four. So then we have that. We had the XFL debut this past Saturday against the L.A. I forgot what they're called. Wildcats? Wallcatters?

The Houston team? No, the L.A. team. Oh, they're the Wildcats. Houston teams are roughnecks. Kurt Menafee from Fox. Couldn't figure that out. We called them the Renegades a little bit. On the first touchdown call on. It's fine. It is what it is. It's a new league. What are you going to do? And then you had AJ on MLB Network, that conversation.

There's a lot going on this weekend. Oh, I'm not done yet. And then you have the Wall Street Journal article that basically throws the entire Astros front office under the bus. Three quarters of the sports RV show was about that. The Wall Street Journal article or the AJ Hinge? Okay. Matter of fact, the author. of said article was on Sean Salsbury's show this morning.

And at 12.30 this afternoon, we're going to play a condensed version of it. I kind of cut the best pieces out of it. So we'll play that for you at 1230 today. And then Tom Verducci, who, by the way, is Twitterless. Tommy Verduci. Tomi Verduci. It serves a shikings of barm, Zidi, and a baseball man. Tom Verducci will join us live at 2 o'clock today to talk about his conversation.

with AJ Hinge. So we've got a lot going on today. Where do you want to start? I kind of got tippy-toed on the rockets a little bit. XFL was interesting to me. I'm not going to sell it for any more than what it is because we're going to be, you know, going to be what we are.

Okay, you shouldn't. It was good. It was fun. There's a lot of things I like about it. It was intriguing. I like some of the rules. Some of the rules. The one, two, three makes it interesting.

The kickoff is intriguing as well. I don't mind the, I don't mind the, kickoffs. The number one you know what I did love? First of all, the Roughnecks Uniforms hat, helmets logo, color scheme is perfect. I think it's a really, really fashionable look.

You know, I'm a uniform fashionista, if you will. Are you? Yeah. Well, I'll self-proclaimed. Okay. The L.A. gear I didn't like it all. But the roughnecks, uniforms amazing. I did like the kickoff rules where the team is

only five yards in front. I did like the one, two, three on the extra points. I did not, oh, I especially liked the instant replay stuff you can look at with the monitors and the guys talking to you. Yeah, how about the, how about interviewing somebody as they're walking off the field? That I didn't like. I think it's intriguing. Now, I wouldn't like it if I were a player. It's a little, it's very, I don't want to say cringy, but it's awkward.

Yeah, we don't need athletes. It's very awkward. any guys busting their ass to be awkward. Yeah, it's like they interviewed the kicker the first game. The kicker missed the kicker and they go, hey, so you missed a 35-year-old field goal. What's that like? The field goal kickers, I saw bits and pieces. They were either really good or like they were kicking to a different stadium.

Lots of get to today. Any of that we just discussed, we got lots of time to delve into all of it. 713-212-5-790. 7-7-19. It's how you reach a show. If you'd like to reach out to us on Twitter, you can do that as well. at SportsMT, at SportsRV, and at ProNic Lowe. I don't know what's going to necessarily move the needle today.

There's just five or six really good things I want to get into. And so it can be rockets, it can be Astros-related stuff, it can be XFL, whatever you want to get into. 713212-5-7-19. Hey, it's Coach Dan Tony. Step back three, and the quarter is good. Matt Thomas, my favorite voice in Houston. Now, that's a little exaggeration. Back to the Matt Thomas Show on Sports Talk 790.

1218, it is a very busy Monday edition of the Matt Thomas show. Bottom of the hour, you're going to hear a good chunk of the conversation Sean Salisbury had with the reporter, Jared Diamond, from the Wall Street Journal. Jared Diamond. Yeah. That's a stage name, right? I don't think Wall Street Journal reporters have stage names. Why not? By the way, her name would be Alexis Diamond Edition.

Is that Dustin's brother? I don't know if there's any relation whatsoever, but we'll hear from him. And then Tom Verducci at 2 o'clock on the AJ Hinch interview. So let's do this. Let's go to basketball here for a segment, maybe even a little bit of the XFL, and then we'll get back to the baseball stuff here in the bottom, because we've got the interview coming up. All right.

So, oh, the pluses. Love the uniforms. Love the different extra point options. Like to where the guys were positioned on the field. Love the instant replay. I did not like having to hear from the players in the middle of the game. I said it was just awkward. I love to.

Well, I mean, there's going to be a certain segment of peel the curtain back kind of thing. That was like Uber peeling the curtain back. I mean, yeah. Oh, I love being able to hear the plays being called in the headsets. I like that. And I don't understand what it meant. Yeah, that's why I didn't really care for it. I didn't move the needle from me one way or the other.

Quality of play Look like a fourth preseason game No, I wouldn't give it that much Not even that good? No, I mean, if you were to go on a major... Probably a little worse, I guess. If you were going to go Major League Baseball, it would be like AA or Skeeters-esque if you were comparing baseball to Major League.

Okay. Now, the question is going to be, can that thrive, can that survive? Can that be a nice anecdote? The reason why people had so much fun, either going to the game or watching the game was that you have no emotional investment to it. You're just rooting for them. You love football.

You're not going to get mad at the Houston roughnecks. Well, Matt, as a longtime roughnecks diehard, I have to disagree with you. You mean the one week that you've been in a right? Can you name five players? PJ, what's his name? Donald, whatever. Walker.

There's probably like a Dave on there. Okay. So that furthers my argument. Go ahead. Chris. You're done. Mortimer. Let's go on.

Randy. No, I don't want your name anymore. That's fruitless. So you're a diehard now? I'm just kidding, man. I was going to make sure. I was like, what? So it is what it is.

My middle son, as soon as I got home from Phoenix yesterday, or on Saturday, says, hey, the rough necks are starting their season. Can we go to a game? And I said, well, I looked at my calendar. I'm like, man, there's only like one other option the entire season. It's next Sunday.

So we're going to go next Sunday. Oh, beautiful. Yeah, take him. So he's excited about 17-year-old. So that's what it is. It's just an anecdotal thing. You got a shirt? You see some winning football.

Yeah, I've got a roughneck shirt. How did you get a roughneck shirt? Big Sarge brought me one. Oh. Oh. Got the hook up. Wow. Wow.

I guess I'll be wearing something else other gear if I don't have rough-nex gear to wear on next week. Yeah, it would be nice to see some winning football at TDECU. You don't know. No, what they did is they decided to go play at TDECU. because there is so much winning there that you want to you want to be there yeah there is what was the home record last year it's probably at least five or six and oh what's the third team they didn't win five games well if there's a lot of winning there there's got to be a third team that's playing there i don't know i don't know about yeah is the women's team still playing there or something you're on segment

suspension and you are too i'll do this show by myself damn i don't care no just asking i know um there are you know when you don't have any expectations and you're just going to have fun of football and you're in for a bunch of guys it makes it easy to root me it's 17,000 people there. That's pretty good. Yeah. The question is, is that become 18,000 next week, or it's become 12, the following? I would imagine it would go down. We'll see. But you know what? I'm not going to worry back, because it's just not our money. It's what, and here's the thing. It's not a question of whether the stadium deal is good.

It's not a question of whether the prices are good. If everything is good, Vince will do quite well and the team and the league will survive. If they start to ask for more money and they start to have the diva-like tendencies that the NFL has, or the play becomes so unbearable to watch, they won't go anymore. Cougars won one game at TDCU. I think they only played two games over this whole year. Against Prairie View. Yeah.

And the rest of it was a horrific officiating. So bad. So, so bad. Maybe the women's soccer team plays there. So no, the XFL said, hey, what is the stadium that breed success and let's go to TDCU? I said, that's cool. That's good, bye.

I'm going to be nice and leave it there. You should leave it there. You arrive late today. Go Coop. That wasn't my fault. Whose fault was it? Shout out Legacy Ford. There you go.

We're talking about him on Wednesday. Let's go to Mike in Memorial at 1223 on 7-90. Hi, Mike. How are you doing, sir? Well, what's going on? Well, so I remember when I was in high school going to the Houston Thunder Bears. Oh, yeah. The arena football league, and that coincides with the SSF and your son being 17-1 and go to it.

Right. And my thought is, What do you see the over and under? Do you think the exfell will last as long as the Arena Football League? Or do you think it will see things exist? Well, the Arena Football League just stopped. Thank you for the phone call this past year. But it was nothing in terms of what it was when the Thunder Bears were there

because there was like 16, 18, 20 teams. I think the XFL, I mean, the Arena League had four or six teams for like the last decade. I don't. I think you have to put it under the category of anything that's been not an NFL. That means U.S.FL, AASL, the XFL, the XFL, the first. first time. UFL. Whatever it is.

I mean, whatever's been around. So, um, I mean, I'm not the prediction business. All I can tell you is the last time there was a arena, there was a league that opened up.

It was the AAFL, right? Remember? The AAF. And the AAF and the television ratings were good. The ratings, wow, this is good. And then they ran out of money.

According to friend of the show, Darren Ravell, the first week of the AAF ratings were 2.9 million viewers. This was 3.3 viewers. So same ballpark, a little bit of an optic. I think here's what they've got going for them. When you have Fox and ABC and ESPN broadcasting your games, win, win, win, win. It looked like a slick production.

Friend of the show, Joel Clack. I love the betting spread on the ABC one. They had the spread in the total on there. It was confusing to me is because who created that? I mean, obviously Vegas did, but to bet on the XFL right now would have been the dumbest thing anybody could have done. I think it would have been fun. I wish I did.

But you didn't know if the, you had no idea if the, the rough necks were good or bad. No clue. Roughnecks minus nine and a half, baby, cashed and the over. Now you have a little bit of a better feel for this week.

If you're gonna, if you're that big of a degenerate, you are betting week two. You're betting week one. You're just literally trying to throw money away. They're just trying to have a good time. Yeah. I don't,

but see, I don't have to have a good time of having a bet on every game, especially with teams. If you're like me betting on, um, Air Force versus South Florida in basketball. Yeah, it doesn't hurt.

If it hurts if you don't cash. What makes a cheeseburger better? You put some bacon on top of it, Matt. What makes a game better? Put a little bet on it. A little action. A little juice. Yeah, but I know where that bacon came from.

The pig. Okay. Kevin and Conradle on Seven o'clock. Hi, Kevin. Hey, how's it going, Matt? Good, Farnie. What's going on with you? Hey, Matt, I have a question.

You know, since, you know, the Rockets have changed this small ball lineup. And we know that, you know, with that going in, that they really got to play more efficient, you know, as far as, you know, cutting down on turnovers and, you know, hustling, rebound and things such as that. Man, that game yesterday. Was great. Sucky result. Yeah, with sucky results. You know, James is the leader.

It's supposed to be the leader of this team. You know, and he, in that third quarter, the Rockets, I don't know what it is about the third quarter. I've seen so many games this year where they'll have a lead and they'll cough it up in the third quarter. Third quarter, they come out flat. I don't know why. I can't figure it out why.

Yesterday, they played better in the third quarter, except for James. you know, with him continually to shoot those threes, man. You know, and the thing of it is is that if people open, he doesn't have to shoot those shots the way that he does continuously when you see these open. He was one, James sat in third quarter. He was nine for 22, and he was one for 11 from three.

