The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - The Matt Thomas Show : Beatings and Man Love

Episode Date: February 18, 2020

The Matt Thomas Show w/ @SportsMT, @SportsRV, and @ProNickLow 2/18/20Live From Spring Training in West Palm BeachNick Markakis Wants Astros Players Beaten (12:24)Man Love For Dusty Baker (40:39)Will You Wear Astros Gear To Away Games? (1:02:07)

So much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas Show. Yes! 1202 in H-Town. What's happened in luncht timers? Good afternoon to you and welcome to the Matt Thomas show.

Today from West Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, Florida, where sports RV is introducing himself to spring training 2020 for the very first time. You were going to phrase that differently, weren't you? Well, I was going to say losing your virginity, but you always get queasy when I say that. Virginity is not a word that should be queasy. Well, it's just, I just don't think it applies to this type of situation. That's okay.

I think it does. I think you're a newbie out here. That's true, I guess. A little warm, but that's okay. It is. Thank you all for making our show a part of your day today. It seems, now granted, truth be really told, we came in a little earlier than we normally would have. Usually the first day of our coverage is the Wednesday before the start.

So we were here on photo day. There was also a bullpen session day, so guys are not very prevalent around. But just being in the clubhouse within the last half hour, and we are in a room probably, what, 25 feet from the major league clubhouse? It seems way more basebally today that might have been a couple days ago when everybody in their mother was here. Yes. I wouldn't, I guess that we have some of the footage that we put up on SportsTalk 790.com, but it seems, yeah, I think more basebally is the perfect phrase. I think I've just claimed a new phrase, basebally. Yes.

Because it felt like with Michael Connor being here the last couple days and seeing some of the reports that it was very less basebally here. And it was a lot of Q&A's about a variety of topics from signs to tattoos to calling people out. People getting told to shut the bleep up. Yeah, we got some fresh material for you today, by the way, if you've not heard that. So we will move that along. And it feels like to me that it's going to be that situation probably the entire 2020 season. I'd like to be able to come to you and say that it's going to simmer down to the point where, no one's going to complain when asked about it.

But you've got to remember, these are going to be a lot of different clubhouses that when the Astros make their first or second appearance in said stadium, it's going to become a topic of conversation. Yeah, this isn't going away for a while. I mean, the whole snowball effect will continue. I think it will continue to wane because that's what happens in 2020 is we make a huge deal out of stuff and then we kind of don't talk about it as much. But right now, you're talking about one of the slower times in sports

in the entire sports calendar. after the Super Bowl before the baseball season started. You got NBA All-Star weekend just happened, which was interesting. But I mean, nobody's really talking about the game today on a Tuesday. So all that makes the perfect storm for this firestorm of the Houston Astros. And you have other teams getting into spring training. So you have other players coming out. And it just seems like every single day there's a new player saying something about the Astros that's making headlines.

And we'll have the latest for you coming up at 1220. involving a guy that the Astros will see this season. It'll be very, very super, super late in the season, but he will be able to see the Houston Astros squad later on in the 2020 calendar. I can tell you this. This is, even though this is Ross's first trip, I think this is my fourth trip down here to West Palm, as compared to all the trips that I've made to Kissimme,

I don't know what it's going to be like. Normally what we will do just to kind of peel the curtain back because that's what we do here on the show. We will get here each morning approximately 83845 where we will tape some interviews with folks. It is very laid back. It's jovial, frankly. Usually pretty informal. But we get some good stuff out of it.

Right. I don't know what that's going to be like starting tomorrow when you and I get here at that time. So hopefully we'll get some folks on that will be able to breathe a little bit. And, you know, this isn't going to be a 50-minute investigation. This is, you know, I'm going to assume that most of you, the sound of my voice, have gotten all the information you possibly could have wanted on this. And now you're looking forward to kind of talking about the real stuff. And by the way, Justin Verlinder today did throw a bullpen session.

And he actually, for four minutes today, met with the media in the clubhouse just a few minutes ago. And it was all baseball. It was all, Ross, it was all baseball. So, again, it's not going to be overnight. It's going to intensify when the start of the regular season starts. It's going to certainly intensify when the Astros go on the road. But for now, at least as far as far as, feels a little bit more of a normal spring training days compared to previous years.

Yeah, we also will have a little bit of George Springer talking. We'll have that up on our Twitter account at Sports Talk 790 and the what's on Maths Mind Show page. And it was all baseball, too. Talking about Michael Brantley, talking about he had some live BP, not only talking about that and what it's like to see pitches with some speed and some movement on him. He also went up against Forrest Whitley, talked about what it was like to do to go up against him.

So normal spring training baseball stuff, at least today. here at West Palm. And my guess is it will be that way for a while as some of the national folks move out of town and the locals kind of stick around and try to get to the core of the season. If you'd like to join us this afternoon, we'd look forward to visiting with you all throughout the course of the day. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-2-790. If you want to reach out via Twitter, you can do so at SportsMT, at SportsRB. Pro-Niclo is back at our Houston studios. Ross and I are in Florida, courtesy of the Palm Beach. dot com and our

Cobbock Brewing so we appreciate both those groups making our trips to us and getting us down here for spring training coverage we'll get to Mark Hake us in a little bit I will tell you this since this is all gone down I have probably

been on 10 radio shows across the country I went on a station yesterday they pay any for that? No they need to frankly especially their eye hard they need to for sure because I'm providing quality content. That's what I'm saying, man. Yeah.

I mean, you know, these, these words aren't cheap. I know. This training, this knowledge, this analysis. Oh, we know that empty money, Matt. That's right. That's right. I really should be charging other stations. I'm going to now have you as my agent.

So what you normally do is you do the interview. You hang up, you turn your radio back on, and you listen. So what I thought I would do is I would listen to what they said about me. Their reactions, right. After. And it was fair. balanced well no we're not Fox News

okay but I was on KGR Radio in Seattle one of the great sports stations in this country and they had asked me a variety of questions and after they hung up with me I went on my Iron Heart Radio app and listened to KGR, listened to like the last minute of me talking and then the follow-up

and they had said you know what listening to Matt you know he wasn't defensive but he was obviously protective because it's a team in his home market that he's going to talk about way more than anybody else around America. Like, for instance, KGR is not going to spend the next six months talking about the Houston Astros. They're going to talk about the month of April for them where the M's will probably go with 3 and 20,

and there'll be 15 games out of first place. That's not nice. It's the truth. How many of you raise a hand have the M's one of the American League West this year? Quick, show of hands. I see no one in this room for rooting for the... No. Okay.

And he said, you know what? if we were in that particular spot, we would do the same thing. Now, so sometimes when you listen to that, you go, do you self-evaluate? Right. And nothing they said to me was inaccurate. But what we have tried to do, and any other team would do this for a team that was in their marketplace, they would try to show all the different angles except the, I'm just pissed off at the Astros. They're cheaters.

They're horrible. They should have their World Series taken from them. They should have their rings taken from them. They should all be banned. I mean, that's the easy non-Huston narrative. What we have brought into this conversation, and it's not good or bad, is that we've talked about the Red Sox are probably going to get ding next. There are probably other teams that should be investigated that maybe won't.

And the number one thing that we've continued to talk about that, again, it still is very hard for some people to comprehend Ross, is that the information that Major League Baseball received came at a price. And Major League Baseball fans aren't happy with that price. They are really upset. And they didn't get a vote. They didn't get a chance to negotiate. So these ridiculous petitions, these ridiculous lawsuits,

every Major Leagueer seeming like he is so mad and upset, the Astros don't face personal punishment. You know what? All I say to those people, I mentioned us on the Seattle show yesterday, is put yourself in those in the Astro's shoes. Every Major League Baseball player who is protected by a union would want the same sort of immunity that the local baseball team got. Or you have no reason to give anything up.

That's right. So once you say that, it tends to change the interview a little bit as to, well, I didn't quite think of it that way. Right. That's the thing. I mean, everybody is getting their pitchforks out and all this stuff, and I totally get it. I understand.

But you have to have a little bit of reason about this. And like you said, about the immunity. And then Evandrell, it's come out with an article today. He's here, by the way. Oh, okay. Or I guess it was last night, maybe. Or maybe in the middle of that. It doesn't matter.

He says, he wrote an article for the athletic saying, Rob Manfred probably could not have successfully disciplined Astros players, even if he didn't give them immunity. In a grievance, a source said the MLB would have been, quote, smoked. So the MLB would have had no leg to stand on. according to Evan Drelich's article and his sources if they had tried to pursue suspensions and going after the players

just because there is no rule collectively bargained rules that state anything about this so if you try to go after them for something that's just in a memo they're probably going to lose because Robbair there's no collectively bargained rule set for this or any kind of guidelines or anything now maybe in the next deal there will be

something like this that will be that they can talk about and it'll be in the next deal but that way, the way that it is now, Rob Bannford would have had nothing to stand on. He would have gotten, quote, smoked, according to Evandrelich. So it's just... Get around it. Sometimes players associations when it comes to penalties

can win and win big. And I think any baseball player, whether the Astros or not, would have won big if they would have challenged something based along on hearsay only. Yeah, and I was tweeting about it yesterday, how difficult it would have been in the court cases and subpoenas. Like I said, there would be no, no doubt in my mind Congress would get involved in all this grievances and everything.

And, you know, somebody tweeted me because a lot of non-astroes fans are finding their way into my mentions, however. And somebody said, well, what if it was another team and the entire team was busted using PEDs? Well, there's a collectively bargained set guideline of penalties for that. Right, right. It's not conform to conjecture for the commissioner. Francis Martes says, hello, there's guidelines for that. There's not a guideline for this. Right.

All right. We're in West Palm Beach, courtesy of the Palm Beach. and Carbuck Brewing. We'd love for you guys to get in as well. Lines are available all throughout the course today. And like I said, we'll let you hear what Dusty Baker had to say earlier today. We'll also hear what Nick Mark Kinkas had to say as he's the latest Astro opponent to tell us how big and bad the Astros are and how Maddie is. And frankly, didn't use the best language today. We'll let you hear that next. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212. 5 790 with Ross and Matt.

We are here in West Palm on your home of the Stroes. Sports Talk 790. Welcome to Palm Beach and a new season of Astros baseball. I'm very excited. We can't wait to get out there and play again. Exclusive Astros spring training coverage on 7-9 is brought to you by Carbock Brewing, crafted for Syria's fun, and by the Palm Beaches.com. You know, I know we're all competitive and we're all out there competing,

but there's right ways to do it and wrong ways to do it. And I 100% disagree with the way they did it. You know, there's a lot of people that were hurt by it. And it was wrong. And I think the punishment and everything, I think just everything has been taken, everything's been handled the wrong way. You know, you've got two guys that are sitting at home

that you can kind of, you know, give them a little bit of leeway. And they're not in the game right now. And then you got the people who are the people who are sitting at home. The players we did that are Scott free. Okay. Man, I didn't realize that one team was crushing lives and ruining careers. I mean, that's pretty strong stuff from Nick Marquikis of the Atlanta Braves. By the way, the Astros will end the 2020 regular season in Atlanta against the Braves.

They'll go to New York before that. So that should be a highly charged final week of the regular season, regardless of the end result, and hopefully the Astros find themselves. winners of the American League West by that time. Markakis was not done today. He says he doesn't stand behind the commissioner and doesn't stand behind the local baseball team. I know as players, we do not agree with what they did.

We don't stand behind them and never will we support them for their actions. And I think they got off pretty easy. They're going to be able to go out there and compete with no ramifications at all, which is wrong. And I think the commissioner completely handled it the wrong way. But, you know, that's the way he did it. And, you know, that's the way we got to live with it.

But, you know, I know a lot of people disagree with him. And the way he handled this situation, he should be embarrassed of himself. All right. So there is a respectful way to disagree with something. And then there is a way to go completely bonkers. and that's what Nick said towards the end of his media availability. It angers you, especially from a guy who has played the game the right way, his whole career. No shortcuts.

I know how hard this game is. I know how hard preparing for this game is and to see something like that, it's damaging to baseball. You know, it's anger. I feel like every single guy over there needs a beating. you know, it's wrong. They're messing with people's careers. Needs a beating.

