The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - The Matt Thomas Show : Cougar Final Four, Sam Jackson, and Craig Ackerman

Episode Date: April 2, 2020

The Matt Thomas Show with @SportsMT, @SportsRV and @ProNickLow 4/2/20When are we going to hear from Bill O'Brien?Joseph Duarte Joins Matt to Discuss The Greatest Houston Cougar Final Four (24:20)Samuel L. Jackson Reads Stay The F--k Home (37:33)Good News for AJ Hinch and Jeff Luhnow (49:23)People We Miss Hearing From : Craig Ackerman (1:38:50)

So much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers. I'm on my way I'm making you. Is the Matt Thomas show. It's happened in lunch timers. Good afternoon to you and welcome to a Thursday edition of the Matt Thomas show on Sports 790 with our producer, Nick Lowe, Ross Filleria.

I'm Matt Thomas. Nice to have you with us. As today we will discuss a variety of interesting topics, including the clock has already started on a former manager and a former general manager of your beloved Houston Astros. The Dallas Cowboys giving, I don't know, a nine, you know what somebody's giving nine lives? Yes. For cats that have nine lives. Alden Smith is getting a 10th life. Good for him.

Is it? Why not? Is it bad? Well, I mean, the sheet of improprieties is rather long. Well, Matt, he's still alive. Why can't he have a job? If he can flip burgers at Burger King, why can't he go rush the passer?

Okay. I just hope that he behaves himself because obviously he's not over much of his career. Insanely talented player. If you remember, the Texans wanted him over J.J. Watt. Remember that when J.J. Watt was drafted by the Texans. People booed. That's true.

Yeah. Everybody wanted Nick Fairley, right? Yeah. The defensive tackle. No matter who you pick, you get booed. Like the Jets and Giants have for years drafted people and they've been booed immediately. Yeah, that was when the draft was in New York every year. Now it's moving around, though.

So at least they've avoided that so much. Every other city. Like Philadelphia got to boo their players and Las Vegas would have, but there's no draft there. Yeah, well, you can't ferry people on the Bellagio Fountains. That would have been interesting. By the way, we are three weeks from today, the NFL draft round number one. Wonderful. Have you put out your mock draft yet, Matt?

Mock draft 1.mpt. M.T. Mach 1.0. I have not done that. But I have pinpointed a variety of interesting players that I think will be first round picks. I believe Joe Burrow will be a first round selection. I think so? I'm ready to put that out there as a 25 billion star selection. Yeah. All right.

So we'll get to a variety of different NFL topics. A major league pitcher has said, that he has a feeling that Major League Baseball will return in neutral sites. We'll discuss that on the show today. We've got a couple of guests to join us, Joseph Dwarte, who's on the Cougar Beat for the Houston Chronicle. You know, we're all trying to think of, frankly, interesting, different ways to kind of pass the time when we wait for live sports. He put together a 64 team bracket of the greatest athletes ever to compete at the University of Houston. and that group is down to a group of four.

So we'll discuss who he's got on his four list, how you can vote for it. And we'll get to a couple of college athletic conversations in terms of the spring sports. Those people get to come back as seniors next year or have an extra year of eligibility. Basketball football players, you don't get anything like it. I assume Chick and Knowles is in the final four.

He is not in the chicken. Chick is not in the final four. Oh, man. He's on the outside looking in. He must have gotten upset somewhere. He would have been a 16 beating of one episode. I don't know about that. Actually, he didn't make the tournament.

Daniel Huff's Jr., he in there? No, he's not. Shame. Because he's A&M guy. Oh, that's right. He decided, he thought he went off for a greener pastures. Yeah, he thought he would improve his draft status by going to Texas A&M, which it didn't help at all. But you know what?

Through hard work, perseverance? Yes. He's a Houston rocket. He's got a Houston Rocket contract. Now he's got Matt Thomas calling his name on the PA, so he's doing okay. Yeah, I think his life is okay. And then we've got Craig Ackerman in our series. of people we miss hearing from.

One of the voices of the Houston Rockets, Greg Ackerman joins us at 2 o'clock. He and I have this interesting relationship because people always ask us what we do for the team. And he goes, well, I do the radio, but I'll play at home, and I do the TV on the road.

And I have to say what I do, which is the PA at home and the radio on the road. And people still get it confused. They go, you do what on what games again? And who does the game? It's... You should just say, we broadcast the games. Like if you're in an Uber and you get asked. We're broadcasters.

Right. That's what we typically say. So, Craig, one of the broadcasters for the Houston Rockets will join us at 2 o'clock today. Yes. So we've got a busy show. Also today, we will be announcing our topics. What was the name of our saying we're going to do tomorrow? You had a great little catchy name for it.

Friday you said Friday something. And I can't remember what you said. Great debates. The Friday great debates. Every Friday, starting tomorrow. Or we could go like ESPN and, hashtag embrace debate. No, I don't want to steal people's hashtags.

People steal stuff from me all the time. I'm not selling other things from other people. The Friday Great Debates will be two debates. We'll have it 1230 and 1.30 every Friday. Oh, twice? Yeah. And we can always do this during the week, but Friday we're going to let the audience aside what the debates are.

You want to lose two debates a day to me, Matt? Gosh. This isn't a contest. Oh. Everything is a competition, Matt. Not in this particular case. Now, tomorrow's Fantasy 5 is Greatest Sports Divas,

past and present alive or day. I believe there's a definitive number one. I think there's a one too. And since I have the pick, I will be announcing that number one pick tomorrow. Can we draft you? No. No, I am as cool as a cucumber. I am low maintenance.

I am everything that a diva isn't. So the Friday great debates, you guys will have a chance to help us decide two topics on the show. We'll do them at 1230 and another one at 1.30. Awesome. And we'll do it every Friday until we have live sports again. We're having to reinvent the wheel. And I'm okay with that because that's what our responsibility is. I'm in all seriousness.

We hope that we, of your social distancing, am I employed, am I having to take a pay cut? Am I, how am I going to feed my kids? How's my school? We need to be your kind of little getaway for three hours a day. That's what our jobs are. And so we're going to try some different things. I am also, and we'll work on this and probably debut this sometime next week, the definitive, two brackets for the greatest television theme songs of all time.

There is a bracket. I have paired it down to 32 because yesterday you out of me. Yes. I had a 30. Simple math problem. I had a 36 that just didn't mesh well. So 32 teams, 32 songs that have music and that have words in them. And then a separate 32 that have just instrumentals.

Now, is this like an AFC-N-FC thing and they're going to face off in the finals? No, we're just going to wear him two champions. It's like in WWE, there's a WWE Raw champion and a Smackdown champion. Two different groups. That's lame. I mean, we could ultimately put the greatest instrumental against the greatest song.

We could. No problem with that. Okay. We can actually do that. So my wife and I, and you know, my wife's my second hardest critic. You're number one.

She's number two. And she's like, no, you've got to put this one higher, this one lower. So I've had many, many people help formulate this bracket, move people up, bring songs down. and we will debut that sometime next week and we'll have it through Twitter as well.

And so like I said, we're going to try some different things just to kind of keep everybody in as good a mood as possible. We'll bring up sports. And can I just once a day, Ross, if it's okay with you, because you are as much the show as I am.

Can I just bitch about the fact that Bill O'Brien hasn't said a word about anything that's gone on with this organization? Well, Matt, he's just, there's a crisis going on in America right now and the moves are not important. What's important is helping each other and also not answering to the media,

about my horrific trade. He's sheltering in place. But the phones... From the hate. But telephones are allowed to be used during this time. That's true. He can get on a conference call. He can get on a conference call.

If Randall Cobb can do it, he can do it. If everybody else can get on a conference call, Ross, so can Bill O'Brien. He can get on Zoom. Everybody's using that. Or FaceTime. Yeah. Or Google Hangouts. I don't need to see his face.

Pick up the phone, had their really nice PR department and set up a conference call with a bunch of different funny codes. We won't give it out to the public. We can't do that. Yeah, we can. That's ridiculous. The NFL draft is in three weeks. Even Rick Smith.

Remember Rick Smith's always famous lines where you get to say true to the board? He always talked about the board. Remember the board? How important the board was. The board's important. So even when Rick Smith said nothing, he at least came on and said nothing and put the board in place. Bill O'Brien is scared to death.

about having any sort of public media availability because he knows that no one cares about his second round board. No one. Doesn't matter. Everybody wants to know what the hell you were thinking, training DeAndre Hopkins for a ham sandwich. I mean, no. Clearly.

That's all we have. And I know why I brought this up right now, because I'm trying to keep things light and air. But every day I think about it, I'm like, you know what? Have the stones to say we wanted to get rid of them. We're going to have to wait until after the draft, because there's always a press conference or media availability after the draft.

You talk about the draft class and how everyone you drafted is tough and a good teammate and a hard worker and look good on tape. And we were happy to, every draft pick you have, we could believe he slipped this far. So we were happy to take him up. We're happy to take him where he was. And then you can slip in a couple of questions about Deander Hopkins, hopefully. And I'm assuming that most of you've been on a conference call before. And they go, if you have a question for today's guest, hit pound six on your phone and identify yourself.

So you hit pound six. Yeah. You're like, again, if you'd like to visit and ask a question, hit pound six. And I'm like, I'm hitting pound six.

And this is Bill O'Brien conference. Okay. There are no questions out there. Well, on this conference call. Thank you, coach. Wait,

wait, I don't think you guys really care what I say. Just like I don't really care what you say. They're going to rig the conference call, Matt? Would an NFL team rig a conference call? call when all of us have questions. Maybe. Probably not.