That tells you how efficient he was inside the ark. but you know they had a three-point lead at the end of the third quarter they should have had a double-digit lead going into the fourth quarter you know and he and they take him out they took him out right about two minutes left

into the into the third quarter you know and he stock it up man it's like he has to have the ability you're the leader man he has to have the ability to think James can score anywhere on that court he can score drive to the basket the way

Westbrook. He can hit the mid-range. He can hit any shot that he wants to hit on that court. But it's like if he's off, he will just, you know, he's going to, I'm going to shoot this shot. I'm going to shoot it. I'm going to shoot it regardless. And he cannot, the Rockets cannot afford that out of him for him to, it's going to cause a problem, especially in the playoffs. And we've seen James before. We have seen him go very cold before in big games. And, you know, he's got to change his attitude in reference to shooting those threes, either as himself or damn Tony, it's okay to shoot the threes. But when you're ice cold, come on, man, all they need is to do,

I guarantee you out of all those 10 shots that he missed, if he had to pass that freaking ball, somebody would have scored at least four of those times. And at the end of that game, it wouldn't have come down to that last shot because it's all in quarters, you know. And so, yeah, it came down the last shot, they hustling everything at the end, but you put yourself in situations based on how you're playing each quarter.

And he's got to have to chill on those three, and something has to snap in his head because it's not. It's not. His basketball, like Q, he loses sometimes, you know. And so he's going to have to play more efficient for the Rockets to play to get anywhere in the play. They're not going to win the way they're playing right now.

Thanks, Kevin, for the phone call. I'll address that and we get back. We've got to get to a break here. 1230 is our time. It is the Matt Thomas show, Ross and Nick along the way. In conversation with Sean Salisbury and the reporter from the Wall Street Journal, also coming up the next segment, but I do want to finish off of what Kevin had to say, and we'll do that right after this.

Harding again. Four three, got it. This is Craig Ackerman. My station, your station. America Station. And the Rockets. Sports Talk 790. your home for your home teams.

1234 is the time. The station is Sports Talk 790. It is the Matt Thomas Show. We will back up that conversation that Deshaun had with the reporter coming up in about, we'll do it at 1250, give ourselves a good fresh segment there on that one. So the caller, Kevin, brings up, I mean, look, the argument is there when James Harden doesn't make his three-point shots, he hurts his basketball team. That could be said for anybody else with anybody. with anything. We've seen Russell Westbrook, I think, really take a smart look at his shot

selection, giving up the threes for the most part. The only thing I still drives me crazy a little bit of those mid-range off-the-glass jumpers, but those have been falling, except for last night on a fairly regular basis. And the fact is that Russell has been able to become a really good finisher, especially with that zero to 60 speed he's got from like the top of the key to the lane to the layups. Those are just about as automatic as it comes. So here's the conundrum you're in. James has been doing the three-point shot and has been making them at a very, you know, serviceable 36, 37% for his entire NBA career. What is this, what are his numbers right now as from three-point the range this year? This year's at 35% change.

So he's a little bit down from his career numbers. His career is about 36. Yeah, so it's pretty darn close. He was, I mean, he was up around like 38, 39% for a little bit there. Remember he had that really, what was it maybe November or December? He was just super hot from three. His season was super, super, super hot to super, super cold, to warming up again. That's just what he's been, right?

I didn't even count the Phoenix game at all. And there's a little bit of that mentality. It was five and ten from three in that game. Yeah, I mean, really, he was the only one who did anything, frankly. So he has his mentality of, it's still my team. They're going to go as far as James Harden goes, right? That'd be fair to say? I would think so.

Although it's starting to feel like Russell Westbrook's team. And that's my point is that I don't, I don't know if it's because James is feeling that. Or Ross, it's just a case of I'm being left open. I've made 36, 37% of my shots in my NBA career from three. And I know when I make them, I make other teams cry. I can beat them single-handedly with my ability to go to the free throw line, my ability to go shoot the layups and my ability to shoot threes. I'm just telling you, put yourself in Dan Tony's shoes, put yourself in his teammate shoes.

What do you do when a guy has an off night? Do you just chalk it up as an off night? Or do you go run to him and say, James, stop taking three-point shots? Well, everybody wants to, no, because it's not predictive. It's just not. people want to say oh well you know if he starts one from seven or if he he starts bad tell him to stop shooting threes that's not how it works that's not how basketball works that's not how math works that's not how the mentality of a superstar player works yeah the superstar's mentality doesn't all of a sudden cut out

one of the biggest parts of his game russle was a very subpar three-point shooter in a matter where in all of his years in oklahoma city right it wasn't a key component to what made russell westbrook the nvp it was a small way to it, but it wasn't a component. What James has done is the epitome of threes, layups, and getting fouled. That's how James moves. And sometimes it doesn't work out that well. And sometimes it drives you crazy. But I don't know.

I would say this, that the James better stop shooting so many three guy doesn't call ever when he is six of nine from three or makes four in a row. to take a two-point lead and turns into a 16-point lead. Or when James scores 18-year-old. I just think it's very easy to pick up the phone. I think it's very easy to tell your buddies at the barbershop or at the office how bad James sucks when it's a night where that three-point doesn't shoot, it doesn't fall.

But it's way more difficult to bring in the, wow, James is incredible when he's on a night where he does make his threes. Yeah, it's just not predictive. If somebody starts, it's almost like, well, it's not a roulette wheel because it's a human shooting, but it's similar to, Matt, if you see, you know, the black has hit five times in wrong, you're like, wow, it's due for a red. No, the odds are the same. You can, you can have James Harden start off shooting really hot from three, and then maybe he's going to miss this. Now, doesn't mean he's going to make everyone coming up. We've seen him start poorly from three

and then make a bunch in the second. If we've seen him start hot and then miss a bunch in the second, it can go either way. It's not predictive. It's just not. It's, yeah, it's form. It's where he takes a shot on the floor. It's how his energy level is. And he's going to keep shooting. And that's what happens. When you're a shooter, and you're in a slump, you don't just stop shooting. You just shoot your way out of it, basically. Because the reality is this, and I hate to, and this is the thing that drives some people crazy, is that if all of a sudden you think he's at the top of the key or at the elbow or on the baseline, that all of a sudden that shot's going to be significantly, he's not going to miss any of those.

It's not true. by the way, Rockets News coming down just now from Mark Berman and others. Eric Gordon expected to be out until after the All-Star Break, which is just one more game. Yeah, yeah, tomorrow's game with Boston, then maybe All-Star Break. So, yeah, you know, is it tough watching James and there's all those stories? I get it. Yes, it's frustrating. It's frustrating. But there's also a relation when he knocks down six out of nine in particular game.

When he made that second one, well, yeah, he went four-four in the second quarter against the Phoenix Suns. That was amazing. Yeah. It was incredible. It's fun to watch. Yeah. And then yesterday he was just missing them all. And remember the crowd went crazy when he finally made his second one?

Mm-hmm. It was, it felt good. You know what? Honestly, what was the most aggravating party yesterday? It wasn't even James as missed threes. It was watching Jordan Clarkson and Mike Conley. Yes. And Donovan Mitchell get into the lane with relative ease.

And that's something to do about having a seven-foot-one guy in there. That would have happened with Clinton, frankly. Their switches did not work. They didn't get any weeks. I'd help, and those guys attacked the lane and got a bunch of baskets, and that's how they made their comeback. Some of it was tip of cap. They were making layups with guys draped all over them.

So, I mean, it was just – some of it was good defense better, but some of it was late rotation. Some of it was bad perimeter defense, and it – the rockets need to be better in those situations, for sure. Yeah. And here's a thing. Again, by Donovich, I think I saw a tweet on Twitter that had the percentage make it about 12.5% from that spot on the floor. Well, again, there's a percentage.

There's a reason why they're a percentage for everything. He made a difficult shot with two rockets draped all over him. Sucked. Sucked. In fact, Ross, I did not even, you know, you sit back in your chair. I sat back in my chair because I didn't want to go, I didn't want to be ready for rockets win, and I didn't want to be ready for three-pointer by Baghdana, or who I remember what was going to shoot it. You don't say anything, right?

Did you say anything after that? I don't think I did. You don't just go, Bogdan, Boban, Bogdanovich. Boyan, Bagdanovich, three-pointer, game over. leave. No, I didn't do that. In fact, go home. The shot went in. Go home crying.

All the Utah Jazz went over and jumped on him. He Bogdanovich took his shirt off. And then I was like, previous play is under review. And I'm like, you can probably stop worrying about the previous play. He went down. It was fine. Gerard at 1241 on 7. I, hi, Gerard.

Hi. What is going on with your phone, my man? Hold on. Hold on. I'm moving around. All right. Can you hear me now? Go ahead.

Yeah. quick thing, man. Eric Gordon, man. He's like the wheel full of the Rockets, man. He's always something wrong with him, man. But hopefully he can get it together for the second half, man, but we definitely need him with the Rockets, man, because he's basically the third option on offense, you know, with James

Harding and Russell Whisper. But quick thing with X-enfell, man. I like what I saw. I watched a lot of the game this weekend, man. For a team that didn't play in the pre-season game, I thought it was well-played. In my opinion, man, I thought it was some good football. It's not on a level of the NFL obviously, but it wasn't a lot of

penalties. I don't know if that was by design, but it was a lot of, it was very, the games were well-played, especially for teams that didn't play any preseason games. So I like what I saw out of the rough-necks. That guy, that guy, I hadn't ever seen him play, but PJ Walker, that guy that can make plays with his arm and his leg, man. He's a versus tall quarterback that's what we're seeing now in the NFL with, you know, Deshawn Washington and Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahone. He's out of that style, not quite to that level, obviously, but he's basically a dual threat. run-hand throw, man. So I think they got a good quarterback, man,

and the X-H-Rail as far as the Wethman's goal. A quick thing on the Cougars. I watched the Cougars last night, yesterday against Wichita State, man. Kevin Sacken got to be the best college coach, man, and college basketball, man. That guys, I'm believing what he's done the last three years with the Cougars, had him in the term of the last two seasons. They're like that's where they're heading this year.

I checked Joe Launardie bracket. He had them as an A-C, so hopefully they can get above that A-C, because you don't want to be an A-C, players number one feet in the second round if you get through that 8-9 matchup, which is always a 50-50 matchup. So hopefully they can rise above where Leonardo has them projected at as of right now. But I like what I'm seeing. The guy Mills, man, they got him, man. They got can score off the bench.

They've got Jerome. They've got a lot of good players, man. Gresham and those guys, man, they've got a good team. Only thing you've got kind of worry about is kind of his offense. Sometimes they also can go cold from the first half to second half. but they can keep developing offensive. They definitely got the defense to make a long run in the NCAA tournament. So hopefully they'll play better, man.

And Kevin Sesson, man, he's a good job. If things don't go good with the Rockins for, Dan Tony goes, Kevin Sess has got to be the number one guy on Tim Fratieler list, man, bringing him in. I know they got his son as coaching waiting when Kevin Sesson does retire, leave. So that could be something we can look at maybe next season. Sampson coming to Houston, if the Rockets decide to move on from Mike Dantony.

All right, Gerard, thank you very much with the phone call. Give us a full sports recat. That's Gerard's Sports Recat. This is Craig Ackerman. The rockets are certainly popping the polypropylene. I know Matt Thomas all too well. Hey, by the way, this is my new catchphrase. Nothing but nylon.

