The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - The Matt Thomas Show: Baseballs Return, Ken Rosenthal, Paying College Athletes

Episode Date: April 29, 2020

So much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas Show. 1202 and H-Town. What's happening in luncht timers? Good afternoon to you. And welcome to a Wednesday edition of the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790,

alongside our producer Joe George. my co-host, my colleague, my irritant. Friend? Okay, yeah, that too. Sports Harvey, it's Rossville, and I'm Matt Thomas. Gentlemen, how are y'all today? How are you, ladies and gentlemen in Houston, Texas? Doing well?

I've been coughing the last couple of days, like very, very slightly, and it's just worried me very much. Can I tell you something? I'm not, as I sit less than six feet from you, I'm not worried about it. Okay, good. because I cough a little bit, but I'm not sick. I don't have, it's not a, you know, when you have a call, when you have a real cough, you know that you have a cough. Like you need to take medicine. It wakes you up in the middle of the night.

The reason why we generally speak in cough at all during this time is because we speak 47 minutes an hour. That's true. The average person does not speak for 47 minutes in an hour. Some of us are three straight hours. Some of us are four hours a day. Yeah. I mean, although you're playing a lot of the. replay interviews on the nightcap. That's not true.

Which you'll be doing today because we've got... It was all original content in the last night. We've got Ken Rosenthal coming up at 1230 today. Compelling and rich. Him or your show? Me. Okay. I didn't realize you were that financially successful.

You know, when you get the hard-hitting guest, man, it's a different audience at 6 p.m. We've got to bring him all of your thoughtful, great questions. Which you'll be asking some as well. Ken Rosenthal from The Athletic and Fox Sports. Can we call him Kenny? No. Kenneth? One thing you have to get.

you have to get used to is he is a he's really good and i want to ask him a couple things about the red socks thing just i'm going to slide oh yeah i want to definitely we definitely have to get into that he is a pregnant pause person where he will take your question process it process it digest not that much but he will it will be a there will be a slight delay between question and answer that's okay i've i've interviewed a couple times i that just comes with the territory because he doesn't come on come off with a half-cocked answer. He wants say, all right, here's the question. Here's how I'm going to formulate it.

See, that's what, yeah, that's like me, Matt. You think I'm just not paying attention to you. I'm just being measured. I would generally believe that if I had just met you. But since I've worked with you for 10 years, I'm not buying that. Now, Joe George did that. Okay. Then I would be a lot easier to go, okay. No, George is just busting in like the Kool-Aid man.

Is that what he is? Joe George, the Kool-Aid man? No, no, no. that's Andy Reid that's true all right Super Bowl champion Andy Reid so we've got him coming up at 12th

reason why and I he was supposed to be with us yesterday at 2 o'clock but he said look some things are going down which clearly are there was stuff going down I don't know how you would describe it is it optimism

is it just throwing stuff against the wind is it real things in motion but Major League Baseball has been very active instead of the last 36 hours can Jeff Hasson Bob Nightingale and Rosenthal

they're all writing stories and they kind of have to and you know that's what their job is to justify the salary but the one that's getting the most run

the last 24 hours is the Bob Nightingale story the 10 team three pods of 10 team or Nightingales was not pods or are they playing home games at nightingales I can't remember

No this is home games in those stadiums okay which I don't know if they'll start start out that way. They're going to, it feels like to me, and if, and if Joe, if you're reading this wrong, let's jump in and say that's wrong.

It feels like to me they're going to send everybody to Arizona and send everybody to Florida back to their spring trainings. And they may start the seasons in those places, except for the teams that, well, the Astros couldn't start in Cal at Florida because all their teams are on the left hand of the side of the country. My point is this. I don't know if California is going to be ready to go in late June with being able to have these games in these stadiums with or without fans, most likely without.

But, I mean, I don't even though they're going to open up these stadiums to let these games be played in the first place. Actually, I think that is part of this that we have to consider is, you know, when the Astros go to Arizona, they could play the Dodgers, the Diamondbacks, the Angels, the Padres, and the Giants. They could all, those teams could be isolated in Arizona. Oh, that's what I thought. That's right, good point. Because California won't let them play. But like the Rangers and the Astros would play at their homes.

And that can happen to the teams. That's right. That can happen to the teams in New York. They might have to play in Florida. So they're going to jump on a plane, play their home games at Minutemade, and then if California's not ready, they'll go to where the Arizona, where the West Division teams are in their spring trainings in Arizona

and play their games there until they allow the other stadiums in baseball to be opened up. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. you start with the three city and state bubble like we had heard before. And then as, you know, places open, you allow those teams to return home. So if they say the Astros can play at home, let them play at home. Okay. So the plan is three-10 team, are we calling them pods?

Divisions. Just say divisions. They're not conferences. They've not discussed number of games. I don't think I've seen anything, but we were thinking just. They want at least 100. Yeah. So you play everybody 12 times.

That's 108. Okay. There is no All-Star game. My guess there'll be fewer days off. My guess there would be double headers. And you get your 108 games in it. Now, if you want to play everybody 14 times, you could do that too. It all depends.

It's going to be multiple over it. But you're going to play everybody. There'll be a lot more playoff spots. It feels like to me the DH is going to be gonzo, at least for this year, maybe for the foreseeable future. You mean universal? Yeah. Yeah.

Yep. Yep. And they're doing it largely because of geography. which if you're a Midwest city, you love this, if you're an East Coast city, you love this, if you're the Astros, or for that matter, anybody in this West, kind of getting screwed in the deal. Because even when Seattle has to play somebody, going to L.A. is a thousand mile trip. From Seattle, Los Angeles, I think it's a thousand miles. So there's no easy traveling at any point.

That's why I do think the Arizona component makes a lot of sense, especially if the state of Washington, if state of California. If they're not ready to have these stadiums open up, then you can, in theory, just be flying to Phoenix a bunch. Play your home games at MinuteMade and your road games in Arizona until, say, July, August, September, when those other cities can say, yeah, we'll have your games in our stadiums. So maybe, even though the Astros are going to play the Mariners, say, 12 times,

well, it'll be six there and six in Houston. Maybe of those six, maybe only three of them are in Seattle. I mean, there's only one trip there. Who's to say? but this to me, of all the things we've heard of, probably makes the most sense, especially because you are then allowing the guys that live and play with teams in cities where they have been cleared

to start having a regular life again to have a regular life. It feels like to me, Ross, the whole, let's go to Arizona and put every team there, just it clanked. You know what I mean? It just, there were so many questions about it. Yes. And so many players are upset about it.

once you go inside the bubble can you come back out how long do you do that this eliminates i think much of that well i mean if you're an l-a team and you're having to live in arizona isn't as far as from from the player standpoint of my wife is pregnant or my family and what am i going to do with all those types of things you still kind of have those questions but some kind of compromise is going to have to be made well their compromises this they feel like that okay look it's going to suck for the months of may and june and july but if we get to august of first and we feel like California's in a better spot, then we can send you guys to Los Angeles and play. So it would be basically no guarantee of any games in Los Angeles, but at least this

gives you the option of there's no pressure on the state of California. There's no pressure in the state of Washington to open up these facilities when they're not ready to do so. There's just the, it's basically players versus owners in the sense of the owners need to be making money. They need to make something work and something is going to have to be sacrificed. And it's going to be really the owners that are making the big sacrifices. It's going to be the players. So that's where there's going to have to be a compromise in the coming together and the collective bargaining. Anything that happens, they're going to have to agree on both sides. But the players want to get paid. Yes. And if there's no season, they can collectively

bargain zero because it's like, hey, do you want to see your baby or do you want to miss all your money all this year? Like it's basically going to come down to that. And my guess is that if Clayton Kurt, it's not Kurtzaw, it's, my trout's going to have a baby, right? Yeah. That you would hope by the, when does the baby do? Who knows? Let's just say it's do in September. We Google Mike Trout Baby. Yeah, why not? I'm sure.

And get flagged by the FBI. Everything's going to be Google. Well, Ross, we can find this out. And may want to know what Ross is social security number is? Look it up on the Google. You'll find it. 368. That's kidding.

So, hopefully he'll be at a point where he can go, see his baby being born, and go back without having to be a long-term departure, right? August 2020, Mike Trout, baby Trout. It's a boy, by the way. Name yet? Mike Trout Jr. By way, don't ever do that. If you have any kids, don't do a junior.

Matt Trout? It just confuse everybody. Don't do a junior and don't change the mental initial of your child's name. It's probably going to be something like Brecklin or Tanner or something like that. With a weird, with a weird ass spelling too. Don't get me started on that. I won't. All right.

So, yeah, there's going to be some inconvenience. It's going to be the weirdest. ever. It's going to be weird that the Astros are going to play the Dodgers in theory at least 12 times in a season. Hasn't happened since the two teams were part of the National League West growing up in the 1980s. But it feels like to me, gang, this is the most encouraging news we have had about baseball since this whole thing has started. Because again, I don't know if the California, Florida, Texas thing was going to make a whole lot of sense. Again, for having guys gone the entire season, but at least this gives you hope that you can play in your home facilities,

as long as your state feels us okay to do so. And more importantly, it gets us back to playing baseball, and it gets us closer to playing maybe not 162, but I don't think anybody's going to have any problems with the season's 108 games. 12-12 is a time. Ken Rosenthal, the athletic and Fox Sports with us at the bottom of the hour here on the Matt Thomas show. 713-212-5-790. You as baseball fans bumping around today. Do you feel more encouraged today than you did say 24, 48, 72 hours ago, or for that matter two weeks ago with news that maybe there's a spot to play baseball in those cities? And will the NBA try to do something very similar? 1213. It's a Matt Thomas show, 713-213-212-5-790, with a message coming up shortly from Shell, right after this on 790. Good news. It's the Matt Thomas show for lunch.

Let that boring brown bag lunch rot in the employee refrigerator. Oh, what's that smell? The Matt Thomas Show on Sports Talk 790. It is 1218 on the Matt Thomas show. Good afternoon, everybody. Hope you're staying safe. Hope you're social distancing. By the way, if you're going to a grocery store today, namely H.E.B.

If you do not take a mask with you, they will not let you in. So not that it happens. to me, but I know this happened to somebody, a friend of mine. So good on them. Yeah, I just, there's a lot of people that are upset about it. It's an inconvenience. It makes my glasses fog up. But I can do this for 30 days.

It's for the greater good. Everything I can do for 30 days. Yeah. Like, I'll be honest with you. With my, I have three children and my wife at home. We thought we'd kill each other. Yeah. We've done okay.

Are you coming together even stronger than before? Are the family ties growing that much stronger? No. Oh. It just hasn't been that bad. I mean, I wouldn't endorse it. She even said to me, and this is why I love her, because she said to me yesterday, when you, as soon as like Charles opens up, you need to go.

Get out of my face. And I was like, was that because she knows I enjoy to throw the dice or she just needs me out of the house for a while? She needs a break from M.T. I don't have. She's used to you being gone half the year. That's right. She only married me for 26 weeks a year, not 52. So what you're saying is you guys are not like Jake.

Cutler and Kristen Cavalieri. That has gotten a lot of action. What are the details on that? Well, I'm glad you asked because yesterday at Channel 2 had entertainment tonight on it for the first time in forever 630. They were stranded, right? For like 20 days? Uh-huh.

In the Bahamas or somewhere and then they got back and got divorced. They're getting divorced and it was supposed to be one of those applicable. We're doing this for the family. We get along great. Entertainment tonight last night. Rossi said that there is some inappropriate conduct involving Mr. Cutler, in which he flatly denies. As in a marital affair.

Okay. Okay. I believe that. Okay. Isn't that how every celebrity marriage ends? Pretty much without fail? She wants to leave Nashville. Okay.

I move to California and take the three kids. You can't do that under Tennessee law unless you prove there is something that he's done that would. So she would have to prove an affair. Prove it. She had to prove the affair. That's interesting. Okay.

I want to watch this on court TV. So yeah, entertainment tonight yesterday was so good. It had that. Then it had. Get the entertainment tonight. You know, Joe. Yeah, might as well put it on. Not the old one, like the fresher one.

Because there's been a few themes over the years. Yeah, it's been the classic melody, but it's been revamped a couple of times. Okay. So you had that. And you know who Kevin Frazier is? You used to be on Sports Center. Yeah. Not at SportsCenter. He was on Fox.

Kevin Frazier, no. Yeah. He's the host of that show now. I have no idea who Kevin Frazier is. If you saw me like, oh, I know who that is. Maybe he was SportsCenter. Oh, I do know who that is. Yeah. He used to be on SportsCenter.

He was decent. So ready for this? And ESP? He was more of like got relegated ESPN News a lot. Right, right. He was on the 1 to 4 a.m. SportsC. Exactly. Yeah. And ESPN News. So he's going through the Calvin. How do you pronounce her last name?

Cavaleri? Cavalry, Coutler, Future Divorce. Then, there are these two dudes that are hooking up old TV show characters and doing Zoom meetings with them. Okay. Yesterday, there was a Zoom meeting of the old cast of Melrose Place. And you were just jazzed about that. Please understand what I tell you. Watching Melrose Place as a young 20s person, incredible movement.

excuse me I don't even say much more I don't want to know much more that's why I'm not going to tell you anything else Josie Bissette Laura Layton Heather Lockley before she became a druggie okay there's one I know

yeah she's been Courtney Thorne Smith was oh my God that show had Courtney Thorne Smith nothing but eights and nines oh a Alyssa Milano before she became a political whack job Okay So they're doing a Zoom meeting of that show last night, apparently.

