The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - The Matt Thomas Show : Bregman, Click, Straw, D'Antoni, and More

Episode Date: February 20, 2020

The Matt Thomas Show w/ @SportsMT, @SportsRV, and @ProNickLow 2/20/20Live From Spring Training in West Palm BeachMyles Straw (14:49)James Click (29:44)Alex Bregman (49:20)The Mike D'Antoni Show (1:01:05)Jake Kaplan (1:18:36)Chris Devenski (1:31:19)

So much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas Show. 1202 in H-town. What's happening in lunch timers? Good afternoon to you and welcome to a Thursday edition of the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. We come to you today from West Palm Beach, Florida, home of Astro Spring Training in 2020. Ross Villa Reala along the side as well

and Niccolo just eating barbecue back in our Houston studios. Well, he did yesterday for a better part of three hours. So what's the difference about another 24 hours? We have a jam-packed radio program today. I mean, most days we just look at each other and go how are we going to kill three hours? Today, not

the case. Already on the agenda and done and ready for you to hear later on today. Our conversations with Alex Spregman, you know, he finished second the MVP voting. We'll also visit with Chris Da Vinci, who has got an opportunity to get some of his mojo back and get back in that Astros high-end, high-leverage situation with the bullpen. We'll talk to him about that. We are also expected to be joined by James Click, the Astros new general manager, and one of the fastest people alive, Miles Straw? Well, I mean, put it this way. If we took Miles Straw and we

put among the rest of America, where is he? No, the kid at Strait Jesuits, the fastest guy alive, right? Oh, we cannot... can't hear you for some reason. Well, that's not good because you've provided very little. Oh, I can hear you beautifully. Yeah. Is that better? Nick?

No, he can't hear you. No, where to be found it. Well, how about that? I'll try that one more time. All right, so I can do a something about myself. It was to actually be better if I was just talking to myself. Yeah, switch headphones there, because this is not working out well for you at all. Although I hear you clear as a bell for some reason.

That's really, really odd. All right. Well, whatever the case would be. we'll get to Miles Straw who will join us a little bit he's got an opportunity now with Jake Marisne. How about now? All right, there you are. Hi, Ross.

That's bizarre. Your interview with Michael Jordan we just did a minute ago was amazing. I thought it was really, really, really good. We'll switch this just in case. Yeah, we don't need that. We're on the fly here. Live radio, as they call it. Yeah, we're doing great.

Okay, so back to our conversation. Miles Straw, we put him in the fastest. I mean, he's in the top 3% of America, correct? Probably comfortably Within 1% NFL wide receivers Yes Him

Yes sprinters Sprinters And the kid from straight Jesuit right That's about it Yeah I think that's probably about fair All right

So we will get to that conversation Plus a general manager And we had a great visit with Braggman just a few minutes ago Looking forward to that Yes we'll have that for you folks later Yeah to build back a little bit These aren't as easy as they have been in years

pass. You try to make them as comfortable as people so they open up a little bit of things. We did obviously ask a little bit about what life has been this season and I think his narrative is pretty simple. I think he's learned that you know what? For the most part it's head down, play baseball

the results in between the diamond we'll speak for themselves. Yes, I think that's the attitude he has. I think that's the right attitude as well. Yeah. And I think he knows that the first spring training game, which will be Saturday here in West Palm against the Cross Town Nationals.

There might be a few, it's a small venue, so you're going to be able to hear some voices and maybe hear a few things you don't want to hear. People are probably going to get tossed, though, right? Like, if you come up here and try to be funny and bang a trash can or something like that, I can't throw you out, right? I mean, I don't think people,

I don't think 80-year-olds walk in here with trash cans. Why not? It would seem a little odd. Well, wasn't there a guy already here day one that banged a trash can and ran off or something like that? That I don't know. I thought I saw a story like that. Okay, we're getting confirmation on an 80-year-old.

Is he an 80-year-old? I don't know if he was 80. I don't know how old. Because everybody is here as West Palm's a little old. I think it was a teenage. Oh. They're telling me it was a teenage Yankees fan. Source is close to me.

And said a reporter who... Inside reports. He's always wearing a suit here. It's very uncomfortable. Aren't you a little warm? Yeah. No wonder, passing so cranky. He's got a suit on every day here.

Oh, man. My material is so good today. I don't even know. fake news. He's calling you fake news. All right. Nick, I have to ask you, we're listening to Trenches and Sean Salisbury this morning. Did Joe Durradi's MLB network appearance

get a lot of steam back home yesterday? No, not really. No, okay. I need context for that, by the way. You and I had dinner with some people last night, and you and I said the exact same thing. Let's find out what that was meant. What that was meant, maybe like watch the whole segment,

which apparently I think MLB has taken it down. Is that real, too? See, I don't know what's real. Twitter doesn't tell us the truth anymore. I can never put any stock into anything. Yeah. I don't know what to believe, what not to believe. All in those is that we got spring training baseball. We're baseball-y again around these parts for the most part. And it should be calm for a while until Anaheim and their 9,000 fans really get after the Astros coming up in the second weekend of the season.

There's going to be more Dodgers fans than Angels fans there, right? I have it on good authority that we'll be able to, and I don't want to divulge my sources. we should be able to get a recon about that weekend in Anaheim pretty the Monday after that series. Okay. Don't want to give out who's going and what they're going for, but my feel is we'll have a pretty good feel of whether this Dodger contingent that's going to infiltrate Angel Stadium is legit. What do you mean? Like the National Guard's going to be there or something?

No, I'm just saying that we'll know, first of all, we're going to hear it. Right. And then secondly, if there's any noise at all, we know it's not Angels fans. Exactly. And then we'll know like, man, who's making all this noise? They're all wearing blue shirts. Carrying banner, like homemade flags they made. Yeah, with ankle bracelets.

Oh, that's not nice. You're now assuming that Dodger fan is in trouble with the law constantly. Hey, aye, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they are. Okay. They probably stereotype us. Maybe. Oh, let me take some.

We're riding our cowboy. We're riding our horses into the game. Oh, yeah. We're all wearing cowboy hats. You know, the Pony Express delivers our mail, that kind of thing. Okay. They don't realize what a cosmopolitan town. Look at how cosmopolitan I am today.

Are you? Shorts, collared shirt. I got my boat shoes on. Boat shoes are on. Okay. Matt Musil looks like he's going to go out and play nine holes this afternoon like you normally does. Looks he's ready to hit the back nine. Yeah.

Channel 11's here apparently. I mean, they are grinding. I think they got nine in this morning. Went and did one interview with Dusty Bacon. They're going to get another nine in before the end. We're going to play put-putt today. You ever know if I don't go on 10-11 ever? Well, not if you're going to be slandering them like this on the air.

Yeah, I don't think that Bristol guy likes me. All right, let's do this. Let's get to the headlines of the day, non-astrozone game. We're going to mix some guests. Yeah, I think, you know what I'm telling you right now about this football stuff, the expanded playoffs, I like, I love the elimination of, one preseason game and putting up a 17th regular season game. 18 has been roundly booed by everybody.

Players, even fans, front office people, they're thinking it's just too much. But I think as you try to always figure out ways to grow the game and yet protect your game, a 17th game where you play eight home games, eight true road games, and the one neutral site game, I think is a genius move by the NFL. Well, are they going to do like a rivalry thing? Like baseball would do where the Ashwood would play the Rangers every year? I don't think they know that. Because if the Texans are going to play the Cowboys every year in a neutral fight, that'd be great.

I think it would be fun. My guess is you would have to not do that because, again, you may have rivalries that don't exist or are unfair in terms of competition. Like for instance, who Cleveland's rival? We'll dive in all this. But I think this is very cool. Plus today, Mike Dan Tony, the pockets coach, joins us at 1.30 this afternoon. We have a really busy show. Lots of Astro guests.

We'll talk about the NFL stuff and Mike Dan Tony from the Bay Area. Our time is 1210. It is the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. If you want to get in on the conversation, 713-212-5-7-19. This is Sports Talk 790. Live from Astros' spring training. Excitement. You know, this is a new beginning.

Exclusive coverage from West Palm Beach. Brought to you by Carbock Brewing, crafted for serious fun, and by the Palm Beaches.com. Matt Ross, you from West Palm Beach. We're expected to be joined by James Click, the Astros General Manager. Miles Straw, one of the five fastest baseball players, period. Right? Probably? Yeah, named four faster ones.

Well, Gary Pettis, clearly. Yeah. Ricky Anderson. Ricky Anderson, and then Miles Straw. All right, more on that. So what we will do is we will hold off on other stuff until we find out confirmation of those times of those gentlemen. I do want to go back to the NFL for just a second. By the way, if you'd like to join us, 713-213-2-5-790.

7-19. 7-1-3-2-5-790s. We come to you here from West Palm Beach, courtesy of Palm Beach's, courtesy of Carbock Brewing and the Hilton Garden in at Palm Beach Gardens. I right along. I have 95 of the outlets. Where Ross, I did not go get a shirt yesterday. I know. We didn't go get socks.

We didn't go get socks. To be honest, we just went napped. Oh, yeah, we were tired people. We feel so old down here. It's embarrassing how old we feel. But we're the youngest people here by like 30 years. Yeah, we are. We are young.

We're handsome. Many of the plus 50 plus crowd is asking us out. It's really, lots of hair. Lots of hair. Way. This passing guy. Geez. He's really attempting fate here on the old Matt Top of the show.

All right. So let's go to the set. NFL stuff for a second. Yes. 17 games. Yes. Elimination of preseason game, which is good because the fans just got screwed. Right.

And plus nobody's playing. I mean, J.J. Wat doesn't play in the preseason. Deshawn hardly played. And then you've got this neutral site thing, which I think is interesting for both international expansion in terms of keeping maybe London satisfied, maybe not moving a team there, but always having a game there every week. Because they fill it up. Yeah.

They clearly can support NFL football. going to fill it up if it's every week. Luce some of the novelty, right? I think NFL feels it. Now, from what we understand, this is not just about playing international games every week. This is also opening up to places that don't have NFL football. Portland, St. Louis, college cities. I could see a game in Madison, Wisconsin. I could see a game in Austin, Texas. I could see a game in San Antonio. D.K.R.? Yeah, for sure. Okay. I don't know how you... Joe Jamail Field, Darryl. K. Royal Memorial Stadium.

You're letting semantics get in the way of this conversation, but thank you for doing that. I don't know how you schedule it. I don't think you do regional stuff. I think you have to do it based on record. Okay. Just like they figure out everything else. First place team in the division plays this. And then I think at that point, the two teams or even the league sets up their own neutral sites.

Like this year, say, how many neutral site games will there be? If everybody has to play one, so that'd be 16 of them, right? Help me out of you. Right? Am I right about that? Right, yeah. Yeah, you would do it that way. And so I think it's a great idea.

I think having a game in Austin, San Antonio, you could play a game in Orlando. I think the Texans and the Cowboys should play in Austin every year. So that's what you'd want. You'd want it to be the next step. You'd want them to play the same game every year? Yeah. AFC-N-C rivals. And then on years where you're naturally playing the NFC,

east, you just pick up somebody else from some other NFC team. What if it was, what if I took to it was the Saints and Texans that would play every year? I like that too. I don't know. I don't know how I feel about that if it's a natural built. Weird ones. Like when the Astros first moved to the A.L.

Remember, they used to do a rivalry thing and, well, they still do some rivalry things in baseball. In all honesty, when you're on the plane right home tomorrow, let's figure this out because we can't. Right off the top, you could play Tampa Bay can play Miami every year. Boom. Jacksonville will play Atlanta. Chargers versus Rams.

LA versus LA. Philly and the Steelers. Okay, but what are the Saints do if the Texans and Cowboys are playing each other? I don't know. Some people are going to have to have some weird matchups. I get that. Put the Saints up against, I don't know, the Titans. Titans have a natural rival?

No, it would be Nash. How about Saints and Colts, the Manningville? Archie versus Archie's team versus Peyton. You're stretching. Of course. Yeah. All right. Let's take a phone call here so we can get things going here before we start getting our guests to come in on the show.

713-212-5-7-90. Let's go to Matt and Spring on the Matt Thomas show. Matt, good afternoon. We may have lost. Is Matt talking? I hear nothing. Nicholas is like, oh, my goodness. Well, let's just keep talking, Matt.

Do you want to pretend like I'm a caller right now? No, I don't need that. My callers are different. enough as it is, you being antagonistic towards it. For some reason, we are having some technical issues beyond our control, because I have a degree in engineering from the Harvard of Southeast Texas. By the way, how about my Houston Cougars were yesterday? Absolutely amazing.