It's 1250 on Sports Talk 790. Tom Verducci from the MLB Network and Fox. will be with us coming up at 2 o'clock. He is the one that did the interview with AJ Hinch. Before he set up the interview with Sean did just 30 seconds on your general thoughts about AJ. I think everybody

is kind of saying the same thing. Felt bad for him. Glad he came out in front. Guilty as sin. Is there anything any more out of it? I thought he would have been a little more forthcoming. I do believe, I wish he would have answered more directly. The question about the 2019 and the

buzzers, but he deferred to the commissioner's report, which is fine, but I wish he would have come out and said, and maybe it's not his place, or maybe he doesn't even 100% know for a fact that nothing was going on. But it would have been a lot better look, I think, if he would have said, as far as I know, nothing happened in 2019. Maybe something will come up. Maybe if the buzzers were really in play, he really didn't know about that one.

Maybe they, the players knew. Why didn't you say that? I don't know. Maybe he, he maybe still trying to protect some guys. So maybe there is something We're going to ask Tom Producci about that 2 o'clock today. All right, so Jared Diamond writes for Wall Street Journal and Sean Salisbury visited with him this morning.

If you didn't catch it, here's the best part of it. It's about a good eight-minute clip, so I'll give you guys a chance to really sink into it. And here is Sean asking about just how involved Jeff Luno. And by the way, he looks terrible in this, as does members of his front office. If you've not seen the article, here is the recap from the man who wrote it from the Wall Street Journal.

Here's Sean this morning with Jared Diamond. We know that in September of 2016, Jeff Loonow saw this PowerPoint presentation that talked about Codebreaker, which was the Excel application that ended up being sort of the backbone of the whole sign stealing operation. We know for a fact that he saw that. We know for a fact there was at least two emails in his inbox that referred to things like this, one of which had in the email calling it the dark arc. sign stealing system. That was in Jeff Lunow's inbox. Now, Jeff Lunow denies that he read that part of

the email. He didn't scroll down to the bottom. He says that he was under the impression that codebreaker would not be used the way that it was used. But the reality is, that's a lot of documentary evidence that is just inarguable that no one's disputing. So at the very least, even if you take Jeff Lunow's word that he really didn't read the emails or really was under the impression my codebreaker was good to be used differently. There's no excuse for someone in his position not knowing. He should have known if he didn't just base on those emails and all this indisputable evidence alone.

All right. Jared, explain this for those of us who aren't as technologically sound. It says the way Codebreaker worked was simple. Somebody would watch the in-game live feed and log the catcher signs into the spreadsheet and type the pitch that was actually thrown. With that information, Codebreaker determined how the game. the signs corresponded with different pitches. Once decoded, that information will be communicated through intermediaries to a base runner

who would relay them to the hitter. So, I mean, obviously advanced and serious, it takes a lot of players and a lot of people being involved. And this also worked on the road. How often in your findings were they using this? Well, we know they were using it at least through 2017 and in the least part of 2018, how were they using it every game? Was it something that was used for every batter and every pitch?

I don't know, but we do know that in some capacity, this system was used for a full season plus. It went into 2018 as well. And we also know this was sort of the foundation of what became the now infamous trash campaign team, which started roughly in June of 2017 and lasted throughout the 2017. season. Now, at some point, Major League Baseball believes that it stopped in 2018. Maybe it did. Maybe we'll find out they were doing something else that was neither of these schemes.

But for what we know right now, this is something they were using for a season plus. Did somebody actually sit down with players and say, they had to, didn't they, Jared? I mean, how else do you get the players to buy in than having a team meeting says, here's the scheme, here's how we're going to use it, and here's how you guys are going to relay it. Am I right or wrong? Well, look, we know that Rob Manfred in multiple occasions referred to all this is player-driven,

so clearly the players played a big role in its implementation. There were people that had to run information from the video room to the dugout and then relay it to base runners who would then relay it to batters. Then you have this old garbage can situation that seems to have been pretty much entirely created by players and with the help of Alice Cora having a TV monitor installed outside the dugout.

So how they actually sat, whether they sat down and talked about it or how it sort of spread, we don't know, but what we do know is these players were very, very involved. There's a reason why why Manfred referred to it as player driven twice in that public report. And I have no reason to believe that isn't the case. Jared, who protected Jeff Luno and all this? What it came down to is that baseball was unable to prove exactly what Jeff Loonow knew. They have a lot of testimony from Tom Koch Wester, who still worked in the Astros front office, who said a lot of things about what Jeff Loonow knew.

He told them that he discussed this with Jeff Loonow on one to three occasions in the 2016 off season. He sent these emails to Jeff Loonow. But ultimately, they weren't able to get anybody to corroborate that with support. Jeff Loonow strongly denied it. And it sort of became a he said, he said situation between Loonow and Tom Koch-Wesser and what made it even more complicated for baseball, the MLBU that after the 2019 season, but before any of this sign-silling stuff became public, Tom Koch-Westler had his responsibilities reduced by Jeff Loonow.

His job was going to change in 2020. And that sort of also put MLB on edge wondering, well, does this guy have an ask of grind with Jeff Loonow, who is the reliable witness. At the end of the day, M.O.B. said, well, we can't prove anything. And if we can't prove it, we really can't put it out there and we really can't punish him accordingly, which is why they settled on the one-year suspension and clearly the knowledge that Jim Crane would inspire him. With all this that we're going through, and I wish we had two hours to discuss this with you, what's the most shocking piece of information in this story and that you know about the Astros?

Well, look, the fact that there is an email that was sent to Jeff Booneh now that referred to this as the dark arts sign-stealing scheme or system or whatever the exact quote was, that absolutely stunned me. It's stunned me enough that somebody would put that in an email. Then refer to it as the dark arts. That just tells you clearly that what these people did, they knew that it was wrong. This is not a situation of not knowing what they were doing was wrong. You don't refer to something as the dark arts if you think it's totally on the up and up. And that's just, it is shocking to me in a way because it just always surprises me that people would do something knowingly wrong, keep doing it even after they know it's wrong, and just seemingly not really care, apparently. So it just surprisingly just sort of how deep it went and how, like, systemic it was.

This truly was something that was, in a way, organization-wide. It was not necessarily just like a row group of players or one-row coach. This involves front-off of people. This involves at least one coach. This involved players. The manager knew about it. A lot of people knew about it, and it doesn't seem like many people did anything about it until way after the fast.

Did just from you, either from your interview or what you found out, whether it be fact or your gut feeling, did Jeff Luno, did A.J. Hinch both know about this? Did Jeff Luno, A.J. Hinch, Alex, Kora, and these players do this without the knowledge of the owner. And did the owner warn them that if this continued to happen, they were going to be in trouble? Or was this, was there a layer in between that Mr. Crane had no idea about that they kept from him? there's no evidence that Jim Crane knew anything about it. And frankly, it wouldn't surprise me if Jim Crane didn't know anything about it. Agreed. But they're not around every day.

It's not like he's around the team every single day. So who knows, if he did know something, I'll be really bad. But I have no reason to believe that in the case. All right. That again is Jared Diamond, some of the conversation that he and Sean had this morning on the Sean Show, which can catch six to ten right here on the Sports Talk, 790. This to me, this piece with this

interview, Ross, lends me to believe that Rob Manfred didn't uncover everything. Because the nine-page report basically puts Jeff Luno in a category of he didn't know anything.

This completely contradicts that. Well, we have to take a break. We talk about when we come back. But it's not exactly Okay, I'm ready to hear this. Okay. Because I'm putting a lot more on Luno's plate.

By the way, probably Jared knows Luno, not Lulau, but that's on the ear nor there. It's going to happen. It's okay. Donny T. calls him Luneau? He does. Hey, we got a baseball player soon. The Astro is on top of this, too. We will get to that as well.

This is the Matt Thomas show. All right, second hour of the Matt Thomas show, Sports Talk 7. alongside our producer, Nick Lowe, Ross Villarreal. I'm Matt Thomas. Nice to have you with us. Hi, Matt. We're here at 0.3 o'clock. Tom Varducci in 55 minutes. We will not pronounce it that way. Probably not. We appreciate him. Okay. So we just played the Jared Diamond conversation with Sean.

We have a lawsuit to tell you about here momentarily, which is comical. But let's get to the all seriousness. My initial first thought was Jeff knows significantly more. way, way more than it was originally announced by Jeff in his release of a statement and by what Major League Baseball said. You disagree or you? No, I don't disagree. It's just in the report, it talks about how Rob Manfred saw these emails. So apparently there were like five-page emails and Jeff Luno responded to the email saying, oh, cool, sounds like we're doing some good stuff. But it's apparently known that Jeff Luno only reads the first page of any email. That's

where you put all the important stuff, and then he doesn't pay attention to the email afterwards. Let me tell you something. If Rob Manfred, the commissioner of baseball, sends an email to every one of the general managers and front office people, you probably need to read the whole...

No, I'm talking about emails internally. Oh, I see. Okay. From these guys who were doing this thing to Luno. So, Luno, did Luno know? I think yes. But he had, the word of the day is plausible deniability. Luno apparently told Manfred,

I didn't know about any of this because I was just responding to the email in general and I didn't read it. So Rob Manfred said it became a he said he said. The underling, whatever his name was, I can't remember his name. He says Luno knows. Luno says I had no idea. So Rob Manfred can't put it in the report because he doesn't have concrete proof.

There weren't enough people that would absolutely justify it. Right. He didn't have enough evidence to say Jeff Luno knew. So he couldn't, he didn't run with that. That's why Manfred didn't run with that in the report. So did Luno know? probably, but Manfred felt like he didn't have enough evidence to run with that in his report. I think when this story came out Friday, it added a layer of Jeff knew a lot and that

that Manford, if he could, if he could go up, he couldn't put any opinion in the nine page report. He was only stating facts. My guess is if Rob Manfred, you pulled him aside and said, hey, Robbie or Robert or whatever you want to call Rob. How much did the Lono? No. No. Well, I have a pretty good feeling he knew a lot more than I put in the report. I don't think it makes him look good, which is sad because as Jared said today, he was asked by Sean, we didn't play it. Do you think Jeff will ever get another general manager job spot again? And the question is, we don't know the answer to that because all it takes is one.

We've seen a lot of people, Ross, get second chances in life. Some don't get them, but a lot of people do. what Jeff Luno did as the general manager of the Houston Astros, he took a team, he completely bare-bottomed it down the very, very bottom floor and brought it back up to relevancy.

And I will still, to this dying day, to my dying day, will say the Astros did not need to do what they did in order to become this successful juggernaut of a major league baseball organization. It's sad that it has put a terrible, terrible spin on the success of the 2017 and 2018, and for that matter, 2019.

But the banging of the trash cans, the sign ceiling is not going to make me not think of these teams as really good, exceptional baseball teams with quality pitching, quality manager, quality players, and a quality general manager. You can't shake me of that. I agree. And I think the easiest way, if you want to look at the summary of the astro side, is to point to 2019. There's been talks to the buzzers and all that type of stuff. There's been no evidence. Rob Manfred said he did not find anything, any evidence of anything or any. wrongdoing of the Astros there. In 2019

was their, that was their best year. Three straight 100 win seasons. Very easily could have won the World Series, if not for the fact that no one wanted to win any more games at home. Strange as that may sound. All right, so

did they ever get to, they ever ask how they were doing this on the road? I'm very curious. I mean, how do they get the other team's video? Good question. Equipment or whatever. Yeah. there had to been it had to been more on what was happening on the field more than anything else with a video can room you know because there's these rooms that these players that these managers

can ask guys in the back hey should we challenge us or not you ever notice that you're not going to have this you're not going to have an advantage to be able to challenge a call on 81 home games and not have at least a similar opportunity to challenge them on the road that's true do you think yeah i think so whatever whatever those rooms are we're a lot more than trying to figure out whether a player was safe or out on a particular play. It was made for intelligence and sign stealing and probably to a let me always will be that way. So yeah, I mean, I'm sure it's much more difficult. It's not your confines.