He'll answer questions. He'll probably just deflect. Oh, we have a call coming in. Our next call is from Jay Easterby of Houston Texans.com. Yeah, Coach, I just wanted to applaud you because David Johnson, you know, five years ago when he was healthy, he was pretty good running back

for the Arizona Cardinals. You've got to be kind of excited about what he could bring to the table. That was good. That worked out good. That's exactly what it's. He's only going to take calls from Texans employees. Because he knows he's not going to get ripped on anything. If he does, he'll have them fired.

Reassigned. No, he will be, he will fire him. That's exactly what it is. The Texans will have a conference call and not allow anybody ask questions except from something called J. Easterby at HoustonTexins.com. I don't think that's going to happen, Matt. Stay with me on this. let me have my time.

Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead. All right. 713-2125-7-90. And Jay McLean is snoring. What's going on here? Yeah, what? Our next call is from Jay McLean. Our next call is from M. Berman of Channel 26.

What are your emotions? What was your emotions when you made this trade? Bless you. Uh, uh, we tease because we care. Yeah, okay. No, Mark knows he's my guy. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-21-5-7-90.

Is a 10th life worth it to sign another NFL player who has not been active since 2015? We'll discuss that next. 1213. It's a Matt Thomas show. 7-13-212-5-7-90. The pandemic continues. The no-dam sports pandemic. I'm not leaving my house.

Luckily, the most infectious lineup in Houston sports continues. Now. Here's masked, rubber-gloved, but still Jesus-sandled. Matt Thomas, sanitize those toes, would you? You don't know where they'd been. Reason of playing this is some sad news is out there. It's coming from a listener that the man who sang this song is no longer with us. Adam Schlesinger of the group Fountains of Wayne, dead at the age of 52 because of the coronavirus.

Clanton tweeted us at about an hour ago. Yeah, it came from somebody else, so. I think so was. Adam Clinton tweeted us, 1015 years. Two hours ago. Is Fountains-A-Wain on one-hit Wonder Band? I want to say they had like one more hit. But I don't know.

Nope, this is it. This hit number 21 in 2003. We have a Christmas song by them in the system. That's okay. He also had a pancreatic cancer, apparently. Yes. Did you either one of you have a friend that had a really hot mom? No.

Not really. I had a hot teacher in high school. I didn't have any hot teacher. I had one decently attractive teacher in eighth grade, and then that was it. Yeah, two or three teachers and then one mom. Shout out Miss Green. Shout out Miss Courtney, eighth grade, nurse science. And then the mom I'm going to keep to myself because they may be less.

listening? I think you should say it. No, I'm not going to. No, not going to happen. But I was also ninth grade, so everything I thought was hot back then. Stacey's mom's got it going on. All right. This is the Matt Thomas show. 1218 is our time. If you want to get in, 713-212-5-790, Joseph Tortte from the Chronicle to be with us in about 15 minutes. All right. So Alden Smith, same draft class as JJ Watt. First two seasons was putting together numbers even better than JJ Watt. And then he ran into some trouble. A variety of problems.

2013 arrested on suspicion of DUI after crashing a truck into a tree and a residential neighborhood in San Jose. 2014, the NFL suspended him nine games for violating the league's personal conduct and substance abuse policy. 2015 he was released by the Niners the day after he was arrested in a hit and run DUI and vandalism charges signed with the Raiders a month later but was suspended for a year for violating the League substance abuse policy the Raiders released him in 2018 after he was arrested on a number of charges including domestic violence assault and false imprisonment smith pleading no contest to a pair of misdemeanor charges in november of 2018

to settle his domestic violence case earlier that year Dallas Cowboys signing him a one-year contract worth $2 million, could make a couple million dollars in incentives. Deep down is he is Alden Smith coming to the Cowboys because Jimmy Jones, Jerry. Jerry Jones. Jerry Jones thinks. First of all, Jerry's not signing anybody that has some talent.

So that's, that can't even be a possible. Yeah, it's any football player, any team. But why does he take so many more cases than anybody else? is that because he just believes at the end of the day it doesn't hurt to take guys with track with muddy track records or does he feel like that we put these troubled guys into our system and we can fix them make them great football players and good citizens as well

you're damn act together well you won Super Bowls with guys who are completely off their rockers and on cocaine and breaking the law and all that type of stuff so I mean he doesn't have any issue with it he's about results isn't it funny that the two teams in this state have completely different philosophies about bringing in players that have had trouble in the past.

Yes, it is. It isn't. They're probably on just about both ends of the spectrum as far as it comes in the NFL. Probably that, well, Olin Smith was on the Raiders. It's probably the Cowboys and the Raiders as far as teams are known as taking chances on people more than anybody else.

And then the Texans have to be one of the more conservative ones that you can think of in the entire NFL. It's like what I would like to do to some people is every time there's a free agent that becomes available or a play that gets released and they go, well, this guy is a bad dude or he's got not a great teammate or he is a guy that's had trouble in the past. You should never utter that player's name with the Houston, Texas, because there's just no chance.

How many times do people call and say, did the Texans have any interest in Antonio O'Brien? The answer was no. Do the Texans have any interest in O'Dell Beckham Jr.? No. How many baby mommas does he have? That's going to be a question that we have to ask every player now. That's what Bill O'Brien's concerned about. Is that one of those questions you ask of the pre-drafting that these general managers are mad about?

Is how many baby mamas they have? Maybe. Because clearly it sounds like that, yeah, B-O-B does not like having baby-mamas around the Texas facility. He doesn't like, yeah, right. I thought we could only confirm that he has one child. Did we ever get to the bottom of that? No. How many kids does DeAndreiber have?

I guess it doesn't matter. Well, it was Michael Irvin said it not Bill O'Brien. So. But he said that Bill O'Brien said it to Beard Hockers. Right, right, right. Yeah, I don't know. I will say this, in defense of Bill, if the baby mamas are causing issues and they're coming to practice, you're going to keep that stuff out. I mean, are they?

Are they just showing up to the facility at practice? Is DeAndre Hopkins on one-on-one drills with Jonathan Joseph and then the mama's showing up screaming at DeAndre Hopkins? I mean, how much of a distraction can they be? No, my guess would be the following. He's trying to have practice. He's trying to have meetings. And DeAndre gets a text. said woman is out in the front office or said woman needs to talk to you causing that kind of distraction.

I don't think like literally they're just... How often would that happen? I mean, let's be practical. Seriously. Can he just turn off his phone? There's no way that was some huge distraction in keeping him from being in meetings or anything like that. I'd agree with you. That's why it was preposterous with that bringing up.

Unless there is just some crazed woman who needs a restraining order and is showing up to the facility, she would never get in because of security anyways. Yeah, I thought DeAndre Hopkins wasn't practicing anyway. So how could he be a distraction? Yeah. If he's not practicing. then how could she distract them during practices? Maybe DeAndre went to coach O'Brien and said,

hey, Bill, listen, I'd love to practice, but I've got issues with my baby mama's out in front of the offices. No, no. Just ridiculous. There's no way. Well, I shouldn't say there's no way, but I would, that would be very far-fetched. No, there would be, guys bring problems to the office. It can happen at this building.

It could happen in a factory. It could happen for an NFL team. Sometimes home issues come into the workplace. but I can't imagine it being so bad that he needs to get rid of him. That he would go to DeAndre and go, you know, these baby mamas that are showing up or at least, you know, infiltrating your phone or affecting the way you practice during the week. That's ridiculous.

Everything about this is ridiculous. Arian Foster had a baby mama issues. There was that chick who, uh, remember that whole thing? Oh, the UBH girl? Yeah. He was fine. He was performing on the field, well, when he was healthy. Remember when Isaiah Kerry went to his house?

Yes. That was very awkward. You know that Isaiah Carrey Over Channel 26 to the visit show Isaiah Carrey 26 News He was like Wasn't Aryan like Get Away?

Pretty much This is my family bro He said some stuff like that You ever had a TV news reporter come to your home Unexpectedly? That's not a great sign No Only time I've been on the news is in the background

Of some athlete getting interviewed With you just hold the microphone Like that? Or me for putting up faders as B-roll for Matt Thomas getting interviewed on Channel 2. I'm Mr. B-roll. It's funny because my old boss, Dan Patrick, we got these mic flags that had our... How's he doing?

He's the lieutenant governor of our state. How's his approval rating right now? I don't know. He wants everybody over the age of 70 to, you know, give it up. To perish for his stock portfolio. Yeah. So Dan would, he gave us these mic flags of our radio stations. And he'd said, hey, do you know, get our mic flag on television so people could our station. We had two, we owned two stations at the time. We had KSCV 700. We had KPRC 950.

So he would say, hey, if you got to rotate them, do that. And that's what I did. You'd just rotate them in the middle of the interview. I'd watch like sports Sunday or the channel 13 news or whatever at the 10 o'clock. And I would watch my microphone rotates. It was like an advertisement. I'm like, damn, I'm pretty good at this. Like the, like about the speed of a rotating a restaurant? Yeah. 959. 59. 59. You're trying to put the viewers in a trance. And then I thought to myself, why don't I put the name of a show on there?

We could rotate shows. See? These are things that we should be thinking about in 2020. I can't wait to go back into a clubhouse again or a locker room. It's been forever. It feels like it. But I would look forward to that. 713-212-5-790.

So what do you think about this Alden Smith signing by the Cowboys? It's fine. Yeah, good. I wish the Texans would do it. Why not? Apparently, he's completely clean and, sober, he's cleaned up his life, it's not going to cost you anything. If he goes out and gets 12 sacks, the master stroke, if he does nothing and he's off the team

within three weeks, it costs you nothing. Well, it's still $2 million. Okay. I mean, what's the cap now? Almost $200 million? I don't know what it is, but here's the thing. I wonder what he's done to prove to them that he's okay. And again, he has not been on an active football field in four seasons.