And we're now to go to break, so we'll do that. Great. And we'll be amazing when we return. 1223 on the Matt Thomas show from West Palm on 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 Beach.com. Time is 1227. Matt Thomas, Rossville, Real, with you from West Palm Beach. We are here with, we've just decided to Miles. You're one of the fastest men alive. I mean, that's your top 1%, right? I mean, let's put it this way. Top one, yeah, for sure.

Because you got every track and field person, you've got 80% of the NFL wide receivers. But never got into it. And it's because the hands aren't going to help something. Oh, no, the hands are there. I'm worried about getting hurt for baseball, so I never really got into it. So what did you decide just to become a one sport kid? I grew up. I played football when I was younger.

I was a big fan of basketball, and I played baseball my whole life since I was about three. for. What did you do? What happened with basketball? Oh, I mean, talent started getting pretty good, and I kind of thought I had a chance at baseball. You know, I'm 5'10. Okay.

You know, it's... That's all right. Paul's probably about 510? Yeah, yeah, but, you know... Didn't have the handles like Chris Paul? Yeah, not the handles. The handles aren't there. That's funny.

With every roster that changes over, there's going to be opportunity for people. And I think if anybody's going to get a shot here to be with the roster of the entire season, it's used. Look, you and Jake obviously were friends, teammates, and whatnot, but you had to, in the back of your mind, knew when Jake made the move. There was room for maybe perhaps yourself and Kyle for 2020. What was going through your mind as you heard that decision was made?

Yeah, I mean, exactly how you say it. You know, he kind of came in late in games and helped the team, you know, lock down the games. And, you know, with the outfield we have right now on the infield, I think that could be, you know, a goal to look forward to you for me. And I think I'll get some good games out there. Good amount of games. You mixed in infield and outfield last year.

Grade yourself. Outfield, you know, grade yourself on your infield work. Definitely getting better, you know, the work in spring. I mean, last spring they told me about like the, maybe the third or second to last day that I was going to be playing the infield. So definitely having this whole offseason and spring to, you know, to progress at the position is going to, I think, definitely help me for the season. You know, when talking to AJ at the time, it was like,

you're going to give some time at various base here, base here. I mean, did you come into the stadium every day kind of partly curious about where he was going to put you when you were needed? Oh, yeah. I mean, you got to be prepared for that. You know, definitely didn't know I was going to be thrown in the fire as, you know, as soon as I was. But, you know, I came with that mentality every day that I was going to be playing, you know, whether it's shortstop, second base, left, right or center. So, you know, you never know when you're going to need to play the infield.

You know, people go down in the sport. So, you know, when the time comes, you've got to be ready for it. How many different gloves you got? I mean, I just have an infield glove and an outfield glove. I have four now. Okay. After, you know, Wilson came yesterday, I think, so I got my two gloves, so I have four. Are they trying to say you something that you don't want, or are you like, oh, I'm glad you guys are here?

No, I'm actually, that's the one, you know, the stand I really enjoy that comes because it's two gloves for me, so I enjoy Wilson. Now, what about what these bad guys are here, too? Are they trying to sell you something to that you don't want? They are. get 12 free bats for spring training or whatever you know Carl hooks it up the team hooks it up so um you know you get you get 12 bats which is plenty for me I mean that lasts me quite a bit of time so I mean 12 I don't there's no you know no need for extra bats at this point of the year so when you shatter one and so when you go to a

backup who's the backup I mean can you go to one that like is there a teammate that weight field style is it about the same for you oh well I was in triple I got a I got a hit with it, so I let it roll. I rolled with it for a minute. He does okay with his bats. Yeah, those bats are special. So I said, you know, with the way he was hitting, I'm like, let me try one of these things. And I actually hit double with it.

So it's pretty funny. You should have, like, hold on to that bat. Yeah. If he asked where it is, like, I don't know what you're talking about. I wanted it back instantly. I was like, dang, I was going to try to keep it myself for sure. Were you proud of him being able to finally get the call up and make as big of an impact as he did? Oh, yeah.

I mean, that guy, I mean, I've never seen anything like it. He's a special breed. I mean, the performance he, you know, he had last year in AAA, the big leagues. I mean, it was unbelievable to watch every single day. I mean, every pitch, you know, you're locked in on that guy. I mean, he had a ball on the third deck. It's like, how could you not watch that guy? You know what I mean?

It's, you know, and I think he's going to get some more reps in the outfield this year. He's actually a pretty good outfield. I think a lot of people, you know, kind of put that past him just because, you know, I don't think he's got a lot of opportunities. So, you know, he's pretty quick. I know he's had some problems with maybe his knees or whatever. Nays, yeah. That's what Dusty said, yes.

Yeah. Watch out for his knees. But he can actually run a little bit. Remember in double-A, he stole some bases, and it's like, bro, go, man. You can do it. You've seen him steal bases? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

He's going to trick you. It's just like him. Sneaky. You know, he's sneaking. He goes, oh, you can't talk English. He talks really, I mean, pretty good English. Oh, I think you ought to open him up there. All right, now he's grateful.

I open him up every day. Whenever he's got, I said, you know, let him talk. in English. He can do it. That's funny. And it's the same with Yuley, man. Yule can, you know, they both talk really good, pretty good English to where you could get a conversation with him. Miles Straw giving us all the secrets here on the Matt Thomas Show from West Palm

Beach. Okay, so did you, when you left the team this year after last season and you mixed in in fit off, and did they give you kind of message of, hey, when you put the glove back on when you start working out, work on a particular base, was that something that was brought up to you specifically? Oh, not too much.

Not too much, but I mean, knowing the game nowadays, you know, the versatility is, it's huge for, I mean, any team you're on, you know, whether it's first place or last place team, I think a lot of managers in the game and a lot of, you know, a lot of baseball teams in general, just like guys that can play multiple divisions just because, you know, nowadays the season's so long, I mean, it's been so long forever. So guys need breaks. So, you know, if a break is needed at, you know, second base, you know, all too they get to break and, you know, you could throw in a guy at second base. So I'm just kind of knowing how valuable that is kind of, you know, motivate yourself to, you know, to work on those kind of things. Astros close out the year in Atlanta. Hopefully you're celebrating another American League West Championship. That's all nice. I want you to go against the freeze. Yeah, I actually, I've talked to him, like, on Twitter and stuff. So I know he actually, that's actually crazy.

I didn't even think about that. So that might actually be a thing. Uh-oh. It might not actually. You think you could be a guy. But I kind of want to, like, I don't, I think he knows I'm pretty quick, but I kind I want that head start, you know, and I'm trying to smoke him, you know? Just leaving the dust, but he's pretty quick.

That guy, he flies. Do you understand if you race him and you win? Oh, yeah. You will go from, hey, that's Miles Straw, a young wangeloic player, to you will be like a hero to American. Because nobody, it feels like, ever beats the freeze. Yeah, I think a couple guys have, you know, I don't know how often he does it every day or whatever, a certain day, but I see him just smoking people. People fall in their faces and stuff, so that's another thing.

have a lot of pressure on me. Yeah, don't fall down. I don't need a trip either. I'll be known for another bad thing, so. But you're not known for anything bad things now, aren't? I'm just saying, no, no, nothing bad now, but I'm saying I'll be known as, you know, the guy that ate it. So I don't want to be, I can still picture the guy falling. The only thing you're not known for is if you come on base as a pinch runner

and you don't score, we get mad at you. Yeah, yeah. I hear about it all the time. I heard about it today by, you know, Redick and those guys always way. Because you're the only player that Gary Piss doesn't have to worry about moving around. Yeah, just go. If he puts a whole time up you, that ball must have not left the infield. You know what I'm saying? Anything short of that, you're coming home. So that's interesting.

Ultimately, for your progression as a majorly baseball player, you don't want to go back and forth. So give me some personal goals for yourself this year. So you absolutely make it impossible for the Astros to make that decision. I think the whole infield thing is the key to success.

I mean, you know, I feel like you get a bunch of good utility players in the game nowadays. And, you know, like, I mean, Marwin's a great player all around. He does it, but he can play every single position on the field, and that guy will be in the big leagues for as long as he wants. As long as he's healthy,

he'll be there, and he's a good example. He swings it really well, a pinch hitter, or switch hitter, I'm sorry, not pinch hitter. Just guys like that. I mean, I think the whole versatility thing is going to be huge for me, and just staying healthy and, you know, keeping up with my speed, you know, late in the games, you know, if Dussie wants to put me in there, whatever that may be.

And playing a good center field is always always really nice. Ross and I do a show. We hate bunting. We just do, but there is a need for it occasionally. Grade your bunting skills. I actually have a meeting in probably 30 minutes, and they're probably going to roast me that I don't bun enough, so I'm probably going to hear about it for a solid 15 minutes.

I probably shouldn't say this. I'm not a huge fan of bunting as well. Then you're a welcome part of the show any time. So I hope this isn't like being heard. Oh, you're in a safe place here. Yeah, so I'm not a fan, but I definitely do need to work on it because it could be a big part of my game. And Dusty's old school.

I mean, he's not literally, actually he's a literally old school. So he may want you to bump once at a while. Yeah, no, I'm sure he will. I'm sure he will. But I will say this, he loves base running. He spent a couple days already talking about it. So if there's anybody that's going to be in your side, it's going to be you, because that's what you bring to the table.

Love it. Yep. All right. So do you watch speeds everything, every, every tenth of a second makes a difference. Do you watch your weight a lot? I mean, are you cognizant and well? Here's what I was running at when I was weighing X-pass. Is that a big thing for you?

Oh, not really. Just kind of knowing how my body feels, I can tell, like, you know, just, I mean, I weigh in every day, obviously. That's, like, the first thing I do when I go into the weight room. But, I mean, not so much. I just kind of, you know, some days I feel a lot better than others. And I know, you know, I'll move better than others. So just kind of taking care of the body, you know, in the weight room and rolling out. So just making sure I feel good and prepared to run as good as I can.

All right. So you're the fastest. We wrap this up. Who is the second fastest, Astro? And how big of a difference do you have between him? It's got L2A, and I'm not sure it's too far apart. That guy, I mean, he flies. It's kind of like low-key, but he scoots.

I mean, a lot of people know he can run. Yeah, he's stolen 50 bases before. Yeah, he can really get it L-Tive for sure, hands down. Okay, well, he's also significantly older than you are. So you really could have scoreboard on you if he beat two-or-rass. Yeah, no, I can't. Yeah, no, I know. I got to, if I can run like him, I mean, how old is L-2-Bay now?

Got to be late 20s, right? Late 20, 30 maybe or 29? How old are you? 25. Oh, yeah, you got like five good years. Yeah, so I got to beat him by a considerable amount. He can still run for his age. I mean, he's not too old, but if I can run like that, which I'm, you know, I should be able to.

I'd be pretty, pretty happy. Well, Miles, you are a fan favorite back home. Folks are really excited about seeing real live baseballs compared to hearing the other stuff of the last several months. So we wish you the very best. And please, please, somehow, some way. You're going to be on the roster, hopefully. competing and successful. We just don't want you hurt that last weekend in the series because we want you and the freeze to get after it. Yeah, I'll let them know today. I'll have them set that up.

Well, actually, will you play the Braves in spring training? The freeze won't be here down here. Yeah, I won't be ready. I won't be ready for, you know, spring. Give me the whole season and But I don't want you being tired like at September 20th and like, oh, I don't think I can beat him now. I've been working all year long. No excuses. If anything, he might be backing out. So we'll see. No. Mowel Straw, fight words with the freeze right here on Sports Talks. Miles, thanks for coming by, Frank. I appreciate it.

All right, Miles, thank you. Traw with us here, the program. That doesn't suck, having the fast human beings alive on our radio program. 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 Siria is fun. And by the Palmbeaches.com. Time is 1245. We've got a lot to get to between now and 3 o'clock. We'll hear from Mike Dan 20 and 45 minutes. In 15 minutes, you're going to hear from Alex Bregman. Great conversation we had with him. We put a nice visit with Chris Devinzky. We just finished talking to Miles Straw and still coming up, James Click,

the new general manager of the Houston Astros. Big Poppy made his way to his old team today in Fort Myers, Boston Red Sox Sports Army. Oh, did he? And we're going to hear, in a matter of moments, part of his press conference. And for those of you that feel like that a lot of players current and past have taken their shots at the local nine, you're going to want to hear this because Big Poppy really, frankly, never in his major league career ever minced words. As a broadcaster on Fox, he certainly doesn't do that either.

he's gregarious. You don't always necessarily believe everything he says, but he is a guy that isn't great to give you or his opinion on a variety of things. Nick, you already let us know because we want you to hear what Big Poppy had to say about the Houston Astros. And notably, Mike fires SportsRVee.