And I would go finally. How many were on it? It looked like seven or eight. How are they looking? Great. Daphnees Seneca was on there, too. Who? Yeah, she was one of the, she was the Brennan on the show.

Anybody that knows Melrose Place knows exactly what I'm talking about. One potty after the other. All the 45-year-old women are agreeing with you right now. Oh, come on. There's got to be a 40-year-old dude that loved Melrose Place. Yeah, I probably got roped in by his girlfriend or something. Who was making you watch it? Nobody. I was single at the time going, I'm into this.

The Melrose Place is my jam. It was my jam. Spinoff of what TV show, by the way? That would be the Andy Griffith show. No, Beverly Hills, I don't know that. I didn't know that. Yeah. Did I?

Yeah, Jake wind up going out with Kelly for a short time, and that's how they bridged them over. Okay. Okay. So if it only gets better, there's two more spinoff. There's two more reboots. This was an a Zoom. Reboot? No, there's no Melrose Price reboot. Okay.

There were two reboots coming off of that story. This is why you've got to watch entertainment tonight. They're rebooting Melrose Place? No, they already did it once. It didn't work. Oh. They're rebooting saved by the bell. I saw it with Zach, right? With Zach, with Kelly, with Elizabeth Berkeley, who was...

I mean... They're not up to a whole lot right now. They're not overly busy. I think the only main person that's like... is Mario, though. Screech is in prison. Screech is not part of it. Well, he's a twop of it.

She's a whack job. Yeah, Mario's, I saw the trailer for it. He's going to be like the gym teacher for Zach and their kids. Yeah, so there was all a bunch of Zach's kids and everybody's kids, and they're all like supposed to be spitting images of their bomb and dad back in the day. Is Dustin Diamond out of the joint? He's, uh, he may be, but he's not a part of the show. Is Belding a part of it too? Uh, miss he died.

No, he did not. Didn't Mr. Belding just die? No. No, he's not dead. He just died. We'd have had a memorial for him if he would have passed. Uh, and then the other reboot, which is going to be a little more of a chart. Is punky?

Okay, Dennis Haskins is a lot. Punky Brewster. Every week you killed someone that's not dead. Didn't something happen with it? You got sick or something recently, right? We all get sick. It's going to happen. I mean, you die.

I would have bet you $20 he was dead. And you'd say that every week too. You would have at least $150. I would rather bet on Ross on a dead or live contest. than the Texas one in the Super Bowl. It would be pretty bad. You're like a two-to-one odds. Didn't a TV principal die recently?

Was it Mr. Feeney? Oh, he wasn't a principal. He was a coach. I think he's still... He's not a coach. You know what I mean. I mean, a teacher. And then Punky Brewster's coming back as a reboot.

I thought they already rebooted that. No. They're re-rebooting it? No, it's just one, a single reboot. Punky Brewster, played by Salee Moon Fry. Yes. Mr. Feeney is alive as well. Yeah. So there basically no principles from any high school TV show.

I don't know. Somebody's dead. Uncle Phil's dead. How about that? That's true. He is dead. You got that one right. I'm one for 18. That's my life as I gave you the entertainment tonight review last night. Beautiful. Wonderful. But the Cutler thing situation does not look good at all. That's a shame.

How's this going to affect him in his Fox? Should make it easier. Broadcasting job. Well, you know, he was supposed to have the job, but he went to the dolphins instead. Well, I think who he's, I thought he's coming back. Isn't, or is it C.S? He hasn't been offered anything yet. No, Charles Davis is leaving Fox. That's who took the spot. And he's going to CBS with work with Ian Eagle, who I will be on our show tomorrow. I thought Jay Keller was supposed to be back in the fold somewhere for broadcasting.

He's been, like, rumored, but there hasn't been a hired. Just rumored, okay. There's a number two spot at Fox opening up now. Yeah, but originally they said that they were going to put him in a booth with Charles and someone else because they didn't think he was ready to be in two-man-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-ball. Yeah, so I don't think, I don't think they'll put him. in a two-man booth right away. No, I wouldn't either. I wouldn't either. Okay, so we just gave you baseball realignment

and what happened on entertainment tonight yesterday. Is there another radio show in the marketplace? Joe could do that than us? No, and I've worked at everywhere else, so I would say no. Okay, thank you very much. He's hit the carousel. I know, I probably hit the carousel faster than anyone else in Houston's sports radio history. We don't have to do a podcast about you and all your Houston radio experiences.

I've worked at five radio stations in Houston. Two of them don't exist anymore. In like five years? How dysfunction are we in that group of five? Are we the most dysfunctional or the least dysfunctional? It's right in the middle. Oh, okay. Okay.

So there is some dysfunction with us. Nice. It's okay. Not much, but more than the bottom of the barrel here in the market. We'll let you all figure out who that is. Let's talk to Ken Rosenthal. You'll want to? He's going to give us an update on this.

I mean, it feels like every day, guys, or every hour, there's a new report coming out. And that's why Ken is so cool because he's like, hey, I may be working on a story here, but I promise I'd give you 10 minutes, so he's going to give us 10 minutes. And he'll join us next. From The Athletic and Fox. It is the Matt Thomas show at 1227. And this, we appreciate you listening to Sports Talk, Middle of the Road dysfunction 790. He's 790. E.G. Left corner for the career. Hi! And he got it! Eric Gordon here. Listen to Rock his radio on your smart speaker. Just as. Alexa, play Sports Talk 790 on IHeart Radio. He is the senior writer for the athletic. He is on MLB on Fox. You've seen him obviously the last few years with the Houston Astros. One of the most respected voices in baseball today.

And we are honored to have him for a few minutes on a very busy time of year. And thankfully, it seems like it's going to be busier for one Ken Rosenthal here on the Matt Thomas show. Ken, thanks for spending some time with me. There are so many stories going out about the scheduling, the pods, the divisions. Is this in your mind a hopeful optimist? or is this just people just throwing more things against the wall hoping something sticks? It's not throwing things against the wall in the sense that it's a pipe dream. It is something that can happen.

Now, you ask me, what is it again? What are we talking about here? And I don't know the answer to that. They are looking at a number of ideas. And the way it's been explained to me, Matt, is that they have to model everything and all kinds of scenarios so that when the time comes, if the time comes, where they have the opportunity to start the season, they will be ready with either plan A, B, C, D, whatever the case might be. So I know fans are reading about a lot of different ideas, and I know some sound kind of cool,

some sound kind of weird, but I would caution against getting overly excited or attached to any one idea just yet. They don't know. And everything depends, of course, on the virus and how it progresses, where it goes, the impact on different states. And until they have a grasp on that, and until, frankly, there is enough testing in this country to have a sports league come back to action, I don't know that the conversation is all that relevant. That said, all that said, I still believe they will play this year. I just don't know how, when, just how we'll all transpire. Have you been given any indication about a drop-dead date? Like, you know what, we've got to have a decision made by a certain period of time,

because obviously you're not fighting per se stadiums because most of the facilities are on their own. But you may be fighting weather. You might be fighting television networks. There's a variety of things. So any idea when at some point, Commissioner Manfred says either we're going to have a season or we're not? No, they don't have that kind of date in mind just yet. Keep in mind, we're still in April. Now, granted, it's almost May, but there is, in a normal baseball season, a long way to go,

five months out of six. And also keep in mind that the agreement that MLB reached with the Players Union gives them the ability to play regular season games through October. So when you ask how late can it start, I don't know the answer because even if you started, for the sake of discussion, Matt, and we're just talking here, let's say you started August 15th and said, you know what, we're not going to have a season, we're just going to have a big round-robin tournament. Well, you could pull that off in two and a half months and then have a postseason, and there are all kinds of ways to do it. In my view, the value of coming back is so great to the sport and even to the country.

that no matter how limited the season is, it will be better to play than not to play. Now, obviously, any kind of abbreviated season is going to have some kind of asterisk attached to it in terms of it won't be viewed the same way as a normal season. But at the same time, I think at this point, fans, media people like myself, everybody just wants to see the game come back. And that is the priority. Ken, when the game does come back, and if they do these pod type of things, they'll probably have to be the DH for every team. Do you think that's something that could be lasting and could have a lasting impact, or do you think that'll go away just be a one-year one-off?

Well, that's been discussed as something that could come up in the next collective bargaining agreement. The current TVA expires December 2021. and I would expect that in the next CBA, if there is ever going to be Universal D.H, both leagues, it will occur there. Now, in the abbreviated season, there are a number of things you can try and just see how it works and looks, because, again, it's not going to be a normal season. It will be that season with an asterisk. So I expect that if the sport does come back, there will be a number of creative ideas explored. and the Universal D.H. probably would be one of the less aggressive ones, right? I mean, we all kind of could get used to that.

I know some people, nationally, fans would not necessarily like it. But I do expect some other things as well. And I know fans who are traditionalists get upset every time the sport does anything different. But if you're ever going to do it, you do it now in a shortened season and see how it plays out. visiting with Ken Rosenthal, MLB on Fox, MLB Network, the senior writer for the athletic. And again, you get a 90-day free trial with the athletic to check out some of Ken and his team's excellent work. Last question about this. Any feeling from you, Ken, are owners unified about what could happen?

Or do you think when Manfred comes down with a plan, he's going to have to probably, you know, separate the haves from the have-nots, the, hey, this makes sense, hey, this not. How unified right now do you believe the owners are about? putting together a season and agreeing to the terms of such season. Matt, that's a good question. And they're certainly unified in their desire to come back. Now, once there is a template for returning, at that point, do they share revenue to a greater extent than they might otherwise simply because of the unusual circumstances?

That is something that they would have to address. And the same actually can be said for the players who would be or have the, different opinions on other topics among their own body. There's 1,200 players. Well, I'm always going to agree on everything. And we've already seen some players speak out against the so-called Arizona plan, the one with the quarantine situation and no fans. And you heard Trout and Kirscher said,

I don't want to be away from my family that long, et cetera. So on both sides, players and owners, there are going to be different opinions. And that's understandable. That's kind of the way America is, right? But at the same time, you would think that when push came to shove, if logistically, baseball could be played, then all of these different issues that need to be addressed would be addressed in a mature and adult fashion. And I say it like that, not because I'm talking to my children, but because we've seen in the past these two groups,

the players and owners sometimes behave in ways that are less immature and adults. Yeah, for sure. Can I like to ask you a question, taking your reporter's cap off for a second. You've been to have the great fortune of covering the Astros during the World Series runs, the playoff runs as Fox has been broadcast in the games. I did a weekly show with A.J. Hinch, and I tremendously miss him and look forward to doing it with Dusty when the season gets started again. But from our pure personal aspect, it felt like AJ not only to me, but the media members that covered him gave you things, talked about things. from a pure reporter to manager to off air on air, what were your thoughts about AJ and how much will you miss the repartee that he has with you and with other people? Because I feel like he's been a guy that just didn't give you those standard pat answers to your generic questions.

That's certainly true, Matt. He's an excellent interview. There's no doubt about that. And one thing I will say, because this is a Houston station, in writing the initial report with my co-writer, Evangrelic, about what the Astros did in 2017, and we only reported on 17, not 18. It pained me, pained me to write about A.J. Hinch and Alex Cora, two guys that I've had very close relationships with and respect a great deal. We had to do our job. We did our job. Ultimately, what happened happened, but A.J. Hinch is a guy that I have tremendous. disrespect and even affection for Alex Cora the same. And it was difficult personally in some ways to get that story out there because of those relationships. Now, again, you do your job

and eventually you have to just say, okay, this is it, this is what happened, that's that. But we're human beings and there was some inner conflict. Let's put it that way with me. Yeah. A lot of our audience, now remember, we're the station to carry a the games, but we've been very much in the, you know what, the Astros cheated, they got caught, they served a punishment, they're going to serve a punishment. It felt like Ken, that Boston got very lucky

and again, I don't want it to be Homer centric on the Astros side, but I've seen other well-known people. I don't know how your personal feeling is about to find out right now, but other national people have said that the Red Sox, not only the punishment was very lenient, but Major League Baseball did this on a news dump the day before

the NFL draft. Your take on when the decision was made, the decision itself. And do you blame the Houston fan base for feeling like that the Astros got super severe punishment? Well, meanwhile, Boston used a video guide as their scapegoat. First of all, I co-wrote the Red Sox story, too, that led to that investigation. So I come out of it kind of from a similar perspective, having been a part of both initial reports. Now, one thing that is really important to remember, what we reported about the Red Sox,

not as egregious and flagrant as what we reported about the Astros. What we reported about the Red Sox also did not have an on-the-record whistleblower, like Mike Fires, to support the reporting. We had off the record people telling us what had happened. So the distinction has to be made, first of all, between the trash can banging and simply using video, decoding it during games, and then relaying it to the dugout to second base,

to the hitter at home plate, which the Astros also were doing. So what the Astros did in the eyes of baseball and even in the reporting that we did, based on what we heard, was much worse. They were always going to have the tougher penalty, the stiffer penalty. The question then becomes, okay, given what the Red Sox did, was that enough of a penalty? And we wrote about this Evan and I did last week in response to the penalties. We asked a number of questions about what Major League Baseball had decided. One of them was if the manager and GM were held responsible in the Houston case, as Commissioner Manfred promised in 2017 after the Apple Watch incident, and that was going to be the policy. Misconduct of this kind, the manager and GM are responsible.