What has it got left from the tank? It's just a flyer. I mean, do we even know how much of his money is guaranteed? No, no, but I just know it's probably very little of it. But man, it seems like, again, was he sought after by a lot of teams? I had not heard his name being talked about it by a bunch of different folks. I think, frankly, 80% of the teams in the NFL said, look, guys got a lot of problems. Hope he fixes them, but we don't need a guy that hasn't played in the NFL four years with like eight strikes against them.

It means he's fresh leg, Matt. Ready to go. Or looking for one more paycheck. Or maybe he, again, he could also hoodwink the Cowboys and go, man, I'm going to be great. I'll be awesome. You got to imagine they worked him out before this. Yeah. I don't know how via Skype or whatever.

That's true. How could you do this in the last three weeks? You probably couldn't have. 1227. Sports Talk 790. This is the Matt Tompisho. 713-213-2-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90.

We got Joseph Dorte from The Chronicle going to join us for a couple of minutes on his final four bracket for the greatest athletes in U.H history. Also some thoughts on the college athletic landscape because of the fact that. that all the spring sports have been canceled. And then you're going to want to listen to this radio show in just 20 short minutes. Samuel L. Jackson reads from a book. Okay. I'm intrigued, Matthew.

That's why we call these four teases. Samuel L. Jackson reads from a book. You'll want to hear it. It's Sports Talk 7.9. No sports? No problem. Said the A-holes are hoarding toilet paper. And now I have to use a cut and half roll of paper towel.

to do my business. Let me tell you, the quicker picker-upper? Abrasive. Go ahead, ladies, you try it. Yeah, now, now say it with me. F*** you, A-Holes. The Houston Sports Talk continues on Sports Talk 790. 1232, Sports Talk 790. It is the Matt Thomas show. We're going to spend 10 minutes with our buddy. Joseph Dwarted has a great job covering the University of Houston for the Houston Chronicle. And Joseph, a few weeks ago, you created a 64 team. bracket of the greatest athletes ever to don a Houston jersey. That list is down to four. Three of the four I totally get.

I'm stunned at the number four seats still around. Gee, I wonder which one you're stunned at. You know, what was I thinking trying to come up with 64 names? But I'll tell you, Matt, Houston has such a rich history at the University of Houston with athletics. It was really a fun exercise. But yes, your four final four participants are Andre Ware, who won the Heisman, Carl Lewis, who's a nine-time Olympic gold medalist, Hakeem Ilajuwon, one of the 50-gradiest NBA players of all times.

And the last one was the upset, the number two seat, Case Keenum, probably the most popular, or one of the most popular among recent athletes, he knocked off Elvin Hayes. And I'm sure that's personal for you because you and Elvin go way back from your days of you know, calling some games over at Hopon. Yeah, look, first of all four gentlemen, I know, and all four are really nice people. So this is nothing personal, but I think about the achievements.

I think of Elvin Hayes. I mean, 1968 at the Astrodome puts him in my final four, regardless of he scored zero points or scored 30 points. I mean, it's, and again, this is all subjective. How many votes are you getting per? I mean, how long you, was this a good sample? sample size or was just a bunch of Case Keenham fans that just flooded your Twitter line? No, it's a fairly decent sample size.

You know, with the final four, we're going to extend it a couple more days. It was generally 24 hours worth of voting. I will say that the votes, it's typical. It was split a lot of the, maybe the older crowd, if you want to say, we're the ones, it seemed like we're voting on the Chronicles website. and then the Twitter vote, let's face it, you know, that's kind of more of a young man's game. He says that, and I think that's how I would probably break it down

in terms of how the voting went. But, you know, you look at some of the matchups, and depending on who the athlete was, and the following, for instance, the track community came out and droves to vote for Carl and Leroy-Barrell at times. So I think it was kind of a matter of which athlete, at a particular time just caught the audience when it needed it. But, you know, they're all very accomplished.

Elvin is responsible for so many things of what U of H basketball became. Hawfine's was called, I think, the house of Big E. built at one point, or they wanted it to be called Big E. Build House. So a lot of merit for each of them, but it should be fun because you've got a pretty, pretty good. group of guys here for the final few days. And there are two places to vote right on your website and then on the Twitter as well, or are you going strictly with Twitter on this? You can vote either way at Houston Chronicle.com, or you can go to my Twitter. It's just my first name underscore.

I think so Joseph underscore Duarte. We're going to do the semifinals through tomorrow, and then from late tomorrow through Monday will be the championship game. Okay. Let's get to some bigger picture issues if you don't mind. Sure. I know that spring sports have been given an extra year. For those of us that don't know, and you can explain it,

how is that going to affect schools when it comes to scholarships for kids that have been promised scholarships for saying next year? Well, first of all, what it does is it sort of creates a log jam where the way the cycles go, Matt, you sort of, you plan it out. You have a four-year window where each time, you know, your seniors graduate, your juniors move up, your sophomores or juniors, your freshman or sophomore, then you have your incoming freshmen. So it's usually a nice, neat package of how you handle your roster numbers.

What this creates now, and we're not even talking about the financial part of it yet, is that you are going to have in some sports, in the spring sports, a surplus of athletes that you didn't intend to have on your roster for next year. now. Baseball is the only spring sport that has roster limit, but that has essentially been weighed where they go from 35 to right now. You know, they could have close to 50 when the fall workouts being in. Then you look at, you know, some of the other sports, they, on the financial side, these athletes don't get full rides. You know, tennis gives full scholarships, and football, basketball and I believe volleyball in the fall.

So these athletes now have to decide, is it worth coming back for the next two semesters, paying part of it out of pocket, or do you just begin either a professional career if you're a baseball player maybe or just get into the real world work sector? So those are some things. And then on top of that, the school's going to have to kind of come up now budget-wise and see how they can accommodate because none of these athletes are promised, Matt, to have the same amount of financial aid that they received last year. Schools can either match it, decrease it, or say, we'll bring you back, but you have to pay for all of it.

Joseph D'Warte from the Houston Chronicle with us here on the Cougar Beat. Let me ask you this. There was some consideration, but it didn't last long about giving basketball players an extra year. Why do you think that was? Well, when you look at it, a lot of, some of the schools were done completely. You know, some of the games that were able to get off of, you know, in terms of like the women's side with some of the tournaments that they had conference-wise, I think they started a day or two earlier than the men at times. But then you look at the men's side, you know, you were down to, if you were a seed low

in your tournament, you probably were going to get knocked out. You had maybe one or two games left. And now I'll use Chris Harris of Houston as an example. he had they made the championship games, that would have been three games for the conference tournament, and depending on how far Houston went in the NCAA tournament, he could have had, you know, upwards of a half dozen games left. They just, I believe the NCAA did not feel like for what was remaining that they could justify or at least create this, what's essentially going to be a problem for the spring sports

and have it happen with the fall sports. Now, depending on how this virus lasts, Matt, and if it affects football and it affects basketball, you know, you might have to address that anyway for the following season. So I don't feel if the doors necessarily closed yet on a final decision, but at least for now, they felt like the spring sports were justified and they were able to say, you know, let's do that, but not so much when it came to basketball. I'm going to ask you a question. I sort of know the answer to, but it's good to get your perspective on this.

if, you know, Kirk Herbstre last week said he doesn't believe there'll be college football this year. And it was met with resistance, but frankly, he doesn't know any more than you or I know. He might be right. He may be wrong.

Nobody knows the answer to these questions. But if college football does not play a season, that's going to devastate how many schools play Division I football, give or take? About 115, give or take? About 130.

130. Joseph, that's going to devastate about 110 of them because not only are they filling up stadiums and taking care of every program on a campus, I'll use LSU, Alabama, Texas, Ohio State is an issue, but there are also a handful of schools. I'll use examples like UAB, U-TEP, you know, Mount West, Mid-American Schools, that take these payouts between $750 and a million to play these games so they can fund their athletic departments. So how are these programs going to survive if 2020 takes a season off from

college football. Well, that's the big question, because if you look at it, Matt, and it's going to have a domino effect, you look at some of these college towns, these small towns, that that's their lifeblood during the season, and we're talking businesses, just the entire community. But then if you look specifically at schools and how will they deal with it, it will be devastating to probably 95% of the group of five programs that don't have that SEC or Big Ten payouts of 40 million plus that they get every year. So starting right there from a financial standpoint, you also have to look at a lot of these programs supplement the other sports through the revenue that they get from football and to an extent basketball. Now, I think an early warning sign was

last week the NCAA announced that they were going to distribute $225 million from the NCAA tournament this year. And that was down 60 percent from the 600. million that they got the previous year. So right there, that tells you how these schools are going to be faced. Now, I do believe that a lot of the conferences and schools, Matt, have reserves that they could tap into sort of a rainy day type deal. But depending on how long this lasts and to what extent, that's not going to cover for very long. So I imagine you're going to see the potential for other sports to get cut, for staffing to be reduced. certainly freezes on salaries and stuff like that.

So this could impact college athletics a wide range of the spectrum here, depending on how long this lasts. And what about television money for conferences? I know the Big 12 and the SEC and the Big 10 have awesome, awesome television contracts. The other conferences, not so much. So how do those schools, and we'll throw the American conference in the mix here, how much are they affected by no television money if they don't play football?

year. Well, you know, I'm not specific to some of the other conferences. I did talk to the American commissioner this week, and, you know, they had just kind of wrapped up a deal, I believe it was about a year ago. And he was saying that, you know, there are some built-in bills in the contracts that provide for catastrophic-type deals or, you know, if there's something that's just beyond the control. And I think TV partners will work with the schools. I don't see that, you know, just free money coming in. But I think there will be a way, you know, whether it's insurances or something like that. You know, the conferences can do many things.