He does take a little bit of a shot at the former Astro Current ace pitcher, by the way. Hmm That's unfortunate Is it really unfortunate? Yeah, I don't know I think frankly There are some people

That would like to get some positive news Out of somebody Because it feels like everybody else Has taken their pot shots at them so far How are you feeling about What? Just talk Okay

Well, I can't hear myself Because you're messing with it Yeah, but Well, how do you feel about the fact That he apparently is Not concerned about his safety Said he doesn't want any extra security. Did you see him say that?

Okay, you can say that all he wants. He must be listening to Matt Thomas show, realizing that he's going to come up with some sort of injury situation and preclude him from actually pitching against the Astros. See, that's another thing I factored in when we made our bet, whether or not he's going to pitch. And he's that guy, he's kind of a red ass. He's kind of a chip on his shoulder type of guy.

Like, we would have him on, and he was upset that, uh-oh. He was upset that, like, for example, it was called the Carlos Gomez trade, not the mic fire straight. Yeah, well, that's all right. So are you coming in now? Come on in. Let's go.

Mr. General Manager, it's nice to you to come on by. James Click's going to join us. We're on your time. Well, I mean, what do you want us to call you? I don't mean, you are a general manager. You are a very, I got to check, turn the audio up there. There we go. All right.

James Clip, the Astros, General Manager, a second time visitor on the show. This may be the only show you've been on twice. I've lost track. Yeah, probably. What is the FP shirt hat that you're wearing? What is that? That is my son's Little League team. Are you a coach?

No. No. I'm very bad at coaching. That's not reassuring for AstroFans. That's not my job. You don't pick the players on the Little League team, do you? No, no, no. No, it's called Fossil Park.

That's the name of the Little League out there in St. Pete. I think the team this year is the Rattlesnakes. Last year it was the Raptors. So they get to pick them themselves. They decided on this. So they've not decided to go with major league teams yet in this neighbor in this little league. No, no. The kids, I think, really enjoy getting to pick the names.

So I don't know. I mean, you know, could offer it out there to major league teams if they want to do some marketing strategies, see what the youth of America think. Maybe they could go out there and try those names on. Well, don't ask mom and dads across America because apparently the Astros are being neglected by every team from Pennsylvania to California. No, I heard. You know what? Time will heal some of this.

Are you settled in? Tell me where you are today as compared to where you were when you and I visited on the phone a couple weeks ago. Well, I've met a lot of people. A lot of people.

You know, now when somebody shoves a phone on my face like they did with me the last time I was on with you, I actually... Shows my relative term. Gene kind of just puts it out there. I'm getting to know everybody. That's the main goal right now. Getting to know the players, getting to know the staff,

especially, figuring out how people like to operate the things that they like that we have done here in the past, the things that we could do better. I'm in listening mode. I am having a lot of conversations and trying to do very little talking and just keeping my ears open and finding out what they want. As we've said publicly, there are things that we need to do differently. We take very seriously those procedures and we are working on putting them in place. We're working in putting things in place where you know, a hotline. If anybody sees anything, you know, call me. Call. I'm not sure exactly who it's going to go to, but I would want to be personally involved in all those conversations

so that I know what is going on here. That's a pretty refreshing attitude. We'd like hearing that. Let me ask you, without getting too much of particulars, if I took the structure of baseball operations of the Tampa Bay Rays and Astros, would the pie chart be similar or is it radically different? There's a lot that is very common. There are some things that are different. One of the things that I've been talking with the staff here, Pete Patilla in particular, about, are some of the changes that have occurred in the Astros front office over the last 18 months. It's no secret that there's been a lot of talent that has left the organization to go to other teams or, you know, left it through less, I don't know the word.

Fortunate circumstances, something like that. We know what you're talking about. But I think if you look at what the Astros front office chart looked like 18 months ago, even if I weren't here, it would be dramatically different from what it was. And there is a lot of work to be done in terms of people who are in new positions, who are taking on new responsibilities, you know, making sure that those are the right spots for them, where they can flourish as employees,

where they can learn new skills and develop and have the career path that they want to have. Let me ask you this It feels like with any general manager that I've visited with Especially with the Astros and in baseball in general If contracts, negotiations, extensions aren't done in spring training They're largely tabled and then they're largely That player goes on And I think we've seen that with Garrett in the past

Justin got re-signed last year Jose Breggman Is that a similar situation the Astros feel at this point Would be and I'm not talking about George specifically But just your modus operandi Do you feel like it's got to be done here before the start season starts if you're going to do something? It's interesting. It's a conversation that I've had quite a few times over the course of my career because most of these things do tend to get done in in spring training for better or for worse. I don't know if it's because of the camp

atmosphere where we're all here and we're all almost sequestered. Right. And you feel, you know, the impetus to stay with your team or this is the best time to have a conversation face to face. I actually think there's a lot of benefit to not doing it in spring training, to using this time to focus on getting ready for the season. Doing what we need to do, get the best team in the field that we can to win a championship in 2020. It may mean that we have missed the boat of having a conversation earlier in the off season when it would have been productive. But I think that everybody's pretty flexible these days. We all communicate all the time. I would like to think that we'd be open to these conversations whenever the other side is, whenever the player, the agent, whomever,

It wants to have them. If you restrict yourself artificially to only having these conversations in spring training, you're probably going to miss out on an opportunity to line up with a player where it works out very well for both sides. Speaking of that and payroll type of things, Jim Crane, obviously we know him here in Houston. And when he first got the team, what kind of owner is it going to be? Is it going to be a penny pinch or anything to that? Obviously, not the case. What's your relationship been like with him and the discussions about, you know, where we're going to allocate our funds?

money and payroll and all that type of stuff. The first thing it comes through to me from Jim and look, I've known him for the better part of three weeks now. Yeah, you're not going to think bad about him at this point. Go way back now. Way back in early in our relationship three weeks ago. I did want to be sure that when I came here, if this lined up, that it wasn't a situation like some other teams have stated publicly about having a desire to get under the luxury

threshold because I knew that this roster for the first time in Astros' history is projected to be over that line. And I didn't know how he felt about that. And I wanted to make sure that the first thing that I had to do or a priority on his list was not shedding $20, $25 million worth of payroll to get under that line. Again, just, I've never dealt with the CBT. It's just, it's completely foreign to me. Tampa, they don't deal with that?

I'm learning whether or not, like, waiver claim money applies to the CBT and those kind of things. But in all seriousness, because of how other teams have talked about it publicly, that was my only guidepost for how to do this. And so I asked the question. And he said that, you know, and this is basically the extent of the conversations that we've had about it, he wants to win. He wants, you know, he wants to win a championship for Houston.

And he said something to the effect of, you know, we're over it right now. And that's okay. I don't know if that's going to sustain. I don't know if that's going to, you know, go into 2021, 22. We haven't had those conversations yet. Penalties escalate, correct? Yeah. Every year that you're over, the first year you're over it, it's 20% on the, any

money that you're over the next year. If you repeat, it's 32 that I think they're 32. Again, it's pretty intense. And then the next year, 50. And there are additional thresholds above it where, you know, if you get more than 20 million over the line, any money above that is taxed at a higher rate on a surcharge. If you get 40 million over the line, then you start having your first draft pick move back 10 spots. So there are escalating penalties there. Again, I'm just really taking in on the rules here because I haven't had to in the past. We have not had extensive conversations about it. But the thing that has come through to me in those conversations is when we have a chance to win,

he wants to do what he can to win and prioritize the winning. Two final questions for me. One, you have been on the precipice of making deals with Tampa Bay because every baseball team makes one. So give me how close you got in terms of pushing it to your boss and how anxious are you for it to be. You're the boss. You get to make this one. Yeah. Oh, that's a good one.

Is there anything? I mean, if nothing comes to mind, that's okay. But I'm just curious because, let me tell you, co-pilots are really cool to get to fly the plane, but sometimes the pilot has to take over. Yeah. You're the pilot now. Yeah, yeah. It's exciting.

Like, that's the part of the job that I think a lot of people enjoy is putting the roster together and having the final say on that kind of stuff. At the same time, in Tampa, they're so inclusive. And we have such a large group that's involved in those discussions. that ultimately those decisions are not really felt like they're made by a single person. I don't think that Eric Neander says, I'm one of the one who made this trade. What Eric and everybody did at Tampa was to put a process in place, which made us all assess the trades properly and talk about the transactions and potential transactions rationally. And that's something I'm looking forward to here.

I don't need to, you know, I don't need to justify myself by saying, you know, I'm the one who made the trade. I'm hoping that the guys will bring the ideas to me. We'll sit around, we'll collaborate, we'll talk about them, and whatever the group feels is the best decision, the group will make the decision. But we're looking forward to what you and your lieutenants do because everybody's marked that way. I mean, even when Jeff was here, when he has been second in command in St. Louis, but when he makes it, it's a his deal. And with all due respect to your lieutenants, we're looking at your resume. We're going to look at what you did and what you traded for. That's why we're all kind of curious because there are some general managers in sports,

and we see it with the Rockets and Darrymore. People are afraid to do it with Darryl Moore because Darrell's won a lot of the trades. I don't want anybody out of town going, oh, James Click's first time general manager. We're going to try to fleece him. I want you to be ready to go and not be afraid to pull that jerk because we're going to be excited to see what it is. And I'm not afraid to pull the trigger. That's not what I'm trying to convey. What I'm trying to convey is that these decisions are not made by a single person.

And I'm not saying that to sound, you know, artificial or anything like that or any of that. My point is these decisions involve so much information, involves so many people doing their jobs the right way, that anybody who makes these all by themselves is inevitably going to fall into bad habits. That's why I need the team here. I need all the people here to be firing on all cylinders to help us make the best decisions for the entire organization. James Knight, thank you for making a second appearance on this show. We have a co-worker Adam Clanton who looks just like.

like you. It's really strange. I feel like I'm staring. I don't think so. I think you're a doppelganger. We'll let you meet him down the road. I look forward to it. Hey, thank you very much. Continued success. And as we've coined a term here on the show the last couple of days, it feels baseball-y around here now, which is, I think, probably for you, walking into this is not the worst thing in the world.

And I think for everybody, one of the most difficult things for me about the past couple weeks, other than having no idea where I'm going to live, or when my kids are going to go to school, or where my office is, or any of those kind of things, is, baseball and spring training should be about that rebirth and about the spring and about the that feeling that you get when they finally get out of the winter and start playing baseball again. And I know that that's going to be difficult for some people to get their heads around. Impossible. Actually not difficult to be impossible for some. Sure, sure. But getting out there, you know, the, I mean, it sounds cliche, but, you know, the crack of the bat.

Yes. It just, it's the pop of the glove. The pop of the glove. It really. Smell of fresh cut grass. And by the way, a nice game. Aster turf. Yes. As I was telling some of your players, a nine-game lead American League West mid-May would not be the worst thing for this team right now.

Yeah. We'll shoot for 10, and if we only end up at 9, then we'll be satisfied. James Clinton, General Manager of the Houston Astros, thanks for coming by. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah. I'm on my way I'm making you. This is the Matt Thomas show.

Here we go with the second hour of three. Matt Thomas with you from West Palm Beach. R.V. with me here as well, pro-nick-low managing through our technical issues occasionally. If we drop out momentarily not because we don't love you, it's just because things are out of our control. The Wi-Fi here in Florida sucks. This has been a fun one. It's all right. We'll move on.

We've got interviews with Alex Bremen coming up at the bottom of the, actually in 15 minutes or now. Alex Breggman conversation coming up. Mike Dantonian at 130 and still Krista Vinson's conversation coming up. And we just got in James Click, which was a really nice get for us just about 15 minutes ago. So it's good. Very personal. Really, really personal. A really personal guy.

Got a lot stuff going on. I mean, got to uproof your family. Got to figure out what's going on with the Major League game. It's going to figure out what's going on in the minor league system as well. Oh, by the way, figure out what George Springer's worth is. Yes. I will disagree with him on one thing. Agents don't like talking during the season.

they would rather get things done in the month of March. Most of your big contracts, and I'm talking about not just the Astros, I'm talking to me in general, you're certainly done while you're down here because it is a much more relaxed atmosphere. That's true. But maybe this will be a different trend. Maybe they, I don't know, there's nothing else that George needs to do for his resume in order to figure out that he is worthy of being the future,

the continued lead-off hitter for this guy. The question is going to be, will he feel disjointed? Will he feel upset? Will he be like, hey, man, why didn't we get this done here? when other guys on his own roster were taking care of the march. I like it. He was like, well, you know where I was, we didn't really have to worry about the luxury tax. He's like luxury tech.