Are we losing our minds up with this? You know, it's interesting, Matt. All this talk and all this going on, it's kind of reminded me that, you know, we hold athletes, professional athletes, in this certain esteem, in this certain high regard. We think of them a certain way.

But the reality of it is, They're all just people like us. They just happen to have great athletic abilities. But there are some who are smart, some who are thoughtful, some who are not that smart, some who are not that thoughtful. And some who are aggressive, some who are not. So it's all just different feelings and indications. And I think that's what we're learning when we see some of these certain comments that are coming out.

It's going crazy in Major League Baseball, clearly. We are absolutely happy to talk about real-life baseball, 2020 baseball, Abraham Toro of the Houston Astros joining us for a couple minutes on the show. We appreciate coming by. How are things? Help me out here. First one, Matt. You turned mine way up.

Yeah. Look at me. I can't incorporate anything. He's fired, man. Help him out over here. Put his headphones on there. Because I do want to ask him about one of the most special. That's me.

That's me. This has got to be one over here. There we go. I think we're good. Now try it. All right. That's good. There you go.

How's it sound there for you? Yeah. One of the highlights of last year, team for sure was Justin throwing the no-no. You had a big part of that helping that make that happen. The quote, where the F is Toro is one of the most

if you're going to make t-shirts with your life, that should be on there, right? Yeah, yeah. I've got a lot of people they know me by that line and it's always pretty funny. Did you spend a little bit of time looking back at that game knowing how big impactful

your hit was in helping JV get that no-hitter? I don't need to go back Because just people, they bring it out a lot. There you go. They just show me video, try to ask me questions about it. So, you know, like I said, it's always nice, you know, to talk about that. J.B.'s never going to let you pay for a meal again, correct? I hope so.

I mean, seriously, no hitters are rare. I mean, he's had a few in his life. But there's, I don't know if you know this, he makes a lot of money. So I'm seriously, I would not worry about ever if you're in a restaurant. Just scream his name and say, remember Toronto? Just do it that way. I'll try that next time. Tell me about Dusty Baker, your kind of conversation with him so far.

You know, I've been in camp for like two days, so, you know, I just introduced myself so far. So, you know, so far as great. A great manager, you know, he's been in a game for a while, so I'm just trying to learn for him. Obviously, a different tenor from AJ. So is there anything at this point you've been able to notice, or is it still too early to decide what kind of feel you have for him? Yeah, I think it's a little early, like I said, it's only been two days, but, you know, it's obviously everybody is different. and hopefully I can get to know him a little better and we can make things work out.

Are you a guy that needs to walk into the clubhouse knowing what they expect to be early on or do you kind of have your own kind of, here's my game playing, here's what I want to make sure I justify myself getting on this roster. How do I fit my way out of this 26 man? Yeah, I'm just trying to focus about myself. I don't need somebody to tell me what to do.

I'm just trying to work hard and do my game. I don't want to change my plans to hopefully make the team. So you talk about you don't want to change your plans. I mean, what are you going into or what is different this year from, say, maybe years past, of just going in offseason and preparing yourself? This year is a little different, I'll say, on the defensive side, you know, trying to be a little bit versatile, you know, trying to play all over the infill, maybe some outfield.

And on the hitting standpoint, it's just trying to be able to spread a ball a little bit more. I don't want to be just a pull hitter, so that's what I've been working so far. Are you somebody who, I mean, are you just talking to everybody or you are asking questions and all that type of stuff you're trying to soak everything up here? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't really ask a question. I just trying to see what the guys are doing. That's what I did last year, just about the routine.

And then some things I put in my routine and something I just let go. Just give me an example of somebody's routine. You're kind of picking up on and trying to model after. I like Brickman a lot. You know, just every swing, you know, you can see he has an intent. He's a big video guy. He likes to see his video. So he's kind of the guy that I kind of looked up.

too. In years past, guys getting days off is very difficult. I mean, it takes a lot of work to tell Jose O'Toole you're not going to play. Breckman, career, the same kind of thing. Those guys getting a day off is your opportunity to shine. So you're probably in a little bit of a strange scenario that those guys want to play and want to succeed, you guys want to win. But that gives you an opportunity to take advantage of those times on the duty day off for rest. Oh, yeah. This is it matter from the lineup or not. You know, you always want to be ready because you never know when the opportunity is going to come in. and, you know, you want to succeed when it comes. Is the team ready to play some games? Or is it, I mean, you guys have been here a lot earlier, obviously for obvious reasons.

But so, are you ready to get going here in a few days? Oh, yeah, I'm ready. You know, today was our first live VP, and I feel ready to go. Who'd you go against? I go to Noli Paredes and Paredes and Conell Perez. How to go? It went good. You know, I had a little line drive that probably was going to be an aisle and then a couple walks, so it felt good.

Okay, well, you're on base percentage. Okay, that's good. And the, nobody keeps. track of those kind of stands. Abraham, thanks coming by. And again, it was fun to see what you did last year and trying to look forward to seeing you in 2020. All right, thank you.

Appreciate. Abraham Toro, joining us here on the Matt Thomas show. This is Sports Talk 790. Live from Astros, spring trains and excitement. You know, this is a new beginning. Exclusive coverage from West Palm Beach is brought to you by Carbock Brewing, crafted for serious fun, and by the Palmbeaches.com. Oh, Astros! Matt Ross with you from West Palm Beach.

Ross is like, did you like going to Kissimmee better or coming down here better? Now, granted, the beaches are nicer. It's a little less congested here, but you can't get your 15 waffle houses within three miles of Osceola County Stadium. Really? Is that the big... I thought we were going to Waffle House. Well, we can go. I'm trying to get smothered, covered, capped.

You know what I do need to do? We need to drive to Orlando. I'll get you three T-shirts for $10. Granted, I've got to get them like 5X because if you wash them once, they'll all just get down to the... is really, really soon. Okay. Hell, even the Atlanta Braves are out of Walt Disney World. They were in this new place called Northport,

which is near Sarasota, on the other side of the state. Okay. These are becoming, like, majestic facilities. These are not sure just put a ball field out there. Yeah, this is nice. You have nice couch in here. Right. You know, relaxed atmosphere with a very tense locker room,

about 20 feet away from me. Not that bad. Double smothered covered? Double smothered covered? Jeff Passing from ESPN likes a double smothered and covered. Wow, okay. All right.

His doctor probably didn't like that. No, no. We've taken cholesterol here. 713-212-570s how you reach our show today. Let's go to Chris and Katie. First up on the Matt Thomas show from West Palm Beach. Chris, good afternoon to you. Hey, what's going on, Matt?

Good to speak with you, fellas. I've never anticipated the baseball season in my life like this. Right. And I want to give, if any, because I've been in a heated debate with the overnight host over there in LA, Mr. Ben Maller. I call him overnight. Okay. So, hey, I am the registered defender of Houston when it comes down to overnight sports

talk. And right now, the apology time is over. I'm tired of apologizing. These people want blood. They want blood. It's nothing you can tell them. You can't tell them how many times you can say, I'm sorry. They teeters, whatever.

They want blood. So you know what? we need to rally around these players, just like they are kids. I mean, Astros is our team. They are on our team. You know, if you're a lifelong Astros fan, you're not going to change teams. You know, you rally around them like you do your kid if your kid mess up. You rally around them and you defend them.

Now, I'm not saying getting a fight. But, hey, they're not going to sit here and dog. I play a player. I play a guy, you know, so-called punishment. it. We know it should have been harsh, and if it was any other team, we would have, you know, wanted flood, too. But you know what? This is our time to rally around, and, hey, show them some love because they don't need it. Well, yeah, I have zero issue and guaranteeing that southeast Texas is going to love Houston Astros baseball. I would say north of Huntsville, it might be a little bit of a dicey situation.

But you know what? They're not naive to that. Yeah, and, you know, the one thing is that, you know, I've seen from these people is that just don't disrespect the players. You need to take that to Rob Mansford. They didn't put their own suspensions on them. They didn't do this. They didn't put their own, you know, punishment on them. It wasn't they fault that they got away with it.

You know, I mean, you know, did they take Barry Bonds home? Well, I don't think, yeah, the thing of it is you can't say they got away with it. Let me tell you something. this is going to be a hellacious year for those gentlemen and they know that they're probably not accustomed to this I mean remember as I've told you before

I've been here many times in February for spring training and there's you know 10, 12 reporters here it's from what I understand the last couple days we're talking about 45 and 50 so and they know it's not going to go away they know it's not going to go away when they open up the season on the road at and

in Oakland the Dodger fans are going to be there it's just they're going to mature a lot about this one way or the other but I don't think they're thinking they got away with something. They're feeling like public pressure and peer pressure among those guys and their union is pretty intense

right now. But you know what? You can't let these people talk bad about our players like that. They need, you know, I mean, they're making this seem like this is the worst thing in history. I didn't see anybody.

Oh, they feel that way, though. That's the thing. They think it is the worst thing that's ever happened. I mean, and again, I don't mind them. them being the constituency, the fellow baseball players saying what they're saying. But I just, some of it, the tone is just, it's, it's Uber intense. And as I've told you guys on a show yesterday, if every other baseball player was in a similar predicament, and they were offered immunity by their, by their commissioner, they would all take them up on it.

And that's the, that's what they won't admit. And that's fine. That's what they're going to have to live with. They're going to have to understand that if. Yeah, go ahead. One more thing before I get out of here, how about those two pickups that the Rockets got? Now, I'm loving that.

Jeff Green and... They're going all in on 6-7 guys, aren't they, Ross? Thank you, Chris, for the phone call. You got some center-deaf with Damari Carroll and Jeff Green. Yeah, it's interesting. There won't be no 6-10 player ever to play for the Rockets ever again. I think they're both listed about 6-8, so that's gargantuan by rocket standards. Yeah, that's actually very funny.

But, yeah, Damari Carroll kind of fell out of favor with the San Antonio Spurs. Jeff Greens had some big moments in the past. I just don't know if they are just, if they're the typical Rockets mid-February pickup where they just go grab guys, see what they have. Does it push Ocephaloia further down the bench? Does it push Austin Rivers further down the bench? There's kind of a nice little competition that is now in play for maybe spots 7, 8, 9 in Mike Dan. Tony's rotation. Yeah, I mean, we'll see. I'm not really super hopeful that they're going to contribute, but it's one of those, you have nothing to lose situations where we've talked about with Joe Johnson and, I mean, Austin Rivers famously got off the couch and contributed Gerald Green as well. So we've seen some guys in the buyout market. Now, who's that tall guy that didn't really even play for the rockets? I think it was the Joe Johnson year in 2018 or whatever. And it was a big man and then he was injured and he didn't even contribute at all, but everybody was excited about getting him in the buyout market.

I can't remember his name. It doesn't matter. That's why he wasn't a great pickup. So we'll see. I'm always in wait and seed mode and buyout markets because generally players who are really effective and great and can contribute to championship teams don't just get let go. Sometimes the situations will happen if they're owed money, if it's a bad team and they want to play their young guys, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We've seen that before, but for the most part, really good pieces don't just end up on the street.

In the last four or five years, we've seen Manim will come here. Yeah, about a little bit. Didn't play in the playoffs. Daniel House was a guy that, you know, got some starting time that had to go back to the G League and then back and then kind of fell out of favor. He wasn't great in the playoffs either. Who else is Michael B.C. I think Austin Rivers is the poster child.

Yeah. For a guy that not only stuck, but was able to make the rotation. And been here long term, right. And actually re-sign with the Rockets for a low-dollar. Yeah, I think, like I said, poster. He and Gerald Green, probably the free agent, street-free agent pickups for Darryl-Moria that are the big ones that have stuck and worked out. But it's almost like there are three things that are life that are guaranteed.

Death taxes and a two veteran guys being cut by. And that's what teams have to do. Think about it this when you don't have draft picks and you don't have a lot of extra salary caps space to use. Yeah, there's going to have to be some kind of diamond in the rough situation. Somebody else's trash has to become the Rockets Treasure because you're not going to have a lottery pick. You're not going to have a top pick. You're not going to be able to sign a big free agent. So you've got to go elsewhere.