They can, you know, a line of credits. They can do their reserves, just like the NCAA mentioned in its release last week with the basketball money, that, you know, some of it was a reserve fund that they tapped into. So I think schools can do stuff for the short term. It's just the long-term impact. Just nobody knows. And, you know, you're seeing it and everything, whether it's in, in our business, the media, or the retail space, or the airlines or hotel industries,

and it's going to hit everybody. And sports just happens to be this visible part of really our daily lives. And it's going to be really interesting and heartbreaking to an extent to see how this all plays out and what the final damage report is when this is done. Well, hopefully that doesn't get nearly as devastating as we're talking about here. Let's get back to the most impositive things, and that is your bracket and your final four. I'm sorry, Matt, you cut out of that last part. Just remind the folks where they can find you again to vote on this final four.

Okay, Houston Chronicle.com. You can just go to Texas Sports Nation on our website, or you can go on Twitter, Joseph underscore Duarte, and voting either semifinals, the championship game will run through Monday. All right. Sounds good. Thank you, Joseph, for the time, my friend. Anytime, buddy. Appreciate it. You got it. Joseph D'Orte from The Chronicle. And again, on the final four, if you are in for determining the number one all-time Houston Cougar.

Elvin Hayes is not in and Case Keen and Miss. Look, Case great guy. Fantastic guy. Been able to carve out a nice NFL career. But over Elvin, doesn't seem right. All right. Samuel Jackson is going to read a story to you. It's a brief one.

You'll hear it next. 1244 on Sports Talk 790. Major sports are canceled. But around here, uh-uh. Inside the 790 break room. Extreme social distancing. This is ridiculous. Synchronized hand washing.

Oh, I love the sweat on my brow. Purell distance squirting. Nailed it. Let's not forget the Lugie toss. Just filthy. The Houston Sports Talk continues. On Sports Talk 790. Top of the hour.

Some good news for an Astros' former man. and a former general manager. I guess you could say it's good news. I don't know if it's... Tim Purr? What's going on with him? It may not be Tim. What's Bo Porter up to? Is something happening with him? It will not be Paul Porter.

Or it will not be... Let's see, who other general manager? Bob Watson. Gene... Not Gene Wood. What was Woods first now? Bill Wood. Bill Wood.

No, that's basically all I know. Well, there's Ed Wade. Don't forget about Ed Wade. Oh, that's right. Ed Wade. Get choked out by Sean Chacon. Edwold. I was, you know, were you ever randomly scrolling through your phone and you find, and you're looking for someone's number?

And you're like, I can't believe, I forgot I had this number. Ed Wade was one of them. It's like, why do I have Ed Wade's phone number, I guess, like years ago? Can I give you a perhaps a little more eerie thing I've just done lately? Uh-oh, somebody that's dead. I cleared out some dead people. Yikes. It's not fun.

You had the Fountains of Wayne lead singer? No, never had his number. Okay. So we've determined he only had one hit, Stacey's mom. That's it? That was the only one hit of that band, yes. And it hit number 21 in 2003. Here's the problem.

The key to being successful to living a long life singing music is have at least five hits. I didn't really care about that song. It was the, what was her name, Rachel Hunter or whatever that was in that video? Yeah, you could watch a video to your blue-to-face. I was a fan of the video. Who was in the fan? All right. Samuel L. Jackson. You guys are a big fan of his?

Yeah. A little one note, but one of the great actors of our generation. Yeah, I mean, the simple genre of who he is, badass, every movie he's ever been in, right? He shows a humorous side as he reads from a book, and Nick, can you please play Samuel L. Jackson doing a little oral interpretation. Stay the f*** at home. The runner is spreading. This is no joke.

It's no time. to work or wrong. The way you can fight it is simple, my friends. Just stay the . Now, technically, I'm not a doctor. But mullah-phe listen when I read a poem. So here I am Sam and Jackson, imploring you. Keep your ass at home.

If you want things to get back to normal, don't panic. Just use your don't. Wash your hands. Stop touching your face and stay the at home. Motherfiel, it's no time to gamble. Look around, you're not at a casino. Just stay the fucking home as if your name was Trenton Quarantino.

Sure, you can still see your friends. Use the mother fucking app on your phone. But unless you just ran out of groceries, please stay the f*** at home. Oh. Thank you for doing your part to flatten the curve because that is steep. And now that you're home, please feel free to go the to sleep. Finn.

I'm going to use that as a bedtime story for my kids tonight. That's nice. You were noticed. Oh, literally, Nick? Two and three. They'll be like, Daddy, what are those beeps for? Oh, I'll get the uncensored version. You are raising your children right, aren't you?

I could be real interesting to see how those kids turn out about 13 years. You know, one of the funniest skits in television is unnecessary censorship. Oh, which one does that? On Friday nights. Isn't everything funny with just a beep? I think so. It's just, I mean, obviously we were beeping it because the words he was saying. And we are an FCC regulated station.

And family-oriented station from all audiences. I'd say we're PG-13. Yeah, but that's okay. Or at least the 13-year-old's going to listen to she'll be okay. A little concerned about that. But isn't it better with everything being bleeped? Everybody knows what you're basically saying. Can't say it.

You're thinking it. But it's great. We've talked about this. One of my pet peeves is people bleeping things on Twitter. Their own selves. Like, we don't know what you're saying. Well, like when people use... Asteris.

Asterisks and exclamation parts. Or pound signs. Exclamation points. Yeah, if you're going to swear on Twitter, which I do not do, typically. Rarely. I mean, maybe I've tweeted 32,000 times, I think. I think I've said the swear word three times on it. At SportsMT.

Yeah. Slow steady, climbed to 25,100. We're working. Yeah, if you're going to swear, just go ahead and do it. I think people are afraid to swear on there because I think that the Twitter is going to suspend them for some length of time. Well, if you threaten somebody's life, they will. Yeah. Otherwise, you're fine.

It's mostly an adult platform. I mean, there are kids on there, but not that are following Matt Thomas. No. No, I have no kids that follow me. I don't think I do. Carly wants a Twitter account bad. Uh-oh. Really?

No way, no how. What does she have? She's got TikTok. She has TikTok. She has Instagram and I think that's it. No Facebook and no Twitter. Is there like a Twitter for kids you can put her on? Twitter for tweens?

What is she? She's 12. She's 12. That's a tween, right? Yeah. No, I think TikTok is about his recent. case is going to get for me for her. And I do monitor her, her people that she follows and follow her on Instagram as well.

So, okay. Got to be, you got to be out there. Watchful eye. You got to. These social media streets are tough sometimes. That's true. A lot of predators out there. So, yeah, thank you, Samuel L. Jackson.

We need that a little bit. Samuel L. Do you feel like real quick, before, and we're going back to the Astros at the top of the are, do you feel like people are doing, like, if you were to grade us, you and I are here at the radio station. but we are considered essential employees in the public interest of the community. So we are asked to come to our station. We're here to give a sense of normalcy to the people.

A little bit. I don't know if we're ever going to be. We're doing a certain. You know what? We should deserve medals after all this, Matt. I like a hand, I like a high five and a handcheck, but that's not going to happen right now. Elbow bump.

Yeah, elbow bump. But the freeways are less congested. I love it. Way shorter than ever has before. Yes. My kids are, my neighborhood kids are out very rarely now. I see more people out on the street, I think. Do you really?

I think people get stir-cray. I see more people walking and on their bikes. Yeah, I have seen a lot of that. Because I think, you know, you're cooped up in the house. You've got to go for a walk. Yeah. And that's actually a smart thing to do. I might have to go for a walk.

I'm feeling a little cooped up last couple days. Yeah, I try to get 10,000 steps in yesterday. And I took a nap instead. It's okay. It's not okay. I felt terrible about it. Because I reached my waist. You still rack up the steps in bed, man, if you...

If you play your cards, right? Stay in place. there's no way to get 10,000 steps in bed. Yeah. I mean, unless I took some pills. Some from the convenience store. Yeah, those ones right in front of the convenience store. The impulse buys.

Guaranteed 12 hours. I'll take some extra gum, a squiggly pin, and some horny goat weed. Six of them pills over there. How much are they each, $6? Will they work? Allegedly. Allegedly. I would not endorse you taking those pills.

Not FDA approved. I'm not putting them in my body. That's true. All right. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. If you'd like to join us, you want to reach out through us via Twitter at SportsMT, at SportsRV, and at Pro Nick Lowe. Craig Ackerman, one of the broadcasters for the Houston Rockets, my travel buddy.

He will join us in an hour from now as we continue our series of people we miss hearing from. And we'll hear from Craig. By the way, I have sent an email to the definitive voice of CBS sports, Jim Nance, his people. And Jim is not doing any radio interviews or podcasts at this time. Probably it's easier to say no to everybody as compared to saying no to one or two people and then everybody chasing after you. I did email the people at Netflix who have put me in charge of... Can you Carol Baskin on? No, this is... I'm talking about Ozark.

about having Jason Bainman or Laura Lenny on the show and that person has forwarded on to the person does publicity for Ozark. Okay. Well, she will then tell me

there's no chance, no way, no how you're progressing. Well, at least it wasn't a hell, hell, no. That's good. Because we're going to continue to try to do some things in this show to keep you guys interested in the time where there isn't a lot

of meaty sports topics. Hell, Ross, if the Texans had a first round draft pick, We'd be all over it. I think so. But they don't. They got Laramie Tonsal and they're negotiating with him. We're talking about that a little bit.