What does this luxury tax you speak of? All right. So before we get to Alex Breggman, here is Big Poppy today at Red Sox training camp in Fort Myers across the state. And like everybody's being asked, I mean, everybody in North America, here is Big Poppy discussing Mike fires and it's two minutes long and my guess is it's a pretty juicy two minutes. Here's, oh, you're short, how long is it?

I just grabbed about 30 seconds of it where he's talking about Mike fires. He goes on to talk about some other things. Oh, okay. This is the best 30 seconds. A big poppy today. I'm mad at this guy, the pitcher that came out talking about it. Let me tell you why. Oh, after you make your money, after you

get your ring, you decided to talk about it. Why don't you talk about it during the season when it was going on? What? why you didn't say I don't want to be no part of or now. So you look like in a snitch. You know what I mean? Why you got to talk about it after? That's my problem, you know?

Why nobody say anything while it was going on? Well, well, well. Why are you a snitch? Matter of fact, Nick, I think you're going to have to clip that part from Big Poppy. We may have to be using that quite a bit over the course of the regular season. Oh, boy. We like using drops on a radio show, that's for sure. There's a lot of that.

Well, a lot of it. Certainly amongst Astros fans. Current players don't feel nearly as strongly as Big Poppy does. So you look like a snitch. You look like in a snitch. So you look like a snitch. So you look like a snitch. I'd rather hear that than Bill O'Brien and President Trump sound by it.

I like a snake. I like them all. Thanks, Poppy. He's an American treasure. Yes, he is. Even though his baseball analysis isn't always on point. That's okay. He's always entertaining.

Thank God he survived that gunshot. Oh, my goodness, yes. Isn't that terrible? Yeah. Dominican? Yeah. So he has a point, as do other people that... It depends on what side you're coming from this.

Okay. I'll tell you what side I've been on. I'm being pretty consistent about this. Carlos Correy came out last week said, oh, and Mike Fires, he should apologize, and he should give back his ring. I'm not down with that. If you want to call him a snitch or whatever, I guess you can.

But all Mike Fires did was tell the truth. And I have a little bit of a problem with everybody across the country or whoever Astros fans getting upset that Mike Fires got asked a question. Or I don't know, did he go to Evangeloch and Ken Risenthal, or did they come to him and say, hey, do you want to talk about this? And he talked about it. No, either way. And maybe he does have a little bit of an axe to grind.

Maybe he's bitter. Maybe he's upset. I don't know. Right. I can't tell you what's in Mike Fires mind. I can tell you that he told the truth about what happened and what went on. And I personally am not going to get mad at him for speaking his mind, getting asked a question, and saying what happened. I will say this.

And I'm not nearly, I'm not nearly as consistent as you are. I have a flow on this. Okay. I don't like snitching. But I will say this. the game is significantly cleaner today than it was even before they last out of the final out of the 2019 World Series. And so if this has been, this has been,

and I fully believe it has, a rampant problem in the sport. Astros, Yankees, Red Sox, name any other team. This has, this information, this come-to-action, Ross, has eliminated a lot of it, I believe. I think so, and I think we will. he changes it and it's funny because i mean we've heard uh justin verlander talk about for years or i think he mentioned it first in like 2018 or whatever was he wants like an earpiece from catcher to pitcher

right and now we see why he was saying he wanted that um so i think i mean if something like that happens in the coming years or if the game gets cleaned up it's all a lot of it's going to be because of mike fires and i think that's a good thing so if there is a benefit from it it's mike fires cleaned up the sport by his admission. I'm just, I'm not a hundred percent healthy with him going. Here's my ring. I'm enjoying myself. This is great.

And then he goes out, he throws his own teammates under the bus, his old teammates. Yeah, but I mean, you can be, when you're in a situation, nobody spoke up, right? A.J. Hinch didn't speak up, wishes he did. Right. Jeff Luno didn't speak up. A lot of these guys, you know, the Jake Moriznix, the whoever else is around the country, that of Tony Kipps, I didn't speak up, I wish I did. They're all saying they wish they did, and then Mike Fires did, and he's getting crushed. Yeah, I mean, that's why.

That's inconsistent to me. If everybody who would come out after the facts says, I wish I had said something or done something, and Mike Fires did say something, he didn't say it during while it was happening, but he's the one that spoke up. But I think the reason why a big poppy would say something like he did, we're going to get some phone calls here in just a second, is that there was a bro code in that clubhouse. I get it. He broke a code.

He broke a code. But any kind of non-snitching code? Just between you and me and you know what it is? It's to protect the guilty. Okay? When you have the mafia and they have their or, and then they have their, you don't know, no rats and we don't speak to the feds, we don't speak to the police or you have any community or anything kind of code like that,

the code is always to protect the guilty parties. Matt and Spring on 790 at 111. Hi, Matt. Hello, guys. Enjoy the show. Mattie wins. Yeah. And I bet he is.

We've lost the I and B return. So we'll put you on hold and we will take a short time out. Wi-Fi is a wonderful thing sometimes. Sometimes it's got awful. And unfortunately here it's got awful. But that's all right. It's a great place. Nevertheless.

This is Sports Talk 790. Live from Astros, spring train. It's an 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 Palm Beach. Beaches.com.

The sports talk 790, Ross Viriel, with you folks, here from West Palm Beach. 713, 2,1,25790 is your phone number earlier today. We were able to catch up with Alex Bramman. Of course, a lot of stuff going on with him. Finished number two in the MVP race last year. Of course, he's ready to go. A lot of interesting things from Alex. Let's go ahead and let you hear that conversation now.

Close front of the radio show, the Matt Thomas Show. Sports Talk 790. I'll never forget the time you came in in full robe. I mean, that made you a legend in our town. The picture still is all over the place. Where's that robe right now? Is it the house? It's at the house.

You know, I don't feel like even as many years you've been allowed that you're a role-wearing guy around the house, are you? Never, never. No, I just normally rock a Lulu Lemon chilling, workout gear. I'm around the house. What did you wear when you propose of the girl? I actually had to dress up that time. I was wearing some jeans.

Oh, really jeans? You really stepped up. Fancy, wow. Yeah, I got that. She must have known something was up. She was like, it caught a little off guard. I kept telling her to straighten her hair. All right, can you give us the 30-second rundown of how it went down?

When was the moment? Where did you do it? How romantic, did you pull it off? So it was in Aspen, Colorado, and I had four of my friends there and us, too. And Reagan actually came up to me and said, hey, let's go to breakfast this morning. And I was like, oh, perfect. They'll go up to the top of the mountain, ride the gondola up. Yeah.

And we'll go get breakfast. Little did she know that 21 of our family and friends are going to be there at the top of the mountain waiting at the end of the day. But we leave breakfast, and she actually tells me, she's like, hey, when we get back to Houston, like, let's go look at rings together. And I'm like, or you can just see if you like this one. Did you feel pressure? You're like, you know, I held it in for a few minutes and waited because I knew she wanted a photographer. First of all, I applaud you for getting 21 people. up there with your buddies and no one saying a soul something about it nobody said a thing

they all turned off their location services were sworn to secrecy they wouldn't tell her and uh she did she had no clue she was shocked we wrote up to the top of the mountain she's like do our parents know i want to face-time them right now i was like let's take some pictures first and go get a bite to eat and we'll call them on the way to the airport i made her pack her bags the night before she thought we were leaving yeah then everyone was there we stayed three more days it was a blast unbelievable and you did the right thing by talking to her dad first correct yes yes oh yeah i kept telling her that i was scared to talk to him but i was wasn't. I had already talked to him well before that. Yeah, I was going to say, I was scared

to that at the 1990. I don't know today's kids do it in 2020, but that's neither here nor there. You and I have known each other for a long time, and so I always come into you and say, how was your off-season? Things chill, and obviously it's been a different season. And as I told Chris Tivinsky a few minutes ago, you got an audience to listen to us right now that is all into you guys that cannot wait for the games to start. Is that the overall perception of what's going on in that clubhouse right now? It's just, we need to get these games going here. Yeah, we're excited. We got a great team this year. We lost a few people, but we added a few pieces. I'm excited. I think it's going to be a great year. We got a great team, great offense returning.

And then Verlander and Granky, the top of rotation is pretty special. So I got McCullors back. That's basically like a big free agent acquisition. I like it. I mean, we're going to be really good. Now, as Dusty Baker said, he's got a governor on him. So make sure he doesn't want to try to throw 200 innings in his first month of the season coming back. Who need Lance for a full six months? Oh, he'll be ready to go. Lance can't wait. Lance is fired up.

What do you think about the hair? Who? Lance's hair? Oh, legit. He's got great flow. One of the better hairs on our team. Devansky's hair is good, too. Yeah, I didn't realize that.

You're going to have to grow yours out now. You don't want to see that. It's not a good look. I got to keep it clean cut. Yeah, Jake wearing New York Metskeers just kind of odd right now. Yeah, that's weird. That's weird. I face the guy that we got in the trade for him the other day in live A.

and threw me a 95-month-hour cutter in on my hands. I was like, holy cow, it's pretty good. See you, Jay Clans. It's been nice knowing you. Could you imagine that? You're a lot better known. Give me a thought or two about Dusty Baker. It feels like you could sit down with him.

I don't know how many times y'all sit and meet before days. Maybe it's every day, but is he a huge storyteller? Is he a, hey, I need to get used to you? What's it like right now as you guys are with each other now for a couple weeks? He's trying to get to know everybody. It's a, I mean, he has to meet a whole organization. of people. And he's getting to know everybody. He's telling stories. He's doing his thing. He's making his rounds. He's been great. And we can't wait to get out there and win games for him.

Alex pregnant with us here on the Matt Thomas show here from West Palm Beach. You've always never been afraid to have swagger and we want to see that. I don't know if you can get it right away. I know the first road trip. Everybody's kind of winging out a little bit about that. How long do you think normally will take before I think you really start to kick in here? I think it'll just take the spring training and we'll be back to feeling good. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We'll be ready to go.

Because I think everybody, I mean, look, 49 states want Hyde, but we, say to Texas, the most important state of the union, needs the Astros to be who they are. And I think that's, I think if they're going to look to you to say, all right, is he the one showing in the camera? Is he the one high-fiving and showing emotion? Do you feel like that's got to be still you in 2020? I'm just going to be myself. I know who I am as a person. I know what my family and close friends know who I am and know how I go about things. So I'm just going to go out there and play the game that I've always played, have fun, and get after it.

Well, if Ross and I had MVP coach, you would have won because you actually played in September, so I congratulate you on that. To finish second, though, I mean, what an accomplishment for yourself. I mean, taking just a step back, can you look at that and go, man, look where I am right now? Yeah. A lot of hard work. Oh, yeah, a lot of hard work. A lot of people that have helped me. throughout the course of my career.

And, you know, great, great teammates. That's what it's all about. I feel like the MVP is a big part of how great your teammates are. And to finish second was a tremendous honor. Mike Trout's an unbelievable baseball player. Marcus Simeon had an unbelievable year. He's a great player as well. And there's a lot of great players in the American League.

And it was fun to go out there and compete and be ready for this year as well. Your guy who's gotten better basically every year of your career, and you talked about coming into camp a little bit lighter. So what is coming in this year as opposed to a couple years ago? What is Alex Bregman now no better than rookie Alex Bregman? Well, I think the biggest thing for me these last three years has been getting off to a slow start, man. I've gotten off to a slow start every year and had to kind of make up for it

with a strong second half. I think if I played the way I played the last two months, the last three months of the season last year for the first three months and had a full season of that, that's where I want to do. That's where I want to be. And that'd be pretty good. So, you know, we'll come to you after the month of April or May is not off to a great start.

And, you know, no one's ever been worried. It may have followed your career. But obviously it's something that's bothered you the last couple of years. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, it's bothered me because I want to get off to a hot start and play that way for the whole course of a season. But if you go for four and opening night, what you're not going to do, we're not going to kill you. You know that, right? Oh, yeah. Because every year, every number you're looking at your home run totals, your RBI, you're on base, slugging.

I mean, everything is improving year after year after year. So just don't have the way of the world on your shoulders in the month of April. Oh, I won't. I know. This game is hard, man. This game is extremely hard, and I know that. Everyone in that clubhouse knows that and there won't be any panic button at all. I think it doesn't matter if we get off to a slow start or a fast start.

It's 162 games, 162 big ones and let's get after it. Now if you can get seven hits into Anaheim series, the second week of the season, I'd be okay with that. Yeah, me too. That'd be pretty cool. I'd like that. Because there's some frisky folks going to be down there. It's all right. Well, I mean, there'll be people in the stands.