And you've got to basically not leave any stone unturned. 713-212-5-79. If you want to get in on the show today, 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. If you'd like to reach out via Twitter, you can do that as well. At SportsMT, at SportsRV and at Pro Nicklo back in our Houston studios. We're taking this program to 3 o'clock this afternoon. Justin Verlander did speak about his first bullpen session. We'll give you a little snippet of that.

just give you a little sample of yes, there are non-stealing scandal suspension conversation coming on, which probably is a good thing for them because they have been in this camp a handful of days, and obviously the media attention has come to there on all this. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. And again, emails, as you say, tweets available to you at SportsMT, at SportsRV, and at Pro Nick Lowe. I sent a tweet out today at 345, hoping that you were going to make the flight, and you did.

Thank you. But sometimes the early flight thing is a bad thing because you think, well, you get here, you'll be energized for the show. I went to bed at like 8.15 last night, got up about 1130, and didn't go back to sleep the rest of the night. Why are we always afraid to miss the flight when we wake up four hours prior to our flight? Well, that's not necessarily the case for me. I went to bed about 2 o'clock and woke up about 4. So I'm dragging a little bit, but that's okay. We're going to make it.

Put on a good show. 555 flight, probably the earliest flight I've ever taken in my life, I think. Yeah, we're done at 4 o'clock today. By 430, we are in our beds asleep for the rest of the night. Yes. Hashtag party guys in West Palm Beach. 713-212-750. More of the Matt Thomas show momentarily here from West Palm on Sports Talk, 790.

713-212-1-2-5-790 A lot of time I don't want to start off slow It's a new season of Astros baseball And this is exclusive Astros' spring training coverage On 790 Brought to you by Carbock Brewing Crafted for Sirius Fun

And by the Palm Beaches.com Rossi, there is nothing I enjoy More in life than looking at Brian McTaggart replies to his tweets Oh gosh Is this just going to continue for the entire season. Let me guess. I haven't any I haven't looked. Well, give me the tweet

and then I'll give you the replies. All right. Let's take a look here. Jose Al-Tubei just took Christian Javier deep during live batting practice. There were 361 likes, 21 retweets, and 45 replies. I'll let you guess.

Let's see. Sounds like it was a banger. Some dude named Anthony Castro Vince says sounds like he tattooed that ball. That's actually fun. I let that one. Something called Padres Farm, 2018-2025. The stadium was buzzing.

He banged that ball out of here. Okay, well, that was close. Let's see. At Fianze Oder-Nicks says Betty was using a buzzer. We need a rim shot for every single one of these. At Elia Vardo says any thrash can bags. Okay, that was a typo, I guess. Blame auto-correct on that one.

Yep. Let's see here. At William Weiss, did the buzzer on his chest tell him what pitch was coming? Next, let's see. Credit the bin lids. Okay. Bang, bang from Garrett Barnes. Banging could be heard from the dugout before the pitch.

This is never going to end. Those people don't think they're funny, right? Okay, the tattoo one I thought was funny. Let me tell you. Everything else was a zero. I hate to tell you this. But I'm as funny as most American, more than most Americans. Are you?

I'll be the judge when these are funny. Okay. And some of them are, well, actually, all of them are too soon. Okay. The pain is still real for us. Yeah. There will not be any Astro tweets or messages. Or if you, let's say if you want to, you know, anything you want to send back to your friends.

Hey, I'm on this road trip. You know, that there's not going to be comedic material from Astro, not Astro fans. It's just part of what's going to be the 2020 season. 713212-125790 Mike and Mo City on the Matt Thomas show Mike good afternoon to you Hey how are you Good Can you hear me? Yes

Okay I wanted to take this back to before any of this Cheating stand Sign stealing scandal started But there were to talk about the Astros possibly trading Correa while he still had trade value. I was going to say the Astros never discussed trading Carlos Korea. There was that one off-season story that is not possibly floated. And that might have been me.

Remember, I was the one who was telling you that wouldn't the craziest thing in the world. But I would say that most of it, Mike, has been fan bases compared to legitimate organizational base. That's for sure. Okay. My question is, I have a feeling like the 2007. 17 Astros that are still on a team are stuck. Whether they want to leave or not,

I don't think anyone's going to trade for them. They're going to be left. Well, first of all, if Carlos Correa can play 145 games, well, purgatory is a strong term. They'll always be trade value for him. It's just going to be for how much. And again, I don't, and look,

I don't know what this organization is doing now because I don't have a field for his general manager or its manager, so I don't know what they do like, don't like. Ultimately, he's got a couple of years left before he tests free agency. And if he is a guy that plays 145 games, that's 285, drives in 120 runs, steals

some bases and hit some home games. I understand. It'll be a moot conversation because they'll want to keep them. And we'll let you know. How many other teams would want to have Burtman on their team right now? I mean, not Birkman. Bregman? Bregman. Lansbergman, I don't think would be very

very famous right now. Bregman 29, Berkman 0. I don't know why we're trading off all the players. I mean, Alex Breggman's not going anywhere. He is untradable. Is there a market for Justin Verlanner to be traded? 713-212-5-790? Is Jeff Bagwell available?

How many teams would want to trade for him right now as well? Yeah, our room is open right now, so it's like anybody could come in here and like hear 10% of our conversation. We're like, what? Out of context. Like J.B. walks and goes, we're going to get banned from the club. What the hell are you all talking about? Don't talk that way. Let's go to Joe in the Heights of the Matt Thomas show.

Joe, good afternoon. Yes, sir. Good afternoon, Matt. How's it going, sir? Good. What's going on? Yes, sir. I just wanted to see if there was a chance you guys might be able to interview Jack McDowell.

I think like maybe two or three weeks ago, he made a mention that Tony Larusa when he was with the White Sox had an electronic scheme as well. And, you know, Tony LaRusa has a tie with Jeff Luhnau now when he was with the Cardinals. So I'm not sure if you guys could get him on your show, probably talk about it, the science team scheme. Well, to be brutally honest with you, I'm hoping to, frankly, Joe, get away from this at a certain juncture. and if I was going to stay in and I probably would want to talk to current astro players or organizational members, not talk

to somebody that had something happened with the White Sox in the early 1980s. So I'm going to politely say I'm not going to inquire about Jack because again, let's be really honest, I think people here in Houston want to hear about Houston kind of stuff. Why don't you have

your people talk to his people? I mean, I could check, but it would be a lie. It ties in with Houston with Jeff Lulnau, because, you know, That's right. He was our general manager here. Oh, well, yes. I'm aware that Jeff was a general manager, yes.

So, yeah. Okay, yeah, I just, I'm going to, I just, I'm going to say no. But thank you for the offer and the idea. I mean, I could put it to an instipole. Would you stop laughing? Sorry. Seriously. I mean, the guy calling once here from Jack McDowell.

Who doesn't? maybe I'm getting delirious, Matt. I mean, yeah, you and I are sleeping private. It doesn't mean we don't do, still do a major market radio show when we can. No, I mean, I'm serious. I mean, the idea is interesting if I was doing a national show. I don't know how fruitful that conversation. What would you be looking to get out of that?

Well, he's he trying to make the connection that Jeff Lunoz is masterminded this video scheme because he learned it from Tony Larusa, who has been doing this since 80s or something, I guess. I'd say the step. I'd say, Tony, did you learn, did you get, did you give Jeff the information provided to make this happen? And he's probably going to say, why are you calling me for what again? Wrong number. Prank caller, prank caller, and then hang up on you. I once stayed, ironically enough, in Tony LaRousseau, when he was the manager of the Cardinals very early on,

I stayed in his hotel room in St. Louis. What? Yeah. How? I was staying in an NBC suites near the old Bush Stadium, and I was there for doing a college basketball game. Okay. And they had said, they had upgraded me to a suite. Okay.

It was kind of the early signs of fancy mat. To be brutally honest with you. Now you're just full-blown. You are a full-blown. That's why today flying coach for the second straight time. Oh, gosh. Yeah, are you okay? It was tough.

Do you need to go to your safe space for a little bit? You're going to be fine? So the guy is like welcoming to the room. He says, this is where Tori LaRusa sleeps during the air. I said, oh, that's interesting. Oh, I thought you were booked in his room like while he was there. No, no. This is again, he probably obviously, he was there for a long time, so he got his own place.

but early on. So you were in the Tony Larusa Presidential Suite. Yeah, I should have looked for signs then? Yeah, did you find any video equipment? No, I found nothing. Okay. All right, let's start the second hour of the mat. Stop.

We're going to focus on what's happening to the local team, right? Okay. Dustin Baker responds to Nick Marcakis. Wonderful. We'll hear from him coming up the top of the hour. Plus, you guys need to get in. I'm getting a lot of text and tweets from these callers. Oh, no.

Come on. Let him have his Jack McDowell. 713-212-5-790. With Ross, I'm Matt. We're here in Florida. Thanks to the Palm Beaches and Carbock Brewing. It's the Matt Thomas Show from West Palm on Sports Talk 790. Yeah.

I'm on my way I'm making you. This is the Matt Thomas Show. 103 on the Matt Thomas show from West Palm Beach, courtesy of the Palm Beaches.com. Let me tell you, go to that website. They'll figure out and help you figure out where you're going to eat, where you're going to stay, how to get tickets for the Astros. You know, the World Series champions are across the way here.

The Nationals, that the Astros and National will share this 15 ballpark. Everything you want to know about the Palm Beaches, especially those of you have not come down here before, is readily available. Thanks to the Palm Beaches for having us out here. And thanks to Carbock Brewery as well. Rossi, I got my first text. from a person I cannot name that person that asked if we were going to Rachel's tonight. Anonymous source?

No, wasn't a source. It was just a question. What's Rachel's? Like a family. Sounds like a family restaurant, seafood? Let me give you options. I'll give you four of them. Okay. A, Rachel's is a delicatessen. Okay. B is a great breakfast spot that serves some amazing omelets and hash browns. Okay.

C, a children's petting zoo. Children, that sounds creepy. Or D, a adult establishment. Sounds like a cupcake bakery. Oh, walking to Rachel's? Hi, welcome to Rachel's. What kind of cupcake would you like? Exactly.

My guess is you can probably get cupcakes at Rachel's. Okay. So then that means that tells me it's a strip joint. And she's 24. Bum-bump. Hey. He's here all week, folks. That was awful.

You don't brum-bumped your own. So how far away is this place? You didn't see the billboard on I-90s? I did not, no. I happen to catch my eye. Not like stare at it, but. We might have to do some field research there. It is what it is.

What kind of joint is that? What's the town like it in West Palm? I've never been. Okay. I'm presuming a little older. Okay. I mean, because, you know, Houston is one of the best cities in the world for that type of place. Because the nearest college town is Florida Atlantic.

That's in Boca Raton. And I'm going to assume if you go to Florida, if you go to Florida, like, you're not worried about, you know, paying your bills. So we should head over the Boca Raton. Boka is what you're saying. I'm just saying that Rachel, you know how some of the girls. go there and they work off their college tuition. Of course. You got to work your way through nursing school or med school or law school. Or dental hygienists.

Well, more of that. Or you got four kids to pay four or something like that. You know, whatever happens. I think the stereotyping that you're doing on this show is awful. We're all going to make money somehow, Matt. All right. 713-212-5-790. So we played Nick Marquakis' comments last hour from Atlanta's camp,

which is over across the state in nearby Sarasota. here is Dusty Baker today. Guess who ask to the manager about the Nick Markechis comments. Our own Michael Connor. Dusty this morning in Braves Camp, Nick Marcaacus. He said that the guys over here deserve a beating for what went on. What do you have any thoughts on those comments? That's who? No, I ain't comment on everybody's comments. You know, so go ahead.

You want to beat on us? Go ahead. I didn't think Mark Kidd has talked too much. He doesn't. Okay, well, maybe he had his weedies. Is it possible to have more manned love for Dusty Baker by the day? That's pretty funny. He had his weedies.

He had his weedies. He didn't think Nick Markakis talked much. I like that comment especially. Now, is there more to that? He doesn't even know, I mean, I don't even know if Dusty, knows if Nick Markakis talks at all, but it was just the perfect line. Like, who talks every day in baseball? Alex Breggman.