Well, if that's the case, then why we're going to be? weren't the manager and GM responsible with the Red Sox. And I have not really heard a satisfactory answer there. What basically my understanding is that they considered J.T. Watkins, the video guy, a rogue employee, one guy, and that's how they determined it. Now, it was a more difficult investigation. They had more conflicting accounts. It confused things.

But that basic standard, manager and GM held responsible, they did not apply that in this case, and that was curious to me. And there are other questions, too, and I encourage people to go back and read that article. But the main thing is, well, I can certainly understand why Astro fans would say, hey, wait a second, this wasn't close to what we did. The infractions also weren't close. So, yes, you can judge the penalties and say they weren't severe enough for the Red Sox,

and you can make a fair case about that, but they were never going to be as severe as what the Astros got. I think, though, one angle of that, though, Ken, is that this was a second time offense from the Red Sox with the same guy, and the Red Sox said, we're not going to violate these rules, and then they did it again. I think that's also an issue that Astros fans have, is that there is second time offender. That's entirely fair. That is entirely fair, especially when the commissioner said he's going to apply a harsher standard going forward to any team that does this again. And there's also any consistency in the report about... The Red Sox front office being praised by Manfred for communicating the rules effectively to the staff, the coach and the manager.

And that's fine. And he said they established a culture of accountability, et cetera, which the Estes had not done. And they got criticized for that in his own report about their conduct. But in the same report about the Red Sox, I know I'm jumping back and forth here, it also says the players didn't know the rules. So it's very nice that the front office communicated to the coach and manager well enough, but evidently the coach and the manager didn't communicate to the players well enough. So there was that flaw, too. Hey, I'm not saying these questions are unfair.

They're fair. And we raised them ourselves, many of them, in our article last week. I don't really have any better answers than that. Ladies and gentlemen, please take the time and subscribe to the athletic. It is not your normal journalism. It's well beyond deep in-depth stuff, and Ken's leading the charge on the baseball side of things. Thank you very much for spending some time with us today. We look forward to reading your reports because I feel like something new every day,

which is an encouraging sign for all of us that are baseball fans. Ken, again, thanks for the time this afternoon. Thanks for having me. You got to take care. Ken Rosenthal, Fox Sports, also MLB Network, and the Athletic, a fantastic visit with him. And we could go on and talk to him for many, many hours if we needed to. But he's got to write stories. And we've got to continue our radio show.

Busy man. He's a busy man. We thank Ken for joining us. 1244 is a time the Matt Thomas show continues after this. Matt Thomas, we'd like to thank his parents for only giving him two first names. Because who would listen to Billy Ray Thomas talk about Houston sports? The Matt Thomas Show on Sports Talk 790. Again, our thanks to Ken Rosenthal.

I could have asked him 50 more questions. And he's, you know, he's really good. He's just, you know. all the national guys we were talking about. Great bow ties. Yeah. And fully immense his size, or like thereof. On his Twitter count, five, four and a half.

Oh, really? Yeah. Joe towers over him. Let me tell you something. There are people that made fun of Ken Rosenthal when he was in high school for being short. Yeah. He's saying, suck it right now is what he's saying. You think so?

Yeah. Is he slaying him out? Yeah, like Joe George. I mean, Joe, you're not six feet. No, I'm five six. Five six and a half on a good day. When you go to your high school reunion, whenever that is. Actually, I guess my high school reunion is can't.

canceled. Was it supposed to be? Are you 28 this year? Yeah. I'm supposed to be this year. Were you going to go back to Chicago? My 30 year is this is supposed to be this summer. Yeah, I think ours is canceled.

Like we were going to do it, but. Yeah. We're going to talk about college paying of athletes top of the hour, but I got to tell you, it's funny we're talking about reunions. So I've been bored. Melroseplace reunions is what you wanted to talk about. I'll be talking about that by myself, my own podcast. Oh, geez.

All right. What? So I decided today, because I got up super early because the weather was kind of nasty this morning. It was bad. You lose power or you're right? No, didn't lose power. But just the thunder and lightning and that kind of thing. The lightning and the thunder? Like your favorite song?

I'm not letting you stay away from this. So I'm going to we did our top 20 countdown of my songs from the year I graduated. Yes. And so I'm going to put up on my Facebook page the number, I'm going to do a countdown of 20 all the way down to one

and we will have the number one song on the day that I graduate, which is June 1, 19, What number was linear sending all my love? I don't know, but it's going to be on the list. So today is number 20. And I put the song on the YouTube video of it. Yes. And then I put a funny little story about my life in high school.

So if you are Facebook friends with me, you're more than welcome to look at how Matt Thomas was back in 1990. Well, let me unmute you. Hold on. That's what you can mute. I don't care. You don't even post on Facebook, do you? Yeah, I don't really use it. Yeah.

But yeah, it's going to be fun to go back to listen to some of the songs. See, Joe's only going to, he's only been gone 10 years, right? When did you graduate from high school? In 2003. Do you have any idea with the songs were that were in 2003 that were number one? Probably Juvenile Back That Ass Up was our, that was our senior song. That was our senior song. Back that ass up?

So you're telling me when your principal comes up and says, hey, everybody, let's all join together. Okay. The Vice Prince, one of them. That one I know for sure. Okay. Back that ass up was the Aldeen School song. Let's see. In June of Bring Me to Life.

by Evanescence. Rock your body, Justin Timberlake. That's a jam. Okay. Ooh, R. Kelly Ignition was also one. You did okay for yourself. Into club, 50 cent. You know, these are the hits.

See, that's what we're going to do this. Because all of us, some of us are due reunions. I don't even know if I'm going to have ours. We're supposed to have ours in, like, late July. That's the thing is we don't know where we're going on this. Because restaurants start to open up this Friday at 25%. But that may stay that way for a while. Who's to say?

Yeah, I have explained before. I got drunk and slept through my tenure. But did you actually go? Oh, it was going to, but no, because that was the day that Texas upset OU. Oh, that's right. In 2013. Why did y'all have a fall reunion? Case freaking McCoy beat OU somehow.

I thought usually you would have reunions during the summertime. I guess it's October, yeah. I think because it got, the school president didn't want to do it. And then so like a bunch of people went rogue and did it on their own. Well, if my reunion does take. It was actually a whole ordeal. If my reunion does take place, we're going to do a do's and don'ts of a 30-year reunion. I'll take advice from you guys.

Okay. I got no idea. I can tell you the 20-year. It was really fun. It was smaller than I thought I was going to be. But the women looked significantly better than we as dudes did. Okay. Don't you think women age typically better than men?

No, I think men are, they age more gracefully than women. Because I think men gain weight faster. We lose our hair faster. Now, women can have – Women can have wrinkles, but then they can. also had the Botox and that kind of stuff. I'll hook in. Have you ever had Botox?

No. Oh, okay. I never will. All right. I'm taking my wrinkled face and my gray hair. I'm just embracing it. Yes. I got you.

Fair enough on that. Second hour of the show, we're going to get into a conference that the NCAA had about, what are they, it's not paying for players. What are they calling it when you can go to an endorsement? Name, image, and likeness. Yeah. There is some movement on that. I don't know if it has to do with the coronavirus per se.

But Rossi, I could probably sell you on this is the next step towards separating the haves and the have-nots even more. Think about it. Go ahead. Alabama. Tennessee, USC, Michigan, Ohio State, the ones that are on national TV. I mean, the good national TV, not like an ESPN news TV. Well, how about I give you a counter argument to that? Oh, I love the counter argument.

Don't you love when I'm contrarian? That's right. No, just me thinking out loud. So first of all, Alabama already has an advantage over North Texas. Right. It's no matter what. It's always going to have a huge advantage. But what if I can tell a kid, okay, Alabama and North Texas, first of all, aren't going over the same recruits.

But what I'm saying is, what if you're choosing the smaller school, you would be, and you're the big fish in a little pond, you could possibly. make more money and didn't Texas than you wouldn't Tuscaloosa, Alabama being the fifth or sixth best player on that team because you're the star player and so maybe you would get more as far as trade shows and endorsement opportunities.

Chicken restaurants. Chicken restaurant, any of that type of stuff. So if you're maybe a bigger fish in a smaller pond like that, maybe you could have more opportunities. I'm not going to be contrarian, but I'm going to throw another angle to this. Okay. How does one person effectively during the recruiting process say,

Ross, Philteria, we consider you to be, now they would never say this to them, to your face, but you are the fifth best recruit we're bringing in.

And as a fifth best recruit, we've got this Nissan dealership, we're going to give you a chance to make a little bit of money with. It has to be outside of the school, right? Right. The school can't,

school's not supposed to help. Right. Okay, so even, okay, now that, however, however, if I'm the coach,

and I know the guy who owns a dealership, I say you contact him. Right. So how does that player figure out, well, if I'm the fifth biggest fish at Alabama, am I going to make less or more money than if I was the top fish at the University of North Texas? Or like a smaller school, like Houston, University of Houston, in a lesser conference. 1001, 1002.

How about this? Wouldn't you want, you know, how about this? How about, you know, it's five-star recruit U of H speaking for Landry's? Problem is, I just don't know. if a University of Houston's players... Speaking for the Grotto. Is ever going to resonate with the city Houston? Or the Golden Nugget.

In theme, you'd make more money, right? You're not going to make... I mean, we're not going to see college football players paste it all over TV commercials, I don't think. If Joe Burrell had an opportunity to go to LSU, that's true. I mean, he could have taken advantage of it. He'd have been put pitching 30 products in Baton Rouge.

He would have been all over the drive-through-dackery stand and the occasion eating place and the... But... The fan boat spot. Yeah, but trying to think of a city that has great pro teams and great college teams. It's kind of rare. Like at UCLA, does UCLA, does the Star Corpac, UCLA going to be able to move cars at a dealership with all the stars in Los Angeles? Maybe more at USC than UCLA, but I would say it's possible.

Yeah, maybe those little schools. I think meat and greet would be huge. Yeah, that's true. I mean, because think of these, like things that we've had, or you've been out to, for example, Academy appearances. Right. With a lead miss Diaz or somebody like that, somebody very nondescript. And there's a line out the door. Right.

So, I mean, I think that would be the same case for college football players. And, I mean, the halves and the haves not, there's already a huge gap. So to me, that's not really that huge of a deal. But you don't think there's any chance of it being further separated. We'll talk about that and come out the top of the hour. Right now, I want to tell you about the Shell Federal Credit Union, they have reopened up all their lobbies. Social distancing practices and precautions are in place at any of the 10. Shell FCU locations.

Get in there right now and find out about their great mortgage options. Fix rate, purchase, or refinance mortgages that come with $500 in cash back. Load down payment options are available. No closing cost programs are available. And the loan that you will get from the Shell FCU is completed in-house from start to finish. The folks at ShellFCU will not sell your loan. For more details and to apply online and to learn more about visiting a branch location in person, go to shellfccccc.org.

ShellfcU.org. Ideal mortgage for financing with something for everyone, including $500 cash back on every mortgage loan. ShellfcU.org. Welcome home to ShellFCU. Yeah. Is the Matt Thomas show. It is 102 on Sports Talk 790. We start the second hour, the Matt Thomas show with our producer Joe George.

Rossville, O'Reall. I'm Matt Thomas. If you'd like to join our conversation, we'd love to have you. Good baseball. chatter with Ken Rosenthal just a few minutes ago. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. If you want to get in on anything you heard from Ken,

we're going to get into an NCAA meeting of the last couple of days that will further the endorsement plan that will allow athletes to use our likeness, their names, to make some money on the side. We'll get to that. Plus, something that was a big part of the last dance this Sunday, the top man from USA basketball back in the day wants to dispel the notion about Isaiah Thomas. I'm calling BS on it, but we'll let you guys figure that out in a little bit.

But again, anything fair game at 713-212-5-790. So today, the NCAA top governing body says it supports a proposal to allow college students to sign endorsement contracts and receive payment for other work, provided that the schools they attend are not involved in any of the payments. Now, does that mean they can funnel, as you were alluding to? Well, of course. Because how are these kids going? These kids cannot land in Tallahassee, Florida. Say, coach, I can't go to class today.

Or coach, I can't go to work as I'm going to go check out and see if Walmart needs me. You know what I mean? I mean, there's going to have to be an agency, right? Can they get an agent? How will they be contacted? That's, again, this is the muddying waters that the, we're in right now. I think there should be.

Why not? How do these? And again, at the end, if the schools don't want anything to do with it, then how are they supposed to monitor whether or not everything is on the up and up? And how are the clients supposed to get with the potential athletes? Because, again, the average athlete, let's say that Joe Miller is this five-star quarterback that's out of Kansas City. And he goes to Baylor.

He doesn't know who a particular dealership is in Waco that's a huge Baylor. bear supporter. How do you communicate from said player to said dealership or to said restaurant or to said whatever was going to use autograph signing that these two people should be working together to help take care of this kid to make some money on the side? There should be some. Maybe they could have some kind of neutral person at the at the college. It'll be helping with this or something like that. I mean, college affiliated, but because you're right, I mean, fresh out of high school, 18 years old in a new city or whatever, you could be taken advantage of,

you could be not getting fair deals for yourself, it could be difficult for you to get contacts if you do want to make money that way. I wonder if they would have to, I don't know, some kind of agent, or maybe the NCAA is going to have to have some people, but they wouldn't have to have,

I don't know, I don't know. The one argument I've always had with you about this, and you never seem to give it much credence, and maybe I'm just the one that's pushing it every single time for no reason. And I'll throw a joke, because Joe doesn't work with us very often. often. But let me, I'm going to throw this at you. I have a buddy. I'm on a college football team.