For once. We've had beer poured on our heads, I mean, not on our family sections, heads in the reposing stadiums. People yelled nasty things at us before. It's nothing new. And, you know, at the end of the day, people are entitled to do whatever they want. We're just going to go out there and play baseball and play to win. That's it. It's interesting to me.

How do you think you want to play, do you want to just be normal or do you want to be chip on your shoulder? or you want to be emotional but you don't want to be too emotional. Have you thought anything in a way about that or playing? Or you're just trying to keep business as usual? I'm going to try and just be the same guy every day when I show it to the field. Try and get after it, work my tail off, try and be a good teammate. And then, you know, I don't think anyone's going to have a chip on our shoulder based on all this stuff going on.

We're going to have a chip on our shoulder based on the fact that we know that we were in the World Series and we were seven outs away and didn't finish the job. So we know how good we are. how good this team is. And it's time to prove that. You want to face Will Harris sometime this spring? No, it was one of my best friends, and I was sad to see him leave. LSU boys.

Yeah, he's an absolute stud. So he made a perfect pitch, and Howie Kendrick put a perfect swing on it. Hats off to them, they deserve to win that World Series. They played unbelievable baseball. Yeah, but we're all worried about LSU versus LSU, right? Oh yeah, we face each other a few times in live at bats. Who wins? Who has one? Don't. Okay, I won't bring it up, sorry.

But, no, Will's a superstar. All right, last thing. Are you ready to go and turn out? What do you want to get accomplished here? You've been through a few of these now. Is there anything, now that you're playing a little lighter, I mean, is it, do you notice anything differently? I mean, you're still grabbing everything at third base, I'm assuming.

Yeah, I feel great. I feel awesome. I'm ready to go compete and leave it all out in the field. Are you registered anywhere at this point? What do you mean? Like when you get married, you have to get registered for gifts. Oh, no, I don't know if we're going to do that. I don't know how that works.

It's good. It saves me a gift. I don't know. I don't know how we're going to do that. I was going to say, ask for cash, but you make plenty of it. I'm not worried about you're making that. No, man, this is going to be a fun year. I think.

Destination wedding or what? Yeah, yeah. We're all going to go? I'm not sure yet. But Bachelor party. most important. I don't even know. I'm not even to that point yet. I'm not to that. I'm not to that. I'm not to that point yet to figure all that stuff out. But I do know one thing and that's we as a team are excited for this year.

We're going to leave it all out there on the field. And you know, whatever, whatever happens happens. There is the thoughts of one Alex Brickman who does not have his destination yet for the wedding or Ross the bachelor party. And also not registered anywhere yet. So. That's a safe thing. Got a lot of work to do. A lot of work to do, I think probably the future Mrs. Breckman is doing all the heavy lifting on that. Probably, yeah.

It'll be an off-season winning, I'm sure. Rockets. It's good! Rockets Head Coach, Mike Dan Tony, is heard weekly on the Matt Thomas show. Coach, how goes it? Just do it. Exclusive insight. That's the biggest takeaway from last night's game.

The latest on your Rockets. Can you assess the general culture in that locker room right now? Coming from the mouth of Coach Dan Tony. We can get it done. If we have a chance to win the championship, this will be it. Brought to you by. billiard factory and wingstop. Mike Dan Tony with us on Sports Talk 790.

Home of your Rockets. And the Rockets open up the second half of the season, the official second half tonight in San Francisco against the Golden State Warriors. I'm here in West Palm Beach. I will rejoin the Rockets in Salt Lake on Saturday. Coach, first of all, good afternoon. Do you miss me at all? Oh, yeah, Matt.

Where are you? You're not with us? I'm so glad to hear your voice. I really am. How was the off time? What did you do? Did you get some downtime? Yeah, I just hung out.

Just not been doing it much man. I just hung out and got the week over with and excited about getting started again. You know, there has been some stories put out in the last handful of days about how this team under your leadership has been really good in the second half of the year. beyond your great coaching abilities. Why do you think that is? You think sometimes just time away from the game helps the guys a little bit? Well, you know, we have a little bit more emergency, I think, and that's kind of, you know, when you have a veteran team,

that's what you've got to have. You've got to have an urgency to play every day because every team can beat you. Some days during the year it gets a little along for them, and they know the playoffs of what counts. And now their antennas should be up, and they should be tuned in and trying to make a run for it. So let's do this.

Give me the high watermark of the season for you, and then give me the point where you're like, oh, guys, we've got to be better than this. And I know we've played a lot of games so far, but is there one moment in time you thought, man, this is amazing. And then on the other side of it, one that was extra frustrating for you.

Not really. I mean, there was a lot of frustrating points, but, you know, I was worried, you know, most of the year where we just weren't a few. efficient than whether you win or you lose. You know, it's really how you play in the game. And I just thought we, you know, did okay. We just kind of bopped along and got in the position where we're okay and

standing is nothing great. So there's nothing exciting to get now lately. I'm, you know, watching the team and how it's been Robert Covington coming on and practice yesterday. And so I'm trying to get it. I'm not trying. I am getting excited, you know, consciously optimistic. But I think we could be really good.

I think we can surprise some people. Seems like, Coach, throughout this season, it's been you've only had one of Hardin or Westbrook going at the same time. But last game, you had them combined for 78 points over 40 from James. Number one, how is he looking? How is he feeling?

Because we know he was kind of bogged down by injuries a little bit. And number two, you guys can be pretty special if you get them both going, right? Yeah, I mean, that's all the thing. well, that's our future, you know, lives on that. They have to play really well for us to be able to survive. And, you know, they look good.

They feel good. A week off, help both of them. And I think, you know, PJ, everybody looks fresh yesterday. The fact, it was very lively. And so, you know, having said that, we're going in, you know, schedule is going to be tough. And we've got to get going. And we have extra bodies, which hopefully we can cut down minutes on guys

and keep them fresher. trying to get Eric back. I don't know if he'll be available tonight. I doubt it probably Utah will be his game. So once we get everybody here and everybody rolling, then we should be, like I said, we should make a great run for it. Coach, PJ has not been afraid to play the five on numerous occasions, even before the trade, and that's just kind of what you've done with him against some teams.

But how has Robert Covington adjusted to the fact that he has been much more in the low block and maybe other places he's been around the NBA. And how comfortable do you think he's getting in the position you put him in? Yeah, well, he can guard anybody and all the guys. And, you know, PJ really doesn't play at five. He guards the hardest guys, and that's normally a four or three. He's on, like, he's on Quiet Leonard and he's on the, yeah, LeBron James, and he's on guys like that.

So the five, actually, James probably starts on the five more than anybody that we have. But everybody switches so everybody gets their turn in there. and it's actually they do it well. They guard them well, and that's not a, doesn't seem to be a problem. You try to always box out and get rebounds, so they have a little bit more intenties to it, knowing that will get clobbered if they don't do it, so that's good.

I expect the defense to get better, and they have rebounding to get better, and obviously when you go on the offensive advantage it just opens up everything for James and Russell to be efficient and to really have a great, you know, We need to have the best offense. We're third right now, but hopefully by the end of the year, we'll move up past Milwaukee. I mentioned this to you last week.

I think it bears repeating. The turnover count has really started to drop. That has to be a very pleasant sign for you. Is that one of those early messages of, hey, extra possessions, not giving away extra, giving opportunities, and holding out of the basketball is going to ultimately help this team dramatically. Well, you always make that case. I think the bigger thing is, one, is that the floor is more open. And when it's open, it's easier to drive.

You have less hands around you. And when you're going to the room, you're not getting shots blocked or, you know, you're not trying to make an alley-up play and should make the simple play, and things should be simpler. And, you know, in a result, the turnover should come down. And that's a big key for us. And they have to be down. We have to get efficient.

that if you're not efficient, they're not going to win a title. And so far so good, hopefully it'll just keep getting better. As covering the NBA for a while, I don't overthink 10-day contracts, so I will leave it to you. Jeff Green is officially a member of the team. I think you've got one more addition that hasn't been official yet, but when Jeff practiced with you guys yesterday, what was it like having him there,

and what are your, frankly, honest expectations about what Jeff can do in this short period of time? Well, you know, like I've only seen one practice, he was really good yesterday. And the day before, actually two proxies. He was really good. He can add he's six, nine, he's long, he's athletic. He knows how to play. He's been to finals once.

There's a lot of good things we can use out of him. And just makes us a little bit longer. He shoots the three. He's been shooting a well. Hopefully that will continue. So I expect him to be here all year and expect him to be, play well and he could be a big part of what we do well last time uh the squad was in san frisco was christmas day kind of a regrettable loss is that on the mind of some of the players or

is there just too many games a year no no i don't remember we played on christmas no they you know they forget stuff like that they don't know if they did they didn't write at all but you know we played bad so and they go on that doesn't there's not no harper any old feelings or oh my gosh we got to get back at them. Now, we got bigger fish to fry. We got to win a championship. We've got to get set up for the playoffs. And, you know, we have to have a really good record in the last part of the year

to try to get up by and get in the right spot in the playoffs so we can at least, you know, have a better chance at winning. But, no, individual things like that are long forgotten. And we, like I said, we're concentrated on the bigger picture. Well, the big picture also would be coached. Cool if the Rockets could owe the Utah Jazz a buzzer-beater on Saturday Night and Salt Lake City. You'd be okay with that, right? Yeah, anyway, you'd get a win in Utah would be huge, because that is a Todd Blaker game for the standings.

But, again, that's much more important how we play, get the guys' rotations, get Eric back, see where we are, see where we've got to get better. That's probably the bigger picture, and then there are always little battles along the way. Like I said, we have to have a good record in the last 28 games. you know, be really good there so we can just set ourselves up, make it a little easier. It doesn't really change that much, but it's a little bit better. All right, Coach, I get into Salt Lake late tomorrow night. Can you pick me up at the airport? Yeah, just wait.

Get your bags and just wait out on the curb. I'll be there. I feel like I might be waiting there for a long period of time. Good luck tonight in San Francisco. We'll see you in tomorrow. Sounds good. All right. We'll see, man.

All right. See, you got it. Coach Mike Dantone with us here. Not obviously offering up a town car or any sort of Uber services for me in Salt Lake City. 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 Siria's fun. And by the Palm Beaches.com. I'm mad at this guy, the picture that came out talking about it. Let me tell you why. Oh, after you make your money, after you get your ring, you decided to talk about it. Why don't you talk about it on when it was going on? Why you didn't say, I don't want to be no part of it?

Oh, now. So you look like in a snitch. You know what I mean? Why you got to talk about it after? That's my problem, you know? Why nobody say anything while it was going on? You look like at a snitch. That'll never get tiresome.

show for the next 10 years we'll plan it sound like okay so ross and this is matt and ross here in west palm beach hi 713212 577 maybe y'all can help me out because ross is only one voice it's a good voice sometimes and i it's a little hoarse right now and he's probably and you're probably right about being honest okay but why walk me through this why can't i say i'm mad at Mike Fires because if it was something that bothered him so much, he could have gone to the commissioner way faster than doing it in late 2019 to the members of the athletic publication. He could have gone. If he was not getting satisfaction at the team level and they were saying, Mike, did even anybody

know that Mike Fires was bothered by this? Did anybody in the Astros Clubhouse say, Mike, what's your problem? I have a problem with you guys stealing signs. Shut up. Do we even know that was true or that ever happened? We don't know. We know that Brian McCann went up to Bell's Rand and said something and nothing happened. I just don't like the fact that he went to a media source to do it,

that he should have gone to the commissioner. That would make me feel maybe a little bit better. And it would also make me feel a little bit better that if he didn't accept the ring. And he didn't accept the fact that he was in there celebrating. He did all the thing. He got his cake and ate it too. Because obviously he was so mad he wanted to make. sure that the Astros got really, really, really punished for it.

And they really, really got punished for it. They're going to take a PR nightmare for the better part of, I don't know, forever. Yes. So part of me appreciates his honesty. I told you from the very beginning, Ross, I'd like that there's going to be more honest baseball today in 2020 than ever before. But I'm still a little bothered by waiting two plus years and running to a media site as compared to going to somebody else.

No, I get it. We are going to question We're going to question his motives. We're going to question when he should have said something. We're going to question who he should have said it to. And I get that. We can get all and call him a snitch or rat or whatever. But nobody's questioning what he said.

Nobody's questioning the fact of the matter is all he did. And maybe he could have done it a better way. And maybe he could have done it earlier and all those types of things. But all he did was bring light to something that was true. That's why I don't really have a huge issue with him. Yeah, I can call him a snitch. Snitch. Snitch.