And him exclusively, it sounds like. Yeah. But if, but I just, we'll get, we will get to the big picture draft stuff, but I don't think a lot of people in the area care what the Steelers are going to do with their draft or what the charges are going to do. There's obviously a lot of conversation with the quarterbacks and how many will get taken and will the, will the, will the, will the, will the, will the, will the, will the, will the, will, and will get to more. that next week. But honestly, a lot of the sizzle for me on an NFL draft just isn't there because

the Texans have nothing to do unless Rossi, they take their two second round picks and try to bump themselves up in the first round. That's the only thing. Could you see the Texans doing that? Well, of course. Everything is a possibility. All this helps the Texans because, you know, they were, I mean, were they going to throw a draft party as is for the first round? Did they throw in last year? I think so, right? Did anybody go to a Texans draft party last year? Not at your own house. I'm talking about like over at NRG. Did they even have they had second round picks last year? What year

was it where they didn't have a pick into the third round? I can't remember. Was that two years ago? It's happening way too often. Seriously, unfortunately. Yeah, Houston Texan's draft party April 25th last year. Yeah, because they had a second round pick, right? I don't have the draft in front of us. I'm just trying to think I'm the top. Point being is that you could have a draft party for the Rockets and it would be, well, you know what last year's Rockets' draft party was? The unveiling of the new

uniforms. That's true. Because Darrell doesn't keep the draft picks. When's the next first round draft pick in this city? Well, the Astros don't have it for this year or next year. The Texas don't have it for this year and next year, right? The Rockets don't have it for the, so we're looking at three drafts, three sports teams, all in one city, none of them have first round picks. Oh, that's right. They didn't have a first round pick. It was Titus Howard. Oh, then they did have a party for the right reason. Yeah, the year before, I think maybe. Maybe it was when they didn't have one. Didn't they not have anybody to the third round or something?

I can't remember. Because I got to get rid of the second round pick for, well, we're mixing up drafts. It's very confusing. Yeah, it is. And again, the end of the day is, it's going to be screwed up anyway. All right, one o'clock on Sports Talk 790. News on Jeff Leno and A.J. Hinch, next. Is the Matt Thomas Show.

We'll go in the second hour, the Matt Thomas Show, at 103. If you like to join us, you can all throughout the course of the day at 713-212-2-5. 790, 713, 212-5-790. If you want to reach out through Twitter, it's at SportsMT, at SportsRV, and at Pro Nick Lowe. What's our thing called on Fridays again? The great debate. The Friday great debate. I've got to write that down.

I'm going to get you some ginko-beloba. Whatever that is. Oh, it's from memory, I'm guessing, right? Yes. Okay, shoo. The Friday great debate. Exactly. We will let you guys dictate two topics.

every Friday at 1230 and 130 and 130 for the foreseeable future. So that'll be tomorrow and I'll put the poll question up probably some time tonight and let you guys vote and we'll do that as at 1230 and 130

every Friday on the show. Your buddy, Jeff Passon, Ross, says that... Is he my buddy? Well, no, Buster only, who's actually a friend of the show. Is he? I think I've had him on once or twice.

Okay. So when you're on ones or twice, I can see you a friend of the show. How does an adult male get the name Buster these days? And I guess the bigger question is, how long do you keep it? Like, Mr. Buster's real name. Let's say it's Doug.

I have it. Doug only. What is it? Robert Stanberry only, the third. So it can be Robert only. Or Bob only. What about Buster Douglas? I mean, who are the great busters of the last 30 years?

Is there a Buster posy? Yes. Saying. Dust Buster. That doesn't count. Ghost Buster? Buster Posey's name is Gerald Dempsey Posey the third Wait, he's a third too

Maybe it's just stuck with him at such a young age that You know he said you know it's screwed it'll separate like his mom's like listen here Buster Does it mean you looking at his Wikipedia page? No I don't know I'm asking well then how did he get the name Buster? I don't know look it up you brought this up you brought the Buster mania to the show I just think it's weird in 2020 for a grown man to be named is Buster Well who are all the people in our life that we know that have names

that are not their names. But still get used by them. PJ Tucker's name isn't anything with a P.R.J. It's Anthony Leon Tucker because he's Pops Jr. You use your middle name. That's true. That's okay. My parents did that. It was my choice. But, like, Chile. I'm okay with me. If you want to call me Paul, that's okay.

You ever remember Chili Davis? Chili Davis is, or you got the Booth Bonser, like you said. He legally changed his name. That's how whack up that was. All right, so let me get back to this before we think of other people. So Buster found out that the one-year ban suspensions that A.J. Hinch and Jeff Luno are going through right now are still underway. That it wasn't based on whether or not there'd be a baseball season. It was a calendar date suspension.

So if they want to be a general manager or a manager of a baseball team in the 2021 season, they will be able to do so. Now, that's not necessarily good news or bad news. It just shows you that I think there were people that were asking, do these suspensions come into play regardless of whether there's a season or not? And so the answer to that is no, that the suspension is based on a calendar, or not on whether there's a season. That only seems fair. If the players are getting service time, if Mookiee bets, even if there's no season,

it's going to be a free agent afterwards, although I think the latest is they're trying for 100 game season, Matt? Something like that. Anyways. Yeah. Yeah, it only makes sense that Jeff Luno and A.J. Hinch's suspensions would be, filled out after this year, but I mean, I think it's going to be a couple years before. Well, it's funny because as soon as the suspensions were out,

you and I asked our audience, will either one of them get a job? And I think the overwhelming response was that A.J. Hinch will be a manager again. I think the overwhelming response was that Jeff Lino will not be a general manager again. Again, nobody knows the answer these things. Now, if there were no PR hits to be taken and I'm an owner, I'm

going with Luno over Hinch. Because he built the franchise from scratch. Right. Well, here's the issue. We did that almost immediately after the announcement was made. The brushback from America, which was still very strong up until the suspension of the season, do you think that...

I'm going to say, I believe this. I believe AJ is going to have to wait a lot longer than I thought he was going to. I said, I mean, I said at the time, I think it's going to be a couple of years. I know there were a couple of people I was arguing with and disagree with. agreeing with that said he was going to be back next year. I thought that was in no way in hell. Way too soon. Okay. So let's do this. He's, he's, he's radioactive right now. He just is. Okay, let's do this. Let's put it in the year 2023. April 2020, is A.J. Hinch a manager of a baseball team? I'll say no.

Is A.J. Hinch in a baseball position with any organization, April 2020. Honestly, I have to say no. Okay. Jeff Lennon, April 223. That's a hell no. Okay. They're both young. I'll push it a little further. April 2026. No. Well, then you're then leaning more towards saying, they're never going to do it.

I'm starting to think this is effectively a lifetime band. I can see. It could happen. I can see AJ being a scout. I think with the next, yeah, and then in progressing somewhere, but. What I did say, I do remember saying this, is that AJ's not going to be able to go from one managerial hat to the other right away. He's going to have to take a lesser responsibility, lesser high-profile

job to get back in the good graces of sports. Let me tell you something, Ross. We are seeing coaches in all the sports, managers, whatever you want to call them, getting second and third chances. Rick Patino ran a completely dirty, dirty, dirty program at Louisville. He did for many, many, many years and probably had a checkered pass even before that. Rick Patino is back in college basketball. Now, granted, it's at Iona.

That's what I'm saying. If Louisville is, if we want to say, consider that pro sports, Iona, while it's still Division I. Absolutely. It's not even close to the tier of what Louisville is. No, it'd be like for AJ's situation, managing a majorly baseball team. Or AAA or something. I would say I don't know is even A.

I would say low, I would say in A level. I don't think he has to do that. I don't think he has to go cut his teeth in minor league baseball. I could envision AJ doing some score of scouting. Maybe, you know, he does have a front office background. He did so with the Padres for a while after he got let go by the Arizona Diamondback. So it's not like that he doesn't have the ability to jump into a front office if he wants to. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

But I think... I think in a couple years, it still won't be anything. But I think AJ, if players, if a particular team called, say, a 35-year-old George Springer or a 34-year-old Jose O'Tuvuvian. Remember back seven, eight years ago when AJ was your manager? Would you like him to be your manager? I think those guys will give him some glowing reviews. You're not asking me if I think he can do a good job because we both think that they can both do great jobs at whatever they do. You're right. That's right. The question is, is PR. Will whatever team be willing to take the PR hit?

I did underestimate the amount of blowback that AG is getting. And even though he did the interview, even though he did the interview on MLB Network, it didn't help. It didn't hurt him. But it certainly didn't go, okay, now we understand what you're going. It hurt him in some of people's eyes when he didn't answer directly the question about the buzzers. But then he did later clarify. but of course it's one of those cats already out of the bag thing and people have already made their judgment.

The number one thing that he did in that interview that probably hurt him if there was such a thing is that he said, you know what? I knew about this and I should have stopped it.

It was all the things that we presumed he was going to say but he did publicly say it for the first time. The non-answer about the buzzer thing, I think hurt him a lot in that interview. People were,

I mean, that video was played on Twitter a million times. Yeah. And they had to come back 36 hours later and kind of clarify his position. And then, I mean, but once that's already out, Yeah, the clarification never seems to typically work.

It never has the impact of what originally happens. All right. So Henschen Leno can return to baseball coming up in 2021. What team would want to do that? My guess is if Jeff Leno ever becomes a general manager again in baseball, it would be for a team that has had Rossi record futility that has had a 15, 20 year drought in the playoffs. Like if you think of the five worst franchises in baseball. Yeah.

I could think it would have to be somebody that our PR is so bad, who cares? We need to hire Jeff. Detroit, Cincinnati. I'm thinking about teams that have been, I don't think Derek Jeter would hire him down with the Marlins. The Orioles already have Michaelis. Michaelis, he's got a background, yeah. Under Jeff for a while.

He was probably going to, I imagine he'll be okay. I don't know. Seattle hasn't been in the playoffs since the late 90s, right? Since that team that won a bunch of games. 2001, was it? Whatever that was, yeah. That's who I see. Jeff going to.

I don't think he's going to be back in baseball. I don't. My guess is that he'd be better served. He's going to make a lot of money, whatever he does. He made a lot of money. He's really smart. He came from not logistics. What was it he was doing before? I don't even remember.