It's not, you know, your comfort zone where you know all the the hide things and put things in perspective. But there's a way. And this, when you go with this elaborate spreadsheet involving two different members of the baseball operation department not named Jeff Leno. It sounds like they've had this thing down for a couple of years. It's very sad, but not surprising. It was, uh, it was jarring to get that. And by the way, Jeff, if you're listening, read all five pages of an email. Yeah, I don't know, man, five pages, a long email. First of all, who's typing up five pages of an email? I feel like if I go past 75 words, it's lengthy. That's true. Maybe it's just part of the generation. All right. So now there is a new

lawsuit in play by a gentleman named, let me make sure I get this right, because I don't want to mispronounce his name, Mike Bolsinger. What is your favorite Mike Bolsinger as a major league pitcher baseball moment? Those two times he got shelled by the Astros. So Mike Bolsinger was a journeyman baseball player. He played for three different baseball teams in four seasons, primarily minor league. But spent literally a cup of coffee in the major leagues. In 2014, he started nine games for the Diamondbacks, pitched in one other game in relief, and his record was 1-6 with a 5.50 ERA. Can you remember that for me for just a minute? Okay. And with the Dodgers in 2015, he was 6 and 6, with an ERA of 3.62 all as a starter.

So, okay, just a very average major league baseball player. And then in 2017, he went on to play of the Toronto Blue Jays, where he was 0 and 3, started six games, started five games, six other bullpen with no wins, three losses, a knee array of 6.31. My bowl singer, by the way, ladies and gentlemen,

is the name you should remember because he is suing the Astros. He also wants the Astros to forfeit the $31 million in bonuses from their World Series and the money to go directly to charities in Los Angeles focused on bettering kids' lives,

as well as to create a fund for retired baseball players, who need financial assistance. Quote, this is from the USA Today. Today, there's a message to be sent to youth out there, especially athletes, more specifically baseball players. It was awesome to watch the game played the right way. We kind of drifted from that.

It's something we can really express to those kids. You don't have to cheat to get where you want to go. This kind of stuff doesn't need to happen. So essentially he is saying that he wants a superior court in Los Angeles to give him money because of the... the Astro's unfair business practices, negligence, and intentional interference with contractual and economic relations, meaning he sucked because he thought they were cheating. Thus, if they weren't cheating, he would have had a longer Major League Baseball career.

I wish you luck, my friend. Rossi, this is going to be one of about 75 more lawsuits coming the Astros way. You think so? Well, I don't know. I hope not. But we've seen fans sue, players sue. we've seen Astro player fans file a class action lawsuit against the team.

What? Yes, it was last week. It was one of those stupid go online. You know, were you an Astros? He's in ticket holder. We're going to put together a class action suit. This thing has gone... Class-casting suit with you.

We played championship winning baseball? Well, they're played cheating baseball. What do they want? That you went to a game and you didn't see an authentic baseball game. Oh, my God. This is the most... This has gone.

bat blank, if you know what I'm saying. 113 on the Matt Thomas show. How many pitchers did the Astros go up against in the 2017 season? And how many of them were as bad as Bolsinger? Probably not a whole lot. I'd say 50. No. There are a lot of average middle levers at pitch against the Astros.

They didn't shell everybody for four runs in a third of an inning or whatever he did. Not everybody had an astronomical ERA. I'm sure they got shut out that year by somebody. This is not going to stop. Okay. and this is going to be we're in a lawsuit city well let's get all your

you know what you should get a lawsuit you should get in a lawsuit Matt for doing post game shows after games that were not real games not authentic

maybe you can get in on this so basically they were wasting my time maybe we should get some money out of this you think I should have a class action lawsuit against the Astros

yeah I'm okay I don't want to be really I probably I probably did a couple of pre and post game shows in 17 you need a better sample size

you could be in the 40 to 50 range like I am I produced several of them oh you're definitely in that spot spot then. 713212-5790. On the agenda today, what did you love about the XFL? What did you hate about it? It hates maybe a strong term. What did you love about the Rockets game last night? I know what I hated. The buzzer beater. And did you happen to see A.J. Hinch's conversation over the weekend. I want to see what you all thought about that. Tom Purdue, who did that interview, joins us in 45 minutes.

Hey, it's Air Gordon. Gordon for three in the lead. Matt Thomas is my favorite. voice in Houston. EG for three. You're listening to the flagship. Sports Talk, 790. Home of the Rockets. EG. will not be available tomorrow night for the game against the Boston Celtics. Lower leg soreness.

Don't we all? Lower left leg contusion, I thought we were on. Contusioned will mean somebody got hit him there. I thought he said he got kicked in the shin. Oh. In the Utah game, not this last one, but the one before that. Utah. And he said, like, I'm not coming out. Right. He didn't because he scored 50. And I always have... Rockets won that game. I always have left leg soreness.

So clearly the formula against Utah Jazz is to take Russ and James out. That's how you went. Speaking of that, late Friday night, Utah plays Portland. Goaltending call, not called against Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz. The Blazers lose by a single point. should have won the game on the late goaltending call. Damien Lillard, or as the kids call him, Dame? What a no part of that. He did not

mince words. He MFed everybody within 20 feet. He had his own team security on him. And then he goes to Twitter to fight because Donovan Mitchell gets in his space. Mitchell and Dame Lillard go back and forth a little bit on Twitter.

NBA says, yeah, we screwed up. We should have called the goaltend. And are you ready for this, Ross did not find Damien Lillard at all for any remarks made towards set officials. I'm glad they didn't. You got to take the L. Sometimes. Yes, you do. Which goes to the point of, will the NBA add more instant replay next year? Because what the official, what the NBA is saying is, they can't overturn something that wasn't called. And that's exactly what it is. Think about that for a second. Non-call. You can't overturn. Right. Right. You can't overturn a travel that's not called.

You cannot overturn a non-fowl that was called. A referee has to blow the whistle in order for it to be confirmed, overturned, and given the foul to somebody else. Like when Kevin Duran against the rockets had both of his feet all the way out of bounds. That's right. That was one of the worst calls I've ever seen in my life. You called that out on that call. I did.

Yeah, because Craig is sitting there calling the action. He and I working together. You're like, he's out of bounds. And he's like, Craig's like, what are you talking about? I said, go look at the replay. He had both. He had like kneecaps. He was that deep out of bounds.

He was at the concession stand halfway. Yeah, he was over the Bay Bridge and they were like, no, he's still in bounds. Not good. So I think the NBA is looking at wounds a little bit over this because it was a goal tend. It was pinned against the backboard. It was wall on the way down. I just think in that particular case, Rudy Gober gets a benefit of the dock and seven foot two. that's what happens.

The Stifle Tower. Yeah. The primary defender against Russell Westbrook. How weird was watching that yesterday? That was the first couple of possessions. First I was like, did I miss a switch? Did like the Rockets run a pick and I missed a switch? Or is Rudy on him?

And then like the second or third possession, I was like, wait a second. They're going Rudy Gobert on Russell Westbrook. This is incredible. This is the whole thing with people like Bill Simmons. I can't watch this. This is not basketball. I have to turn this off. Right.

This to me is fascinating. Even if you're, even if you hate the rockets and you want it to fail, I think it's fascinating watching the way the other teams are adjusting and then the rockets adjusted. They had James as the primary ball handler and then they moved Russ into the corner. I think it's incredible and fun to watch. So it's a much easier narrative to say it's not going to work. That's fair. Because it doesn't, you don't think of a team that's six, seven and, well, actually,

Covington's at six eight measured, six eight and below winning a championship. I get it. But it's intriguing for what the rockets need to do because I think, and here's the thing that I don't know if people understand is that sometimes you go in that room, that meeting room, conference room, and you shut the door and you go, as we are currently constructed, are we good enough? And the declaration must have been from the organization. No, we're not. We had Mike D'Antony on Friday, and he said the way it was was not cutting it. You guys take any shots at me, by the way? I'm assuming that you did.

Let's see. I said, yeah. At the beginning, I said you get the day off from Matt, but he didn't even respond to that. He just went and started talking about the game from the night before. That's because he likes me. Coming off. Well, I think he just wanted paying attention.

Okay. And then at the end, Brian T. Smith did say, since you're going small ball, could you play Matt at center? And then he talked about how you'd had the day off because apparently you don't play back-to-backs. Need some rest.

It was a good line. It was funny. Good stuff for me. Mike there. Yeah, we didn't get to Phoenix till 2 o'clock mountain time. And then sandwich in between hard-hitting great basketball conversation with coach. Who was asking the questions? Because it wouldn't

been YouTube. That would have me and Brian Bryan. By the way, I think we're going to have coached on with us tomorrow for a full half hour. So, either tomorrow, Wednesday. My guess is we'll do it tomorrow because he's going to want to go somewhere and go hide. What is he like, does he golf or what does he do? What is he? Fishing or? I don't know if he's a fisherman.

They go to, you know, he's got the house in West Virginia that they go to. Oh, so whittling wood on the porch? You listen to John Denver songs. Yeah, making Coonskin caps. And drinking wine. Yeah, and Moonshine. What does one do in West Virginia?

You know, that's one of the few states I've never been to. Oh, really? I've been to probably 37 or 38 stouts. I've been to like six. West Virginia, is it, does a stereotype fit? I don't know. Does he have a musket and a coonskin cap? Yeah.

I mean, do they have like, I mean, are like you drive through the neighborhood? Oh, there's a nice. ranch doll house. There's a, wow, there's, look at that three-story. Look at that kind of. And then look at those people that are mining coal. And they have wonder bread bags for shoes. And they're all smoking cigarettes.

Even the six-year-old. The kids, first grade, get out your crayons, get out your pencils, get out your really thick line paper, and get out, bring out your smokes. And your marlore reds. No, that's not nice. If he knew we're doing this now. You see Mike D'Anne Tony sitting on a porch,

playing this. No, I see him listen to Italian music drinking wine with a corn cob pipe and a button nose have you seen deliverance?

I have. Nick, you sound like you're way too... Okay, I'm going to be honest with you. A little too enthusiastic there. Nick, when the Ned Beatty scene started, I left. You walked out of the theater?

No, I was not in the movie. It was just on, you know, VCR. So you don't know how it ended? Can I guess? Okay. Bert Reynolds, Ned Bating, who was the other guy in the movie that was the main character? John Voight.

John Voigt, they shot a bunch of people in one. That's not exactly how it worked out now. It's fine. Am I close? Not really. They're all dead? No. No spoilers, guys.

To a movie that was 40 years old, I think it's okay. Maybe even 50 years old. They don't all make it. 1772. Yeah. All right, enough about this. Ned Beatty makes it. Yeah, but he's...

Or does he? He didn't have a great experience. He didn't feel like he was enjoying himself, if you know what I'm saying. I just saw the Oscar rating, speaking of movies. I saw the Oscar ratings are horrible. Do you know how much I watched the Oscars yesterday? I watched a zero second. No, I, no, that's not a lie.

I turned it on for Best Picture and I saw that. I watched it zero. Now, granted, I was... Watch about three minutes. I was not in a great mood after the Rockets lost again. I got in the car, listened to you, got home about 930. How was the post game show? It was great. It was fine.

Well, I liked what you first said, it was great. I like the initial assertion. I thought who's the host in line. It's just fine. All right. John was amazing. Gerard, let me. I interrupted him a couple times just to throw off your count.