Mm-hmm. And I'm a really good offensive lineman. And the guy that I'm opening up holes for is rushing for 1,600 yards. And he is getting offers to do commercials for restaurants or autograph signings, or he's going to be given a car to, you know, to promote said dealership. If it ain't for me, me opening up these holes for him. He's not rushing for 1,800 yards. He's not getting in the end zone. Meanwhile, because I'm a dopey offensive lineman that just is, you know, because let's face it, offensive linemen don't carry the same cash as, say, skill position players. How am I not Ross going to be resentful of my man behind me while I'm opening these holes for making him the star? I'm not getting any of that. How am I supposed to feel about that?

Well, I mean, how, it's yours just, that's life. Certain things and certain players have, How is the offensive, how is Zach Fulton or Nick Martin supposed to feel about Deshawn Watson getting a lot more shine or getting a lot more press? My easy answer to that is that's professional athletics. So what? It's still the same thing. How is it different? Because one guy's getting more attention than the other. That's everything.

How about, okay, if they go to a frat party and the offensive lineman is there and the quarterback's there, who's getting more play? Well, it depends on how that guy's game is. Okay. If it's Joe Burrow or Johnny Manzell. or in Johnny Mansell's, was Jake Matthews there when he was there? I don't know. If it's Johnny Mansell and the guy. That's just life.

Some guys get more opportunities than others. And the quarterback is the cash a position. Same thing in high school. If you go to a high school party and the kids meet at whatever, make out point. But high school parties. And we're all drinking there. And putting stuff in your pocketbook are two different animals, in my opinion. Well, yeah.

There's, you know. So you're telling me. And you can say Matt, no. You can say, you can send a, you're going to say. I'm going to say, you don't believe that a 19-year-old offensive lineman who is opening up these massive holes for this running back who's getting all these extra benefits couldn't be the wee bit resentful because of that. Because he's getting now, you mentioned the pros. Look, Zach Fulton's not going to make as much money as Deshaun Watson. I totally get that.

But that's free enterprise. That's the NFL. That's how it works. And by the way, Lyman can get paid very, very well. They just can. you're telling me that there's going to be zero resentment between linemen and the quarterbacks and the running backs that they protect. I can't tell you there's not going to be resentment, but who cares?

Somebody's feelings are hurt, so we shouldn't have this system? If your feelings are hurt, your feelings are hurt. How about let's say... The feelings are hurt is not being named recognized by the school as all conference. Feelings not being hurt is when you have less money in your picking, that you can't go take your girl out for pizza. Meanwhile, the quarterback who you protect is able to go take his family out and have five-star dinners.

Tough Nugies. That's life. Maybe Joey Fetone was mad about all the shine that Justin Timberlake was going. Maybe Gene Chisick or whoever, like the defensive coordinator was for Texas, was mad that Mack Brown is getting all the shine. Maybe Joe George is mad that Matt Thomas is getting all these endorsements and he's famous. It doesn't matter. It is what it is.

It's just them's the brakes. That's life. The offensive linemen is never going to get enough as much money and as much credit and as much blame as the quarterback. That's just how it works. So, I mean, I'm sorry your feelings are hurt offensive lineman, but this is just how

this is a little thing called capitalism. If one guy's worth more and getting paid more, then he's going to. That's just how it works. So do you envision, could you envision what my scenario is? What's your scenario? That he's going to shoot him or something? No.

Or he's going to stop blocking for him? Let me just give you a real life example. Okay. Kid, grew up, grew up poor. Okay. It's got multiple siblings, maybe a single parent family, gets his great opportunity to get an education play at Auburn. But has no other money coming his way. He's just, he is, he is not living paycheck to paycheck, but he's living based off of the room and board of the school in the education. Which has been happening for decades.

It has been happening for decades. meanwhile said quarterback now has $4,000 a month an extra side money because he's the quarterback. Which has been happening for decades. Well, that may be true, but nothing official. Right. But still, same thing, though, is we're taking something that's been below board above board. You don't think at all. You can say no.

You don't think at all left tackles like, wait a minute. Your ass wouldn't be getting this $4,000 a month. if I wasn't giving you that two extra seconds to throw that deep pass down the football field. He's not thinking that now? But I mean, but it's not going to be overt now. But what's the problem besides hurt feelings and jealousy?

Hurt feelings and jealousy. It happens on every basketball team, every football team, there's people who are jealous of other people. But right now, as pure as a statement may be, right now, everybody is treated equally on a college football team.

That's not true. No, a four-year scholarship. Yeah. You think some people at Alabama, Texas, I'm just telling you. Texas A&M. In theory. In theory, but that's not true, but that's not what's happening.

We can talk about zero only one. You cannot, you cannot guarantee that any player, that every school has got guys sticking money on the side. You can't prove that. I can't guarantee you. You can't prove that they're not. So, I mean, I'm just saying, you don't think that's happening? Guys aren't making money at every college.

That would be a little, is there illegal activity going on? No, I would say there's certainly a legal activity. Our Saturday host, Brian Lillima. He's talked about this on air. He played baseball at Sol Ross State, a small town in West Texas. He was getting, the players were getting $100 handaches at Sol Ross State. At Sol Ross State. Yes. It's hard to say three times. So you're going to tell me that's not happening just about everywhere? I'm not telling you that's happening. That's what I'm saying. I mean, but in somewhat theory, most schools are doing it by the rules. Most teams on most schools.

Like if there's one player at Alabama getting money, that still means 75 players or not. think there's a whole dossier of players getting money at Alabama. I'll let you find that out. But point being is I... LSU and Texas, all the big programs. Yeah. I just... Me thinks that this is going to create a little bit of... Maybe we never see it publicly. But privately is, hey, I'm here in this town.

I can't take my girl out to the movies and get a pizza. Meanwhile, the guy I'm protecting is able to add nauseam or anyone anytime he wants to, go get a new car, take his girl for great dinner. This pisses me off. So we should keep the quarterback from making money. money off his name and likeness, which he does because the offensive line and hold the grudge. I think it's part of the reason why that's been held back to begin with.

It's been part of the, it's because they want to control on the money. I don't think inequality has been an issue. And look, if an offensive line was to call me and say, Matt, look, I don't encourage the guy getting it, then that'd be fine. And I'm not saying that every school would have a problem like that. I just know that I think if a quarterback was to say, Guys, I can't go out with you guys tonight because I'm going to John Miller Chevrolet where they're going to pay me $500.

Well, where does it stop? I mean, does the, what if, is the backup line I'm jealous to? Is the punter? Is the kicker? Should we care? So we should be, well, you know what? Punter's not getting any money, so the quarterback shouldn't. I don't know.

These are things I'm just throwing out there. That's my only thing. Is that I, I, that's my conundrum is that I think you can create some inner team turmoil all with some guys getting money and some not. That's all I'm saying. It's up to the coach and the players to figure that out. There's turmoil. Hello, defensive linemen.

You guys are really, really good. I'm sorry you're pissed. I'm sorry. I'm sorry you're mad. The guy behind you, the lineback, who got all the sacks because you created the space is going to go have a nice five-star meal. Let's give you a little something called economics. Some people are worth more than others.

that's your lesson of the day, Mr. D. Lyman that's upset. Okay. I just think at 19, when maturity still isn't works, there could be some problems. But maybe I'm wrong. There could be, but I'm okay with being wrong in this. And I don't think it's anything worth stopping it over. I don't say we just throw out the whole system because somebody's feelings might get hurt. Well, here's a thing.

If you try to get everybody into your defense, if you try to get everybody paid, there wouldn't be enough money. Because honestly, if I am a owner of a small business in, Waco, I'm not paying for an offensive alignment because I know he don't do anything for me. No. Unless he's like from Waco or something. But I mean, even so, I mean, you're just, you're grabbing, having a punter come to an appearance

or having signed autographs isn't going to move the register like having the star players. So that's why I think there is a little bit of a double-ed sort of Yeah. 114 is the time. It is the Matt Thomas show 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-750. I just believe that there could be some inner turmoil with this. Can you at 19 years old be mature enough to say,

tough titties, right? You can say that, right? Well, you just did. Okay. Because maybe you can't, maybe it'll be hard to say that. You know what? If you're so jealous, then go lose 60 pounds and throw the ball as fast as far as I can. Learn to deal with it.

Let me tell you about TGS insurance. Everybody's fair at TGS insurance. Everybody gets to save. All it takes for you is get to your cell phone right now and text the word money, M-O-N-E-Y to 23, 23-23-23. You want to save money. You want to do business right from your home, right from your phone. You can do that by texting money to 23, 23-23-23. The folks at TGS Insurance will ask for your address.

You type that in, you text it back, they'll text you back and quote within seconds. And the average savings is nearly $900. A lot of folks that have listened to $7.90 are saving more than $1,000. Do yourself a favor and text the word money, M-O-N-E-Y, to 23, 23, 23, and begin saving on your home policy with TGS Insurance, M-O-N-E-Y, to 23, 23, 23, 23. Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas Show. A reminder that you should take a couple of minutes of your day to check out the what's on Matchmind show page at Sports 790.com. It's Sports790.com. We just took a look at the latest list of

what's hot and what's not on the page. Ross, explain what's doing. well on Sports 790.com. Tushy Tuesday. Starting number eight. Go ahead. Number eight, you want to count her up? Yeah. Carmen Electra details of the wild places. She and Dennis Rodman had sex. Okay.

And Sophia Regara, the Witch's Witch Post. We had yesterday. Did very well. If you want to find out on the What's on Match Mind show page. Our website is exploding, by the way. Exploding. It's Sophia and her niece in a thong. One is 47, one is 27, and you're supposed to pick,

figure out which is which. I'm still confused. My first, my initial thought was left, but I think it might be the one on the right, Matt. I went left the entire way. Find out for yourself at Sports 790.com. Okay. And then number six, afternoon delight from today. Her name?

Polina Sitanova. Introduce yourself at Sports79.com. Then afternoon delight from yesterday is five. Abby Rao. And then, or no, two days ago. Then the Wow Wednesday, that's on the Sean Salisbury blog. Then the Monday IG model. What's today? Wednesday.

Right. Then the afternoon delight from yesterday. And then Tushy Tuesday from yesterday. So the top eight post at Sports790.com. Attractive women. Attractive women. Coming at number nine, whatever you can find on the A-Team blog at Sports79.com. It's a Salsbury ultimate quarantine bat flip, whatever that is.

Number 10 is the Friday Smoke Show from last Friday. Thankfully, all y'all are horny bastards out there. The top eight are all involving gratuitous looking. women. There's a lot of quarantine happening here. A lot of quarantine. Make sure you use Purell. 1001, 1002, 1003. All right, back at it.

Alex and Montrose on 7-90. Alex, good afternoon. Good afternoon. Hi. Matt, Matt, what are you talking about? With a collegiate athlete being jealous or getting upset, how about any different than what's going on today?

What do you mean? I mean, if you're a chee-beer, five-star recruit, you're always going to get preferential treatment. That's just the way it works. Yeah, but in theory, now again, theories can be discarded quickly, that your scholarship, like the scholarship for an offensive lineman is the same exact scholarship for a quarterback as is for a wide receiver as for a linebacker. In theory, nobody makes any money on the team except the fact that you get a scholarship.

This was, this paying, giving the extra benefits through, you know, signings or endorsements, would separate the team. maybe for very few players, maybe for very few schools, but there would be separation for the first time legally, legally in college athletics. Totally get it, but in terms of the benefit to them, no difference. I mean, the five-star quarterback is still riding around

in a brand-new escalade while the two-star office alignment isn't. So, you know, it comes with the territory like Ross said. Yeah, but how does that quarterback get the five-star escalate? Well, probably not legally right now. There we go. There it is. This would be the legal way, this would be legally.

My point is that you're now legally going to try to separate the haves and the have-nots. If they're doing it illegally, then that's up to the NCAA and the individual schools to indict those players. And they're not going to do that. They haven't, basically. Well, I get. To me, it's just like, like, Ross said it comes back to free markets, right? Free market. Yeah.

The five-star quarterback is going to be worth more than the two-store opposite, two-star offensive wide. So he's going to get more. Yes. And all I'm saying is I could see there some resentment because of that. I'm not saying that it's not going to happen. I'm not saying that at the end of the day, this is going to be the, this is not the plan that NCAA is thinking about. I'm just saying that I think it's fair to consider there are going to be some people on that football team. They're going to be resentful that they're working as hard as they are as those particular skill position players.

And they're not getting any sort of extra benefit because of it. I won't disagree there. But what I'm saying, yeah, I think that's the same thing is going on right now. I think that at the end of the day, nothing really changes other than it's more illegal than it was before. Fair enough. Thanks, Alex, for the phone call. Again, I'm not trying to argue with Ross in this. I do believe that you do know there is, the star running back, the Heisman trophy winner is going to get, or the Heisman trophy candidate is going to have a better life than the defensive lineman or the punter or the field goal kicker.

I'm not arguing that point. But because NCAA has been amateur athletics, we tend to forget. Which means we make billions and you don't. That's right, that everybody that wears a number on a college football team that receives a scholarship receives the same amount of scholarship. And that this would be the first time the NCAA would say that you players can now separate yourselves, not only by your position, but by who you are, by what school you play for. Because at Western Kentucky, an endorsement deal for a car dealership Ross may only be $1,000. An endorsement deal at Birmingham's top Lexus dealer may be $15,000 in a car. And that's another thing is how to be nice.

How do you regulate this? How do you know what's too much? You don't know what's too much. Whatever you can make is what you can make. Woo! It's called free market. When everybody gets paid the same and they're doing different work or have different values, it's called communism. See, in that respect...