Okay. It would be like saying, I don't know if Alex Breggman talks too much, but he does. I don't even know what Nick does. I don't follow the Braves, nor do it's anybody in Atlanta for that matter. But it's neither here nor there. But are we going to have brawls? By the way, you have to explain this before I go to the phones. Okay.

there is a new over-under count on number of bean balls this year. Who put that out there? I think it was a sports book. A real one or like one of those like trying to get clicks. Let me try to, well, probably a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B. Let me try to find that for you. There's no way I can go to Vegas because there's no way I go to Vegas and bet on the number of times the a Astros are going to be bean. There's just no chance.

There may be an offshore book that might be into that. But not, not anything that would be. be legit. I can't run to Caesar's. Well, William Hill operates under a

couple of of Vegas shops, I think. Okay. It says, how many times the Astros be hit by a

pitch this season? The total open at 83 and a half, and betters can also bet on the exact number of instances that

Houston will be plunked, with 81 to 90 leading the way as a plus 300 favorite. Now, the first thing I asked you

was that number compared to previous years. How many times the Astros get hit last year? Did you look that up? I think it was

somewhere in the 60s, 62 or 66 somewhere in that neighborhood. Now, I'm not a betting man. Actually, I am a betting man. But if I was a real betting man on these ridiculous prop bets, Rossi, I'd go on the under on this because Rob Manfred has said, just in the last 72 hours,

they're going to keep a careful eye on who does go after the Astros. Yeah, and you're talking about 83 and a half? That's over half their games. You're going to go up and you're going from 60-whatever to 80-something. That's, by my math, roughly around a 33% jump from one year the next. I think it'll be up. I think there might be a couple of guys who say, you know what? All right. I'm just going to go ahead and take care of my business. This game polices itself and do whatever they're going to do. But then they're going to get suspended and I think it'll get nipped in the

bottom. All right. So let's take it to one step further then. Number of non-astros to get ejected in a game this season. I'm going to let you set the number and then I will say, or do you want me to set the number? I'll set the number. Okay. Go ahead. For beanball. Yes. for any sort of retaliation, whether it's in the game itself or... You think two? You're going over? I'd go over two, because I think there's going to be some quick triggers, especially in the first month of the season.

No, you can't change. I just took it over. The book takes money, and then they adjust the line. I hope you got me in a two. No, well, this is like horse betting. The odds change, even if you got it in at 8 to 1, if a bunch of money comes in, your odds go down to 5 to 1. We're running a horse track here.

I don't like that at all. Delta Downs right now. I've already made my bet. Let's go to Alan on the north side at 109 on the Matt Thomas show. Alan, good afternoon to you. I love it. I'm taking my 22 Twitter followers to Vegas this weekend, and I was going to put a smooth hunter down on the local team,

maybe the Texans, but hey, how about Astros to do it? Okay, so you're tanking. You're going with 22 people, or is that just a joke? No, my whole 22. Twitter followers. Just me. Oh, okay. By the way, hey, Alan, when we get to 30,000, you're going to go to Vegas again with us, right?

That's the plan, correct? Well, if we pick the correct Houston winner, then yes, we will. We'll go collect. Oh, okay. So, you know what, if you're asking me who you'd like to bet on, what's the Astro Win total? Have you seen it lately? 97, 96, 97, somewhere in that right?

Is there... No. It should be. That's what Jeff Passon says. Yeah, you know what we should do? Let's go. Should we get Jeff on? Jeff, you want to hop on for a second? He's busy. He's ESPN. He can't talk to us, apparently. Yeah, look at him. He's already, I, bye, bye, bye. Don't worry about it. Jeff. You're good. You're good. All right. Houston's got a warm spot for you.

I'm sure. Yeah, your Houston mentions are great, right? Yeah, don't look at your mentions. Yeah, he does. Just don't. Okay, we're just warning. We're really nice people. We're really warm and friendly. It's just a, there you go. It's a little cantankers down in our place. All right, back to you, Alan. I would actually go bet on the Houston Roughnecks to win the XFL championship.

Uh-oh. Wouldn't that be a fun hit right there? You get it done with them two months. Their season's only like 10 weeks. Don't bet on the Texans because... Maybe I'll make that my side bet. You should, yeah. Texans over undertotal, it's got to be eight, so when in doubt take the over, right?

What about the coogs to win it all, Matt? Oh, yeah. Go put some money on the Houston Cougars win the national championship in college basketball. You'll get a fantastic return on it. I mean, fantastic. We'll see how equitable that is. The Rockets were 18 to 1. What do you think?

Absolutely. Put your house on it. Don't do that. Do not do what Matt Thomas. Put your vacation home on. The views of Matthew Thomas do not represent those of Sports Talk 790 or me, Ross. Put your vacation home on it. Don't do that.

You'll be in good shape. Don't. Take care, guys. See you, buddy. All right. By the way, if you want to join us in Vegas, I'm like 52 on it away. It's going to be a minute.

We should have had Jeff pass and say, hey. He'll retweet me. Something so I get some more of national. He's got to be in the hundreds of thousands, right? Oh, he sure is. He sure is. What are you doing? I'm nothing to worry about it.

We were live on camera. You're trying to stretch out a little bit, I think? No, I'm fine. All right, 7-13. I think I'm going to do the rest of the show standing up because I'm about going to fall asleep on you. We need some cold brew here. He got out of town, guys.

I don't know who you all are. Can you get him a cold brew? He's really, really thirsty. He needs an energy boost. 3-21-2-5-7-90. This is the Matt Thomas show, Ross here with me as well. We are brought to you by our friends at Carbock Brewing and by the Palm Beaches.

Carbrock, get you a Crawford-Bach here. I got to go find one. I can tell you I can find some great ideas for spring training tickets and hotel and car rental and all that kind of stuff at the Palm Beaches.com. Back with more from West Palm. In a moment, this is Sports Talk 790. Back to Matt Thomas.

Arrives this dig to left center field. This is Sports Talk 790. 9. Home of Astros baseball. Time down for your Cougar update. Brought to you by the Joint Chiropractic, the official chiropractor of the Houston Cougars. The Houston Cougar football schedule is out. So what I will do is a responsible member of the Houston media.

I will give you the game, the date, and what I believe the result will be. I will give you point numbers because I don't know how explosive or how offensively or defensively. I don't even make a difference. The Cougars open up on September the 3rd. It is a Thursday against the Rice Owls.

Win. Well, hold on. Let's just preface it by saying that you had them at, was it 13 or 14 in our last year? 13 to 1 with one with one loss but still making into the final four. With bad officiating. Not bad, horrific officiating. September 12th, Saturday at Washington State.

Win. September 19th at Memphis, win. September 26th, North Texas. Win. October 8th, Tulane. Win. October 16th at BYU.Y.U. Win.

October 24th at Navy. October 31st, UCF, win. November 7th at Cincinnati. Win. November 14th, USF, home game. Win. November 21st at SMU. Win.

November 28th, home Tulsa, win. Final weekend, hosting college football's premier power six school conference championship game. American, win. Then the national semifinal win and then a very close matchup with the Alabama Crimson Time for the national championship early 2021. That is your Cougar update presented to you by the Joint Chiropractic, the official chiropractor of University of Houston Athletics. So 14 there?

Is that your cougars going off right there? 14 and 0. Wow. Okay. Well, 15 and no, wouldn't it be? It's a little ambitious, Matt. Matthew. Well, that's what the show is about, being ambitious. Right, and falling short of that.

The Matt Thomas show, 12 to 3. That really is a show. Being really ambitious and then falling flat. 713-212-5-7-0. So I reach our show, 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Internet, a little dicey here at the... Let's just say it. It's not good. Okay, it's awful, but we still love the people here.

Nick, let's go to, if you could punch up Mark and Lisey. League City on the Matt Thomas show at 120. Mark, good afternoon. Thanks for holding. Hi, guys. How are you doing? You're hoping to join Florida. We just got here. We're having a great time so far. Thank you. Awesome. Hey, this morning I was watching, I don't know if I can say the show name and the sponsor. It's on Fox Sports and as a national guy. Okay. And an interesting opinion, I kind of want to get a local take on what he said. And then what one of his guests that he had on He was pretty emphatic and I was passionate that he compared going on with the Astros to the PED era of 15, basically covering a 15-year span, what he called recently packed.

You know, where were the outcries from the players? The D area was affecting jobs, careers, and guys going yard on pitchers constantly and just changing baseball effectively. And the second part is, go ahead, let me give you the first part, and we'll give you the second part of that. My guess is that when you were talking about steroids, first of all you were talking about a wider group of people, and you had a sprinkling of steroid users

with each of the 30 Magellique baseball teams. At this point, without us knowing what's going on with the Boston Red Sox, everything is concentrated on one baseball team. That would be my first thought of as to separating the steroids, to what this is. I mean, Ross agree or disagree? Yeah, right. It's just an appellate was an or just comparisons. I don't know if the comparisons there. What's your second point, please? Well, but to follow up on that, he also touched on the fact that the three

major issues or the three major teams that are involved in that were, of course, the Yankees, the Red Sox, and the Rangers, who just coincidentally have to be two of the three involved in this. It was such a record-driven statistical entity, how these players are becoming so visceral on the Astros, per se. You know, the Mike Trouts, the Hugh Darvishes, and those guys that are saying everything, the careers were just, and, you know, when you were talking about the Yankees for all of those years taking those World Series and Boston, you know, doing what they did,

and the Rangers doing what they did across a larger span. and it seems like we have got baseball's got such a short memory where some of these players who are essentially in elementary school when Sosa and McGuire were doing what they were doing, was really impacting again. And the second part, I'll get to that, the second part was the gentleman that they had on, I forget what his name was.

He was emphatic that he thought that, of course, when the Astros go on a wait trips, they're going to get booed. But he fully expects that when they go to Minutemade, they're going to get crushed and booed. And I just thought, you know, I don't know about that one. And this team are suddenly going to turn on them and just get, you know, out of control, booing them at their own home park. I just want to know what local guys think about that.

Thanks, Mark, for the phone call. Yes, sir. I can only go off on my audience, Ross, our audience. We've got a pretty forgiving audience because it's the local team. And the forgiveness factor is going to be very, a lot faster here that's going to be in any of the other 29 cities that call themselves home for baseball. Well, there are some people probably never forgive, but that's probably not the case here in Houston, Texas.

Which is if it were happening in Arizona or Seattle, or that would be the same, it would be the same way. If the Diamondbacks are the ones that got caught and they came to Houston, we'd boo them. Right. The Astros, there isn't another city really with exception of, frankly, Boston that's not going to get and hear it from the fans. I would say this. There might be a few hymns and haws, but I think by game two of the season, I'm talking about late March at MinuteMade Park,

maybe even the fourth inning, it'll be hard to hear a boo. And if you're hearing a boo, it's because the other people are quiet. Opening day is always 40,000, always got a lot of energy, optimism is high. I can't imagine there's a large conglomerate of Astro fans that are like,

you know what, I'm going to go in there and where, I'm going to scream and yell to tell my guys how much disappointed I am. I don't envision that at all. There has been a smaller percentage just from judging of our audience, like you've said, people on Twitter, people calling us, there's been a little bit, a very small minority of people who are saying, I'm done with the team or I can't believe they did this, but for the most part, people have the back of their team.

My guess is if you are out there and you are disgusted by them, the easiest thing you can do is it's not pay to go see games anymore. But I think anybody that's going to pay loves their Astros, understands the mistakes they have made, and they're going to cheer like hell opening night of the 2020 season. I can't imagine people would want to pay opening night prices just so they can be booed in what would probably be a small minority-a-type of crowd that would want to do that.

Yeah, I don't expect anything to come of that. or anything, any Astros fans to react in that way. I looked at my rocket schedule. I'm going to be out of town for opening day. Okay. And the game is going to be nationally televised. It's the first one.

How does national television handle it? Who do they send down here? How does ESP? I mean, you know, ESPN, I think, moved the game from 3 o'clock to 6 o'clock just because they wanted to put the Astros in prime time, which is smart on their prime. Yeah.

That's a thing, though. It'll be good for me because I'll be able to hear the national perspective and be able to report to you guys the next day. This is taking on a very NBA feel where there's been usually NBA is like the only sport where you talk about more stuff that happens off the court than on the court, especially during free agency and trade deadline and stuff like that and storylines and there's that meme. The NBA has gone zero days without being unnecessarily dramatic.