Yeah, you did. And Ronnie Maya always ask if we can hear you. You know what? If that's the case and you need to get a better phone, Maya, if you're listening right now, we always can hear you. She wasn't happy with the paint defense of the Rockets, but nobody was. Yeah, who would be happy. All right.

So we want to go here. 713-21-2-5-790. 7-1-3-1-2-5-7-90. Tom Verducci in one half hour to talk about his conversation with A.J. Hinch. Rocket disappointment? Sure. Again, I thought it was a great basketball game with the exception of the end game. And that was the final shot, which was a very difficult make.

7-1-3-21-25-79. And how much of the XFL did you watch? Did you go to the game? Did you have a good time? What would you like to see improved? and more importantly, will it be sustained for any length of time? We'll discuss that next, 129 on Sports Talk 790. This is Michael Brantley.

Exclusive coverage at every game. Sports Talk 790 is your home of Astros baseball. Time is 134. Ross and I'll be down in spring training a week from tomorrow. We'll do four shows from West Palm Beach. Wonderful. Beautiful. West Palm Beach.

It's not what you think it is. It's not? I mean, there's a lot of nice parts of it, but we're going to send you the nice parts. That's our job responsibility here in the old 790. You're going to make a trip up to Jupiter? No, we almost did that last year. Some sightseeing. I know we're going with this, Robert Kraft, Jr.

What? What's wrong? What's wrong with getting a quick massage? Well, ask Robert Kraft. It can be costly, if you know what I'm saying. He's fine. Yeah, he's good. Yeah, even serve a day or anything.

Do you want to go to Jupiter? We'll go to Jupiter. No, I don't. We'll do a what's on Matt Spine show, blog posting from there. From what's the place called? I don't know, Jupiter Spa and Comfort. They had a name. It was like Lotus Spa or something like that.

It won't take as long to figure it out. So yeah, we're looking forward to getting down to West Palm Beach. The Palm Beach is doing a great job by helping us get our coverage down there. And we'll be there for four days, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday of next week. 713-212-5-790 7-1-3-2-1-2-5-7-90 I'm very curious about what

Orchids of Asia We should go Okay Wait what Just to take a picture Oh in front of it Okay We're not going in

I'm not walking in No What was I going with this? Oh I'm very curious to see how forthcoming the players are How much do you coach These 22 to 30-year-old men about what could be coming from a media perspective. I think they're getting a heavy coaching

and being prepared in every question they could possibly get asked is being thrown at them right now. I think it's going to be more of a... I think there will be a little question to answer, but I think it's going to be more of a... It's going to be a statement. How many players do you think you're going to speak?

You know, you and I have debated about this. Yeah, because I don't know. I don't think it's going to be everybody. You think it'll be a panel... I think it'll be a panel like a few guys, the heavy hitters, the Bregmans, the L2, the Erlanders, or whoever, they'll be in a panel, one or two of them will speak,

and then all of them will be available for questions. That's what I'm thinking. But I don't know. I don't know. Because here's the thing. If the Astros is a PR department, stop the questioning at like three minutes, then it comes across as well,

you really didn't give us a chance to really get into it. That's true. But the longer you allow it, the more things could come out, which probably doesn't put them in the best. Does full 100% transparency, help their national perceptive? Because I was talking about this with some people over the weekend.

You folks, you mean the enclosed listening audience of the show, love the Houston Astros or can't wait for the start a season, as do we? And we're going to get very little into it next week because we would like to be able to talk some baseball at some point. We've been talking about this ad nauseum for four months now. But if X, Y, Z player, Bregman, Altuve, Verlander, Michael Brantley, Anybody just says, all right, we're an open book.

Well, first of all, that's going to be refreshing to some, but it's going to piss off a lot of other people. And then you're going to get from beyond being mad then to, okay, now that you fully have told us everything that you've done, you shouldn't play baseball anymore. Just like Hank Aaron. Just like Pete Rose. The easy answer to this is every player that was involved in this got away with this.

and it's no matter what they were promised by Major League Baseball, promises are made to be broken, unfortunately. They can be. So how do you win this? That's why I've said this before, Ross. I think you have to go to the most expensive PR agency in this country and say, how do we handle this? I'm sure there's been PR people involved.

There's been coaching involved, and they're going to be well-prepped. I think that's one of the reasons they're waiting for as long as they have. First of all, they don't have to say anything, but they should, and they will. And I'm interested to see how forthcoming they're going to be. I don't even know what the format's going to be. Do you think A.J. Hinch was well-prepped? Do you think A.J. Hinch needed to be prepped? Or these are things that he was thinking about, knowing what he could and could not say,

that there was nothing that Tom Verducci could have thrown at him, and he'll join us in 20 minutes, that would have surprised AJ. It didn't seem like there were many curveballs. We can ask Tom. Yeah. If there was any kind of prepping or any at all. I'm frankly, I think everybody that's listening to our voice right now has at least seen a clip, if not the entire AJ interview. I'm more interested, Franklin, than behind the scene stuff.

You're right. And we'll talk with him. Blinding the makeup. Not really, no. I was thinking more about... AJ's haircut. No, it's very strange. I've seen AJ 500 times in my life.

Very rarely without a hat on. Right. It was weird. Yeah. So, there's already teams that are clamoring for AJ Hens is a manager. I think AJ got himself a nice PR boost by doing the appearance. What teams are clamoring?

Not publicly, but fan bases are. I think Detroit Tigers would probably like to be interested in talking with him. I think just look if any of the teams, I think if the Dodgers get off to a, that would be really strange because there's not a lot of Dave Roberts love in Los Angeles despite the fact that the Dodgers have been one of the best teams in the National League. I think he could go there. I think any one of the Pacific teams, he's from the West. You know, he's not from there, but he's played college baseballs out of strong affinity for two different National League West teams.

So, I don't know. He's going to fun work. Is he managing next year, you think? Probably not next year. I don't think so either. I'll bet this if I was to ask you within five years. Not getting odds on either side. Within five years?

Within five years. By the time we reached 2025, is he a manager of a Major League Baseball team? I would still say yes. Not next year. He's so radioactive right now. Even if he has the deniability and the fact it's on his side that he tried to destroy it. He didn't approve of it. He didn't oversee it.

Anything like that. It's just guilt by association, I think is the issue. And he comes across, whether it's fair or not, as a pushover when it comes to laying down the law in a clubhouse. I agree with that. That I think he would never allow it to happen again. I mean, look, we've all done things in our life that we said, if we were presented in the exact same spot, we would never do it again.

Whether it's getting in a car with too much alcohol, drinking, whether it's cheating on your taxes, whether it's, you know, fudging the numbers at your office. I mean, there's all things that we've all done in our life that we've apologized for and said we've learned from our lesson. I felt watching that 20-minute conversation with AJ that was, you know what? I made a massive mistake and you give me another chance.

It won't be on my watch ever again. I truly believe it from him. I believe him as well, but I just, and it's the old adage that it only takes one team to take a chance on him. But I just, I don't know that he'll be managing within, I will say yes within five years, but I don't feel like next year he will be. That's right. That feels good. 142 on the Matt Thomas show 713-212-5-790 7-1-3-212-5-790

kind of mix it a bunch of different things in today. The story about the Wall Street Journal about the Astros front office involvement doesn't make Jeff Luno and the rest of the organization, at least at the top very good, look very good. AJ Hancho thought looked good for himself when it came to the interview with Tom Pruducci. He'll be with us in about 15 minutes. AJ will, or not AJ, but Tom Purdue will. And the XFL, I thought, was a very interesting exercise in what to do on a Saturday afternoon.

By the way, the weather was perfect for the team, too. I mean, those that went had good weather, outdoor stadium, amazing campus, great atmosphere. And they won a football game, too. That more coming up between now and a three o'clock. Ross, what is believe it or not today coming up at 252? All things, roughnecks? No, I was going to go, you can go to the Oscars, right? Oh, Oscars?

Okay. Just saying, throwing that out as a possibility. 713-212-5-790. Somebody on Twitter or my buddy says, what are you talking about? I don't apologize for cheating on my taxes. Oh, okay. D. J-J-Z-O.

I will not. I'll know who that person was. One famous. John McLean? It's not John McLean. Of all names, bring it up. One, two, three, Texas. This is Deep as a tackle, DJ Reader. The Matt Thomas show continues on Sports Talk 790.

Real Texans. Talk here. Tom producing in 13 minutes on the Matt Thomas show. Believe it or not, today could be on the Oscars. It could be on the roughnecks. Is this player a roughneck or perhaps a mayor of a small Texas town? Hmm. You get some stuff to work with.

Or a caucus delegate. Yeah. You watch and did you watch the New Hampshire happen already or is it coming up this week? No idea. All I know is I want Bernie Sanders to stay along as long as long as possible because he's still Larry David doing Bernie Sanders on SNL is really, really funny. That's pretty good. But I feel like I want Joe Biden to win because Biden Trump debates would be the,

I'm looking for highest entertainment value, I think. They would forget the questions that were answered. Biden Trump debates. Anybody. Bernie versus Trump would be good? That's true. I guess as long as you have Trump, which you will. Trump and anything would be good.

It was going to be must-see debates. It's funny. S&L to me, and I watched it again this week as I was home Saturday. I was a total homebody this weekend. Oh, I still haven't watched the JJ Watt one. Sorry. Really, really, really funny. But I watched and who was the guest host this week?

It shows you how unmemorable, not memorable it was. I really don't know. Oh, no, it was RuPaul. Was the musical guest? No, there was the RuPaul. was the celebrity host and Justin Bieber was the musical guest.

It could have gone the other way. Does RuPaul sing? Yeah. Like, name a hit. Rupal had that one hit. What was it called? You don't talk about Nick. Yeah, I know.

Yeah, go ahead. Y'all knock that out because I don't know. I don't have a RuPaul on my iPhone. I guess I could. Check the RuPaul discography. Okay. Rupal unplugged.

Let's go to Joe and Rice Village at 150 on 790. Hi, Joe. How you doing? my family and I moved here from L.A. about five years ago. And this situation with the Astros, I don't see what the difference is between Hinch and all his players and the GM and Pete Rose. What's the difference?

Can you please tell me? The difference. Yeah, they're both cheaters. Well, I mean, yeah, they're both cheaters. That's right. And you're willing to let Hinch. come back to work next year, but yet Pete Rose has been out of work or been out of

baseball for, gosh, what is it, 20 years now? Well, Pete Rose also has walked into clubhouses for years and years and years with a big sign on it. It says, you cannot bet on baseball or you'll be permanently banished from the sport. And that's, what the Astros are doing was trying to win. And it's

possible, we don't know for sure, that Pete Rose was betting against his own team. His non-bets would give an indication of some that he didn't think his team was good enough to win a baseball game or he was going to make sure that they didn't win. To me, that's more of the end. That's more speak to the integrity of the game.

Of course, what the Asher did as well, but I think one is more severe than the other. Yeah, and I'm not here to judge on it. 21 is what they call it. There's just, there was a black and white, 100% absolutely you cannot bet on baseball or you will face banishment from baseball. And Pete Rose signed a document that agreed to be banished from baseball. So Pete Rose signed that. so so okay and and and i understand that point so moving forward um do you think that baseball at any

point thought about taking the pennant away from the asteros and giving it to the dodgers i don't think they would have done that they they have not contemplated that i don't believe okay and then the last thing that really bugs me is i'm surprised these these uh these players are actually some of them are still doing autograph signing and going to institutions and talking, you know, they should be going on a different type of tour. You know, they should be going on sort of like a Michael Victor versus a signing autographs and everything is kumbaya and stuff like that. Why do you think things are kumbaya, Joe?