And people have different values and then they get different paid money. In this respect, I'd almost rather just pay everybody. So at least everybody gets a little bit of the pie. I get. Why? Because I just, I feel like this is going to be a whole new... And maybe we're talking about such a small sliver. of the college student.

Yeah. I think you're making this a bigger deal than it is because it's already, it's already uneven. Yeah. It's already happening in the recruiting process. You've already, people are getting, there's, as they call it, the bag man from various

colleges is paying off these recruits, especially the higher level ones and all that type stuff. So, I mean, it is what it is. See, I've always asked for parents to call shows during high school recruiting time. and say, hey, kind of tell, not saying who you are or what your son's name is or where they were recruited, but how big is the bag war in 2020? I don't know, but we did have, we had one years ago.

There was a man who his son was being recruited and he didn't want to give away a name or anything like that. He said there was, he told me off air the school, and it might have been Texas. I don't remember. Because here's the thing. There's one thing about Ross, there's one thing about having innuendo. There's another thing of saying, my son who got recruited to school. said we will make sure that you get $2,500 a month to send home to your mom. You can't do.

You have to do anything. You have to do stuff off the record. That's just how it has to go. He said he got like on his doorstep. It was a paper bag with the jersey of said school and like a couple thousand dollars. Yeah. It's happening. This was, this was really early in the Matt Thomas show.

I remember. It had to have been. Because I feel like once year we say, hey, if you got any slimy stories, let us know. protect who you are, protect your last name, protect the school that you eventually went to or recruited for. But I just, because again, it's easy for us in sports radio to say, well, this thing is happening. There's cheating going on. What is that percentage? If there's, if 2% of American athletes are being cheated, that's a microscopic percentage.

If it's 25 or 30%, then that means the business needs to be revamped or needs a heavy audit. Don't you agree? if it's if it's only if it's happening one time in the big 12 or four times in the ACC that's a with all the schools and all the athletes that's just a minuscule number but if we're finding out like at unLV back in the 90s player after player after player was being told tell your dad to get a job at a hotel where he could park cars and instead of getting five dollars for tips for parking the cars he'll be handed hundreds and five hundreds and that's how they were able to quote unquote circumvent the same

system. There was a book I read called Illegal Procedure by a sports agent called a named Josh Luke's. And it was in that whole book, it was talking about how he had been greasing up players to make them. So he's an agent, right? He has to recruit players. It's like he had a guy who worked for him who would go to the college. He would just basically go make payments. He would go on a campus and pay this guy and this guy and this guy so that when they become NFL age, when they declare for the NFL draft, they're under their wing and they have their back. It's been happening for years and years and years.

But I want a no percentage. We'll never know the true number. We won't know. But I would love to know how bad it is because it felt like to me in the 80s and 90s, it was running rampant. It's not, well, I'll say in this book, it talked about how it's been clamped down on more, and that's more old school than it's

happening now, but who knows? Who knows what the new school is? It's Venmo or cash app. No, that's more, I guess, regulated. You just got handed cold hard cash. Or it's, I mean, because the last... Jewelry or we'll take care of your mom. Like the last big time player I can think of.

And there have been lots of players. But the one that is the most pronounced to me in the last, what, 15 years, it's probably, Reggie Bush, right? Yes. Family got taken care of it, U.S. They're like a $300,000 house or whatever for his parents, right?

That's just, that's just overt. That's just, we don't give a damn who catches us. And by the time he catches us, caught them. He's in the NFL. USC is on the national map playing for national championships. And Pete, Carol, go bye-bye. Yeah, and peace on.

Bye. See you. he's like, yeah, I think I'm going to go back to the NFL. And I won't have to ask you and answer any questions about any of my time at USC. And why Reggie Bush's house is bigger than mine. 130 of the Matt Thomas show. 713212-5-790 if you want to get in. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90.

If you watched The Dream, the last dance, great, great commentary about Michael and the Detroit Pistons. and why Isaiah Thomas was not put on the dream team. There was a little bit to dispel that today, if you so believe it. We'll discuss it next. 713-212-5-7-90 if you'd like to join us on anything from baseball and the conversation with Ken Rosenthal to college athletics and allowing the slow process of starting to let these kids use their likeness and make their appearances and do endorsements for side money. And whether they will have any effect on the locker room.

We'll discuss that. Plus, as I said before, an interesting story about the dream team that just come out in the last 24 hours or so. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790 with a very, very special message from my friends over at Big City Wings. And they are my friends because my son used to work at one of the locations. Our buddy Sam's been listening to the show. And big supporter is 790. And Friday, they're opening up. They'll have the Friday opened up for their 25% of their various restaurants, eight of the Houston area. And today with it being Wednesday, all their burgers are 8. that comes to the side.

As a matter of fact, I bought Ross and Joe burgers one day from Big City Wings. Absolutely delicious. You'll enjoy the experience, too. Still open for takeout, still open for curbside pickup, still open for delivery. You get the margarias to go, which is a very delicious thing, especially after hard-worked and hard-earned day at the office or at your house. Just want to get out for a little bit, go by and pick up those $8 burgers plus the great wings and the delicious mudbug Monday is available every day, 5 pounds of crawfish for $25.

all at Big City Wings and Big CityWings.com. Eight Houston locations, check it out. Again, for takeout, curbside pickup, and delivery, it's bigcitywings.com. Hey, this is Whitney Mersons. The Texans did here. Listen to real Texan talk on your smart speaker. Just say, hey, Google. Play Sports Talk 790 on IHeart Radio.

I got to admit something right now. I went to the bathroom, and I went to wash my hands. Oh, no, I don't know if I want to know this submission. No, this is fine. Okay. And I looked at myself in the mirror. Yeah? I feel like I've worn, I'm rotating the same seven outfits I have for like 45 days. I had that exact thought when I picked out this shirt today.

I've been wearing like the same seven T-shirts for a couple weeks. I normally wear collared shirts every day. And like the same four pants, two sweatpants, one pair of jeans and these khaki shorts. I go, yeah, I go to the dry cleaner about once every two weeks, two and a half weeks. Usually. I haven't been to the dry cleaner in two months. So you've been saving hundreds. But I'm like, what?

has happened in my life. I don't wear collared shirts anymore. I wore the same shorts, the same, this generic blue shirt. That's fine. You don't have anybody to impress.

I got nobody to impress except you. You've been married for 20 years, and trust me, I'm not impressed, so it's fine. Yeah. By your general tire, I mean, Matt. You're broadcasting skills just amaze me every day.

I'm proud of us, and I don't mean to pat ourselves on a bag. But here we go. But we've done okay. We have, I don't know how we've done it because when we said everything was cutting out May, like May 15th, like, how in the hell are we going to do this? And look, the only wish thing I wish we had more of, because we actually are, we've actually had more listeners in the last few weeks than we've had in the previous few weeks.

So I don't know how that happens, but thank you. I wish I had more call interaction, but I don't blame y'all for not calling because there's just not a whole lot to sink your teeth into. But we are, Ross, as I've said many, many times. We are the most interactive radio show in America. Yes, we are. We have some tweets here and there. So, yeah, if you never feel free like, hey, I've never called the show before, you have a random question. We're okay with that. We're going to keep on doing it, but I just feel like sometimes interaction with the listeners is fun too. Ah, okay, we were talking about reunions earlier. Yeah. So let's go through some of the tweets we got. Tom and downtown talked about women spending a year prepping for their 10 and 20 years reunions,

tanning, going to the gym, et cetera. They're trying to show everyone they still got it. So that's a good point. Why women look better than men at the at the reunions? did he say if they prepare for them? I would have to disagree. Okay. Now, you want to say three months? Yes. Probably. I did for the 30 days before my 20th. I probably was a couple of pounds. Did you? See? I did, yeah. Like at 10 years, I was like a tub. At 20, I looked a lot better. Did you go to the 10? Yeah. Ten sucked. Why? It just was, I was not interested in seeing anybody. Okay. Why were you more interested in? into 20. Because I want to see, because we're growing ass people at that point.

Okay. Either we're going to be successful in our life or we're going to be the miserable failures I thought you were going to be. Right? Sure. Aren't you essentially who you are by 20 years? 38 years old is, you know. You're not starting up.

You're probably married or never going to get married. One or the other. Yeah. You're probably going to have one or two kids or none at all. And my guess is at 38, you probably have your career pass that up. Yeah, you're probably in like phase, what would you say? phase two or three of adulthood? Yeah.

Because like 18 to 25. 10 years, you can do anything you want. I mean, 10 years, you're 28, you're running around the country, you're hoaring around, you've worked three or four sales jobs. You've gone to school back and forth to school. Maybe some of you're living with your parents still. I believe I was living with my mom at 28. I think 20 is the, all right, this is who Ross Villa Real is going to be.

How old are you now? 35. So you're three years away from your 20 year. Oh, no. You're going to go back. in three years, and they're going to say, this is who you are, Ross, period end of story.

Yeah, I'm driving for postmates. How's it going? I got a 4.8 rating, though, so. Not to brag. Is that what? Have you been drilling? Have you been working there? I did for a little bit, actually, years ago,

when I was Ubering as well. 4.87 as a driver on Uber, by the way. It's harder to have a high rating as a driver than a rider. Because here's what I'm... People are critical. I'm stuck at 4.92 on Uber. I haven't taken an Uber and... God knows how long.

Are Uber drivers wearing masks? I'm assuming you. Everybody's wearing masks. You're in Harris County. You got to wear masks. That's true. I don't know. You got Pirel just draped from the ceilings of your car,

like little bottles on strings. Oh, I'm sure everything. I bet you have to super wipe your car down every time. Yeah, that's dangerous. So the 30-year reunion, which is this summer for me, if we have it, is that's when we're going to start. People are going to have grandkids. That's going to be really weird.

Yeah, you could have a grandkid. I could, but I do not want to under any circumstance. But you could. I know, but don't keep saying it. Your son is how old? He's 19. Oh, yeah, you could have a grandkid. No.

Shake that tough. Then I'll call you Pappy. No, you won't. 30 is really the last time. What do you want your granddad name to be? Papa. Pappy? Not Pamp.

Pappie sounds like we're from Kentucky. Pops? Pops is fine. I like pops. Yeah. All right. As soon as the second you're a grandfather,

I'm going to start calling you pops. Well, hopefully you're nowhere near me at that point. I'll let you come to his wedding or their wedding, but that's a farm. Yes.

I will get smashed. You're going to get smashed at my son's wedding or my daughter's wedding. Okay, fair enough. Why wouldn't I? Wait, you're not? Yeah,

because I'd be paying for it. That's true. On the daughter's side. 713-212-5-790. Shams just tweeted out. This is two days ago. I'm not going to worry about that. Although he said this,

NBA has informed its teams of this reality and a memo per sources. It is not possible or appropriate in the current public health context to regularly test all players and staff for COVID-19. These protocols may be modified. I think we kind of knew that, right?

When did Shams tweet this out? Two days ago. I just saw it. Oh, two days ago. Yeah. I think everything can be modified, right? We're on it. Everything's depending on a number of tests that come out.

Yeah. Testing locations? Yes. The quickness of these tests results? There will be more. Yeah. I don't need anybody telling me do doomsday right now. Because it feels like every single day, and whether it's propaganda or not, I feel like we're getting faster results, more testing sites.

It's going to happen. It's just going to take time. The question is, how long will it take? I got a phrase for you, by the way. I never want to hear until we get the super most positive news. Sooner rather than later. How many times have you heard that in the last 45 days? I got another one for you.

Go ahead. Unprecedented. In these unprecedented times. Oh, we do hear that odd. Precedented circumstances. Unprecedented this and unprecedented that. We got an unprecedented hurricane a few years ago. Remember that?

Listen to all of our spots during our spot breaks. And like every time you hear unprecedented, as long as you're home in quarantine, drink. That's right. Unprecedented. By the way, you can even spell unprecedented. Yes. Don't even try. It's fine. 713-212-5-790.

7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. Dream Team, dispelling a notion about that original dream team. Next on Sports Talk 790. Hi, this is former running back of Herschel Walker. You're listening to Matt Thomas on Sports Talk 790. Time is 148. It is the Matt Thomas show. We take it till 3 o'clock. I've been trying to get Gary Patterson, the coach at TCU,

he's making an album right now. Would you want to listen to a Gary Patterson album? Like the worst singer of all time, there's a lot of professional athletes that try to rap right now that apparently don't do a very good job at it. Some are decent. But most are not.

Like Terry Bradshaw sings country hits. He does he? That was a tough listen. Cole Beasley is a decent rapper. Damian Lillard, decent. Levy on Bell, not so much. Like, who is the most successful athlete turned singer ever.

Wayman Tisdale. I would have to go Larry Gatlin. I don't even know who that is. Larry Gatlin played college football at the University of Houston. He had a band called Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin brothers. Their most famous song is All the Golden California. Wayman Tisdale was like a prolific smooth jazz saxophonist or something. That's exactly right.

Yeah. But I mean, let's go vocal. He had a number one contemporary jazz album. Dion Sanders saying must be the money? Yeah. Not a hit? No, I wouldn't say that's a hit. Oh, MetaWorld Peace had a song.

He did? When he was Ron Our Test, yeah. Try to find that Ron Our Test song. What was it called? Joe, it might be dirty as well. Joe, find all the Golden California, too, so Ross can hear this. I know when you hear you like, oh, I've heard it before. Oh, he had a lot of songs.