But it wasn't baseball related. His job before he went to the Cardinals was not baseball related and he was doing well there. And his brother works for the Wall Street Journal. I mean, that's a smart family. He doesn't, I don't think, unless he can handle the eagle bruising, Jeff doesn't need baseball anymore.

Yeah, he was working for a consulting firm. So, yeah, there's, he doesn't need his baseball as much as say AJ does. Although AJ is smart guy too. AJ isn't working baseball. AJ is born of baseball. He loves baseball. He breathes baseball. And I mean, that doesn't mean Jeff Lynn, I'm saying Jeff Luna I didn't care about baseball,

but it's more in AJ's DNA than it is in Jeff Luna. I'll say this. AJ would be a great baseball analyst on television. Oh, that's a good. I mean, if I was Fox or ESPN and, and, And Jeff's like, you know, AJ's thinking, well, maybe I won't be able to get back into baseball again. You know what? That might even be.

Because let me tell you something. Steve Phillips, the general manager for the Mets that got through all the other personal problems in the past. He's back on MLB radio doing stuff. Yeah. You know what? We're talking about bridges where he would start off broadcasting and then going back to the booth, back to the dugout. That's possible. We've seen that before.

Yeah. No question. Hmm That's actually not the If that's the move that AJ has to do To get back into good grace of baseball That might be it Because I'll tell you he'd be fantastic

He'd be analytical He'd be funny He'd have something to say Yeah we've seen guys get fired or whatever And not necessarily get suspended But yeah And then go into the booth Pete Rose has been in the booth

Pete had a radio show for many many years Now granted he was still Benning the Pony's But he wasn't really learning his lesson But that's really his issues Yeah, that's true. 114 on the Matt Thomas show. One major league pitcher says that he envisions baseball being played, but it might be not on his home field.

We'll discuss that next. 114. The Matt Thomas Show, 713-212-5-790. Matt has eye trouble. He's having trouble seeing Dallas win anything anytime soon. Sorry about that, friends to the north. Back to the Matt Thomas show. Speaking of the Rangers, or Dallas,

Evan Grant, who covers the Rangers for the Dallas Morning News, just to put out a few minutes ago, that their left-handed pitcher James Jones tore his Patella tendon in Arizona. You want to know how he did it? I do. Would you like to take three guesses? You're right?

Yeah, go ahead. I brought this microphone too close to myself, and I'm very... Oh, there's debris on it? You better wipe that thing off right this second. That's gross. Okay. I'll skip the guessing part. He

tripped over his son's toys, one of them, and is out for the entire season. What? That's a lie. Yeah, and Jeff Kent was washing his truck, and Moises Alu was on the treadmill. Do we believe that, guys? James Jones, tearing his Pateller,

tended in Arizona when he tripped over one of his son's toys and is out for the season. i.e. he was having an affair with his wife, with somebody else not his wife, and his wife beat him up. Wait a minute. That's a little much. That may be a little much. But which won't? Do we still believe that Carlos Correa was getting a massage? You know what? I will go yes. I think it's possible that he, from a diving catch, it was already basically broken and then the massage made it worse.

Yeah. And I do believe that I do believe the Astros did not. authorize a massage therapist that wasn't a part of the team that that was also a problem too that they they had specific people to do massages in sports therapy and that kind of thing and I think that he went on his own and when you go on your own with some things sometimes can make sticks can happen well you know Matt one of the stories also was Aaron judge and his rib problem before all this came down and he had hurt himself in an outfield catch so that's what makes me think first of all shouldn't these guys be wearing some kind of kind of protective gear in the ribs.

Flag jacket? Something like that? Yeah, rib protectors. That would limit their mobility though, big time. Not that much. Out in the field? If you just got a jacket on or whatever? Oh, for sure.

No. You're going to tell me, Aaron Judge can't turn to the side? I'm not telling them to put some medieval armor on. No, I'm talking about shortstops can't do it. They couldn't wear what quarterbacks wear in the NFL? Yeah. Yeah.

Corterback, Deshaun Watson's not mobile? Oh, I guarantee you. You would limit shortstaps. Now, outfowners might be able to do it, but it will also make them a step slower. They're carrying something around them. It's not, I don't think this is as restrictive as you're thinking. Well, can you find us something that's lean like that? That would be able to, that would be a thin layer that would still obviously protect but not hold the player down.

I find that to be, not that I'm saying that sports medicine can't find something like that, but it would seem to be. Yeah, I think they'll have something a little protective. That wouldn't be too bad. I don't know. I think athletes, especially ones like shortstops that are diving all to their left for their right behind. them all over the place, when I want to have anything that would restrict them

from making a play like that. I don't think you'd be that restrictive. Okay. You and I would disagree on these things. Okay. Okay. So are you calling BS or you call it on the injury?

BS. Do we know what kind of toy it is? Was that released? Does it matter the size? Maybe. Size does matter, Matt. Yeah, but you could trip over a roller skate and hurt yourself just as bad as if it was.

It was a big or a big transformer kind of thing, right? Did he slip on the roller skate? Was it like a skateboard? Did he have? And he rolled all the way outside and fell down? I'm going to assume that James Jones. How old is James Jones?

He can't be very old. I don't know. He's probably got a young child, so, I mean. 31. Okay, so 31. He doesn't have a 12-year-old unless he's... He might. I mean, there's a chance, but I'm...

The presumption is he's probably the kid is probably four or five. He could have a 17-year-old, Matt. That'd be gross. You're always trying to take a shot. stories and put him in really awkward positions. I'm just saying it's possible. Well, clearly it's possible, but not probable. He could have a 17-year-old who was on the draft radar for MLB.

And he's 31? I would have called Child Protective Services immediately on that. All right. So, Zach Britton, a guy that was on the Astros radar for a couple of years, currently a member of the New York Yankees, telling New York telling MLB radio that about five, and he may have been speaking out of turn, frankly, on this. Britain telling MLB or network radio that about five sites have been talked about in meetings about potentially getting the season back up and running.

Quoting him, this is Zach Britton of the Yankees. I'm not sure if I should say anything about this publicly, but there are four or five sites that are up in the air that MLB and the union have slightly discussed that these are spots that have the resources, facilities, hotels that could host a major league team if we could at that point. He didn't specify which cities would be prime hosting spots, but let's do this easily. We can knock out the ones that aren't. New York, Yankee Stadium, City Field. Gone. No chance. Fenway Park, no chance.

AT&T Park, no chance. Dodger Stadium, no chance. Angel Stadium, no chance. My guess is if you were to guess the five. Houston, lots of hotels in downtown. Arizona, Chase Field, closed stadium, lots of hotels. I would not include Arlington in the mix because it's a new facility, and there are not a lot of hotels in the Arlington area.

Warm weather cities. Atlanta, I've not been in that new stadium, but that's outdoors, that's heat, and that potentially could be, I don't know if the new area has the down. I mean, I'm thinking of downtown metropolitan areas that have either really great weather or roof stadiums that have hotels. San Diego would be one of them. Well, no, you don't want to go to California at all, do you? Is it bad over there?

Well, I think the whole state's on a shutdown at this point. Oh, that's not good. Yeah. So you go, Houston, Arizona, who else would host neutral site baseball games? They could go to Arlington. They could just all live at six flags or the water park across the street. That'd be cool.

You're on segment suspension. That was my goal. Who else would be a great? weather. You don't want any rainouts. You don't want to be going through all that. You need them to be closed up. Who else has dome stadiums that you can go with?

Course Field's going to have strange-ass weather, plus Denver's weird. Who might forget? There would be a lot of scoring there in Denver. And they can be going to the medicinal shops for quite a bit. Who else would be a great place? I mean, if they're thinking four or five, who am I forgetting about? Look at the major league. I'm looking.

Florida is retractable, Miami. Well, Miami would be one, yeah. Milwaukee is retractable. Don't have enough hotels. How many hotels do you need? One or two? But if you're trying to get 30... Toronto's completely shut down. Nobody gets to go to Toronto at all.

T-Mobile Park in Seattle probably want to stay out of there. Nope, no, thank you. Tropicana Field, ew. Well, I mean, Tampa. St. Pete's got hotels. And that's it. That's it as far as the... There's only one state... stadium left in major leagues with a fixed closed roof in his Tropicana field.

Yeah. I think you've got to do a combination of... Everybody else is open or retractable. Good weather, good hotels, and not in the states of California, Washington State, or New York. Or for that matter, Massachusetts. Because what you don't want to do is if you're going to take... If you're going to bring a bunch of teams into a city, you do not want to worry about weather under any circumstance.

And I would think closed roofs or warm weather venues would be a good spot. again, California would seem to make sense, but California doesn't want any of this either. They don't want any more people in that state than they have to at this point. So just to kind of show you what Major League Baseball is thinking. That, that would seem really weird too. But you could really, Ross, you could really do that. If you're clearing baseball players,

you could put them in one or two cities and have played, you know, have five or six teams in an area and play each other six or nine times. But what are we doing here? I don't know. We're video gaming a season. Yeah, well, I mean, they got to make their money. Players got to play. We got to watch the ESPNs and the MLB networks and all the local people, all the local networks, they need their games.

But at the end, if we don't have any, if we're like we are today in 90 days where people are still afraid to get out of their house and normal life is not resumed. Don't say that. Don't put that hate on us, Ricky Bobby. You know what I'm saying. It would be a video game. It wouldn't be a real season. You can't root for your favorite baseball team when they're playing in a neutral site game for 100 times a year.

I'd watch. Well, of course, I'd watch. But are we going to be really vested in it? I mean, what's the alternative? The alternative is no season at all. Well, the alternative also is that you're not going to put 300 baseball players in a stadium and risk them getting sick. No matter what sport we're talking about, football, basketball, baseball,

whatever, we've got to get better. Or all of this talk of neutral site, no fan buildings, is moot. We've got to get better before we even think about this. And I don't want to say we're against the clock here, but in some respects, we are. Because you can't jumble everything in the world of sports between October 1st and December 31st. You just can't. None of places to put the games, too many venues being used. You're then trusting all these cities to be able to have.