That's fine. Yes. We get it. We get it. Poppy. He's a snitch. But I'm really not. I guess I'm going to, I know I'm going to be in the minority in this.

I'm just not going to crush him because what he had to say was true. Could he have done it a better way? Did he have an axe to grind? Probably and probably. So on my side of this, if Mike fires is a part of the Astros rotation in 2020, we know nothing about this. Do you think probably? Probably. Not probably.

The answer is yes. Why would he throw his own teammates under the bus and then say, oh, hey, I mean, West Palm, we're going to be a part of the rotation. No chance. It doesn't mean that it's not the right. Again, I want to make sure I'm very clear with this. I don't think electronic science, there's any place for this awful electronic science ceiling business. There's just no room for it in baseball. I just hate the way that we had to find out.

I mean, any whistleblower situation is usually going to be somebody with an extra grind. Right. Like, you'd never watch. I've talked to you about that screwball documentary, about Alex Rodriguez and the whole biogenesis thing. Right. The guy who blew that whole thing open, he was a guy who worked for biogenesis and was trying to be friends with the athletes and they stopped talking to him and they didn't pay his paycheck. He had an extra grind. So he said, okay, I'm going to blow the top on this.

Exactly. You call him a snitch. Snitch. Anybody, you know, any type of thing where this comes out, O'Oreo, Goodfellas, and Henry Hill, he snitched out the entire mafia because he thought that they were going to kill him. So he said, you know what, you're going to kill me, I'm going to snitch you. Everybody's got an ax to grind or doing something self-serving or whatever. It's always that situation when it's a whistleblower. It's not any different when it's when it's Mike fires.

You can call them whatever you want. It's usually going to be somebody who is going to have ulterior motives. That's just how it goes. So maybe, yeah, exactly. The definition of snitch slash. 76 more times, please. Is somebody that's going to out somebody because you're mad about something that happened in the past? Right.

There's no honest, earth, genuine, genuine whistleblowing. Like I, for instance, I love working for XYZ company. Yes. I want to continue to work for XYZ company. I want XYZ company to thrive. Right. But XYZ company is cooking the books. XYZ is putting a chemical in something that could cause.

harm right how often do you have in life healthy honest whistleblowing usually whistleblowing happens by someone that has been fired right or laid off or demoted or that person quit because working conditions and or the company didn't think of highly as highly of them as they thought of the of their work to the company so and maybe this and that's the thing Ross there is a negative connotation with either word whether you whatever you want to called it. It's essentially the same thing. It's essentially the same thing. It's like a murder case or something.

You don't go, you talk to the suspect's friends. You talk to somebody of their enemies or somebody they don't like or somebody who will speak will speak poorly of them. It's always got to be somebody generally who's got something negative say or an accident or like you said in the case of a company they're going to, if they get fired from them, they're like, oh, okay, you're going to fire me. Well, guess what? I'm going to tell on you guys to the IRS for doing this or whatever. Because logically logically thinking about this. If you work for XYZ company and you love it and you tell them stop doing something and they say go back to your spot,

then either you're going to be miserable about it or you're going to leave and then you're going to tell then you're going to be a whistleblower because you've now left that company. Again, I don't, I like for everybody to have the knockdown, drag out 100% opinion, but I fall flat on that one. I am a fraud when it comes to that one because I do like open and honesty in sports. I do like the fact that this electronic bit hopefully is done for. I'm still just bothered by how it was done. Snitch.

I get it. Are you all in that same spot? We'll open some phone lens up if you'd like to join us. Tell me how you really think. Because, again, I don't think it's as easy as he's a rat. He should go to hell. Goodbye. Click.

Snitch. I think that's the easy, that's the easy Astro Twitter way to do it. I think we can have a little more thoughtful conversation than that. So if you would like to, if you think you can give him a thoughtful answer to this, and if you can't, then that's a fine too. There may be just some people. there listen to our voices that are so mad and so upset at him no matter what he thinks he did to justify the decision to go to the athletic you don't want to hear and i can understand it too

again i the worst part of it ross for me is running to a media source is the Matt Thomas show All right, our time is 202, it is the Matt Thomas show. We had a full program already today. We've had Miles Straw on the show. James Click, Alex Bregman. We've had Mike Dantone. That's a radio show.

Nobody messing with McClick. Click, click. Is that your jam, Matt? I would say no. Okay. We have a Chris Devinsky conversation coming. up in this hour of the radio program as well. Wonderful. Plus your phone calls at 713-212-5-790.

7-13-212-5-790. Want to thank the folks that made this trip possible. That would include where we're staying at the Hilton Garden Inn of Palm Beach is at the outlets, right along 995. Great location, great breakfast. The outlets are across the street and really easy to get to. Free parking in about 15 minutes here from 15. So if you are coming to the area to enjoy baseball, whether it be the athletes, Astros, the Mets, Cardinals, Nationals, primarily on the Astros, check out to the Hilton Garden Inn at the Palm Beaches Gardens and Alaritan-Long I-95.

So be fun. Also want to thank our friends at the palmbeaches.com. That's a kind of a one-stop website to get yourself all set to go when it comes to what you want to do for anything down here in South Florida. And Carbock Brewing, our official sponsor. And I can tell you right now, after these hot days down here in Florida, Carbock Brew, Brew would not be a bad idea. Crawford Bach, not too far away. 713-212-5-790 is how you reach our show if you want to get in the conversation. 7-13-212-5-7-90.

Mesa, Arizona is our dateline before we get to our Chris Tivinsky interview in the next segment. Today, Mike Fires spoke. This is what, I don't know, maybe the second or third time he has spoken in spring training about this. Oh, boy. He says that since his public comments were launched in the first. the athletic and the MLB's investigation into the Astros that he has received threats of physical violence and death threats. That should come as no surprise.

Quote, whatever I don't care. I've dealt with a lot of death threats before. It's just another thing on my plate. Wait a minute. When did Mike Fires ever worry about getting death threats before this? maybe after maybe from barbers across the country after he had that question mark beard snitch i mean seriously i mean i feel terrible for that he's had that no one wants death threats in their life but of all i mean if you were to list baseball players pre this

they were on the list of maybe players that we should be worried about their life mike fires would be like i don't know 13 000 in the list yeah but that's what he says okay he also says he's not about any backlash from the Astros. Quote, if I'm worried about any retaliation, I'm not going to be ready for the season. The A's and Major League Baseball are aware of threats to Fires' safety, and they are taking measures to protect him and his family, particularly when Oakland plays at Houston three times this season. Fires said, although he's not concerned about his safety,

he's always concerned about his families. Well, very simple, you don't bring them. In fact, most players don't bring families on trips. There's usually one or maybe two family trips per year that you travel with the team, and then you can always fly them in everywhere you wanted to go. But, and Mike and I are not friends. I think Mike and I, we've had one of them on once or twice over his career down here. Okay.

I would give him just a little bit of advice. Maybe just keep the family back home this year. Yeah, unless, I mean, they don't live in Houston or anything, do they? I don't think so. I don't think so. There has been a call for the Astros to return their rings. there has been a call to have the title given back. He says he's keeping his ring unless the Major League Baseball requires the rest of the team from 2017 to return the ring.

I said from the beginning, I'm not away from this. I was part of a team. I was one of those guys. I'm willing to take as much punishment as they do. If they ask me to return the ring, it's not the end of the world. Snitch. What are you laughing about? Thanks, Mike.

It's not the end of the world. But he's not going to give it back. Sorry, Houston fans. It's going to make a lot of you upset. He's not doing himself any favors, frankly. I get it. I'm not even trying to act like Mike Fires as some kind of model citizen or anything like that.

That's not where I'm going with any of this. I just, I mean, it's what it is, is the way I feel. He came out, he spoke, and he doesn't, if he's not going to have to give his ring back, he's not going to. Carl's Correy wants to apologize. I don't know that he's done that. think he's going to.

But, and I don't think he should have to apologize for telling the truth. Maybe he went around it the wrong way, but I don't know. I don't know. I want everybody to get the crystal ball on. You know, I like getting the crystal ball out. Of course. Give me the scenario when the Astros and A's play that second week of the season. It's the first set of road games.

The Astros have, what, Anaheim for three straight to open up the year at home. Then they go on the road to Oakland. and we already know Anaheim's going to be a blank show because apparently Dodger fan is going to infiltrate the stadium. So that'll go from 6,000 people there to a game to about 10. Right. What do you think honestly is going to happen when Mike Fires pitches to the Houston Astros

for the very first time in 2020? Give me everything about it. Give me the crowd. Give me Fires demeanor. Give me the Astros demeanor. Walk me through that minute and a half two minutes of that first at bat, whomever it may be. I'm presuming this in Houston or in Oakland.

In Oakland, I'm talking about like the fourth or fifth game of the season, provided that he is not one of the top three guys in a rotation. I mean, is somebody going to throw their bat at Mike and charge the mound? I don't think so. I think it's going to be a baseball game. So George Springer, okay, let's just put this in play. He's going to walk through the plate. Leading off, off, off.

George Springer, Springer. And you're going to hear those voobazelas or whatever the whole things are. Okay, and the drums. The drums. And it's going to be a normal lady. Tell me what's on the table that would make it abnormal. Stare down? George is just going to stand in front of the plate and stare at him?

That's what I'm saying. I'm throwing this out of the possibility. I don't know what's going to happen. They're just giving an opinion. I think it's going to be baseball. Okay, that's my opinion. That's my opinion. Sorry.

If you want me to say somebody's going to get in a fighter, no, I'm saying what's going to happen? I'm asking, I'm asking. I'm saying what kind of opinion is. So you tell me if it's not going to be. I'm going to say it's going to be very abnormal. I think it's going to be Mike Fires. They're going to throw balls at him.

No, I'm going to say Mike Fires are going to walk around the mound a little bit. I think he's going to take a step off. It's not going to be your normal opening at bad. There's just going to be too much tension filled. You're going to hear the crowd. I think the Oakland crowd's going to be enormous. Now, again, Greg, we're also presuming that Mike Fires is going to pitch in this game, in a game in this series.

Right. Because he might be a top three guy in the rotation. Maybe he skips out on this first series. I'm just trying to think Can this be normal Or will this be something Really bizarre And wow, did you see the look that George gave?

Did you see the look that Mike Fires gave? Did you see what Carlos? Because Carlos Correa told Mike Fierers what to do, right? To apologize? Yeah. You know what? Mike Fires might hate Carlos Correa. That'd be interesting.

You know what I'm saying? That's what we're looking at. Jay Kaplan, come on over here for a second. Jay Kaplan, major media star. I thought we hit our Kaplan question. I've got a vote already. No, put the headsones on, Jake. We call him Sneaky Snake Jake. That's not very nice.

It's your nickname. Jake is leaving us on a regular basis because he's got a podcast now. That's fine. Go ahead and promote the podcast that you're going to try to take my listeners away from. Yeah. It's going to start in early March on the Athletic, and you should subscribe to listen to it. No, I already subscribe to the Athletic, and that's really because of you. Not because of anybody else.

So you're walking on it. It is. He knows. Two years of now subscribing to it. I appreciate it. All right. So give me. I'm doing this to Ross, and he don't want to play along.

How normal will the first time Mike Fires faced George Springer in that top three of the order if we're presuming that Mike Fires pitches in that first series in Oakland? I'm not sure he's going to pitch in that first series, but how normal will it be? I don't think it'll be normal for anyone. Crowd will be frenzied.

Yeah, crowd will be, I mean, it depends where it is, right? I'm presuming that it would be in that first Oakland series in Oakland. Okay. I mean, there's a two and five chance that it's not. It's 40%. Yeah. Okay, thank you.

I just doing the numbers on that. Good job, everybody. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I think it'll be weird for sure. I don't know how weird, but it's probably a weird for everyone else watching than in the box. But I don't know. It's a good question. I don't know.

I just think sports is drama to me. Well, Matt's trying to get me to say there's going to be stare down to fights or anything like that. Yeah. I don't think they're going to throw. That's what I was saying. Mike's not going to throw a George Springer. That would be the worst thing that you possibly do. Why would he do that?

Yes, I'm saying he's not going to do that. Well, because he lacks control. Oh, that's true. It could be on accident. Yeah, I don't know. I don't think he, I don't think he, judging from his statements, I don't think it's like a personal thing for him. Ross, I do have a bet that I don't think he's going to pitch in Houston.