Oh, no. What was that one that was actually from like 10 years ago that people got like a very small amount of radio play? You mean an athlete? A runner test. Oh, man. I can safely tell you I've never heard a Ron Artax. It has to be Shaq. Shaq?

Shaq had legitimate albums that were like getting a little bit of radio play. Yeah. What station? Well, not Sunny 99.1. No. Not Sirius X and the bridge? No. it's not on the what is the yacht rock station called sailing away or something no that's uh that's yacht rock

maybe i don't know is there anybody that was what's the name of the song yeah shack diesel went platinum i don't remember the ron our test one don't worry about it look at it and make sure we you pre look at it i don't think shack cursed i don't think is there anybody that has been a i mean you're really your shack's album hit number 25 in the u.s bill board 200 and it went platinum. Who else has got a platinum album, 1993? And he had that video game, Shaq Fu. Shaq was everywhere.

And then he had those crappy movies, Shazam. Yeah. Everybody Allen says Charlie Pride was an athlete. Was Charlie Pride an athlete? He had to have been. I don't know. Sheesh. This is not from Shaq Diesel, but it's just too good to pass up.

Okay, thank you. Watch it, boy. You don't want to disme. Do you know what this is from? No. It's from Kazam. Oh, nice. It's the Kazam rap.

Let's go. Number of minutes you've watched of a Shaquille in the movie. Wasn't he in blue chips? I've seen Kazam in full. I believe I've seen Kazam in full as well, or at least half of it. I might have turned it off.

All right. We were supposed to talk about the dream team here, but we're on now. I'm going to rabbit hole of the best athlete singers. Beth, put my computer on here for a second, Joe. This is Larry Gatlin, play the University of Houston. Never playing the NFL, but this is a guy who played college football. Oh, and it's an ad first, so it's just not going to have.

Oh, geez. All right. Oscar De La Hoya won a Latin Grammy. What is this? Is this show? Okay. Turn my computer off for five seconds, so the ad doesn't play, if you don't mind, Joe. Because I want you to hear this country class.

It's one of those songs I grew up as a kid. Oh, John Daley had a song, a hit. Did he? That song, I hit it hard, man. I don't know any of that. Here's the, listen to this. Right now. Go ahead.

All the gold is this? It's somebody else's name. No. So if you're dreaming about California. Apparently Charlie Fly, Pride played minor league baseball. Oh, no. Sounds like the warm-up music for a clan rally. What?

You just put this on while everybody's kind of filing in. Stop. Don't you besmirch a great University of Houston alum? Okay. Winding up a zero. Is this song on my phone? No idea, and I've never heard this song. This song is, this was a number one classic, I think.

Was he a professional athlete? No, he just played in college. That's all I can think of. Well, wait a minute. Tim and Tidsdale had a number one album. Yes, and Oscar Dale Hoyer won a Latin Grammy. Yeah, but I don't listen to Latin music.

So what? That doesn't mean it wasn't a hit. I don't listen to Larry Gatlin. You should. I'd listen to an Oscar Dale Hoy album before I listen to... This is catchy. Is it? Yeah. To who?

To America. It's 1980. I mean, it's been a while. I hit it up. Now this is. is a hit. Now, this isn't bad. This is the John Daly song. It's not bad, right? Not bad.

This is way better than love for Larry Gatlin. I listen to this. Now, this is a jam. So we've come down to John Daly being the greatest. No, I'm sorry. Larry Gatlin wins, although John Daly was a professional golfer. I mean, Lillard's pretty good. Lillard's actually

a decent record. Lillard can, he can wrap. Cole Beasley's actually sneaky. Now, Lillard is very sneaky. Lillard performed at the All-Star game this year, right? And how would you assess that. I didn't watch. Who? Damian Liller performed at the All-Star game this year. I didn't watch the game, so I wouldn't know.

Because it wasn't layered with Bulls players? No, there isn't a lot of a Bulls player made an All-Star game. Derek Gross? Yeah, it has to be. Exactly. It's not been a long star yet? No, he's in the slam dunk. That's unfortunate.

That's probably as a wolf. He's a three-point shootout. That's it. All right. Well, I'm going to listen to A-Team in the opening segment, and then I'm going to go listen to all the Golden California. Master P, they said it was with the Hornin. in the Raptors.

Yeah, but that was like preseason team. He wasn't an actual... Astroholic says that Garth Brooks was a college track athlete. Lil Romeo play for USC. Oh, geez. He was on the bench and transferred out or something? Yeah, that's masterpiece.

Snoop Dogg's kid was at UCLA, right? Yeah. Ah. I'm sticking with Wayne and Tisdale. Carl Lewis? Oh, no, no. Let's do it. We're not playing it.

No. Find it. Find it right now. The Carl Lewis National Anthem. Carl, we need something to smile to start the 2 o'clock hour. I'm smiling at the John Daily jams. That John Daly is a good song. But for those of you at home that haven't heard this in a while,

let's end the 1 o'clock hour with a national treasure. Oh, boy. Whenever. Yeah, you get me time, Matt. Joe's going to find it. Joe can you ask for like seven things. Oh, God. Oh, say, can you see? Uh-oh.

Uh-oh. I'll make up for it now. for the last... What? That was a rough cut. Yeah, that was a TV cut. Classic. The best part of that is Charlie Steiner

trying to hold it together on ESPN SportsCenter. That's what I was playing. That was Charlie right there. That's what I was wondering. All right. I promise, Dream Team Architect says,

don't believe what you heard about Michael Jordan's relationship with Isaiah Thomas when it came to Dream Team. That is up next to start the final hour, the Matt Thomas show. I promise we'll get to that right here.

on 790. This is the Matt Thomas show. All right, so Gary Patterson is recording an album. Wouldn't you want to hear a Joe, not a Joe, a Ed Ogeron songs, him singing some hits? That would be the album we'd want to hear from, not from Gary Patterson. Mac Brown rap.

Nick Saban will be a country singer. Yes. Pete Carroll would be Peter would be alternative. Yeah. Or maybe like folk? Hmm. Like an acoustic guitar? Andy Reed would be classic country.

Yeah. We put a big cowboy hat on. Yeah. Mike D'Antony would be, of course, Italian music. Okay. Like an opera. Accordian? Yes.

Or operatic. All right. We need to think about this tomorrow. I'll put together a list tomorrow of some coaches. And you've got to tell me what kind of music they would perform. Done. Gary Patterson is coaching at TCU. We're going to hopefully try to get Gary on the show.

Brang about his second round pick, although apparently he's very busy recording this album. All right. Isaiah Thomas, as you know by now, is still very upset about the fact he was left off the Dream Team in 1992. Rod Thorne, who was David Stern's right-hand man for a long time, was the guy that actually drafted Michael Jordan back in the early 80s when it kind of fell to him at three. Today said the following, and you're going to say, believe it or not. There was never anything in my conversation with Michael Jordan that had to do with Isaiah Thomas, period. He said, I'll do it. Isaiah's name never came up during that conversation.

And I never backtracked and said he didn't want to do it from the time on into those of us in NBA office. Now, if that had in fact happened, then it happened with somebody else because when I talked to him, he ended up saying he would definitely do it, meaning he would speak, denied ever speaking with Jordan about keeping Thomas off the team. So basically he is saying that Isaiah Thomas, the reason why he was not left, was not put on the team, was because of just the fact that the team was already set. There wasn't a spot for him. It wasn't because Michael Jordan told Rod Thorne, don't put him on there. Do you believe that?

No. Good, because I don't either. I don't believe that he... Now, it's one of those things where you could be lying and you could be telling the truth but lying. Maybe somebody else told him that or somebody else said, hey, look, we talked to Michael, you got to talk to him. He's not going to do it if Isaiah is going to play. It's not on the table. And then you just asked Michael to do it.

And then basically that's how it went through that way. There's no way that this didn't happen. There's no way that Isaiah Thomas would have been left off that team. No way Isaiah would have been left out of the team. And under all circumstances, Rod Thorne can lie to us. So under all circumstances, do I believe Rod Thorne is telling the truth?

Absolutely not. Let's look at the point guards on that team. Are Magic Johnson and John Stockton? Worst playing time. Maybe there are... Wait a minute. Who do you take off the team for... Or can you just add people?

Was there a certain number that you could only have? Because I know they wanted to have one college player. Yeah, and that was Christian Leitner, who never played, right? So there's 12 people on the team. Yeah. So can you only have 12 on the roster, probably? Probably. I'm guessing?

Yep. Actually, I'm starting to think this is true now looking at the roster. Break down the roster for us. Point cards are Magic Johnson and John Stockton. Correct. Can't knock either one of those guys. Shooting guards, Michael Jordan. Yep.

Clyde Drexler. Yep. At the three, you have Larry Bird. Oh, yeah. Scotty Pippen. Oh, yeah. Chris Mullen. Chris Mullen?

Would you rather have Chris Mullen on your team or go with a smaller guard lineup and put Isaiah out there? Because Isaiah is a true guard, point guard. And in the early 90s, you just played straight basketball. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And you could put, because Irving was 6-9. Magic was 6-9. You put them anywhere on the floor.

That's true. But, I mean, they didn't necessarily, I mean, you say, in those days, it felt more like, obviously with some exceptions. It was like, we have a point card, he's our point guard. He's our one. That's right. And he's going to guard the other teams won.

And that's just how we play. But they were the best team by far. You could have put magic at the five, and it wouldn't have mattered. Yeah, it didn't matter. Of course it wouldn't have mattered. All right, power forwards. That would be Charles Barkley, Yep, Carl Malone.

Absolutely. Christian Leighton. Obligatory college player. And then your centers would be Patrick Ewing and David Robinson. Yeah. So maybe Isaiah Thomas doesn't fit on this squad. Isaiah fit. Way more than Chris Mullen.

I mean, Chris Mullen is the, outlier on that one, right? Him and Layner, but you had to go with a college player. I would say Larry Bird. He was way past his prime. Remember, he could hardly walk. But how do you put together the first... In 1992.

But how do you put together the first dream team and don't include Larry Bird? I mean, he hardly played and he could hardly walk at that point. His back was so bad that he couldn't even... He wasn't involved in, like, the scrimages and stuff. Before we go and if we got some people I want to talk to, get to them... What were Larry Bird's numbers in 1991 and 92? Well, let me pull that up. Because that'll tell you whether or not what you're saying is any validity.

to it. In 91, he played 90 to 91. He played 60 games. He averaged 19 points a game. 91.92, he only played 45 games. Okay. So that was more of the honorary pick. I think so. But here we're going back in the time. Think about this, Ross. This would have been the first time that the best of the best, regardless of conference, regardless of team, would have gotten together. If Larry Bird was still active in the NBA, Larry Bird was going on that team. Okay. I don't know. I can't go back in the time machine and tell you what you have. I'm going back and telling you that Larry Bird's got to be on there. Chris Mullen to me,

and Chris, obviously, we had a very, very good run. Yeah, don't hate on Chris Mullen. I'm not going to hate on him, but... Part of run TMC. But if I said, name an all-star team, this is what it was. It wasn't necessarily by position, although it certainly feels like it. You said Chris Mullen deserves

to be on the team or Isaiah Thomas, as I say it Thomas every single day. Yeah, but if you're trying to fill out the roster and you don't want more than a couple of point guards, then you understand. But I guess you could just take him off... And if Michael George, and said don't put them on the team, then you're not going to put him on the team. And if we already have Larry on and he's not going to play, we do need somebody at the three.

Which you could have put Magic at the three. Magic can play all five. He's not going to play. You're not going to, there's just, that wasn't really going to happen back then. You mean to tell me that Angola would have been trouble for, uh, magic at playing the three? I think so. Is that what you're telling me? They might have been a closer game.

They might only lost by 40. Okay. I got you. All right. Look, I'm not an Isaiah fan. I met him a couple of years ago. I'm saying I could just looking at the roster, I could possibly buy that they would say we don't have room for Isaiah Thomas.

And it certainly helped that Michael Jordan said over my dead body. Correct. Because I don't believe you, Rod Thorne. I believe you're lying. Ross would always tell you, athletes, owners, general managers, coaches, what do they all do? Midday hosts. And I do lie too. I fully, man.

I'm a liar. I don't lie a lot, but I do lie three times a day. Hold on. I just got followed by the linear official band Twitter account. How many followers they have? 821. Go ahead and make it 822. I got this. Can they perform? We have our 30,000 Twitter party. Can they come be at our band?

They just asked me to be the third member. Of what? There's two guys in a band? There was three. Like one's left or I don't know, maybe he's dead. Dead? You've already had every principle of a television show murdered. Not murdered. Natural causes. Whatever. Lamont on 790. Lamont, what's a good word? Hey, man, y'all forgot the greatest athlete-turned singer, a pop star of all times

and that's Akeem Ologer one unbeatable, that's all I have Oh wait, get the song He, I mean, I think all he says I don't even know that he's on that song Get the song right He goes undebeatable, that's all I think that's him What?

I think that's the artist Undefeatable Boom boom boom I don't think Is he on that song? It is listed as Akeem the dream Elijah one If we're using Lamont's train of thought on this, then the Chicago Bears

of the 80 Super Bowl shuffle. Jim McMahon is the greatest. Okay, you know what's a greater song than that, though. This is not a game. Sorry, no. It's Elijah won and hurt them bad. Turn up a little bit. Undefeatable.

This is a jam, though. That's him, I think. Rewind that part. I think that's it. He went to a recording studio and said that, and that's it? It says Akeem Olajuwon and heard him bad. That's the artist. Akeem Olajuwon.