Well, again, if I'm out there in the public signing autographs and doing other things, you know, I'm not showing any remorse. Again, I should be out there saying, hey, look, I'm not good enough to give you my autograph. I'm sorry for what had happened, you know. I'm not good enough to give you an autograph? Yeah. You should not sign. So if a kid comes up to...

He's a bunch of cheater. If a kid comes to Alex Bregman and says, hey, I have this jersey or this ball or whatever, would you sign? He should say, no, young man, I'm a cheater. I will not sign your baseball. That's what you wanted to do? That's right. That's right.

I'm a cheater, and I'm going to teach you how not to be a cheater and how to do things the right way. Who's your favorite baseball team? I'm from Los Angeles, sir. I was born and raised there. So you're a diehard, you're a diehard Angels fan then? Not Angel,

not Angel, you're a diehard Padres fan. I'm a Dodgers fan, sir. Oh, okay. This makes a little bit a lot more sense. But it makes no difference. If the Dodgers done it, the same thing would come up.

I would be very, very upset. To the point, I would probably, yeah, yeah. Please don't speak for me, but these are a bunch of cheaters. It's a cheating team, and I can't wait for the season to start. I can't wait for them to go to different cities, especially. I can't wait for them to get to New York City, and then the N. New York and people are polite, Joe. They're courteous.

Yeah. They will treat the Astros with respect. They will say, let's have a good competitive baseball game, and then there'll be nothing more to it than that. I can't wait to get to New York City where they say bleep you to the pitcher and throw beers at the fans of the. urinals. Oh, wait, they already do that. And the last thing, some of the radio stations in town, I don't know if your stations ever use that word, but they're using the word rat when it comes to some of those players

who actually spoke badly against the Azores. And they did the right thing. I would never call them the word rat. I mean, they spoke the truth. Anyway, here's RuPaul. What's this called? A supermodel. Can you get me, I want to hear the chorus of I Love L.A. Really? Yeah, don't get past. Was Randy Newman?

That first minute's kind of boring. The Supermodel hit number 45 on the chart in 92. I think our last caller wants to get a little more L.A. flavor to the Matt Thomas show. Rupol's got L.A. flavor. Excuse me? Rupal's got L.A. flavor? No, there's no, it's all New York flavor. Oh.

Is Rupal only in New York? Let's just, let's take. What was our last caller's name? I don't remember Joe or something? Yeah, let's go. Joe, you deserve the attention that your team and your city so richly deserves. Because you shouldn't call the players rats. Alex Breggman should not.

That's my favorite part is he doubled down. I was like, so a kid should not sign an autograph, get an autograph signed. The players should say, no, young man, we're. cheaters and that's just not right so I can't sign this baseball in good faith grow up do not go to an autograph show

seeking autographs because they're bad human beings I wanted you get past this part we're going to get to the chorus I skipped a minute and a half into it oh my god this is a long ass song then Randy Newman this song sucks it's not a terrible song it's just gotta get to the chorus short people is much better

yeah I would agree with you here it is I'm like sing it Randy Like another perfect day. We'll do. Thank you. We don't literally love Tom Producci. We appreciate him. And he will join us to start the final hour of the Matt Thomas show right here on Sports Talk 790.

713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Tom Bernucci. MLB Network next. Yeah. I'm in my way I'm making you. This is the Matt Talk. Show.

Here we go to the final hour of the Matt Thomas show. Sports Talk 790 with Pro Nicola, our producer, Ross Villarreal, Man about town, international man of mystery. I'm Matt Thomas. It's nice to have you with us. 713212-5-790. By the way, I had to guess on Rupal. I didn't know if she's L.A. or he or here.

Apparently, he, RuPaul was born in San Diego, but I guess did rise to fame in New York City. I was right. I was totally guessing. also lived in Atlanta. Well, the information you've received on RuPaul, no other sports station town is going to give you except the ones you got right here. That's what people come to us for. That's right.

Thoughts on the Astros, Rockets, Texans, Roughnecks, and RuPaul. Okay. That's how it works. Headlines of the day, Ross. Rockets sucked last night. They didn't suck. They didn't suck. That's right.

Suck you final play. It was a good game. A 12% chance for Boyan Bogdanovich to make a three-point shot, and yet he did it. What a shot. At least that wasn't like a playoff game. That would really stone. That's the second time it's happened so far this year.

Yeah, so we're all, we're done. That's it. We're all out of buzzer-beaters. Two buzzer-beaters. Only the rockets can make buzzer-beaters the rest of the year. All right, as promise, I'll say hi to a gentleman who is very well-respect in the world of baseball. You see him on Fox.

You see him on the MLB Network. And I know 99.9% of you saw the conversation that. that Tom Verduci had with A.J. Hinch, he's with us here on the Matt Thomas show. Tom, it's Matt and Ross. Thank you for spending some time with us today. I think, I said this is just a second ago. I think our audience obviously saw it and is repeated over and over again. Can you give me a little bit of the pregame, if you will, how this was set up as much as you can about, did you reach out to A.J., AJ, you reach out to you. Some of the backstory, if you don't mind on this conversation. Well, he was obviously, he was comfortable with me. I know he wanted to tell his story at some

point. I think the timing of it was really with spring training approaching, knowing the players were coming back onto the field. And, you know, I know they had a few questions at the fan festival, but, you know, the full-on national media questioning was going to happen in spring training. And I think the interesting part for me is that AJ, by his own admission, has failed in terms of a leadership position, not jumping on and stopping the sign-sealing scheme as soon as he knew about it. But now here he is, no longer the manager of the team, taking a real leadership role here, and I think handing the players a roadmap on how to handle this. Now, you know, obviously part of his desire to return to baseball, he needed to do something like this to not just

release a statement, but answer questions, show real authenticity with his contrition. I think he did that. But to me, it's interesting again that I think all the players need to do is look at the job their manager did or former manager did in terms of saying yes this happened we did it it was wrong and now let's do whatever we can to make sure it doesn't happen again my partner and i are going down to spring training next week and it is it's always a great assignment for me because it's so much fun because it's a relaxed atmosphere guys are just getting their swings in there's no games yet it's the kind of calm before the the spring training game storm and i was telling ross here that it might be the most unfriendly, tense mid-February trip that we'll ever make to Florida.

And I've even suggested, I wonder if the Astros will go beyond just talking to their own PR department and going with maybe an outside consulting firm. If you've been around a lot of spring trainings in your life and you know how relaxed it can be, help me with them. What do you think they'll be like? What would you recommend them do when every day for a better part of 30 days and in the regular season, especially in road cities, they're going to be peppered with us. type of conversation.

Yeah, I mean, the only thing I can remotely compare it to because I agree with you, spring training is normally a great time of year, very relaxed and optimistic time of year. The only thing that stands up to me is even remotely similar is what Barry Barnes and the Giants went through, where there was so much tension in the air and people didn't want to address the elephant in the room. And that's why I really believe it's important for the players here to get out in front of this early. Listen, it's not going to get easier once the season.

because, you know, fans will be laying in wait. You'll know on the road, you'll hear lots of trash can't bang me everywhere they go. Questions will still pop up. That's going to come. They need to know that and not fight it. You've signed up for it now. It's coming your way. Understand it and accept it.

But I think really, again, from the beginning of spring training, first day, they really need to answer questions directly about it. We know what happens. You know, it's not a case that there are allegations out there. that nine-page report from the commissioner's office was very transparent. So it's not as if we're still in an era or a time of discovery here. It's not newsbreaking any longer in terms of what happened. What's news is how players now respond to this.

And there's one real easy way to make sure that doesn't linger. And let's get out there first day of spring training. You don't have to answer every question, chapter and verse, and what dates and what pitches and things like that. But taking ownership, absolutely, that needs to. to be done. I always use this analogy. Back in the day when umpires and managers used to argue before replay, if a manager went out there to argue with an umpire, say the close call at a base, and the umpire said, you know what? I missed it. That was the end of the argument. It diffused

everything. The manager went back at the dugout. It's kind of what the players need to do here, just defuse the situation by admitting it. It was wrong, and it's time to move on. And Tom, what do you think is the best way for them to do that? I mean, we were kind of speculating. I mean, do you get 20 guys in front of a panel or a microphone, or do you have somebody else speak or Jim Crane? And then they have to be available for questions, or you do it in a clubhouse setting? I'm just wondering and trying to wrap my head around

because we haven't seen anything like this. How would they go about doing this the best way? Yeah, to me, it has to be as authentic as possible, and that means each player will, you know, do as he sees fits in terms of, you know, whatever phrasing that they use, how much time they give. So I would definitely argue against any kind of a formal setting. The more informal, the better.

I mean, no, we don't want to see guys who are coached up. That's the last thing we need to see. We need guys just handle it on their own on a one-on-one basis. Now, that means guys will handle it in their own way. Some guys just are better or more comfortable talking to the media, and other guys less so. But, you know, I do think sort of, you know, I like what Charlie Morton did, and the answers that he gave about it, you know, he wished he would have stopped it.

I think anybody in that room probably, in retrospect, should be able to say that. But again, less corporate the better right here. You know, this is where you have to be person and not, you know, not marching to a company beat. Tom Perucci from MLB Network with us here on the Matt Thomas show, conducted the interview with A.J. Hinch, as you saw Friday on the MLB Network. So, Tom, you are asking these questions, and I'm like, yeah, good question. he gives a response. Because, you know, AJ and I did a weekly show together. We, good a relationship, really, really good relationship, and very forthcoming, very honest, very thoughtful. And he gave you thoughtful answers in return. The only one that I think to my audience,

to myself, to people that I've talked with in my business, that kind of struck everybody kind of weird, was you asked about the buzzers, and he deferred to the commissioner's statement. Did that throw you off at all, or did you expect him to go to that? Well, I wouldn't throw me off, but I would agree with you that are probably, was maybe, I guess, the way to put it, less thoughtful answer that he gave because he is a thoughtful guy. Now, I think you have to look at this in a couple of different ways. I think there's some sort of scandal fatigue, if you will, with AJ. Let's face it, when the sign stealing scheme began, he didn't know about it, right,

until they were, what, a month, two months into the season. The memo that went out from the commissioner's office, September 15th, 2017, to the front office, in this case, Jeff Muno, he didn't know about it. That was not circulated. He found out that week about this report about the code breaker system that the Astros were using, which, by the way, is completely separate from stealing signs. That's part of it, been scouting that every team does in terms of breaking down videos and trying to pick up signs through technology, not in real time. that's very different from the scheme players had going. But that he knew nothing about and found out

that week. So it's a case where, you know, I think it was just some scandal fatigue on his part that it was difficult for him to just jump out there emphatically and say it never happened when there were a lot of things that happened that he didn't know about. Now, I will tell you this, if you want to be a

conspiracy theorist and believe that buzzers happened, here's what you'd have to believe that he didn't know about it, which is possible, that the commissioner's office, which did investigate this whole idea. In fact, they investigated the whole 2019 season, chose to look the other way, or they didn't find out about it. Now, this is an investigation around for three months. They talked to more than 60 people, including more than 20 players, all of them granted immunity as long as they were truthful. MLB does when they investigate it,

whoever they talk to, they say, listen, you're not in trouble here, but if we find out that you're lying, your place in the game is in jeopardy. And by every occasion, count, these players went in there and were extremely honest about the sign-sealing scheme. So you're telling me that they then decided to lie about the buzzers? I just don't think that, you know, believing in a conspiracy like that, the facts don't show it, especially since the commissioner's office did investigate that. So I understand that we know what happened in 17. A lot of things come into suspicion.