I mean, will New York be able to have any fans at any of their games for the next 12 months? I don't know. This is our surreal reality. And we got a draft in three weeks. And the NFL in early April is going to put out their schedule. But will they even play it? Early May. Early May.

That's why they push it back a month. No, I think it's actually going on as schedule. Is it usually in May when they put it out? I guess it is because the draft. That's true. That's true. I get my months mixed up. I don't know. It just seems...

I see, yeah, because March lasted about six months. It just seems... Can we do this for a year? Can we live with a neutral site world? I guess the answer is yes, because we at least would have games. Yeah, so I'm saying. The alternative, you want nothing or you want 100 games in some kind of weird scenarios where everything gets compressed.

But will our audience have the passion for it? I don't know. I'm not going to be watching. The Astros will have a... Well, at least I'll know their fish... If Minuteman Parks one of them, at least they'll have the facility. They'll know, and they have built the team around their... stadium.

But live from Minute Maid Park, it's the New York Yankees against the Seattle Mariners. I guess, you know. Weren't the Yankees scheduled to have that Field of Dreams game? Can't they just play the whole season there? In Iowa? Nobody lives in Iowa. Yeah. Play an entire season in Iowa?

Well, they have this. They just built a new field there. There's no hotels for those people. They put up some temporary housing. You're going to put them in log cabins? Yeah, I want to hear about this temporary. housing. Tense,

they can rough it. You're going to put Yankee players in tents. Sean Carl Stanton, tent number 19

that's yours. Yeah. That's what they try to do with that concert down in Florida, right? What was the

documentary we watched, Ross? It was about the concert that never happened. The concert event where

everybody got together and the publicity people couldn't Oh, the Fire Fest? Baseball Fest. Temporary

housing, playing in middle of softball fields. And they were putting them in FEMA tents at the Fire Fest. To get him to 100 games. Yeah, we'll put them in FEMA tents.

Aye, aye, aye. 1.30 on the Matt Thomas show. Neutral sights. Minute Maid Park will have 300 baseball games this year. You'll be able to go to none of them. Hopefully, what I just told you was a complete utter fabrication. 129. 713-212-790.

No games. There are no sporting events. But around here, your Houston Sports Talk never stops. No list radio. No celebrity birthdays. Wait a minute. Not even Beyonce.

Not even Taylor? Oh, isn't that all? The Houston Sports Talk continues on Sports Talk 790. Our buddy, Chris Gordy, just sent me an email how you can connect via cameo with the members of the Tiger King cast. Even Joe Exotic? No, he's not available. I don't think he's going to be available. All right.

So let's try to figure it. I'm going to see. I just opened this up. I don't even know if there's a price on these guys. Let me see if I can find a price. Ross, I'm going to try to see if you can guess the price of what it would talk to talk to these people. Oh, here it is. Okay.

Don't look it up. Let me, real quick. And do you'll see you in just a second. If you would like to visit with Kelsey Safari. Who's that? She's the woman who had her armpit off by the tiger. Why do I need a cameo from her? I'll say...

I'll do a range game. You're within $10 either way. 50 bucks. It's $50. Oh, nice. I don't have it pulled up. You can look at my... Good, good.

I was going to say 100. I was like, if they're charging for 100 for her? Joshua Dow, who was the campaign manager for the Tiger King's run for president and or governor. He's in $50 as well. Oh, nice. Let's take a look here. How much for the hitman? Tawney Ante, who is one of the women that is...

Antal? Antel. Yeah, it's Antle. One of the women that is married to Doc Antle, allegedly. We'll go for three straight 50 bucks. She's $95. Oh, my gosh. Okay. Next.

Pass. James Garrison, he was the fat dude on the Wave Runner. that was helping set up. That man's a hustler. That man's a hustler. He wants at least $100. He's $99. Oh, nice.

Help me out with this one. Doc Antel's going to want at least $200. Who is John Finley? Was he one of the husbands? John Finley. I think so. Or was he just an employee? I think he was the husband without the teeth.

Yeah, his teeth are back. This person's got teeth now. John Finley I'll say I'll say 75 he's gonna be a bargain 75 dollars

no way I'm not even looking I swear all right last but certainly not least Doc Antel he's gonna want like at least 200

he's he's very diva you didn't see the list either did you 2 to 250 I'm gonna say 200 I'm gonna say 150 it's 125 dang he really so just to recap this

wait how much for Carol oh Jeff Lowe I forgot about Jeff Lowe. Jeff Lowe. Another hustler. I'll go 200. I'll say

130. Jeff Lowe is a very reasonable $95. Okay. No carol. Hey, all you cool cats and kittens.

Yeah, I don't see her on the list here. So let's recap this for those of you just joining us. Jeff Lowe is $95. I want to answer the phone like that all the rest of my life now. Hey, cool cats and kittens.

Kelsey Saffrey, the woman who had our arm bit off. Oh, you know, that should be my would a voicemail. Hell, you cool cats and kittens. This is Ross Vier Realt. Thanks for calling. Joshua Dowell, the campaign manager,

50. John Finley, 75. James Garrison, the, what would you call him? The fat snitch. Yeah. The fat snitch.

And he said at the end, this thing ain't over. Yeah. Who is Cody Antle? He also works at the annual sanctuary. That's his son. Okay. Who looks exactly like him.

He's $108. Cody is almost as much as Doc. Get over yourself. He wasn't even in the show very much. Yeah, he was. He was in for like five minutes. Tawny, one of the wives, is at $95, and she's heavy. Who?

Toney. Who's that? Kattain. No, T-A-W-N-Y, Antle. It's either a daughter or one of the wives. Oh, yeah, I'm looking at her. Oh, yeah. She's heavy.

If you're into that kind of thing. Wow. This is crazy. Is that his daughter? And then Doc Antel is $125. So there you go. I have tried to do cameos. I sent them like, hey, I will do some people's birthdays and stuff.

They never responded back to me. Is that one of those things where if you have to ask, you're not qualified? That's it clearly. Because it does offer you. It says, hey, would you like to be a person? And I'm like, yes, I would. There's some more Tani Antel. She has an Instagram.

Oh, yes, that's not a daughter. That's definitely one of the wives, right? She kind of looks like him a little bit. We can find out for sure. Could be a daughter. She could be both. That's gross. That's terrible

All right Yeah who is she Find out who she is What the relationship is It doesn't matter Sure it does Why She's 17 it makes you feel creepy

She's 31 it's all good So is it worth Is it worth spending the money To get them to do a bunch of liners For the show God you know what That's what we would want Because they can really do anything

We wanted them to right She's older Thank goodness I think Double triple check So cameo's got a side hustle with the Tiger King people. This is crazy. Toney Antle has pictures with her and Odell Beckham Jr.

Well, there comes a zero surprise. Maybe we're going to get Tony on the show. How much does that cost? I'm not paying for guest. That's not how we roll here. Let's go to... If you cameo them, can you get them as a guest? No, we could have him do liners.

Hi, this is Jeff Lowe. When I'm not throwing my partners on the bus, I'll listen to the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. Yeah, he's a grifter. A lot of these guys, I mean, they're all grifters, right? At the end of the day. Joshua, I'm Josh Dyle. I helped Joe Exotic run for governor,

and I want you to listen to the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. You know, Nikki, you've not bought me anything since we've been working together. Now's the time. Have you been expecting them to? I can only afford the lady who got her arm ripped off. Yeah, what was she, 50 bucks? And she was back on the job within seven days. She didn't want the job.

The press to win, Matt. Well, the press didn't win. She won. Dosecchi's on 790 at 139. D.E., what do you got today? Hey, Maddie, I wasn't going to do this, but since you say that you do people's birthdays, guess who's birthdays today? Doc Antle. Your best listener of all time, Dosecis.

It's your birthday today? Yes, sir. Nice. Congratulations. What are you about 45-46? Man, I wish it was. Matt, even though I just turned a big six-four. I still look like in my 40s now. Yeah, you do. You're a handsome man. No question about that.

Hey, hey, listen, if you can't do in the day, can I answer a special request? If you can play that song, Mrs. Dozeckis and I've gone on 42 years of marriage, if you just play the song, one of Kenny Rogers or one of the temptations, whichever you want, or kindergarten registers are like through the years. But I've spent the day so far. It's been an awesome day with me. I spent it with my son, Shannon, my grandson, Easton, and Mrs. Dosekis had a good time. I just wanted to call. I haven't called on a long time, and I just want to tell you guys to take care of yourself and listen to you every day.

Well, thank you. Please, this health is what's going on in health. It's very important. That's why I have to take real care of myself because the immune system has to do with my issue. But I'm doing great. I can't complain. I'm blessed. Thanks for taking my call.

Good idea about the Minamay Park being one of those parts to have a game. out there and just bang I'm in the trash cans. Thank you, Matt. Rossi and Ross. Take care. Go bless you guys. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. No more trash can talk. We don't talk trash cans on this show. We are anti-trash. Well, it's a matter. We just talked about Tiger King, though. Yeah. That was trash TV.

What I have, if we had, if we had games, would we be watching Tiger King, would have gotten this much steam? No. It wouldn't have gotten this much steam. It probably would have been a big, fascinating thing, but it wouldn't have taken over as much as it has. Because I feel like now, and not everybody has Netflix, but I feel like that more people

have seen it than they have not. There's no way you can possibly guess that. You think over 50% of America has seen it? It's still number one on Netflix over Ozart. Over 50% of America probably didn't have Netflix, right? No, that's correct. But I feel like that at least if you and I were to go on a walk

in a park and social distance properly, and we said, Joe Exotic, people would know who he is. How many? 40%. I think 4 out 10 people. Probably.