Now, I'm losing the, I have losing odds on that. He's going to have to at some point. I mean, they play six series against each other. Like he's... Oh, I'm not saying he's not going to pitch him at Oakland Calcium. I'm just thinking about... You know, because apparently destroyed the day out of Mesa is that he's received death threats and harmed potential to his family.

You can only map out the rotation so much, though. Like, you can't... Once the season is, like, a few weeks old, like, you can't really, like, map your rotation around the fact that he's not going to pitch in certain... They don't do load management in April? This isn't the NBA. Yeah, it isn't the NBA. Look, the Golden State Warriors PR guys calling me.

How about that? How nice. Pick up. He doesn't realize I'm not there. What are you been doing? Working, man. Really? Yeah.

Okay, what's the juiciest thing that the athletic has right now with Jay Kaplan? Juiciest thing? We've got everything. We've got stuff from every camp right now, and every camp's talking about the Astros. You know, speaking to Mike Fires, we had a Mike Fires interview yesterday from our A's writer. You know, I did a projected roster of the Astros roster today. 26, too. 26. I feel pretty good about my picks.

All right, does Miles Straw make the roster? Yeah. Okay, Kyle Tucker make the roster. Yeah. Jared Hughes. I had him on. In front of the show. I had him on.

He's a great guy. He's a whole man. We're big fans of his. We like guys that are interesting. Yeah. And you. And me? And you, because you are interesting.

Thanks. Did you surprise anybody? You wanted people to look at your story? Is there like a surprise 26th? I think people will be surprised by Hughes because he's a non-roster. I had Austin Pruitt over Josh James in the rotation. Ooh.

Spicy. Yeah. Yeah. Josh James, he needs control. Yeah. That's all he needs. And that's strange to say. It's hard to do.

But it's hard because he's got the, I mean, it's hard to not, you can't teach 1001, but he's got it. And there are times that he comes out and looks brilliant. You're like, man, this is a guy that we can count out, the asteros can count on forever. And then he walks three guys in a row. Yeah. He knows that, right? I mean, he knows that there's nothing at the minor league level he has yet to accomplish or needs to work on.

Yeah, no. I mean, he's a major leagueer. I think between him and Pruitt, whoever doesn't win the fifth starter job is in the bullpen, for sure. But, yeah, James has looked really good so far. I'm just, I think I need to see more before I put him in the rotation because of last year he was not consistent last year. And the strike throwing was a real issue. All right, Jake, we congratulate in your upcoming podcast. Thank you.

We'll promote it when you officially get it started. And we'll remind everybody to change. you out at Jake M. Caputton on Twitter because you cover the Astros like a moda. We appreciate that very much. Thanks for having me. That is the one and only Jake Kaplan who didn't realize he was coming on the show until he peaked in. Or did he did the, hey guys, you need me? No, we love Jake. We love him a lot. And he wanted to bring in some Joel NB conversation in, but we said no 76 for talk. We're talking baseball. 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 FOMbeaches.com.

My bestie, Chris DeViske's with us here on the Matt Thomas show. Debo, I always open up a conversation with, how's your offseason treating you? And so I'm going to just pass on that this year. Are you okay with that? Yeah, offseason. What off season? No question. Are you ready to start playing some games?

I mean, you guys have been down here for a week, and I always feel like that's the obligatory first question on the get-go is you're tired of warming up and doing the stretching and you're ready to see some live pitching or hitting? Yeah, I want to get in the fire now. See some live action and go out there and compete. It's that time now. The weather's been treating y'all okay, though. It's not like 115 degrees at this point.

No, it's hot out there today, though. It's a little smoky, little steamy. We got the headband game working very nicely here. You know what this actually is? I took a arm sleeve and I cut it right in the middle and it's all uneven and stuff. but I guess the job done. That feels like it's a second career of yours once baseball is done. Possibly.

All right, let's get to the phone call or text you got from Will Harris. And he says to you, bro, love you, but I'm moving to the Washington Nationals. What was that like? It was kind of weird, you know? I'm happy for Will. I'm happy he signed his deal. Great man. Learned a lot from him.

You know, as me coming up, a young little rookie, Will Harris, you know, big leader in the bullpen. Right. You know, he's right across the way. I haven't seen him yet. Hopefully I'll see him pitch. You know, I'd love to watch him pitch. Great cutter, you know, had a great year for us last year. And, you know, a great family man.

Just, you know, kind of weird and kind of sad to see him go. All right. So once you get past that, you're like, okay, somebody's going to pick up those innings. And I'm thinking in the back of your mind, you've got to be saying, I'm the guys going to be able to do that for this team in 2020. Yeah, for sure, opportunity. You know, I'm ready. You know, coming off a year that I wasn't happy with, I mean, personally, you know,

took the off season to make some adjustments, make some sacrifices, get my body in better shape, just to feel overall better with my health and, you know, feel better out there on the mound. So that means what? Like, workout starting sooner, maybe back and off on the, favorite beer and or food of choice? There you go. Which one beer?

That's it. No, no beer. I'm not a big drinker. You know, I enjoy one every once in a while, but, you know, for everyone who's over age, I enjoy one every once in a while. But, you know, snacks and goodies, you know, I have a sweet tooth, but, you know, I said, you know what? It's my career.

It's my livelihood. You know, it's what I do every day. I got to be in the best shape to perform to help the Houston Astros win. So, I got these half bag of M&M. Do you want them? Oh, let me see those. What's your, right there? What's the toughest one to give up?

Your snack. Peanut butter M&Ms. Those aren't peanut butter M&M's, so I'm not even looking at it. Fair enough. Fair enough. No, but yeah, I mean, that's your weakness, the peanut butter M&Ms? Ah, yeah, man. Yeah, those are tough to see them go.

That's funny. It's tougher to see Will go, though. Yeah, with a snack. Okay, so do you spend a lot of time? Obviously, you said your own personal performance, and up to expectations. Do you spend a lot of time going over what I could have done, what pitch I should have thrown, do you watch yourself on video?

What is it like for a team that went as deep as it did and has played as long as it did to try to get away from the sport but yet realize you want to be better in 2020 than you were a year ago? Yeah, I mean, for me I think it was minor adjustments. You know, little stuff that, you know, I was so close to

locking in and being great. Yeah. But kind of at the same time felt like it was far away. So I had to, you know, I felt like I had to go through what I went through my failures that I went through and I can make my adjustments from there. So just little, little adjustments with, you know, each of my pitches, releasing of pitches, you know, the way I spin the ball out of my hand, you know, little things like that. Brent Strom, do you visit with him at all during the office isn't at all, phone calls, maybe vacation together?

Yeah, a few, no fishing in Mexico, but a few, or, you know, Tucson, where he's from. I didn't make any trips to Tucson but you know phone calls here and there you know going over stuff that we were working on last year and you know kind of just building off of where we finished last year what I mean what type of things you do guys how much what percentage in the off season is you know just just chatting or you know shooting the breeze and talking about whatever or how much of is it straight baseball you know probably from December on you know it's basically It's basically back into baseball.

You know, I take some time, give myself, you know, some time to recover and rest and, you know, say no to all those snacks. But, yeah, you know, I mean, I work out with a group of guys in San Diego, you know, minor league guys, some big league guys. And, you know, we just talk baseball and try to, you know, better each other and, you know, want everyone to do good and succeed. And you talked about tinkering with a couple of things. What is the difference between Chris Tivinsky locked in on getting guys out with no performance? problem and Chris Divinski struggling a little bit out there. I think it's my fastball command. Fastball command and the backspin I have on the ball and the life and the hop.

So, you know, I made an effort to really, you know, do a lot of drills that, where I just simplify my release point, you know, with my fingers, you know. The last thing touching the ball is my fingers. So, you know, I'm spending the ball off my fingers as best as I can. Is there anybody non-named Brent Strom that you can go? to in terms of this guys and this pitching staff that you're like oh he saw some thanks for noticing that thanks for pointing that out is there is there is it a lot of self-diagnose when you're looking at yourself and getting yourself ready for the spring training i mean i think you know

that's that's what makes this team great you know you can go to any guy and especially who you're playing catch with that day you know depending on the guy you're playing catch with you know say hey you know look for this look for the spin on the ball like this you know always trying to get positive feedback and always trying to you know figure out a way to better yourself because this game's all about adjustments. Now to the elephant in the room, we'll get it out of the way. You've got a fan base that's listening to this show right now that is digging for you guys to come back to Houston, Texas that are like, let's just go, let's play some baseball,

you've gotten your PR beatings everywhere. What do you say to those folks back home as you guys are getting ready for your first spring training game coming up here in a couple of days? Just, hey, just wait for us kind of thing? We'll be coming? We'll be on the train to Houston We'll be on the train to Georgia We're on the train to train to Houston

So we'll be We're excited to go there And you know See the people there with open arms And ready to rock and roll man Have a good year, you know And You know, not just a good year

But you know Go out there and you know Win every pitch You know the safest thing for y'all Is to get off I've been telling the audience Have like a nine game lead the middle of May I mean that would be like very nice

Right Maybe a lot of the other stuff will kind of dissipate, I think. Yeah. I'm on board with that. Yeah. And Zach Granky's got some new rules. He does not hear yet, which at some point you're going to get that, right? You can come into spring training whenever you want to.

Yeah, yeah, sure, why not? The Davensky rules. Yeah, I like the Davensky rules. What other DaVinsky rules do you want? If you could change things up in spring training? No snacks in the clubhouse. Man, you all about the snacks. Too many temptations, right?

I'm, you know, I'm a change, man. I'm disciplined, man. And, you know, I've always, I've always been disciplined in my life. You know, I come from a background where my father's disciplined me and, you know, and I'm not going to give in, you know, I'm not going to be the sloppy guy I felt like I was last year at the end of the year, you know, come up short of winning at all, you know. We have, we're better, we're better than, you know, losing that, you know, so, you know, I think we got a great shot this year. So you're telling me you could live without snacks but not live without the cards or you have to have both?

Cards? Yeah. There's like six decks of cards in there every day. Oh, I mean, you all are chasing. No, cards is fun, man. There's calorie-free. That's good. Yeah, that's good.

And, you know, that gets the bonding with the teammates going and stuff. That's fun. That's competitive, you know. We all go in there trying to win. All right, last thing. Give me something anecdotal about Dusty Baker so far. It's a story-wise. I mean, I just want to hug him after.

Pretty cool, man. Dusty Baker gave me a tight-eye shirt. So I'm pretty, that was a great gesture. And, you know, I'm thankful for that. It goes with the hair. Yeah, so I rocked it, you know. What did other guys get? I'm not sure.

He's probably, you know, talking to everybody and giving some good, you know, hand out some good gestures too. But, you know, he's good to be around. And, you know, I just want to hear him talk and listen to him and his baseball knowledge. And, you know, the career he's had is, you know, it's like an honor. It's an honor to be here and to play for a man like that. You're about the 10th player that said that so far. Yeah. It's crazy that for a guy that has come in relatively new, trying to learn you guys as

much as possible, but that you all have had such an appreciation for him. I think he's going to pick up on that pretty quickly because hasn't already. The thing, I met him a few years ago. We did a, we did. Well, he was the main speaker at a dinner in Fresno. And I was like a guest speaker there and, you know, even being there and, you know, meeting him in the hotel lobby and just, you know, it's Dusty Baker. It's like, right. What you know, anyone who knows a game of baseball knows what, you know, some of the accomplishments he has. And it's just, you know, it's like I said, it's an honor to be in the same room. Man, you're taking care of Fresno, you got San Diego.

What other parts of California have you addressed here lately? What's the worst city in California? The worst city in California? I mean, I'm not a hater, but. Come on now. You can tell the truth. I mean, you know, who said that? I was going to say, I was going to say Baker's Spiel or, I mean, I was going to, you know, Highway 99.

There ain't much up there, but, you know, I got to, I got to give a shout out to, you know, the 5-6-2-714 area as well, you know, Cerritos, San Antonio Island, right? You got to take care of that area. Coronado Island, yeah. Too fancy. No, that's, hey, that's, that's, that's the opposite spectrum for me, but, yeah, you know, so, but like, you know, I want to, you know, everyone in Houston, you know, thank you for the support and being there for us. And, you know, like you said, we're going to go out there and rock and roll for them. I can go plug in over here. All right, that again is Chris Tivinsky from earlier today. We've let the Joe Girardi stuff go for 24 hours. Okay. Without much comment on it. We talked about it yesterday.

But you wanted some more context. Did you get the context you were so richly deserved? Well, I don't know. I mean, I need to like a little 30 seconds before, 30 seconds after. What exactly are they talking about? What team is he talking about? He was on a team with a number of different teams. He was with the Yankees, of course.