That's what it's felt like. It's felt like NBA type of stuff going on with baseball and all the players talking and chirping. It feels like NBA has been like on the forefront of that, and now it's coming to baseball. Just to show you today, we get here 11 o'clock. We go on the air at 1. Justin Verlander speaks to the media at about 1230 our time. He doesn't know that there are media. So when he walks out of the area where he's showered and get dressed, he sees 20 of us there.

And you know the first thing at crossing his mind is, do I have to go through all this again? And then the questions were asked. This is by local media, regional and national media. and it was about his first bullpen session, a real facing live hitter, and that kind of thing. And I think there was a little bit of relief for him proud of that. Well, he did say keep it to baseball guys.

Oh, I didn't hear that part. Okay, yeah, he did. Well, I mean, just because what an athlete tells you when... No, that's true. I was expecting somebody to say something. But, I mean, at some point, don't you have to... I mean, can we ask them about... Are they going to get asked about this every day for the rest of their lives?

Probably not. Some point the questions are going to go away. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that. I don't know when that is, but it'll be that way eventually. All right, Ross and Matt with you here in West Palm Beach, courtesy of the Paul Beaches.com and our friends at Carbock Brewing.

And if you'd like to join us, 713212-5-7-9, we have three lines available. So if you guys want to get it, we've had a lot of anger. I feel like today and like every day has been, let's talk about what other major league player is pissed off day. I feel like the show, don't need a sounder of that? Yeah. Who is mad?

At the Astros today. Yeah. Mike Bobian, if you're our imaging guy, listen to us. Pissed off update. No, I can't say that one. Player, Angry Player Update. Angry Update on the Matt Thomas Show. Angry Update.

Which player says the Astros Blow. Okay. I like that for a little freestyle. That is freestyle. Now it's Uber White freestyle, but it is what it is. You're the freestyle king, Matt. A lot of time? I don't want to start off slow.

It's a new season of Astros baseball. And this is exclusive Astros spring training coverage on 790. Brought to you by Carbock Rewing, crafted for serious fun. And by the Palm Beaches.com. Welcome back to the Matt Thomas show here on Sports Talk 7 out of you live from West Palm Beach. This has been a good show despite the fact we're working up about three hours or sleep. I think I'm going to have to stand up to the second half of the show, Matt. I'm going to start or I'm going to start nodding on.

off on you mid-sentence. Are you going to run in place? Do you think I should do that? Should I jog in place? No, no, I'm going to fall. I've already knocked over, almost knocked over my laptop just now. The beads of sweat coming off of your brow would be disgusting. Well, you got to get a workout at some point, Matt, even though you're on vacation. Let me tell you some. The best way to get steps, because that's what we do

in our mid-fords, is walk airports. Yeah. We did some walking. That's true. And I got me a chair massage of the airport today. That's true. Can I just tell you all something? And I know you don't want to hear this, but too bad. One of the things I enjoy is getting the airport just a few minutes early to get that 19-minute massage for $5.

It beats the hell out of it, but it feels good. Really? Yeah. Okay. And the best part is... Do they wipe that down after? That's the question. That's the thing.

You get the pre-6 a.m. massage? No one's been on that chair since they cleaned it last night. Are you sure? Yes. How can you be positive? I don't know 100% positive. You should bring your own wipes like Adam does bring us on wipes. That's, yeah.

But I'm going to assume that it was okay. Thus, I had a nice, refreshing 19-minute massage, beat the hell out of me. It was great. Five bucks, best deal at the airport. All right, well, we are here at West Palm, and Justin Verlander did speak to the media just before the show, so we got here to play you guys some of that. It was all baseball stuff, Matt.

So let's get to strictly baseball stuff with Verlander, starting about talking about, obviously a huge hole in the rotation with the loss of Garrett Cole. Oh, I mean, anytime he lives a pitcher, who was one of the best of baseball. It's not easy, but I think we have the talent. We're getting Lance back. Everybody kind of forgot that, you know,

Lance is an all-star pitcher. One of the best in baseball before he injured himself. So, you know, we add him back. We got Grinky, who's a Hall of Famer. I mean, you know, I think we're still pretty set with talent. You know, so I love our team. I love our rotation.

It's like I said, you can't replace Garrett, But you also, you can't forecast anything. You don't know what some of these young guys can turn into or can be. I mean, nobody knew that Garrett was going to be as good as he was when he got here. So, you know, we'll see what happens. So there you go, Matt. That's, I think one of the bigger questions last year, the rotation and how that was going to fill out same questions in 2020

to see how things are going to shake out last year. It was Wade Miley stepping up and some others. This year we'll have to see what happens. We know that Francis Martez is not. going to be a factor? Ever. I mean, I don't mean to be rude, but this is just ridiculous. Right. If you can't stay clean and you don't know what you're ingesting, you probably don't need to be part of the organization. All right. Well, Verlander went on to talk about changing a little bit of his workout routine. Of course, he's getting a little longer in the tooth. Here's what

he had to say about that. I mean, I think the end goal is just to continue to adapt and try to be successful and fight this age thing. You know, I think. You can't just keep doing the same stuff. Your body changes as you get older and you need to adapt and do things a little bit differently. You just try to stay on top of your game. So I implemented some new stuff and we'll see. So Justin Verlender, man, he'll be 37 in two days. You're going to get him something for his birthday?

Not a thing. Oh. Maybe another white belt. You haven't seen the phone of white belts? I don't know of anybody under the age of 60 that wears a white belt. except Justin Verlielder? No, White Belt are back, Matt. Are they really?

Yeah. Would you get me one for my birthday in June? June? Remind me in June 1st, right? June 5th. Oh, June 5th, right? Yeah. Remind me on June 5th.

No, remind me on June 3rd. I'll have it by the 5th. Okay. All right. I want a Justin Verlander replica white belt. So Justin Verlander talking about getting a little bit older and working out and getting his routine. I thought he looked pretty good, but then he got a great follow-up question to that. You mentioned the age game.

You can keep advice from anybody, or is everybody individual? I mean, I think everything's individual, but I talk to. I mean, a lot of people, I gather as much information as I can from different experts in different fields. And, you know, just continually try to adapt. You know what? I do the same thing. Continuously try to adapt? Yeah.

I'm not adapting well. Yeah, let's not talk about what we did for lunch. Calorie counting in South Florida? On vacation, yeah. Not a good idea. All right. Internet sucks here, unfortunately. 713-212-5-7-90.

Let's go to, Nicholas, let's go to Robert in spring on the Matt Thomas show at 139. Robert, thanks for holding good afternoon to you. Hey, guys, how's things in Florida? I'd rather be there than here. We're good. We're good. You know what? Let me take you something.

We are a handful of days away. from real baseball being played in all of spring training, and it'll probably be the best thing this organization's been looking forward to in quite some time. I completely agree. So something that's bothered me about this whole situation. So Mike Fires, I don't remember if he was a starting pitcher or, you know, if he was a bullpen guy, that's how important or not important he was in my world. But he left the Astros.

Did he get, like, a good contract to go to the A's? Because if he did, has he ever talked about, I should maybe give some of that back because the guys that were behind me batting and winning games for me are helping me with things, you know, on the offensive side to help me and make me look good. They were cheating. He went after the Astros, he went to the Detroit Tigers on a one-year $6 million deal, and he didn't, that's coming off and not pitching in the playoffs.

So I don't think he owes some, he didn't get some mega deal, and I don't think that's necessarily what the other guys winning. It's 2000 or, you know, it's 20-20 now. The last several years, people aren't looking at wins and run support and stuff. They're looking at how he pitched. No, the metrics are really excluding what the offensive production is behind these guys. It's so developed now that they are looking, as Ross alluded to, everything that the pitcher is doing, not compared to whether he had a five-run lead and how he did after that.

Okay. Can I ask the question before I get up the line and let you guys answer? Sure. What do you guys think? what do you guys think is going to happen to the other teams that are going to get caught up in the investigation? Like, that's something that is not talked about on the national media. I noticed that the last two weekends on the Saturday shows on different stations,

that it's all about hammering on the Astros, but no one's talking about, man, how's it going to look if L.A. gets caught. I'll hang up, but thanks to call, guys, and enjoy spring training. I'm ready for baseball. Me too. Thank you very much. Ross, I have been, that's a great question from the listener. Yes. I'm getting the distinct feeling and I've been given no information.

This is just a gut because I've been consuming so much of this. That once the Red Sox get their punishment, whatever that may be, we're going to go dark on this. What do you mean? That I don't think Rob Manfred is going to have a press conference in two weeks and say, after careful consideration, we're going to do some more checking on teams like the Dodgers, the Reds, the Giants, the Marlins, the Rays. I think, and this is what I think he's asking is how big is this going to eventually get?

And I think we might get a dark period realizing that maybe the Astros and the Red Sox are going to take the fall for a lot of teams that have done similar type of things. Is it going to be, I mean, would the analogy maybe the bounty gate? with the NFL, how, I mean, the Saints weren't probably the only team with bounties and guys handing out money. And people talked about, like, Miami University of doing that. And Uncle Luke and those guys handing people cash for knocking guys out. And it being widespread throughout the NFL.

But the only team that got punished for it was the Saints. You think maybe something like that? Because, you know, honestly, I don't know if the Commissioner wants to spend a lot more time looking at 15 or 20 other teams. And think about this, Ross. How much did it have to take an order for the Astros to receive the punishment? It took a player going to the athletic and telling him what was going on. This was not organic investigating by Major League Baseball.

This is Major League Baseball who's already, and look, think about this, they're facing a tremendous wrath by giving the Astros immunity. Do you think they want to spend a lot of time giving five or six other teams full immunity for this? I think from Manfred wants this to go away as soon as possible. And that's why I think that once the Red Sox are ultimately punished, whatever that may be, severely or non-severely, that it's going to be a quiet period. So we'll see.

One thing I want to ask you, and this is our friend Joan asked on Twitter, and I will get this response, if any of you are going to Astrored Games this year, we had a question like this on the show yesterday. Will you wear the Astro gear, or will you go incognito? Because you're afraid that non-Aestro fans, basically everybody who hates the Astros, is going to antagonize and crush you when you go to opposing parks.

Welcome to Palm Beach and a new season of Astros baseball. I'm very excited. We can't wait to get out there and play again. Exclusive Astros' spring training coverage on 7-9 is brought to you by Carbock Brewing, crafted for Syria's fun, and by the Palmbeaches.com. Ball Beach and we will have some more players today was photo day and live batting practice day so guys were a little more thinned out we will be here early morning each of the next three days to hopefully grab you important people right after we eat our weedies that we're having for breakfast yeah so it can be like Nick Markakis ready to go ready to tackle the morning if you did not hear what

Nick Markakis said we will play that sound bite and we'll give you Dusty Banker's reaction, top of the hour here on Sports Talk, 790. 713-212-5-790. So you reach the show, 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Nicholas, where we going next on the phones, please? Let's go with Meredith and Katie. Meredith on the mat, Thomas. Show Meredith, thanks for holding what's going on today.

Hey, I just want to start by saying thank you so much for the show the last couple of week. It's been very therapeutic, especially hearing, getting some laughs from Colin, or attempting to call New York Deli. That was nice to get a couple laughs. We tried. We weren't very successful, though, Meredith. I'm sorry.

Oh, but you got a hold of that one fan and just kept it going and kept it going, and it was great to hear him get all riled up. It was very entertaining, so thank you for that. Much needed comedy and all this. But just kind of wanted to jump into you talking and mentioning about the support of the fans,

I'm seeing a lot on Twitter from opposing fans of opposing teams. I'm just talking about how they just cannot believe that Astros fans are sticking with the team. And I find that interesting that they can't take that perspective of, you know, it's almost like I'm kind of speaking from a diehard fan's perspective. That it's almost like if you had a cousin or an aunt or a close friend that did something to break a rule or, you know, you know, something, something wrong. You're going to be disappointed in that family member or that friend, but you're not just going to probably just drop them off and, you know,

not have anything to do with them again. It's harder to make that kind of a separation. Right. When you just devote that much energy, that much time, that much passion, especially the last several seasons, so a lot of people have just had so much excitement with this team. I just think it's interesting that other fan bases aren't understanding where we're coming from on that situation.