But me, I'd rather be naive than be a conspiracy theorist working off a non-eastern. answer or an answer that I didn't like. What is your take on all of these players, general managers, front office executives, asking for more punishment for the players directly? And my easy answer to people when they call my show is that if they weren't forthcoming, Major League Baseball had to give them a mistake because they wanted the answers. So this is a moot conversation. But we are hearing now player lawsuits.

We are hearing of class action lawsuits. It's kind of growing now with the you didn't go after the players, so now we're coming after you. Yeah, I can't say I'm in love with it, but I understand it. You know, it's very hard to start parceling out who used what for how much, how many pitches. What do you do with players who are on other teams? A lot of players from that 17 team are either retired or elsewhere. You then penalize those other teams or something that happened with the 2017 Astros. And again, did some guy get the pitches all the time?

Did somebody get them once? How in the world do you ever really be? begin to really parse that through. I don't think you can. So I also believe that this all goes back to a challenge-based replay system when Major League Baseball put this technology essentially at field level in real time. They didn't understand the unintended consequences. So the concept of technology, you know, being that close to the field,

came directly from MLB. So the stewards of the game, meaning the manager, the coaches the front office, are the ones in charge with making sure that system is not misused. And the commissioner made that clear in September of 2017. So the rules were spelled out in 17 that general managers especially, but coaches and managers as well, are going to be held accountable and there will be harsh punishment. That memo was not sent to players.

So you can't then change the rules of a system and retroactively now start punishing players. Now, I will agree with a lot of people, and I'm one of them that say the onus now going forward is entirely on that manager down there. I mean, you're running a game now. You're trying to learn, you know, how to set up your pitching, who you're going to use off the bench, what double switches are coming up. At the same time, your responsibility is to know, say, what your analysts are doing in a back room, what the players are doing in the computer room, what the replay monitor guy is doing. Your job now is to understand everything that's going on behind you while you're running a game, while the player can go ahead and steal signs and now knows he has immunity

from being punished in any way. You know, the face of it, yeah, that doesn't strike me as something that's fair, but again, the rules were set two years ago, three years ago. Tom, final question, what was your takeaway from the Jared Diamond report on the Wall Street Journal? Well, I think, again, a lot of things that's happening now are conflating what happened at 17, with some other issues. I mean, you know, I've been writing and wrote years ago about what teams do now as advanced scouting includes more technology.

There are cameras all over the ballpark that can zoom in on pitchers from many different angles to pick up if they're tipping their pitches. There moves to first base. If a base runner is leaning one way when he's stealing bases, all this is being done. So there's literally nothing illegal in the game about that. Now, doing things, using misusing technology during games in real time to steal signs, yes, that's what happens to the Astros and 17. but there's a team out there that hasn't used technology and trying to code break signs to use the phrase as part of their advanced scouting.

So it's a different, I know it's all falls under the umbrella of technology and sign stealing, but it's a very different issue than what the Astros were punished for. Tom, we thank you for the conversation. We really appreciate it, and we look forward to visiting with you a couple times during the course of the season,

and again, great job with the AJ conversation on Friday. You got it. Thank you much. All right. Take care now. Tom Bermucci from MLB Network. Hey, it's Jeff Blum. Blum Fact number 14.

I was on the White Sox in 2005. Yeah, sorry about that sweep, H-Town. But we're all good right now, right? World Series champion. Back to your lunchtime champion, Matt Thomas. I put the jump on ESPN. They're showing the boy on Bogdanovich. Buzzer-beater.

That's great. 220 on the Matt Thomas show. Matt Ross, Nick with you at 713-212-5-790. If you guys have any takeaways from the conversation we have with Tom Verducci, we'll take that. Jared Diamond's conversation with Sean this morning. We played some of that. Good stuff from Tommy Verducci. We're boys, I can call him Tommy.

You really can call him Tommy? We go way back to TV. We go way back to 17 minutes ago. Yeah, I was going to say. It's not a strong. TV. I thought it was interesting his answer about the

2019 buzzer thing. It was good to hear from him. I mean, it just sounds like a conspiracy theory thing. Like, maybe A.J. Hinch could have answered more directly, but there's things that he didn't know about. And you basically have to believe in a conspiracy theory

and not the facts. And that's where Verduci went with that answer. AJ had to have known he was going to be asked about the buzzers. Because the buzzers became a nice after tale once the initial report came out. there was a Twitter Firestorm somebody asked me

do you believe in it my blush I'm sorry first blush this is my second blush what about the third blush yeah I know you hate that Nick you just stop using blush

I will my first thought was I got to think about it that you see I'm saying because when you are convicted of or found guilty of cheating on some things you're going to be cheating

on other things right people just don't cheat on one thing in life They cheat on variety of things. Hmm. Perhaps. Going off of what a definition. I mean, I don't know. I just feel like that they were going to do anything necessary. So why can't I think that they would have used the buzzers?

So now that was my first thought. My second and third thought now that we're talking about three, four weeks after the events, is that that's conspiracy theory. and I'm going to stick with that, I think. Because what if the buzzer would have fallen off of the shirt in the middle of a game? What if it would have been torn off of Altuve's jersey as he's rounding third to score the home run? But all the players would know and they wouldn't rip off his shirt. I agree with you on that, but you also get caught up in the emotions of they just won this big game.

You may even forgot about it. Yeah, but how often does a player's shirt get ripped off? that's like not that often I don't think when they hit a home run would they hit a game winning home run I don't know I don't know their stats to back it up okay I'm just gonna go with it's just about two preposterous I think it's a little far-fetched I also think but I'm 100% sure I cannot come to you not either if you want to be conspiracy theorist though I understand where you could be like well Mike fires out of this Mike fire wasn't here in 19, so we don't have to talk about this.

The players could have gotten together and said, hey, we're not going to talk about what we did in 2019 because Mike Fires doesn't know about it. Nobody knows about it. So we don't have to come clean about that. That's possible. Them cheating once makes everything, quote-unquote, possible. And that's what those players are going to have to live with, even if they're playing for five more years. And you do also have that the people that were at the forefront of it talking about Beltron

and Alex Corr were both gone by then. That would be a different layer. But who would have thunk of that? I mean, that's what I'm saying. So maybe that's one of the reasons it kind of went away in 18 and they didn't use it that much. Yeah, yeah. 713-212-5-790.

7-1-3-212-5-790. I'm going to try to get Mike Dan Tony set up for tomorrow at 2 o'clock before the All-Star break to get ready for the game against the Celtics. they're now a game and a half behind Utah for the fourth spot in the West. They could have been a half a game ahead. And they would have had the tiebreaker because the Jazz and Rockets are only going to play, I think, three times this year. That's correct. The last one is on the 22nd Saturday.

It will be in Salt Lake City. In SLC, as they call it. So you know what? If you are really going to try to have home court in the first round, you're going to have to get that game back. Yes, you are. Because unfortunately, Ross, with the way the Rockets have played so far this year, there are no more gimmies on the schedule. Phoenix was supposed to be a gimmie,

relatively speaking, because the Rockets had lost, won 13 straight games there. It had been seven years since the Sons have won a game. The Phoenix's sons had lost seven of nine and four straight. Yeah.

Yeah, there was no Russell Westbrook, but it was still this lineup of, that was athletic, it was Covington's first game as a starter. I mean, there was everything pushed towards, they'll grind it out, but Phoenix is so bad they'll win. Rossi, I had not seen a coach wave the white flag so early like they did.

There was like three and a half minutes left to go in the third. In the third. And they're bringing out Howard and Frazier. I'm like, I don't even have these guys written on my score sheet. It's like, oh, Isaiah Hardinstein's in. Is he kind of mix it up or is he waving the white flag? Turn out it was a white flag. So Isaiah Hartnstein plays these minutes.

Doesn't do anything. Chris Clemens doesn't play. Do you blame that as to, well, if these guys had time to practice, they would be able to get in the rotation and play, or do you think that Rocket's sweater for the first time is going to realize there's a reason why these guys are the final three guys on the bench? Yeah, I think more to the latter. I just don't know.

I mean, Isaiah Hardinstein isn't just some, isn't some all-star player waiting to happen. Same thing for Chris Clemens. I think these are just into the bench guys. And when everybody's healthy, I think he only played eight players, Yesterday? I'd have to double check on that. Except for Chandler made 9 when he came in the last second. Okay. Then he played basically nine in the Lakers game.

So I think he want, there are, and Darryl Moore talked about this on the morning show with Sean Salisbury. There are like 10 viable players apparently according to Mike Dan Tony. So the rotation will be deeper as long as everybody's healthier. But I will say this. Other teams, when somebody goes down, they say, okay, well, we're going to play more minutes to this guy and bring somebody else in. Mike Dantonie's philosophy is somebody goes down. He's like, well, I'm not going to play him and everybody else's. PJ goes from 32 minutes to 37 minutes.

Right, exactly, exactly. Rather than that, I would like to see somebody else get some more opportunities. I get that they're making mistakes. I get that they're not perfect. But the one way you get better is to be on the floor. I just want to tell you from the bottom of my heart on this one, if the Rockets really thought Isaiah Hartenstein could make a difference, they would have given him a much,

more of a steadier diet. This is not Mike Dan Tony going, I don't like the way you smell. Right. I think your personality is lousy. There are basketball reasons for Mike Dan Tony making the decisions he does. If he doesn't trust you,

certainly if you're young and he doesn't trust you, you're not going to play. And that's just, for better or worse, the way it goes. Yeah. And we can, and people on Rocket's Twitter, or we can all get upset

and act like, you know, Gary Clark is some superstar waiting to happen and get upset. After his first game with the magic, Gary Clark, when he scored 10 points, I don't think he's done much of anything since. No. And Gary, you know, Gary is like the back of the Rockets roster. It's like the back of every roster.

One night he's going to come out and shine. You give him those major minutes. You give him a high pressure situation. And either you make the most of it or you resume your normal spot. And that's unfortunately. I think the Rockets want to give Gary Clark the chance. Because Gary could do some things defensively that would impress you. The jump shot would be there occasionally.

But he was Yiddish. He was skittish. And you cannot be skittish in a team that, wants you to shoot the ball a lot. No fear. No worries. And no hair. It's the Matt Thomas Way.

Houston Sports Talk continues with the Matt Thomas show. 234 Sports Talk 790. It is the Matt Thomas show. A reminder for Astro Spring Training coverage. We'll be down in Florida starting next Tuesday, four days a show. Ross is going with me for the very first time ever. he's nervous like a school girl not an alley cat

I'll be fine and we'll be down there thanks to our friends at the Palm Beach so looking forward to being down there to check out the Astros and how forthcoming they will be because you guys have heard the shows over the years it's they're joking they're comical they're funny they're relaxed they're excited optimism is high

I hope we haven't lost Ross in all serious is I hope we haven't lost the Alex Bregman that does the funny stuff in the dugout that says the crazy things. It's not afraid to have an opinion or two about things that gets in fights with Trevor. Don't call me Tyler Bauer.

We may have lost him. I'm not talking about him per se, but players of his ilk. I think he'll continue to be himself. And maybe he'll be a little bit more muted, but I don't think he's just going to all of a sudden stop having his same personality.