Before he corrected the spelling. By the way, this song was released by Etonics. 85 Super Bowl Shuffle. Ramit is a far superior song. Gary Fensick. We're just here to do the Super Bowl Shuffle. Running the ball is like make him old mans. We had the ghost's train and camp.

The give Chicago. Joe George is foaming at the mouth over here. I love this video. Of course you do. All right, play Ramit. Ramit's way better than that song, by the way. Oh, this is the, what, the L.A. Rams.

Well, they in St. Louis? In the 80s. Eric Dickerson's on it. We've played Ramet before. I think we were unable to finish a second because of it. What do you mean? You'll hear it and you know what we're talking about. Yes.

Now, this is actually. This is actually a legit jam. Can you say ram it in 2020? You just did. Let's ram it, Matt. Big bad Jackie and I'm starting this all. The Rams get down so nobody's strong. And don't you worry because the Rams are rapping when game time comes

with it back to Zatman. We can't sing and our dance is not pretty, but we'll do our best for the team in the city. So get on your feet and clap your hand. Let's ram it right now with the L.A. That's good enough. This song's not good. The chorus is good. I like Super Bowl shuffle better.

Ramit's way better. I can understand half the words. Although Ramit is just such a catchy catch phrase. And then they go, R-A-M-I or IT or whatever it is at the end. Imagine the Texans had a song. IT. My name is Cal. I run the team.

But I really don't. I give it to B-O-B. I'm B-O-B. I'm the general manager. And the head coach is all that matters. What would it be called? The Kirby Shuffle? Yeah.

The Kirby Shuffle. NRG is for me. I'm going to Kirby Shuffle. The Kirby Shuffle. Everybody does a shuffle. You can't even use the word shuffle. Why not? I just want to see J.J.

I'm J.J. Well, I've been in there. Would you rather have a uniform change or a theme song change? Well, we trade it away are all of our draft picks? John Watson. Worth the ham sandwich, it's all. Let's trade all these great players to Arizona for the fall.

Does this song get any catcher, the more you hear it or less? It's horrible. It does not. Yeah, it does. I'm playing all the gold in California over and over an endless loop tonight in the car. 212. Do I have to follow back to linear band?

Yes. By the way, Your band is going to be with us in Vegas for the 30,000 Twitter party. I don't know if you're getting them to follow you. Here's what I'll do. That's true. Why don't I do this? Why don't I know Nelson serious?

Why don't I ask a bunch of bands if they'll perform for our 30,000 Twitter party? I bet you linear. Linear is probably got a wide open calendar right now. Send me a tweet at SportsMpte. What, name five bands you want me to to. John Daly? To tweet at. And I'll ask them to come perform at our 30,000 Twitter.

Definitely John Daly. Can you tell John Daly? we're going to get hammered in Vegas. He's there in a second. Yeah, he's in. That's fine. I just, we got to get this done because we, first we need to get to Vegas and second of all, we need a band. Well, we need to get to 30,000. We need the buffet lines to get open, too. We need to get to 30,000. Let's get 30,000.

If you missed our Ken Rosenthal conversation, that was a terrible mistake on your part. But you get to make amends for it. We're going to play it for you at the bottom of the hour. Because it was such a good conversation, right? Fine. You can still play it during the night camp. New audience every 10 minutes. That's right. 2.13 on Sports Talk 790.

Load up on those napkins, straws, ketchup, hot sauce, mustard. Oh, and don't forget duck sauce. It's the Matt Thomas Show for lunch on Sports Talk 790. Time is 218. It is the Matt Thomas Show. 713, 212-5-790. 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. We're busy with Ken Rosenthal. You miss it earlier. We'll play it for you coming up in about 10 minutes from now.

Jimmy and Tomball on the Matt Thomas show. Jimmy. Hey, man, I almost just had a mini heart attack. I thought it was getting pulled over. My trucks expired by like a year and I don't have any way to do it because everything's closed. But anyway, I was calling, I had to ask Fort M.T. medical question. But first, why does Ross know what KKK music sounds like? I'll let him answer that. That's disturbing. Okay. Look, that's just me. That's me and my personal business. Okay, fair enough. Secondly, before it gets... too far in the rearview mirror.

I think we just have to touch on if there was a Mount Rushmore of bad Fantasy 5, Matt Thomas is, he wouldn't just be on it. He would be like the Abraham Lincoln of it from last Friday's music thing. I mean, okay, so here's my ask for some medical question.

Wife's expecting, and as you know, nobody's allowed to go with them to their appointments or anything. You can't go to your wife's doctor's appointments since she's pregnant? No. Can't even go look at the ultrasound or nothing. Oh, my goodness.

So anyway, this morning's the appointment, and I got the one-year-old, and on rainy days is when we do all our equipment maintenance. So I took the one-year-old to Walmart with me. I didn't put her in the buggy. I held her with one arm and pulled the buggy with the other arm because I needed about 30 quarts of boil. She didn't touch nothing. I checked out with one hand, did everything.

But the stairs people were. forgiving me, like, they thought I should just go ahead and walk straight into prison. And I just need, was I in the right or wrong? What's y'all's opinion? And I'll hang up and listen. All right. Thank you, Jimmy. He's asking him. He took the one-year-old into the Walmart. Nothing wrong with that. And he didn't put her in the buggy because I guess, you know, for safety. He kept her on his person. Okay, sure. Held her the whole time. And then checked out and went about his business. But he said he was getting a lot of ugly stairs from people. What were they mad about? I guess that he took the baby out into the public?

He didn't have a choice. He said his wife was at the doctor. Well, then you know what? Wife was at the doctors. They're mind your own damn business. People are judging, Matt. You mean to tell me that people judge people? Especially on social Twitter?

So he says, is he in the wrong? Can you find a little baby mask to put on the baby? Well, the rule is under 10 in Harris County. Secondly, I got to be honest with you, Ross. Those grocery carts are heavily, heavily, they sanitized. Well, yeah, at least at HB. I've been HB a couple of times.

They sanitize all of them. I'm assuming Walmart is something. I would have had zero problem putting the baby in the seat. But that's not the issue. The issue is they were mad at him because they brought the one-year-old. Well, then guess what? Suck it. Jimmy's wife's out there doing her thing.

He's being the good dad, being the grocery shopping kind of guy that he is. That's crazy. You can't go to your wife. You're staying with your wife. I can't get you go to the doctor's appointment with her. She's pregnant. and he can't see the ultrasounds and all that type of stuff. Isn't that a huge moment, right, when your wife's pregnant to see the ultrasound and see the baby and all that type of stuff?

That's under the category you said life sucks. My buddy said he wasn't allowed in the delivery room until she was in labor. So even while she was like ready to start, like until she started having contractions, she wasn't a lot in there. The best part about being in the living room is seeing your child come out of your wife? You know? No, no, it's fantastic. That sounds disgusting. The worst part is seeing her intestines on a plate.

Yeah, I'm out past on that one. Just don't look. Yeah, I'm saving above the ball. So what you do is when you hold your baby for the first time, oh, this is the greatest thing ever. I love you, honey. I love this baby. Hand the baby back to the nurse. And then put your hands against your sides.

Like, well, what if you get baby? You don't. They clean muck. Okay. They don't have, you don't have baby muck. Then put your left hand on your left side of your head and your right. And so you can narrowly walk out of the room. Because if you start turning to the corners, you're going to see intestines.

And it's not a great thing. Okay. Noted. Life lessons with Matt Thomas. Oh, I got everything. I got marriage tips for you. Yeah. I've got delivery room tips for you.

I've got high school reunion tips for you. Stealing sodas tips. I stole one soda. And it wasn't a stole. Fighting over avocados. Wait, when did you fight over avocados? Yesterday we talked about this. Ross, you were right there.

Oh, wait, we were talking about, uh, we were talking about you. Oh, you and your wife fighting. The wife fighting with the avocados. I thought we were saying you, like, fought somebody at a grocery store about it. Yeah, I remember that story. You and your wife got in a fight, not like you physically punched somebody over some avocado. No, no, no, no, no chance. And by the way, for the record, I still despise avocados.

Okay. But when I get to 30,000 Twitter, I'll eat the bowl of alacado. Okay. Now, you tell me your mom makes a good guacamole. My mom makes the best guacamole. So I'm going to have some Mala Villariel guacamole. Oh, so good.

I had some Sunday. Dipping in chips, I'll be fine. And we're going to have a house ban there. I'm going to see if Paul McCartney will come from our 30,000 party. Wouldn't that be great? Yeah. If I said Paul McCartney is going to meet us in Vegas, I'd get the 30,000 like in a millisecond. You think so?

Just say, hey, 5,000 people are going to show up? No, just tweet. Like, hey, Paul McCartney, tweet that you're going to be at my party. Does Paul McCartney have a Twitter? Probably like his agent runs it or something? Well, yeah. Most people don't have their, you know, when you get superstar celebrity,

somebody's running your Twitter account. The Internet's out here. Is it really? Oh, well. All right. 224 on the Matt Thomas show. 713-212-579 if you want to get in. 713-212-5-790 on Twitter at SportsMT at SportsRV

and at Joe George Radio. Tomorrow, Ian Eagle will be on the radio program. People we miss hearing from the very talented C. CBS broadcaster. And we're going to intro him with him chewing out Mike Fretello. That's not going to happen. Okay. I'll let you ask that.

Paul McCartney does have a Twitter account. Does it look like he's running it or one of his buddies is? He follows 16 people. And he has 4 million followers. Damn. You know how many followers the Kardashian girls have? Probably like 100 million? I thought it was in the 60 million range.

64.6 million. In Instagram, I think it's like 100 million. that's crazy. Because here's the thing, if you're following Kardashian, she's not putting up funny, interesting things. She's just putting up the products that she can get on her Twitter accounts. She can get paid off of that, right? On Instagram, she has 167 million followers.

I have like 1100. I got like 100. Wow, I don't Instagram. At Sports RV. Yeah, why not? Yeah, I don't really use it. You do Twitch quite a bit. The only post I have it at Twitch.tv slash SportsRV.

I have 169 followers on Instagram, but I've only posted once, and that's because I got paid for it. What? What? You were there, too. For what? Didn't you get? Yeah, you got paid too. Oh, I didn't get paid.

Oh, the baseball thing? That was really good. That was an easy money. Very nice. Those are the days back in the days. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. And also, what have we got going on, the rest of the day?

on oh Friday the Fantasy 5 we're going to honor the return of restaurants oh that's right by having a fantasy 5 mm-hmm of restaurant specific appetizers sit-down restaurants sit-down restaurant you wouldn't get an appetizer McDonald's well eight-piece nugget that's a little that's a little warm up for my double quarter counter okay now that we discuss your caloric intake for the day uh I believe there's a defendant of number one okay But yeah, any restaurant, any apta. So you could say cheese sticks, but you'd have to be specific of which place you'd get your cheese sticks from. Hmm.

I don't think there's a cheese steak. Is there a definitive cheese stick somewhere? I don't think so. Yeah, isn't there a place that has really good cheese blocks? Can't remember. Plays in Lubbock, but that's, that's, that's, maybe that's what I'm thinking of that you're talking about or something. All right. Back with Ken Rosenthal conversation.

We'll have it for you next to 227 on 790. on the Matt Thomas show. Earlier today, we visited with Ken Rosenthal. Great conversation. Of course, you hear him on Fox. You see him on the Athletic. He's also on the MLB Network as well. And he, among many of the top baseball writers,

are trying to figure out what Major League Baseball is trying to do in terms of a 2020 season. The most notable story in the last 24 hours coming from Bob Nightingale, three different cities, oh, no, excuse me, three different divisions of 10 teams each. done basically through geography, which would put the Astros with all the other teams in the American and National League West, opening up playoffs, opening up about 100 and 110 game schedule, perhaps, opening up the use of DH, all things we talked about. Plus, we got into a little bit about the reaction of the Boston Red Sox scandal when it relates to the Astros. But first things first with Ken, we asked him his thoughts on, should we be optimistic that baseball's talking so much about return.

turning to play in the next handful of weeks. It's not throwing fingers against the wall in the sense that it's a pipe dream. It is something that can happen. Now, you ask me, what is it, Ken? And what are we talking about here? And I don't really answer to that. They are looking at a number of ideas. And the way it's been explained to me, Matt, is that they have to model everything and all kinds of scenarios so that when the time comes, if the time comes,

where they have the opportunity to start the season, they will be ready with either plan A, B, C, D, whatever the case might be. So I know fans are reading about a lot of different ideas, and I know some sound kind of cool, some sound kind of weird, but I would caution against getting overly excited or attached to any one idea just yet. They don't know. And everything depends, of course, on the virus and how it progresses, where it goes, the impact on different states.

And until they have a grasp on that, and until, frankly, there is enough testing in this country to have a sports league come back to action, I don't know that the conversation is all that relevant. That said, all that said, I still believe they will play this year. I just don't know how, when, just how we'll all transpire. Have you been given any indication about a drop-dead date, Like, you know what, we've got to have a decision made by a certain period of time.

Because obviously you're not fighting per se stadiums because most of the facilities are on their own. But you may be fighting weather. You might be fighting television networks. That's a variety of things. So any idea when at some point, Commissioner Manfred says either we're going to have a season or we're not? No. They don't have that kind of date in mind just yet. Keep in mind, we're still in April.