Well, the reason why Meredith they don't understand is because it's not their organization. Right. And I guarantee you if there are other teams that are being investigated, the only we know officially as of now is the Boston Red Sox, my guess is Boston Red Sox are going to be a little bit more lenient towards being so, you know, gregarious with their comments. Janie Martinez just said just the other day, Meredith, that, you know, it is what it is.

and I think a lot of that is because he knows his clubhouse isn't clean. And so it might not take too much of a private investigator to figure out who is not saying much, who is just treating it as a matter of factly because maybe they know their clubhouse isn't clean. And maybe Major League Baseball may come up to them at some point. Right, right. Well, and then I think the other thing I've seen on Twitter with, as more comments come out from players that are just, you know, we need, they need it beating. You know, we're going to, we're going to beam them the first chance we get.

It actually feels like for me, what started out is disappointment, and I really wasn't looking forward to the start of the season is now turning into, I'm getting fired up. Like, I'm ready to, it's almost having the opposite effect of right before, you know, I was not looking forward to now. I'm kind of fired up to get behind this team. There is something, and Ross and I were talking about that on. our plane ride today Meredith there is a certain faction

I think my partner I'll let you finish on this that we are really craving the Astros to win it in 2020 because it's going to ultimately I think quiet the guy almost said shut up quiet the critics that said this Astro team can't win without

electronic intelligence that's the only thing that's going to make every not it's not everything's never ever ever going to all go away. But the best thing you can do is go out there and win games. And I think this is a talented team and I think they're going to go out and do that. Now are they going to win the World Series? That's obviously going to be a taller task, especially with the Yankees out there and the Dodgers improving and other teams like that. But I think the Astros will be in that mix. I think they

will win the AL West. Meredith. The only thing you're going to worry about is that this team absolutely falls flat and gets in place 500 baseball. Don't say that. Don't say that. Don't say that. Don't I don't even think that. Don't think it. Don't think it, though. That would be totally never-to-eat-eat. That's the worst possible scenario. You have to at least enter into your mind. Yes. That's terrible. Don't leave me with that. All right, Meredith. Have a great day. Thanks for calling. Don't be a strange of the show. Okay. I appreciate you listening. Thank you so much. You got it. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90 is how you reach our show. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Let's get another call.

in before the top of the hour. We're going to let you hear what Nick Mark Hakeas said and maybe our favorite new manager, Dusty Baker's response. Let's go to, uh, let's go on the other end of the country. You want to? Manual is in Southern California on the Matt Thomas show. Manuel, thanks for holding. Good afternoon to you. I hope you guys are doing good out in Florida. I hope you having fun. We are. Thank you. All right. Well, I want to come. I usually call you about rocket stuff, but I don't know if you remember me because I'm not usually the only person where they call you out in California. I'm also a big-time Braves fan. I've been since 94. And I found out this morning,

I heard the comment. I was just, I was just disappointed. Like, I mean, I'll make Mark it. You have your right to your opinion and you have a right to be mad. Sure, you know, you play the game. You're clean, I guess. Who knows? You know, every clubhouse is different. But, you know, I was just like, when you go out there and say, you want to beat somebody down, you want to hurt them, you want to beat them, that's like messing with somebody's physical well-being. You could call them anything in the book. You could call them cheaters, whatever. You know, like, I'm a dire brain, man.

It just disappoints me because it teaches younger kids, like, look at this pro athlete guy now. He wants to go out and beat these guys up, and he wants to throw at him, and what if one of them hit them hit them in the knee? Or what if they hit out too big in the head or something? Because they're just trying to prove a point in the ball slips. You know, it just, it doesn't need to happen.

Yeah, they, they might have cheated. Okay, we got it. We got it. We move on. They said sorry. Even I, you know, I have sympathy because I'm just a regular person. Like everybody else, these people should chill out. Like, you know, things happen.

They made a mistake. We move on. The apologies weren't great. But at least they apologized. And they did what they had to do as a person. They stepped up and took responsibility. Manuel, thanks for the phone call. Appreciate it.

Yeah, I mean, Astro fans feel like they've taken their responsibilities. Everybody else around baseball thinks the Astros are lucky, got away with it, and haven't done enough. And they want, I mean, now we're seeing petitions. We're seeing lawsuits. We're seeing baseball players who have no relationship with the Astros whatsoever losing their M-Fing minds over this. Like Nick Markegakis. How many times we mentioned Nick Markakis's name on the Matt Thomas show in the last 12 calendar miles? Maybe 12.

I thought you were going to say ever, and I was going to say maybe once. Okay. In the last 12 months, then probably zero. Definitely zero in the last 20. You can say it's not fair. You can say it's, they got away with it. You can say that the baseball union let its membership down, which really was the opposite. It covered their ass is what it did.

But they deserve a beating over this. That's going to allow Rob Manford to say, all right. other teams are going to get no leeway when it comes to throwing at the Astros. There will be, there will be no, oh, that pitch slipped. There will be no, there will be immense warnings. There will be lots of don't you dare, or we're going to instruct our umpires to throw people out very quickly. And you can say, well, some of it may be worth it. I don't know.

When you've got pitching staffs and bullpins that are taxed, you send a starter out there who wants to throw it somebody early in the game and you're going to want to having to play a bullpen game, that's not a scenario you're going to win. There is no positive benefit of throwing at the Astros in 2020. You can be mad at them. Go to a microphone. Say what you want to say. But you're going to hurt your team if you're going to start throwing in it because Manfred's going to tell the umpires kick these guys out fast.

That's one of the biggest reasons. I mean, people are one of the early on people were talking about, wow, the Astros just going to get thrown out every game. But you think about it. That's basically everything that's happening right now. You just say something, and you've got to think about the repercussions. You've got to think about the second layer of this. Absolutely.

Guys are going to get thrown out. Guys might get hurt. Guys are going to get suspended. Rob Manfred talked about how he is, even before all this was going down, looking into longer suspensions for people who are intentionally throwing at people. So, I mean, and then for what? What do you accomplish? Let's say first game, first batter is going to be Jose Al-Tuvet or is it going to be Bregman?

Springer. Okay, Springer. Okay, Springer. I'm sorry. I don't know what I'm thinking. But, yeah, so the first, The first batter, Springer, takes one in the ribs. And then what?

What have you accomplished? Do you feel better? You feel better? Is it make everything go away? Is it, I mean, what is getting accomplished? And here's the thing, though. Some of them could say, yeah, I feel better. Some could say that.

Okay. All right, we're going to hear what Mark Hakek has said. We'll give the retaliation, the response back from Dusty. More your phone call. 713212-5-790. This is the Matt Thomas show. Final hour here from a Tuesday from West Palm Beach, Florida, at Astro Spring Training, courtesy to Palm Beaches.com,

where that is really your one-stop place. You want to get tickets, you want to get rental car, airfare, activities, hotels is a big deal. Great selection of that. And a month of spring training games starting this Saturday. So if you've not planned a trip down here, you might need a... You know the Astros need a hug, Ross. They just do. Okay

Not that kind of hug on Yeah you were going to say Yeah I was If you said you've said oral hug before And that got out I looked it up on Urban Dictionary Yeah don't do that That didn't turn out particularly well no

All right 713212-570 713 212 5790 News of the day Started in North Point Florida which is on the other side of the state Near Sarasota

Tampa St. Petersburg area Okay where Nick Markakis of the Atlanta Braves, brand new facility where the Braves are. They've left to Disney like the Astros have, well, close, Kissimmee, said this about the local nine. You know, I know we're all competitive

and we're all we're out there competing, but there's right ways to do it and wrong ways to do it. And I 100% disagree with the way they did it. You know, there's a lot of people that were hurt by it, and it was wrong. And I think the punishment and everything, I think just everything has been taken, everything's been handled the wrong way. You know, you've got two guys that are sitting at home that you can kind of, you know, give them a little bit of leeway. And they're not in the game right now.

And then you got the players who did it who are scot-free. I know as players, we do not agree with what they did. We don't stand behind them, and never will we support them for their actions. and I think they got off pretty easy. You know, they're going to be able to go out there and compete with no ramifications at all, which is wrong, and I think the commissioner completely handled it the wrong way. But, you know, that's the way he did it, and, you know, that's the way we got to live with it. But, you know, I know a lot of people disagree with them, and the way he handled this situation,

he should be embarrassed of himself. It angers you, especially from a guy who has played the game. the right way his whole career um no shortcuts um i know how hard this game is i know how hard preparing for this game is and to uh to see something like that it's it's damaging to baseball you know it's anger uh i feel like every single guy over there needs a beating you know it's wrong they're messing with people's careers all right so the astros deserve a beating How do you answer that if you're a manager of baseball team, especially a new one? Well, hold on.

I want to know, how is this beating going to come about? Oh, I think they're meaning baseball pitcher goes to mount and throws at players. Okay. Not like, let's meet in the middle of the tunnel and let's rumble. No, that's only the Rockets and Clippers from years ago. Yeah, like you send Nick Marcakis, who did the Astros send? Yordon Alvarez? Well, let's put together.

If you were to size up, I don't know the Braves roster. So this is unfair. Let's decide the Astros roster. Right. Like a best of the best karate competition situation, like five fights and whoever wins three of them wins the match. Yordon is first. Yes. Well, wait, aren't you limited to the 2017 players in your fight roster?

Oh. No. No, because if they want the beating, they want the beating right Nick in 2020. So I'm allowed to use anybody that's at my disposal. Yeah. Okay. It's like selecting your champion at a trial by combat. You can choose whoever you want.

Okay, here's my list. I'll go my five, you go for your five, and the Nick, you go, your five. My five goes, Yordon one. Yes. Bregman, two, just because he's a badass. Okay. Three, I'm going to go with...

You're making some oversights. Number two. Michael Brantley? Number two is definitely Josh Redick. Four, Josh Reddick. Josh Reddick's small, but I think he can kick some ass. I think he's tough. He's scrapped.

He's a scrappy. I'm going to go Jose Al-Tube as a sneaky one. No. Nice guy. Yeah. You wouldn't hurt me. Boom. See, I would like to put Carlos 6'4-Carray up there, but he's...

IP. Yes, he might get injured. He's going to twist his knee within the first 30 seconds. You know who would be the badass on the mic would be Lance McCullors? Yeah. But we're not doing my competitions here. Smaller as well. This is straight up beating.

I'm going... Let's just have Yordon fight five times. He's young. That's what I was going to be. If Yordon fights this way, do you even worry about four and five not really how about Zach Grinky as being a sneaky pick he seems like wily he's got crazy eyes george springer too you know he you know like those they're like there's a movies or whatever like a big bar fight's happening and there's just

one guy sitting there quiet not saying a word and in minding his business and then he says hey guys quiet down and then everybody shuts up and says i'm sorry sir that's like Zach Grinky but pitchers don't like to throw because they realize if they hurt if they make one small alteration they're body that could be gone for a while. I think he got to go position players. We're really missing Evan Gaddis on this one. Yeah, anybody else, Nick, we're forgetting. Evan Gaddis was 17 and he hadn't played with anybody, so does he technically still?

Nope, 26-man roster. Can we pick? Got to be in the 26-man roster. Springer is a good one. So we can't. We can't use Francis Martes? No, he's not available. Francis Martez, we know he's got a little juice to him.

How about Jose or Kiti? But again, that's a pitcher. Do we want somebody getting in a competition with pitchers? I don't know. How about Roberto Osuna from Sinole, Mexico? Brantley walks in and says, excuse me, you want to do Wadick now? You think Brantley?

You think Brantley could lay down the law? Brantley would kill him with kindness. I think Josh Reddick fights. Are there no rules in these fights? I think Josh Reddick is your guy if you can fight dirty. And Josh Reddick wants to go right into wrestling moves. He wants to, he wants to poke you in the eyes. He wants to hit you in the junk.

Yeah. Can we sign Evan Gaddis to like a one-week contract? I think he could That's what I'm saying. So he can retire as an astro? Well, he's already an astro in our hearts. All right. So here is,

we've just heard what Nick Markechis, he wants a beating to beat down the astros. Here is our Michael Connor asking Dusty the question regarding the so-called potential beating. Dusty this morning in Braves camp, New Markakis, he said that the guys over here

deserve a beating for what went on. What do you have any thoughts on those comments? That's who? No, I ain't a... I ain't compliment. comment on everybody's comments, you know? So, go ahead. You want to beat on us?