I hope you're right. I really hope you're right. I'm not, you know, like Verlander hadn't changed. Verlander ain't going to change. He is the diva, and he's great, but he's a diva, and he's going to stay comfortable being in his diva shoes. Altuve has been very forthcoming. Michael Brantley, again, Michael hasn't really been talked much about

because he wasn't with the team of 17, so he's kind of... Be easier for him. Yeah, Reddick, very funny, talking rasseling, doing those types of things. Yeah, you guys are you guys going to, You're going to get him on to just talk rasseling the whole time? I mean, it probably wouldn't be a bad way to break the bread. You know what I'm saying? I just, we will get to real-life baseball.

I just don't know what's going to be as fast as the Astros want it to be. It won't be. It'll be a process. And especially because you have these things continue to come up. I mean, just in the last week, you have multiple lawsuits in this Wall Street Journal report. Most of lawsuits are... Eventually, everything, all the, it will turn into a trip. The flood will turn into a trickle eventually.

name the stadium that will have the chant of cheaters first. Do you go right to Anaheim? Will those 5,000 Dodger fans be screaming that? Is that their first road trip? First road trip. Yeah. That one. And how many times is that going to be seen on ESPN?

A bunch. Of course. The chance. Oh, Astros in L.A. It's going to be all over TV. It's win the games. Win the games. Keep your head down.

When the game. Score 10 runs. How about this? Will we see a player or players being thrown out? in the first month of the year? And will the aster's have a quick trigger on retaliation on such a thing? I think that's been overblown. I don't think that's going to...

Maybe it'll happen straight here or that. I really don't know that it's going to happen at all. That to me is harder to predict. Because most guys are just made to say, you know what, we're in the lines, we're on the diamond, let's just play. Where fans can do anything they want before the games. They can chant when guys are being introduced,

when they're at the plate. Fans that are going to have a lot more freedom than, frankly, the players will. Because if you start throwing at them, that's going to cause suspensions. Umpires are going to have a very quick trigger on tossing guys. You might ultimately affect your team's result if you're not in the game to help out. So, yeah, this is going to be the strangest from spring training coverage to the team itself in the first month of the year that we've ever had in the history of Houston baseball. Because you get new managers, you get through that, you get through new team, you get super stars to join the team. There's a

excitement level to this. There's just the, I hope everything is chill. I just don't think it's going to be that way for a while. Let's say hi to Pat and Conroll at 237 on 790. Hi, Pat. Hey, guys. How y'all doing? Good. Good afternoon. I wanted to talk a little bit about this baseball scandal and the sign stealing. I think there's a lot more complexity to it than the average day, everyday fan realizes. So if you give me a minute, I'll give you my perspective on it. For one thing, I don't think a lot of folks realize that the pitcher and the catcher have indicators and they mix up the signs continuously, and unless you know those indicators, you don't know

what's being thrown. And a lot of batters don't want to know if you're trying to steal the sound. what's coming. They'd rather react to it. So a lot of these players are getting hung up, guilt by association. I don't think that's fair. That's just one of my comments. Okay. Yeah. There's no doubt, Ross, that 25 guys in the dugout, and the dugout slash clubhouse knew it was going on. How many of them took advantage of that? That we don't know. I mean, you look at that specific study where it has, I mean, the frequency of hearing the bangs and during the 2017 season.

Apparently Jose Altuve, Josh Redick, were a couple of guys who didn't use it that much. Some other guys used a lot. I think George Springer and maybe Marwin Gonzalez were some players that used it a ton. So not necessarily maybe every player was involved. And it's also a question of how much it helped for sure. What do you make of Verducci's question about, hey, AJ, and I forgot to ask this to Tom, players have said that if you would have asked them to stop, they would have. Do you believe it to be completely 100% accurate?

Or is that plaguing to it, the manager, because he's a nice guy? I think if they would have stopped, if he would have stepped in and said, hey, you can't do this anymore. But I don't know, because he destroyed the monitor twice. Correct. A very indirect way of saying, what this is sucks. Don't you think he said he didn't just walk in there silently, destroy it, and then walk out? No, they knew what the monitor was for. There's no doubt in my mind.

That's what I'm saying. He had to say something. He had to say, hey, cut this out. Okay. So I'm going to ask you a question again. Based on what that is, Tom Verduci goes to AJ Hinch and says, players have said, well, not said specifically, but in the Manford report it says. In the Manfred report that if AJ would have gone and said, we're ending this right now,

they would have. Do you 100% believe the players would adhere to a manager verbally saying that? I don't think so. Because, I mean, I think he did. voice his displeasure by destroying the monitor twice. That keeps sticking in my mind. And they knew what the monitor was for it. It wasn't just a...

They didn't go to AT&T and say, hey, bring a camera in here. I want to monitor. I want you to destroy it. I want to show off how strong I am. They knew what it was for. Brian and Sugarland at 240 in the Matt Thomas show. Brian, what do you have today?

Howdy? How are you doing? We're great. Thank you. I was wondering about maybe a new dugout celebration where every time pregnant or someone it's a home run. Maybe they busts up in their jersey, pull off their shirt or to the side

or push it down and be like, whoa, do you see any buzzers, beaters, or anything on me, kind of rubbing it in their face? And also, maybe they might consider having like a trash can and bat giveaway day. Yeah, they're not chuckling in the Astros about that. Thank you, Brian. Other teams are doing

it. Yes. There's already minor league teams doing stuff like that. Right. Staten Island Yankees, you always do those kind of promotions. I know the St. Paul Saints will do the same sort of thing. there will be plenty of nights. Trust me when I tell you, mentioning bats hitting trash can will never be funny in Astroville.

It's just not. Or any banging jokes. Or TV monitors or buzzers or any, nothing will ever be funny. It may be funny with other baseball teams. It may be funny in the minor leagues to sell. It will never be funny in Astroville. Agree.

Good morning, strippers. Shower with the Matt Thomas show. Wash off the glitter and daddy issues. All right, I'm going to give you the thrill of victory and agony to feed in the same call. This is Jazz Radio Network on the Bogdanovich make. Ingalls will inbound. 1.6 seconds left, down by 2. Ingalls hold it, fakes a pass, finds Bogdanovich, contested three.

God! Boddanovich, Boyan Bogdanovich! Say it again. Boyon, Bogdanovich! Holy cow! I'm glad he said cow. He wanted to say, holy blank. You know he did.

We got to do this to us, Matt. Here's how Craig called it. Ingalls are doing the honors inbounding. It'll be Tyson Chandler to defend the inbounder. Here we go. Ingalls looking to get it in. Looking to get it in. Comes to Bogdanovich.

Tough three. It's in. Air. Oh, he hit it. Boyan Bogdanovich just hit the three at the buzzer to win the game for Utah. Boyan Bogdanovich, Nemanya Bielitsa, both with game winners against the Rockets this year. Ross, got to get them back. You got to go win two games you weren't supposed to win. The Lakers are one of those. You weren't supposed to win that Thursday night game against the Lakers on their home floor. But then you gave it back the next night against 50. Phoenix.

Not only, look, not only did you lose to Phoenix, it was disastrous. You got down 20 in that first quarter. They got down as much as 22 in the first half. You fought back to get within five. James Hardin was brilliant in that second quarter. 22 to 5, and that was all James. Yeah, he was four, four from three in that second quarter. And then you proceeded to get blown, like they got blown out twice in that game.

That was the crazy thing to me. And I had to go deep to my death chart to figure out how do you play. were on the floor. Yes. Michael Frazier. At least it made it a very, as somebody who was working the postgame Friday night, it was a very quick fourth quarter. It's like a rolling clock.

Yeah, the calls were not flowing in easily. Yeah. All right. So we'll get more on the Rockets against the Celtics tomorrow. Would you say in Eastern NBA Finals preview? Probably not. Glass half full says, sure. I don't think the Celtics are making it out.

That's right. The Celtics are going to have a tough time out of that east. I'm not sure. rockets are making it out of the last. Shut your mouth. Five minutes let the go on the show. What should we do? We should play America's fastest growing sports game show.

We simply call it Believe it or not. And here's how it works. You'll call 713212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. Today's edition of Believe it or not is brought to you by our friends at Woodhouse day, Spas. Print at your gift card for the gift of relaxation. Houston Woodhouse spas.com.

Houston, Woodhouse Spaws.com. Category today, very Googlable. I'll give you a position and a player's name. If that player plays for the roughnecks, you'll say this. Believe it. If this player is a fictitional player, you'll say this. Fictional.

I like my turn better. You two in a row, you win a prize. Ross, what's the prize? Matt, I've got a four pack of tickets to see the U of H. Cougars take on the Tulsa Golden Hurricanes Wednesday, February 19th, with an 8 p.m. tip at the Furtita Center. That's a good ticket.

That's a great ticket. You're going to go? Top two teams. You and I are not out of town, so no, we're not going. But we'll be there in spirit. We'll watch it on TV together in the hotel room. Yeah, I'll be making, I'll be trolling. You think Kelvin likes Austin? Who's Texas got tonight? Number one, Baylor.

Well, they cover, 713, 2-1-2. Six and a half, only the spread. 730 coverage starts. At Earth, that's the Orwin Center. So it'll be 8,500 people there. They'd probably be like 15-point dogs in the road. Gotcha. Todd on 790. Todd, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Wide receiver, Blake Jackson. Believe it or not. He's a roughneck.

Not. Believe it. Believe it. Road day, Rudy, Rudy. You ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Wide receiver, Sam Mobley is a roughneck. Believe it or not. Believe it. Believe it. Believe it. Statement number two for the win, running back Julian Washington is a roughneck. Believe it. Or Not. Not.

Yeah, he was in any given Sunday. Hi, Joe or Bill? This is Joe. Brian Murphy, a roughneck. Believe it or not? Believe it. No, he was in the replacements. Thanks for playing, Joe.

On 790. Bill, you ready to play Believe it or not? Yes, sir. Let's do it. Ty Schwab is a roughneck. Believe it or not. He plays linebacker, by the way. Bank on the trash can.

Believe it. Believe it. Defensive end, Julius Campbell, is a roughneck. Believe it or not. No, remember the Titans. We take extra pleasure when you don't win. Hi, John on 790. Who was your favorite part of the radio show today?

You guess. I forget his name, but... Okay. Wide receiver, Philip Elliott, part of the roughnecks. Believe it, or not? Not. Yeah, he was in North Dallas. 40. Running back, Andre Williams, a roughneck. Believe it or not?

Believe it. You're correct? Belief. Congratulations. One more. Kyle on 790. Call, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Let's do it, man. How you doing? Good, buddy. Thank you. Defensive end, Johnny Maxie is a roughneck. Believe it or not?

Not. Oh, he is. Oh, I know. Sorry, friend. Line four, who is this? Rob. Rob, your favorite part of the radio show today. Any discussion of Cougar sports is all the way. Good.

Get them up. All right. We did it for like a minute and a half. I wanted to do it more, but nobody else called in, so it was just me talking to myself. It was always next time. There is next time. Ray Bolden, a member of the Roughnecks. He is a wide receiver.

Believe it or not. I'll say not. Believe it. Ah. It's a Cougar education coming through. they play at the right stadium home of champions what championships have been won there

American Southwest good spirits nice and friendly that's true really cool hottest girls all the championships hey a reminder here

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To find a location near you, you go to big citywings.com. Big citywings.com. We'll look forward to finding out a bunch of former has-been major league players who's going to be suing the Astros. We had one today. We might have like one every other day.

We'll talk some Rockets versus Celtics, and we will visit with you for a full three-hour get-together, known as the Matt Thomas show tomorrow at 12 noon. Have a great rest of your day. A team is up next. This is Sports Talk 790.