Now, granted, it's almost night. but there is in a normal baseball season a long way to go, five months out of six. And also keep in mind that the agreement that MLB reached with the Players Union gives them the ability to play regular season games through October. So when you ask how late can it start, I don't know the answer because even if you started for the sake of discussion, Matt, and we're just talking here. Let's say you started August 15th. and said, you know what, we're not going to have a season. We're just going to have a big round-robin tournament. Well, you could pull that off in two and a half months and then have a postseason.

And there are all kinds of ways to do it. In my view, the value of coming back is so great to the sport and even to the country that no matter how limited the season is, it will be better to play than not to play. Now, obviously, any kind of abbreviated season is going to have some kind of asterisk attached to it in terms of it won't be viewed the same way as a normal season. But at the same time, I think at this point, fans, media people like myself, everybody just wants to see the game come back. And that is the priority.

Ken, when the game does come back, and if they do these pod type of things, they'll probably have to be the DH for every team. Do you think that's something that could be lasting and could have a lasting impact? or you think that'll go away just be a one-year one-off? Well, that's been discussed as something that could come up in the next collective bargaining agreement. The current CBA expires December 2021. And I would expect that in the next CBA, if there is ever going to be Universal B.H.

Both leagues, it will occur there. Now, in the abbreviated season, there are a number of things you can try and just see how works and looks because again, it's not going to be a normal season. It will be that season with an asterisk. So I expect that if the sport does come back, there will be a number of creative ideas explored. And the Universal D.H probably would be one of the less aggressive ones, right? I mean, we all kind of could get used to that. I know some people nationally fans would not necessarily like it. But I do expect some other things as well. And I know fans who are traditionalists get upset every time the sport does anything different.

But if you're ever going to do it, you do it now in a shortened season and see how it plays out. Busing with Ken Rosenthal, MLB on Fox, MLB Network, the senior writer for the athletic. And again, you get a 90-day free trial with the athletic to check out some of Ken and his team's excellent work. Last question about this. any feeling from you, Ken, are owners unified about what could happen, or do you think when Manfred comes down with a plan, he's going to have to probably, you know, separate the haves from the have-nots, the, hey, this makes sense, hey, this not? How unified right now do you believe the owners are about putting together a season and agreeing to the terms of such season?

Matt, that's a good question. And they're certainly unified in their desire to come back. Now, once there is a template for returning, at that point, do they share revenue to a greater extent than they might otherwise simply because of the unusual circumstances? That is something that they would have to address. And the same actually can be said for the players who would be or have different opinions on other topics among their own body. There's 1,200 players. They're not always going to agree on everything. And we've already seen some players speak out against the so-called Arizona plan, the one with the quarantine situation and no fans.

And you heard Trout and Kirsch said, I don't want to be away from my family that long, et cetera. So on both sides, players and owners, there are going to be different opinions, and that's understandable. That's kind of the way America is, right? But at the same time, you would think that when push came to shove, if logistically baseball could be played, then all of these different issues that need to be addressed would be addressed in a mature and adult fashion.

And I say it like that, not because I'm talking to my children, but because we've seen in the past, these two groups, the players and owners sometimes behave in ways that are less than mature and adults. Yeah, for sure. Ken, I'd like to ask you a question, taking the reporter's cap off for a second. and you've been to have the great fortune of covering the Astros during the World Series runs, the playoff runs as Fox has been broadcast into games. I did a weekly show with A.J. Hinch, and I tremendously miss him and look forward to doing it with Dusty when the season gets started again.

But from our pure personal aspect, it felt like AJ not only to me, but the media members that covered him gave you things, talked about things. From a pure reporter to manager to off-air on air, what were your thoughts about A.J? and how much will you miss the repartee that he has with you and with other people? Because I feel like he's been a guy that just didn't give you those standard pat answers to your generic questions. That's certainly true, Matt. He's an excellent interview. There's no doubt about that.

And one thing I will say, because this is a Houston station, in writing the initial report with my co-writer, Evangrelic, about what the Astros did in 2017. And we only reported on 17, not 18. it pained me, pained me to write about AJ Hinch and Alex Cora, two guys that I have had very close relationships with, and respect a great deal. We had to do our job.

We did our job. Ultimately, what happened happened, but A.J. Hinch is a guy that I have tremendous respect and even affection for. Alex Cora the same. And it was difficult, personally in some ways to get that story out there because of those relationships. Now, again, you do your job and eventually you have to just say, okay, this is it, this is what happened, that's that.

But we're human beings and there was some inner conflict. Let's put it that way with me. Yeah. A lot of our audience, now remember, we're the station that carries the games, but we've been very much in the, you know what, the Astros cheated, they got caught, they served a punishment, they're going to serve a punishment. It felt like, Ken, that Boston got very lucky. And again, I don't want it to be Homer-centric on the Astros side,

but I've seen other well-known people. I don't know how your personal feeling is about to find out right now, but other national people have said that the Red Sox, not only the punishment was very lenient, but Major League Baseball did this on a news dump the day before the MLB, the NFL draft. Your take on when the decision was made, the decision itself, and do you blame the Houston fan base for feeling like that the Astros got

super severe punishment while meanwhile Boston used a video guide as their scapegoat. First of all, I co-wrote the Red Sox Story 2 that led to that investigation so I come out of it kind of from a similar perspective having been a part of

both initial reports. Now, one thing that is really important to remember, what we reported about the Red Sox was not as egregious and flagrant as what we reported about the Astros. What we reported about the Red Sox also did not have an on-the-record whistleblower like Mike fires to support the reporting.

We had off the record people telling us what had happened. So the distinction has to be made, first of all, between the trash cam banging and simply using video, decoding it during games, and then relaying it to the dugout to second base to the hitter at home plate, which the Astros also were doing. So what the Astros did in the... eyes of baseball and even in the reporting that we did based on what we heard was much worse. They were always going to have the tougher penalty, the stiffer penalty. The question then becomes, okay, given what the Red Sox did, was that enough of a penalty?

And we wrote about this Evan and I did last week in response to the penalties. We asked a number of questions about what Major League Baseball had decided. was if the manager and GM were held responsible in the Houston case, as Commissioner Manfred promised in 2017 after the Apple Watch incident, and that was going to be the policy. Misconduct of this kind, the manager and GM are responsible. Well, if that's the case, then why weren't the manager and GM responsible with the Red Sox? And I have not really heard a satisfactory answer there. what basically my understanding is that they considered J.T. Watkins, a video guy, a rogue employee,

one guy, and that's how they determined it. Now, it was a more difficult investigation. They had more conflicting accounts. It confused things. But that basic standard, manager and GM held responsible, they did not apply that in this case, and that was curious to me. And there are other questions, too, and I encourage people to go back and read that article. But the main thing is, why I consider certainly understand why Astro fans would say, hey, wait a second, this wasn't close to what we did. The infractions also weren't close. So, yes, you can judge the penalties and say they weren't severe enough for the Red Sox, and you can make a fair case about that, but they were never going to be as severe as what the Astros got. I think, though, one angle of that, though, Ken, is

that this was a second time offense from the Red Sox with the same guy, and the Red Sox said, we're not going to violate these rules, and then they did it again. I think that's also an issue that Astros fans have, is that there is second time offender. That's entirely fair. That is entirely fair, especially when the commissioner said he's going to apply a harsher standard going forward to any team that does this again. And there's also any consistency in the report about the Red Sox front office being praised by Manfred for communicating the rules effectively to the staff, the coach and the manager.

And that's fine. And he said they established a culture of accountability, et cetera, which the Estros had not done. And they got criticized for that in his own report about their conduct. But in the same report about the Red Sox, I know I'm jumping back and forth here. Right. It also says the players didn't know the rules.

So it's very nice that the front office communicated to the coach and manager well enough, but evidently the coaches and manager didn't communicate to the players well enough. So there was that flaw, too. Hey, I'm not saying these questions are unfair. They're fair. And we raised them ourselves, many of them, in our article last week. I don't really have any better answers than that. He was really good.

And that's why I thought it was worthy of playing it again, because I thought he understood the pissed-offness that we already used at Texas. Yeah. He gave good answers to anything we had to ask him about. And she's very well thought out. Good answers. Good stuff. All right.

And hopefully he'll keep busy talking about. at this baseball schedule. 713-212-5-7-9. If you want to get in the final segment of the show right now, a message for big city wings. Get in on $8 burgers today at any of the eight big city wing locations. All the burgers, $8. We're talking about ones with barbecue, bacon, guacamole,

if you like, that sort of thing, cheese, chili, all them delicious, all come with the side. And they're $8 today at any of the eight big city wing locations. Do yourself a favor. Get those great wings. Wings, get the crawfish, five pounds for $25, get the great appetizers. Create a great menu, and you can go pick it up, or you can have a delivered to your house. And remember, Friday, they're open up for limited business, much like many of the restaurants in the area.

Delicious food, amazing appetizers and desserts as well, and margaritas to go at Big City Wings. Remember, $8 burgers tonight, $8 burgers, burger and fries from Big City Wings and Big CityWings.com. Back to the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790 For the corner And that's go! Home of your Astros Final segment of the Matt Thomas show here on Sports Talk 790

Just kind of recap the news of the day Isaiah Thomas says that Michael Jordan was the reason why that he didn't get to put into the dream team of 88 or 92 And Rod Thorne who created the team was working for USA basketball says that's not true. But what does Isaiah Hardenstein have? say about all this.

Was he even born? No, no chance. No chance. Yeah, we were talking about, Matt, and we were they and they born in 1999, and we just felt old. That's basically every player in the NBA.

Yeah, that's true. Terrible. God, it makes me just, ugh. Like 97, you know, like you watch the 97 stuff from the last dance. Most of it looks like it was filmed yesterday, but it was 23 years ago.

I mean, the footage? It looks pretty old. It doesn't look grainy. There's not an HD to it, that's for sure. Yeah, that's what I mean. It doesn't look super old, but it doesn't look new. I've told you a story before. There's so much more mid-range shooting as well.

That's the funny part. Yeah. Go watch any Rockets game. Like Matt Bullard's talked about a lot of times on the A team about he was the top three-point shooter in a particular game where he made three. And that was like a huge, huge deal. Right. So, yeah, the game.

I like the game. I like three-pointers. Oh, yeah, up and down, fast-paced, three-pointers, freewheeling offense. When San Antonio's Lamarcus Aldridge, you would say top of the key jumper, I'm like, ew, gross. Yeah, go back to some of those games that they'll show the final. It's like, final 80 to 77. Is that what anybody really wants right now?

But that wasn't the main reason why. But yeah, the game was getting mucked up and there was too much defense. There was too much defense. I don't think it was because of too many mid-range. No, not mid-range. it was the defense and the they just had to kind of lax up the rules a little bit. Right.

Because it started with like Pat Riley's Knicks and those heat teams as well and then it kept going into the late 90s and the 2000s and I think probably culminated with that that Spurs Pistons final

in 2005. I mean that was just a knockdown drag out defensive games and I liked watching the games at the time. Like some of the Spurs Nets game has been on that was a tough watch.

Yeah, you look at the finals Frankly, I think San Antonio was on during that time was a tough watch. I think, like, twice somebody scored above 90 in that entire 2005 finals. I'd have to find the games again. So why do people... Or maybe I'm thinking of the 2000 finals. Those that hate the Rockets, and that's a large group. Game 7 in that series was 81 to 74.

No thanks. People that hate the Rockets, why do they hate them? Because that's what the Rockets do. Well, they don't like James Harton. Starts with that. But there's 80% of the league runs the same offensive of Rockets do. It's true. Maybe even 85, 90.

It's just people who aren't ready for the times to change. Just get off my lawn, man shakes a fist at cloud. Okay, so let me ask you this. We've got two minutes left ago. We're actually getting longer on this later on. If this is the current age of basketball, what's the next phase? Because we went from a dominant center big man league to a team that shoots the reasons and Ds.

I don't know if we're ever going to change. Because you know what this is done is it's taking six, nine guys that maybe don't want to put their rear end of the basket to shoot jump hooks, people love to shoot the threes because you can score more and you have more points in a game. And it's flashier as compared to putting your rear end against a defender and having a contested 10-foot jump hook in front of you. It's just a different game. It's more wide open. There's more space. So we're ever going to change? No, I don't think so. I think we're, I think we're this for a while, right? I mean, unless you get, unless somebody who has basically has a skill set of a young prime

shack comes into the league, it's going to be this. Or, Z. Zion Williamson becomes the greatest low-post 6-5 player in the NBA. He's been a very good actually early in his career. He's been already one of the... Joel Embed is the gold standard right now as far as low-post-efficient players. Zion's already right there with him, even in a couple of weeks. But Zion likes to shoot a 3-2. Yeah.

That's why people, I think, are so interested in about Zion, it's because if he can improve his shot and stay healthy, I think the biggest concern is him being able to play at that bodyway, which my guess is this time off has probably helped him tremendously. Or hurt. What's that? Or hurt him. It was the 99 finals I was thinking of, by the way.

We were only once in seven or five games, did anybody score above 90? Yeah. Okay. Disgusting. All right. Disgusting basketball. Spurs. So thanks again. Oh, look who bars some pizza.

That was nice of you. We literally had pizza like for you two hours ago. And I tried to not do it. So instead of taking your slices, he wouldn't bought his own. That's all right. That's fine. And Wax asked for two pieces earlier, and he said no. My pizza's not good enough for you.

That's fine. So I'm saying. Don't be a girl. Whatever. For Ross and for Joe. I'm Matt. Have a great rest of your day. Adam Clanton, Adam Wexter.

They are the A team. And they're up next on Sports Talk 7. I'll talk to you all tomorrow on noon.