Go ahead. I didn't think Markikas talked too much. He doesn't. Okay. Maybe he had his leadies. The best. Just the best. All right, we have some audio coming in.

We'll play in the next segment of Aaron Judge. Oh, boy. Be ready for that. That's coming up in 10 minutes. minutes from now here on the Matt Thomas show. Right now, a couple of phone calls. First, 713-212-5-790. Marty's and Katie in the Matt Thomas show.

Marty, thanks for holding what's going on. Hey, man, thank you for having me, Matt. Now, listen, let me tell you something. I am, I just think this is an opportunity. This is an opportunity for these Astros to change. All right? Now, I'm not really excited that they got caught cheating. I'm not.

But I'm going to go ahead and embrace this. I've got a shirt made Bad Boys of Major League Baseball. That's what it is, baby. We need to embrace this and keep it moving. Flip time between Houston and Chicago, and I want you to know that I will be repting these Astros all the way to the shop, baby,

and I'll be having my black and gold and blue and rainbow colors on all the way. Just reverend these strokes. And I'm going to tell you something. But Mepred was dead wrong for what he shared about the Mastroes. I just think that's just going to like to find us to be even better.

Okay. Thanks for reping. I don't know if it's going to work. Although they probably need you. Thank you for the phone call. They'll need you rep in when the Astros and White Sox play. White Sox could be a surprisingly good team this year, all the additions, I mean, including our friend Dallas Skykel.

Yeah, they had some good young prospects, some good young talent. It's all good. All right. Listen. Aaron and Judge put his two cents in. We'll hear from him. him next. I will not even tease it, except to say that

we know what he's going to say. Okay. I thought we were doing there, Judge. Like, can we just give, like, everybody gets one sound bite? Like, Cody Bellinger, you're done. Apparently, he wanted a double soundbys. He said it today, so we'll get that for you next. Nick Mark, yeah, okay.

But what do he say, what colors is he going to wear? Did he mention red? There's no Astero Red anymore. No. It's breathed orange fire. Right. the brick red was horrible and has been retired along with Junction Jack

Mickey rest in peace yeah Junction Jack's gone orbit is back and the orange is back and by the way I've asked the Astros they're not going to listen to me I want them wearing the blue uniforms more often this year okay I agree with that they only wore them like Sunday home games

wear them like 25 times a year but also as we found out in the World Series it doesn't matter when they know remember the big thing about oh they have to wear orange orange oh they were orange in game seven they lost yeah didn't work out or all. This is Sports Talk 790, live from Astros, spring training. It's an excitement. You know, this is a new beginning.

Exclusive coverage from West Palm Beaches brought to you by Carbock Brewing, crafted for serious fun, and by thebombeaches.com. All right, time on the Matt Thomas show for another edition of a player's mad update. On the Matt Thomas show. Are this just going to trickle in? I mean, it's spring training, right? A player's mad up day. They think the Astros really blow. See?

Here we go. Aaron Judge, this is in Tampa where the Yankees have their spring training. I think the Astros should be stripped of their 2017 championship. Yeah, I just don't think it holds any value with it. You know, you cheated and you didn't earn it. That's how I feel is it wasn't earned. You know, it wasn't earned the way of, you know, playing the game right and fighting until the end and knowing that, you know, we're competing.

We're competitors. And the biggest thing about competition is laid it all out in the line. And, you know, whoever's the better player, better person, you know, comes out on top. You know, and, you know, you just lay it out there. And, you know, to know that another team had an advantage that, you know, nothing you can really guard against, I just don't feel like that's earned or, you know, yeah, that's not earned. Okay. I mean, Ross, honestly, entitled to his opinion.

It's just in 2017 he's talking about when the Yankees got fined Yes For illegally using their video equipment yes Okay I'm just telling you he's entitled there's hypocrisy we move forward we don't judge Now we don't judge Aaron judge making sure he's talking about the 17 title when the Yankees got fined Well he's asking for a he's asking for a world series title to be pulled away and He's going to lose Okay.

As Rob Manfred said, it's just a piece of hardware. Oh, boy, that was... I don't know if I would have said that, honestly. I mean, I guess if you want to get really nihilist about it, it's true. It doesn't really matter in the end, but... Let me tell you. That wasn't the way to go about it. When you're the commissioner of the sport,

where everybody's chasing the World Series, commissioners trophy. You just can't say that. Here's the gods on his truth. You ready for this? No. When the Astros won the World Series, and Reed Ryan, who was the president of business operations,

brought the trophy over to our building. I held that trophy like it was one of my children. I've never held, I've never held, I've held the World Champion's the trophies of the Rockets, but that's 20 years ago. And now the ones that are in the Toyota Center are not the ones because Les took them. My point is that that trophy does mean something.

It's not just a piece of hardware. that is a full that that is something in theory and we and now we have seen complete evidence of it you can't take away no matter what the aster is did well that's not what rob manfred says i'm serious i i i got emotional i was like i'm holding this trophy that only one team gets to carry around all throughout baseball right so my feeling is it it does carry a way more more than what Rob Manfred said. And look, Aaron Judge is entitled his opinion, but just remember Aaron Judge, if the Major League Baseball folks come after you because there is certainly evidence that there were tying with Brian McCann, not evidence, but there was certainly conjecture that Brian McCann and or Carlos Beltron were involved with some things while wearing Yankee gear. You might want to be very careful about what kind of punishment you want out there for the asterisk.

Yeah, that seems a little bit. I think the last two teams that should be throwing stones would be the Red Sox and the Yankees. case. And we haven't heard much from Red Sox. I'm saying, if people get caught cheating on their taxes, oh, how dare you do that? Well, you know what? Let's go on to your taxes the last five years. Let's see how that works out. 713-212-790. 7-1-2-7-90. We've got

two lines available if you'd like to join the show. We've had a great time talking you all today. And let's go next to in terms of the longest way. Is that Chuck and Cyprus at 320 at 223? Hi, Chuck. Good. Here's my point, man. And I've heard this, you know, being said,

Mr. Salkberry started it off the other day about how every other fan base should just get over it. Astros apologize, and you know what? You don't need to apologize anymore. Get over it. That's not how this works, man. And the young lady who called about 20 minutes ago, she's getting more fired up now that everybody's against the Astros.

Well, you know what? Get fired up. because I want to pose this question. So if all the other Astros fans, you're the husband, and all the other fans in baseball, we're the wife. Well, guess what? You went out and cheated, and then you come home and say, you know what, I cheated, I'm sorry, get over it.

Does that how that works? No, that doesn't work that way, man. You just can't tell somebody, I'm sorry, get over it. That's not how it go. So all the Astros fans have to be humble, be quiet and be humble and whatever comes your way comes your way but the players

do not deserve to get hit that's absurd that's absurd because other people's lives and careers but as far as the time of being stripped absolutely they deserve it all right well thank you look I actually I'm going to agree with one of your points

I'm going to disagree with the other ones the other the thing that we need to say well first of all I didn't hear Sean's show I don't know if he said If he said that, I feel like you should address his take with him in the morning. If you want to go ahead and call, I'm sure Sean will be more than happy to take your call. So, I mean, but as far as the other fans needing to get over it, they can do that on their own time. The Astros are they don't owe the Astros to forgive it or their fans or anything like that. But at the same token, the Astros fans don't have to keep their mouth shut either.

No, everybody's allowed to have an opinion on this. Exactly, right. If a certain fan, well, I don't think there's many fans across the country who are saying, you know what, The Astros, we're going to forgive and forget. We're going to completely move on from this. I don't think that's really happening, and I don't expect it to happen, and I'm not saying it should happen either. To be honest, on the pulling of the title, let me tell you,

and we've talked about this five million times. It was certainly on the table. Rob Manfred verified that just three days ago. Something we talked about, everybody had talked about. You can pull it, and it's embarrassing if you were to do that. If you were to have to take the trophy away, we took a video of you outside today here at the state. with the sign it's in 2017.

That's embarrassing. Pulling the flags down. That's embarrassing. Right. The one thing that stripping a team of a title doesn't do is strip all the memories of that 2017. Well, here. How about this angle? Do you think Jim Crane would file a lawsuit if that happened?

And say, you can't prove that help this. You can't prove that this should be happening. There's nothing in our bylaws or anything in the structure of MLB that says that gives you the power to do this. You think Rob Bannford would have a huge lawsuit on his hands? I think that's definitely possible. Yeah, I think that he had to figure out what he could get away with without pending litigation from either the players or the ownership. Because if you're Jim Crane, and hopefully he'll join us here in the next three or four days while we're here,

if you're Jim, we cooperated, we told you everything that you wanted to hear, now you're going to take that information and pull a title away from us. I don't know what the parallel would be on that. Maybe I've got to think about that for a little bit. Oh, okay, let's say the IRS can't. That would be a bad example because the IRS can't take your home from you. I was going to say. I don't think the NCAA kind of doesn't work because that's a different entity.

Maybe you all can help us out. NCAA governs. What would be a class example of, we told you what you wanted to hear under the auspice of, we know what you want to, you know, you want to find our guy a year, You want us to spend our guys here. We can live with that. You want to take our draft picks.

You want to give us the maximum fine, which is $5 million. Couldn't mean any more. But never on the table was there. We may pull your title from me. Now, Manfred said it was, but he ultimately said. He thought about it. What does that mean? Like, he was just...

My guess is... He was at the urinal. He's like, hey, what if I take the title? And then that was it? Or was there serious discussion? I would disagree. I believe there was serious discussion. I think the reason why they didn't was because of what you just said.

that if that was a possibility, the Astros would have clamped up. I think so, too. I think Rob Manfred gang, and I'll say this for 20 years when we're talking about this, Rob Manfred wanted the information. And there were some guarantees. This is over as quickly as possible.

Yeah. And that's why I think people are kind of curious about why this Boston thing has gone as long as it has. Welcome to Palm Beach. and a new season of Astros baseball. I'm very excited. We can't wait to get out there and play again. Exclusive Astros' spring training coverage on 7-9.

It's brought to you by Carbock Brewing, crafted for Syria's fun, and by the Palm Beaches.com. Thank you, Palm Beaches. We're going to our hotel, and we're going to go find a place to have a beverage, take the edge off after the show. Great restaurants, hotels, rental cars, things to do, the beaches the palm beaches dot com yes you're going for a swim

you bring your speedo I think the water is too cold why but I'll find a pool okay you brought your banana hammock with you right that's not true and don't own one never have thank goodness and yeah thanks to the palm beaches dot com and also

our friends at Carbock Brewing who want you to enjoy a couple of cold beverages may you need to as the asteras get ready for this 2000 and the season all right let's go we got a lot of folks that want to get their two cents in, and we will have more players over the next three days, as Ross brings and Ross, I bring you our coverage here from West Palm, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday beginning at 12 noon.

Let's go in terms of the longest way to north, southeast Houston, southeast Houston, and Randall on the Matt Thomas show. Randall, thank you for holding. Hey, good afternoon. Yes, sir, good afternoon, sir. I think that the commissioner should go ahead and find this guy for coming out and saying that all that. Astroes need a beating because the commissioner needs to get a grip of the comments that are being made and make a statement by starting these players because you just can't say anything and think that it's okay. Okay, the punishment has been handed down. So the commissioner needs to control what the media, what these players are saying to the media.

And not only that, because what it does in the long run, our players are going to have to be protected on the field because you have a lot of people. because you have a lot of pissed-out fans, and then these players are provoking before the season is started. So I'm going to just go ahead and shut up and listen, and we need to get a grip of this so that these Astros players can be protected as they travel to these cities. Yeah, you can't punish freedom of speech, right? I've never heard of a commissioner.

No. Punishing anybody from a question asked and answered. He can't go out and say, hey, guys, stop talking about this. There would be no recourse for that. There would just be no reason for him to do that. And it would be very difficult for him to enforce. You're going to suspend a player for, speaking of the MLBPA again, you suspend Aaron Judge 10 games for answering a question from the media?

No, that's not going to hold while. Yeah, thank you, Randall, for the phone call. But no, they need to be able to say what they want to say. I would rather than be boisterous in a clubhouse as compared to going on and trying to hurt people. Well, I'd rather them also be more educated on the matter and what happened. as Carlos Correa would say, know your facts. The emotions are still wrong. I get it.