I just I don't want to I just need a little more context Also because they're the only person where that video came from is from an Astros fan I haven't seen it from anywhere else I haven't seen it in it'll be everybody saying they took it down I just need I haven't heard him respond to it from you know he's in Philly's manager the Phillies now I wonder if he has been asked about it since I just need To know a little bit more before I'm gonna jump and jump on anything and run with anything That's just me though all it's going to do though it's not that most people on Twitter.

No, no, no. But what, and I said this to somebody just a minute ago. He said upstairs. There's no confusion to that. Yeah. And so you can clarify and add pretense and post tense to any comment you make. When he said upstairs to the dugout, I said what, upstairs to the catcher to the second baseman. To the hit.

He always says to the hit. Yeah. He says, go to the hit the guy on second base. Yeah. Looks bad for sure. It looks terrible. But it's also something that we've all presumed. That's just the reality of it.

Yeah. 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. All right. Tomorrow on the show, we're going to have, I think we're going to have Dusty Baker come by for a few minutes.

Dusty Baker. We have a yearly visit with our first. friend Julia Morales. Okay. From AT&T. Now, Nick, we need a ruling. Can we do Florida stories even though we are the home of non-Florida stories? Since we're in Florida.

Since we're in Florida. Shouldn't there be a rule that we can do Florida stories? I guess we can do it once. You don't sound like you're too happy about it. Well, are there any Florida stories? I say we open it up. Are there any Florida stories occurring like inside of you? It shouldn't be that hard.

Oh, you know what? I will be honest with you. Something happened today. I shouldn't really mention this. But, you know, it's the convenience store. Okay. What, when you saw everybody naked in there? This is a short segment, so just...

Is that how you got mustard on yourself? No. A lot of Florida man this trip. Ross, here's... Nick, here's what happened. We went to the 7-Eleven to get some iced teas and water for the show. They ran out of tea, thanks. and they went and I was going to go to the bathroom at the 7-Eleven.

Apparently, there is no lock on the 7-Eleven bathroom door. So I opened up the first time, not realizing that there is no lock. You just figured they didn't lock it. I figured they didn't lock it and I opened the door and there was a woman going to the bathroom. With her young child in there. I thought maybe the child may have unlocked the door. it was clearly awkward for her clearly awkward for me

I shut the door as soon as humanly possible and I stared at the big gulp machine for about three and a half minutes until she passed Wait did you say anything to her? No Sorry I think you give a sorry I said a sorry yeah I didn't say hi

What up What you got going there? My name is Matt Whenever you're done I'm going to go next No I didn't know It was no small talk What's your favorite flavor slurpee? You didn't have a conversation

with her. He didn't give her a nice Texas howdy. No. So at that point, I just thought it was a case of that she forgot to lock the door. So I go get my big iced tea, the big gulp ice tea. I pay, I actually bought a couple lottery tickets, so hopefully I'm going to win some serious cash.

And I told Ross, I said, well, I'm going to try to go to the bathroom again. Yeah, you told me to go to the car. Go to the car, take the stuff. I go back to that same exact bathroom, open the door, again, hoping that no one's in there, and I was wrong. Who is in there, Matt? Another woman.

A different woman, though. Correct. A much older woman. Well, for West Palm, she's probably about average. Yeah, about the average age of West Palm. What did you say to her? So 75 plus. So, Nick, if you're saying,

I wish I could have joined Matt in Florida. The reason why you're not here is there's actually a blessing. You would have not been able to see two people going to the bathroom, which is very, very, very, very normal in the 7-Eleven. The question is, how do you prevent that? If you're going to go to the bathroom, do you put something in front of the door to make sure that no one gets in or do you just take your chances hoping that nobody does open that door?

So far, that grew up, those two women were 0-4-2. They need to, 7-Eleven needs to take care of this. There needs to be a sign that says, please knock, the lock is broken, or they need to fix the lock. That's absolutely the right answer. It's on 7-Eleven. It's probably on purpose to keep people from doing drugs in their bathroom. Oh, stop. That's terrible.

No, I'm serious. Not true and terrible. So you just bust the door down so that people awkwardly look at each other, it's not worth it. To prevent drug abuse on your property? Sure it is. And here's the worst problem is. probably should have said something. But we were in a semi-hurried.

So really, it's more about me. We had to get back here for... Why didn't I say? We had interviews. Hard-hitting interviews. Why didn't I say something? Yeah, we should have. I might have been just in shock.

Should we go by there on the way, on the way to our hotel? We will go there tomorrow to get our iced teas. That's true. And maybe one more slurpy. And you can try the bathroom one more time. One more time. Hoping there's a lock on it. And there's Matt's not...

Matt's total Florida story. They don't have that fixed by tomorrow. I don't think he's got issues. Or at least a sign-up. 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 the Palm Beaches.com. By the way, I'm getting tweets. You shouldn't go to the bathroom with the 7-Eleven. 7-Elevens are a lot to go to the bathroom. Yeah, it's not to stop it real quickly. Yeah. Speaking of a man who's going to the bathroom,

few 7-Elevens. It's Robert Ford, the voice of the Astros, and he just got here. Yeah? He's so incredibly lazy. Why is that? Because he could have been here like a week with all the fun stuff. Let me tell you something. You know, before I got the Astros job, I did Royals pre-imposed in Kansas City, and I would have to be down at spring training right when pitchers and catchers reported. Right. The first couple of days are great because you're excited, hey, it's baseball, you know, whatever. And I had to blog basically every single day of spring training. but after a couple of days of live BPs and pitchers fielding practice,

you're ready for games to start. Yeah. So I like this job a lot more for a lot of reasons. One of them is the fact that I show up when games start. Well, I'm very proud of you because you've been busy calling college basketball on the ESPN Family Networks. I think you're the only Syracuse person that's been on ESP. The only one.

Yeah, it's broke the glass ceiling. Actually, 80% of the guys I have met that are ESPN Syracuse guys are really nice guys. Yeah. I said 80, not 100. You have done a lot of Big 12. You were in Lubbock yesterday where you did not take my son out to E. When I told you that's what it would really have made his day. Well, he should have reached out.

And I had told you before. I know, but I didn't know. I don't follow your schedule. I'm blaming you. I'm not blaming you. Are you going back to Lubbock? You're done, right? I got one more game at Oklahoma State in a couple of weeks.

That's a tough place to get to, by the way. Still water? Yeah. Hour from Oklahoma City? It's still a drive. It's not bad. Okay. Obviously, you're enjoying it.

Here's the problem with college basketball. It just stops and goes and stop. The NBA, say what you will about what people want to say about the NBA. It's a fluid game. And as a broadcaster, you like fluidity. Well, you know what I think has happened is, and I'm hoping it starts to change. You know, they're talking about getting rid of the one-and-done role. Right.

And I'm hoping that happens because I think that will make the college basketball product better because you'll have kids, number one, who want to be there. Yeah. Because I think you get a lot of kids who, whether it's true or not, feel like, oh, I'm just going to play here for a year or two and then be a lottery pick, which doesn't happen to most of them. So you get kids who want to be there. And two, you get a chance to see kids develop,

even if it's for two years, three years, that's still better than just one year. So I think if that happens, that'll improve the quality of play at college basketball. Tell Ross what the energy is like at the Frank Irwin Center these days. It wasn't great when I was there I was there early in the season I was there for Oklahoma They lost to Oklahoma

And Oklahoma's a good team They're going to make the tournament But I tell you what That Texas team has some talent They're just a bit They're just a bit young And now they're all hurt Which is a big problem

But I hope they figure it out I was telling Matt So I went to Texas And I was back in the heyday When they were making elite eight And 06 and 08 Oh 8 I think it was the last time they've made even the Sweet 16, they made the Elite 8 that year.

That player, Matt doesn't believe me. Like, Irwin's Center used to be full and hopping, and there was a student section, and they were crazy because I was part of it. It's possible to happen there. It's just the team has to be good. The people will come if the team's good. It just has been terrible for a decade. You know, it was funny.

I was talking to some people when I was in Austin earlier this season. And again, this was right after, I think the college football championship game had yet to be played. But basically, the college football season was over. And so I was asking some people there, hey, what do you think? think about, you know, what's the, what's the fan support been like, whatever, and what they told me, and you can verify this for me if it's true or not, that basically no one pays attention until after football's done.

Then after football's done, they're like, oh, how's Texas doing? Oh, they're not doing great? Eh, we're not interested. Oh, they're doing great. Okay, we'll come out. Right. And I think this year, I mean, they're not conference wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't, you know, they weren't ranked or anything like that.

So people lose interest quickly once football's over and they realize, well, okay. Hey, well, UT, I don't know about that. Right. Are you now a TV diva, or are you coming back to your real roots? No, I'm doing radio. I'm glad that I won't have to wear suits for a little while. Yeah, so who tailored your suits? Did you go to a rack store, or did you actually get them in, like, the tailored suits, the good stuff?

Well, I didn't, you mean, did I get suits made? I didn't get suits made. That's coming. That's next year. Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, I mean, I get them tailored, obviously. Let me tell you something. You're getting good games.

I mean, you didn't do Tulsa, Houston yesterday, which was, clearly the one you should have been doing because that was... That was a good game. That was a great game. Chris Beard at Texas Tech, first of all, he's a great guy. I've had a chance to meet him a couple of times. There's going to be some rumors, wink, wink, that he might... If there's a move at Texas, would you leave there?

You were in that building yesterday. How enticing would Texas be if you've already got something really special going into school like Texas? Well, I think obviously the fact that Beard's a Texas alum, that's always... Right. They're going to be a question that that always factors into it. But in terms of like their support and everything, I mean, it seems like it's great. They were telling me, I was talking to their SID when I was there yesterday, and he was saying,

because I was, hey, you know, how's attendance been? And I know they're third in the Big 12 in attendance this year out there at Texas Tech. And he's like, oh, it's been pretty good. You know, our last home game, you know, there was some weather coming. So we only got 12,000. There are a lot of schools that would kill to get 12,000. So, you know, the fan support seems to be there. He's engaged to a woman that he met there in Lubbock,

who I believe is a local high school volleyball coach. Ooh, that helps. So, you know, and I don't know if she's... They have high schools in Austin. I'm just telling you, Cammas flipping out. He does not want this to happen. And I don't know. And I don't know.

That's all I know about this one. I don't know if she's from there or what her story is. But, you know, I mean, I think he's got a good thing going there. and he seems to have quite a bit of support. Obviously what they've done the last two years. They're going to be the first Texas Tech team ever to go to the NCAA tournament three straight years. And he went to the final four and he's like, Dad, it's a lot better this year. I think it's in Atlanta, right?

It's a lot easier to get to when it was Minneapolis. Spoiled. Well, we're done. We would talk baseball, but you don't know anything at this point. So, you'll, you know, Dusty's going to be fun, I think. You're going to spend a lot of time, I think, just kind of talking stories. I mean, that may be a segment on the Astros pregame, so just Dusty Storytime. You know, I have a good friend of mine.

who's a San Francisco Giants fan. And he told me Dusty Baker's first year as a manager, who was with the Giants. They had a really good team in 93. They won 103 games and lost out to the Braves back when there was no wild card. And he said that he listened to probably about 60% of Dusty Baker's pre-game shows on Giants Radio that year

with Hank Greenwald, who was their late, great broadcaster. And he said, of the shows he listened to, he said maybe 40% of them had anything to do with baseball. They would talk fishing. They would talk hunting. hunting. They would, you know, because... Cruning, right? Cruning grapes? Checking his dogs for ticks. Yes. Sacramento Kings. Yeah, exactly.

So I think that, you know, obviously he's a guy with a lot of different interests. And I think that's why he's been able to connect with so many different players from, you know, various, various backgrounds and various walks of life. So it should be fun. Thank you for coming by. Congratulations. And your success. We're proud of you. And again, he's the only ESPN and Syracuse grad on their network, which is stunning to me. I just don't know how that connection worked out. ShellfCU.org, get to shellfcU.org for home loan rates. You get to mortgage values like unbelievable terms. You'll get with the folks at ShellFCU and they will start your loan and they will finish your loan.

There'll be no selling of the loan and you'll be able to get $500 cash back in every one of those loans. There's no closing cost programs available, low down payment options. And the in-house from start to finish is going to put your mind at ease about what's going on with your loan. fixed rate, purchase, or refinance. Shell FCU offers mortgage financing options with something for everyone. For more details, go to shellfcU.org. Shellfcuh.org. Welcome home to ShellFCU.

Final day from West Palm tomorrow right here on Sports Talk, 790. A team is next. I'll talk to you guys tomorrow at 12 noon here on 790.