And I think we're going to live with that for a while. Let's go to Tommy in Austin on the Matt Thomas show. Tommy, what's going on in the Capitol City today? Hey, it's gone. This is my thought. We cheated in 2017. We won the title. We messed up.

We apologized. 2018, maybe a little bit in there, too. And, you know, now we've accepted apology. We're accepted the punishment. We're apologizing. now as 2020, we need to move on. And not only move on, I think we need to just accept this being the bad boys of the MLB and just kind of going full Hulk Hogan and going NWO and turning heel up for the MLB

and just relishing in the booze and just using that as motivation, I think, more than anything. Yeah, Matt, can we have Jose Altuve rip his jersey off after every home run this year? You know what, I'm going to use somebody else. Let's leave Jose in his jersey alone. Okay. I think it's just too soon. I think the wounds are still very wrong. And he is still shy.

He's a shy man. Shouldn't the whole team just strip naked after a walk off this season? I mean, just to get it all out there? You would like that. I think our female audience would love that. That's true. That's part of the reason the whole Al-Tubei thing happened, because remember, every female astrofan was swooning over Al-Tubei after he had his shirt off,

and apparently his wife didn't care for that. We're going to ask Grace who she's going to swoon for. Grace, one of our great listeners, Swoons for Jake Mariznick, and now he's wearing Metskear. Who's the new swoon? Reddit got married, so that's ineligible. Springer got married. Part of what the girls want is they want to swoon over a single guy.

Okay. Well, if it's going to be fourth outfielder type, it's Kyle Tucker. Oh, but he's a baby, though. Maybe a little Mrs. Robinson in there? A little ostrich-like as well. You know what? If he wants to bat 275 and hit 19. home runs this year.

I'm okay with whatever. Yeah. Yeah. That's, it's Mrs. You know what it is? It's Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham. Who is going to allow The new project?

The new project to come to your house and let Kyle Tucker grow up a little bit. Right. And I'm going to talk like physically. I'm talking about like, you know, Susan Sarandon to a meat. That was his name. That was his name. Nukleush.

Oh, it was not meat. It was, uh, yeah, I know. Well, he was known. Yeah. Kevin Koster's character called Crash Davis called a meat. Yes. What a great movie. I only recently saw that, actually, for the first time.

And you loved it. It was good. It was fantastic. It is a top five baseball movie. It didn't change my life, but I got a lot more quotes that I used to not really get. A lot more references that I used to not get. Best part of the Rob Manfred Press conference a couple days ago. This is down in over in Northport where the Braves are.

He's trying to get everybody's attention off of the Astero stuff. And he's like, you know, we're going to play games at Williamsport. and we're going to play games in Mexico City, and we're going to play some more games in London, and we're really looking forward to playing the Field of Dreams game. Yeah. And you guys can't get tickets. Ha-ha.

And it was supposed to be Aquamia Media Live. They were one of a single person laughing at the Aquamia laugh opportunity. Oh, wow. That would be a great game to go see. Middle of Iowa? I'm good. Maybe I'd watch the whole movie at that point. You still haven't seen all Field of Dreams?

Uh-uh. I saw it when I was a kid. I don't really have great memories of it. Okay. 713, 212, 5. I feel like you and I have watched parts of 50 movies. Yeah, I think that's... We talk about more movies that we've only seen parts of them.

Yeah. I mean, I've seen all of Field of Dreams, but I was probably like eight. I don't really remember the entire thing. It's pretty dull. Like, I feel like I've seen all the Star Wars, but I just can't give you, like, vivid details of it. Uh-oh. Now Nick Lowe's mad at you.

You know, he's a Star Wars nerd. Nick, you're not mad at me because I've only seen 80% of the Empire Strikes Back. Well, that's the best Star Wars movie. All you need to watch is the original three. You can skip all the rest. I hate all the rest of the movies. Yeah, there you are. But you've seen them all, haven't you?

Yep, I've seen them all. Spoken like a true Star Wars fan. I will watch the movie, but I will also hate it. Let me ask you this. Did you go in Star Wars gear to see any of the new ones? No, I don't own any Star Wars gear. Well, you're in the minority. Did people look at you and give you like Death Stairs

because you weren't wearing full Chubakka gear? Nope. I see Nick is more of a Princess Leia. May she rest in peace. Rich in Clear Lake on the Matt Thomas show at 340, 240, that is. Hi, Rich. Hey, guys, I appreciate you having me on. I'm a long-time listener out here on the road every day and get to hear you guys.

I still haven't gotten the May homes thing out of my brain, but... The May Homes. Love the May Homes. What's you got, brother? Hey, I just wanted to throw this out there. You know, obviously being a huge Astros fan, I'm disappointed in everything that's taken place, specifically knowing that the guys are, you know, they're way more talented than that. They're a better group than that.

But I've started to get to the point where I think the most frustrating thing as a fan is sitting back and watching while the league, you know, continuously drives the bus over us while we've still yet to hear anything about the Red Sox. And, you know, I think what's more frustrating is this information is going to come out after the season gets started. It along kind of swept under the rug. So everybody's had this entire off season to beat us up. And the Red Sox will just kind of skate away and we'll start another.

season and see what happens. I think it's a little bit disturbing. I'm going to actually politely disagree. I'm not disturbed. I'm not sitting on the edge of my seat. I'm not getting mad. I want majorly baseball to be thorough. And if they're being thorough, then that's the most important thing. If they need to wait for two or three more weeks, my guess is it'll be before the start of the season. They've already fired their manager, the one that led him to the World Series. So some of the punishment's already been done. But I'm curious.

Let me get a response back for you. Why are you so upset? Because all I want is justice. I want fair and equal punishment, if indeed the Red Sox had something wrong. What makes you so upset that the delay is there? I absolutely agree with you. I do think that the league at this point needs to take their time

and make sure the investigation is done right and done thoroughly. I think just as for a fan and kind of sitting back, and catching all the media blowback, which obviously, you know, is certainly two and is, you know, something that we deserve at this point. But, yeah, I think that, you know, God knows the Yankees fans are some of the worst. But they will continue to back that bus up and run us over. While I'm really not hearing a whole lot about the Red Sox, specifically, you've got Cody Belling here coming out talking about cheating, yet you've got a cheater that just

join your team, bud, you know, like it's so dispersed over the entire league. I think the focus so hard on us it's a little brutal, but again, it's deserved. Right. How about this? And you bring up an excellent point. Thank you for the call, by the way. How is that conversation going to go between Cody Bellinger and Buckey Betts?

If something's happened? If something happened. I don't know. We'll see. How about Glaver Torres talking about the he thinks the actuals routine last year, directly conflicting with Garrett Cole saying there was no cheating in 2019? Let's do this. And a great point.

from a bit was rich and clear like as it was. Watch Cody Bellinger's reaction when Moogie bets and the Red Sox, and maybe not Mokey by name, but the Red Sox get thought. Is Cody going to go, I mean, the question should be, what's the difference in what Moogie did as a Red Sox than what the Astros did? Oh, is it because he's a teammate of yours? Okay. All I want Ross is a consistency.

Yes. That's all I've asked for. But all we're getting is hypocrisy. Pounce the Astros, if you will. but pounds everybody equally. A lot of time? I don't want to start off slow. It's a new season of Astros baseball.

And this is exclusive Astros spring training coverage on 790. Brought to you by Carbock Brewing, crafted for serious fun, and by thebombeaches.com. There was a terrible accident yesterday at the Daytona Beach, Daytona 500, involving Ryan Newman. I was death, deathly afraid he was death. I mean, to be honest with you, the way he flipped, the car was on fire. And the fact that the Roush Fenway Group, as I say, I don't think it's Roos, think it's Roush, whatever, his camp was very, very secretive about his condition. They have announced today Ryan Newman remains under the care of doctors at Halifax Medical Center in Daytona.

He is awake and speaking with family and doctors. Ryan and his family have expressed their appreciation for the concern and heartfelt messages from across the country. They are grateful for the unwavering support of the NASCAR community and beyond. We will continue to provide information as it becomes available. Not overly descriptive of what actually happened, but much better than what I thought it was going to be when I went to bed last night. You see the accident? Yes, I did. I mean, it's dangerous, yeah.

I don't. I'll never get it. But they didn't ask my opinion. Right. that's part of the part of the appeal right is that there are there is danger yeah

yeah that's exactly right all right let's get a few more calls in before we send it over to the a team here on sports talk 790 713 212 5790 is how you reach the show let's go next I can't my vision is bad because I cannot see who the next caller is because my screen here we go let's go to

Bob and Beaumont on the Matt Thomas show Bob Howard things. Hey, Matt. I'm an Astro fan since I was a little boy in 1972, but I don't think the investigation of them was unfair. Unlike what I've seen on social media from some Astro fans, I don't think there's any conspiracy against the theme. They got caught, they got turned in, that's why they were investigated. But I will tell you that the comments from some of the, quite a few players around the league, and by the way, Dusty Baker had a great comeback. to Mark Takas from Atlanta about him eating his leadies this morning with what he said.

But that aside, in particular, the comments from Cody Bellinger, Josh Turner with the Dodgers, and here's what rugs me a little bit about what they're saying. Two years ago in 2018, they were called out for shooting by the Brewers. I think it was NL Championship Series for the divisional playoff game. But regardless, they were called out for cheating, specifically, I think, in two games. I've never heard whether Major League Baseball looked into that, what came of it. But they were called out for that. And nothing comes up.

And now all of their comments about the Astros and whatever they may say about the Red Sox after their investigation is revealed. I kind of think the Dodgers are living in a glass house. but I'd like to hear you comment on that. As always, I enjoy your show. Thank. Thank you. There's a lot of glass houses, Ross, right? I mean, this is, look, there could be three or four more teams.

You mean to tell me just two of 30? Didn't behave themselves? Answer that question, Houston. Did just two teams out of a potential 30 not behave themselves? I don't know. And you also have, I mean, there was, the commissioner mentioned a quote incident in Arizona

talking about the cheating during his long interview with I think Carl Ravich so we don't know we don't know and how much of it went on I think the key part of this of course is after Manfred said don't do this after September 15th 2017 when the

Yankees and Red Sox got dinged how many teams kept doing it after that? How many teams failed to communicate to the players? And guess what? If they're If that email came out and a bunch of teams are doing it and they behave themselves, then they whizzed up, right? Right.

They listened. They didn't take the commissioner's office and say, okay, we'll do whatever we want. Yeah, and we don't know. We don't know. Let's go to Brad in Hollywood, Florida. I only know one Brad in Southern California. Oh, no. It's not in Miami.

I live in Miami. I live in Hollywood, which is an hour and 20 minutes from Palm Beach and about 40 minutes from Miami. Wait a minute. You're always going to be in our hearts, Brian in Miami. Yes. I'm right in the middle. I can go to Fort Lauderdale one day within 20 minutes, 15 minutes, or I can go 35, 40 minutes to South Beach or Miami if I wanted, which I kind of want to stay away from Miami. It's just as bad as you should.

But anyway, hey, what are you? I want to bring my uniform, my shirt to Astros, to a game where the opposing team, one of the players, talk smack about the Astros. Do I have freedom of speech to talk smack to that player without getting it in trouble or getting taken away from the game? Because it kind of runs me wrong that these players are game on the Astros. And if I was them, I keep my mouth shut. It's supposed to be a brotherhood.

And you never know when you get traded. I mean, how are they going to trade somebody that you want on another opposing team that talks smack about your team? So I was wondering how that would work out. Well, I'll say this. I hope there is very minimal argumentative, nasty things done, players being hit, yada, yada, yeah. I don't want that. It's not good for the sport. Take it out in front of a microphone.

Don't turn on the field. And with that, we close our show on. We'll see. Rob Manfred apparently has been going to go into address that. Yep. You guys that are on hold, stay tight. Our good buddies, Adam and Adam, are going to take you for the next three hours. We are back with you tomorrow where we will, I believe, have more astro guests

as we have our first real official day down here in West Palm Beach. Thanks again to the Palm Beaches.com at a Carbock Brewing. Up next, the A team, back with you guys tomorrow at 12 noon, right here on Sports Talk 7.9.