I think more than that. I get it 6 out of 10. No, I think that's I think Nick's way overselling it. I would say 40% of America knows who Joe Exotic is. And I think if we had sports and we had regular lives,

that number we'd closer to about 25. So you're saying he should run for president again? I'm saying that he's bat-blank crazy. Yeah, we know that. And he should not run for office and he's probably not going to get out of jail. He's quarantined right now. I mean, he'll get out of the president.

at some point. He's only got 22 years. They're probably only served like probably less than 10 of that. But is he behaving himself? I hope so. They Corona quarantined him because they moved him jails because of some cases of Corona had broken out in his previous jail. So they moved him and quarantined him. You're a little way too on top of this, Nick.

What else are Nick going to do? Our sister station, KCRH, did a story on that. See? He's listening to the newsletter. Were you interviewed as part of it or what? I mean, you don't think Nick could pipe. pass off his employee at the zoo? I'm growing my stash and my mullet out right now. Look at my beard. I can be go work for the zoo

here pretty soon. Wexler's got the beard going. Wexler's the beard king at the station right now. People we miss hearing from, Craig Ackerman joins us in 15 minutes. He is one of the Rockets broadcasts. We'll see what's going on in his world. How much he misses the NBA. And what he thinks about maybe everybody assembling in Las Vegas or the Bahamas.

713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-5-6. 790 on Twitter at SportsMT, at SportsRV, and at Pronick Lowe. It's the Matt Thomas show. We thank you so much for listening to Sports Talk 790. Beijing, Dr. 790. You may not have the coronavirus, but you've tested positive. Yes, positive for... I need 10 Cs of Bill O'Brien.

Houston Sports Fever. Defiantly, we gather in large groups and continue the spread. They are a conduit to the fans. Sports Talk 790. The Houston Sports Sports. Talk continues. Time is 146. It is the Matt Thomas show. Field Yates is a reporter for ESPN.

He just tweeted out eight minutes ago. Laramie Tunsell appearing on NFL Live regarding a possible extension. Quote, I'm not going to talk numbers as I'm going to keep that between me and the club. I am looking to be the highest paid linemen, of course. I work my butt off to be in this position and hopefully we can make that happen. that makes plenty of sense right it's his turn to get paid he has a value and the texans already have said if it's accurate 18.5 million dollars of a starting point not an endpoint but it would put him as a highest rank alignment if he signed 18 and a half million dollars a day so I went to look at the

replies bong scene gas mask not even good started with classic bong now he's here mean you know the photo that's out there So if he was to look at all of the replies, 60% of them involve him in a bong, or you're not good enough. Well, the bong's okay now, though, right? And Aaron Wilson just tweeted out one minute ago about it as well. Not necessarily new information. He just says Texan's initial offer of $18.5 million would make him the highest paid offensive lineman in the NFL. He looks to reset tackle market significantly higher.

No deal is imminent, but talks are going well. It just says but going well so far. as in talks are going well. Well, if talks are going well, that means that that 18.5 is already out the window. Yeah, and we had a Joel Corey on yesterday, who was a former agent, he said that's a good faith first offer from the Texans. So it's probably a good thing that the Texans made that offer and then they'll go from there. Like the Texans aren't low-balling them, because then that's when things get contentious, right?

When he becomes the highest paid at his position, which he will, we will then have the microscope on him every single play. Like I am one of those people that don't particularly care how much a player makes. Ross, the moment that DeAndre Hopkins was traded, I did not know he was the sixth highest paid wide receiver in the NFL. I just don't keep track of numbers per se. But I think if you're the number one paid player at a particular position and he's on a team that you care about and talk about,

then you do care about those type of things. And I think of Laramie Townsell is the highest paid left tackle in the game he better be freaking incredible next year. You know, we teased about the offensive, the false starts. That was a problem last year. I know no one wanted to make a big deal of it, but Bill O'Brien would say we have to stop these pre-snap penalties. What he should have been saying is we have to have Laramie Tunsell stop

with these pre-snap penalties because he was doing it more than anybody else. I mean, it was very out of the ordinary firm. I think it was very, I think it was a lot higher than his previous. Yeah, for sure. And you could chalk for it up to a new team. new scheme, different cadences. I mean, look, I don't envision Laramie Tensel having nearly as many false starts as he had in last year. But all I'm saying is when you want to be the rich guy, the richest of the rich.

And that rich as the rich happens to be on your team, you're going to watch every move that he makes with a lot more seriousness than you would if he was only to say the fifth highest paid offensive linemen. You're going to watch every step he takes? Every move he makes. I'll be watching him. Okay. That's exactly right. All right. Matter of fact, we're going to let's you Nick play what Laramie just had to say in NFL live moments ago. I'm not going to talk numbers.

I'm going to leave that between me and the club, the Texas. But I'm looking to be the highest pay off Islam, of course. I feel like I work my butt off every day just to be in that position and hopefully we can make it happen. Yeah. But we, yeah. Good hearing his voice as compared to me just reading it. But, yeah, I mean, yeah, this is his turn chance. He knew this day would come, and it could be a year from now.

Because, again, there's no deadline, per se, to make this happen today. And look, everybody tells him how good he is. He's greened out that way. How does pro football focus, Quate, Larry Towns? He put him a 21st out of 80-something tackles. So upper quarter? Yeah. Not upper one, not upper 10.

But of those 20 people in front of him, how many of them are due for contracts this year? Who knows? I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. Don't worry about figuring that out. It was just his turn to get paid. And on top of it, the Texans gave up a tremendous amount of draft capital in order to make this happen.

Yeah, I'm pulling it up here. Yeah, they have, for example, Lane Johnson, who is the highest paid, right? 18 million. They had them at third at 88.8 grade. They have 21st. Is Army Tunsel with a 75.1 grade? Hey, just ahead of Duwantuan. Brown, who's 23rd with a 74.1 grade.

See, that's why Laramie's got all the leverage on this. The Texans have been looking for that long-term left tackle answer. The Texans have gone after Laramie on different occasions. They finally got him. They didn't renegotiate his contract immediately when they probably should have. And so he knows that a lot was given up for him. It's a position of need. And the Texans have made through moves, through not resigning DJ Reader,

and sending Deidre to Arizona that there is money that was earmarked for him. So what is it going to do, Ross? He's going to take as much money of that the earmarked money for himself. And that's why Joel Corey said on this show and on a tweet, it might as well be a blank check.

When you are starting off your negotiation as the highest paid player at your position in the game, you've won the negotiation battle. It's just going to be different. and I think Laramie has to understand that, and he does. I guarantee you, Ross, if Laramie Tunsell commits two offensive false start penalties in a game, you're going to have everybody that's calling from the Larry and Staffords,

any of the diehard Texans, Karen, are going to say, we're paying this guy $21.5 million a year for him to jump offside three times a game? I think that'll be less of a concern. I hope. Than him getting beat by somebody off the edge multiple times. We will spend more time looking at his production, more than anybody else. And that's okay. I'm sure he doesn't mind.

I'm sure the Texas don't mind. That's what comes to the territory. It is what it is. Yeah, you're getting paid $20 million. You're going to have more microscope, more eyeballs on you. Like how many times have the Texans had the highest paid player at their position on the team? JJ, was he the highest paid at the time? I believe so, yes. Okay. That didn't last very long. He was the highest paid defensive player in football for like a year.

Or maybe it was like in a couple of weeks or something like that. Those things will always move. And part of that is kind of cool that your team would spend the money on the upper Eschalant player like that. I just hope it's not money poorly spent, but the Texas put themselves in a bind because of what they had to do to go get him. And Laramie's taking advantage of that. It's good for him. That's why I didn't need an agent. Laramie Tenzel didn't need an agent to figure out that he had the Texans right where he wanted him. Brian and downtown at 154 on 790. Brian, how are you? Hey, Matt, how you doing, buddy? You think we could interest Arizona and

Satan left tackle for a number one driver receiver? I'm just pulling your leg, buddy. Hey. What I wanted to know was, have you heard anything about this Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning versus Tom Brady and Phil Mickelson? Is that like

just a rumor or is that something that could actually happen? I know they're talking about it, but the PGA has not authorized it yet on any one of their events. I don't know if they have to get clearance from them or not. Yeah, really, I did see that the PGA is not authorized. Why would the PGA need to be authorized to do?

I don't know. All they would need is the golf course to allow it. Yeah. No, but the PGA is getting involved. But why is the PGA getting involved? If two of the most highly recognizable sports athletes want to have a competition, I mean, if James Hardin wanted to go against LeBron James in a one-on-one, would they have to get the ink clear into the NBA?

I don't know. It wouldn't seem like it. Yeah, I don't know why they're even involved. All right. So I just, it's just curious to me to answer your question why it started out as a conversation and it's cooled off a little bit. I guess because they're PGA tour members and it has, this is all it says. It wouldn't, the need, they both need to be signed off because they're PGA tour members. Because I know the NBA.

They did it before. I guess they signed off on it before. Yeah. And the NBA probably is different because those are members that are union and maybe there are rules against. doing activities outside of basketball. But I don't think the PGA took... Maybe the other one was technically out of season, and this one's technically in season?

I don't know. It's just to me, there was a lot of buzz to it early on, and not much after that. Before we get to Craig Ackerman for people we miss, here is more from Laramie Tunsell today on NFL Live. Nicholas Fireaway, please, if you do not mind. This is him being asked about the DeAndre Hopkins trade. What would you make of the recent trade of your teammate DeAndre Hawkins to Arizona?

That one hurts, but, you know, it's a part of the business. I was in that same position. Not even a year ago, I was in that same position. So I know what's about, I know the feeling. It's just, it's all about business. And, you know, we just got to keep moving and continue to win games and work to be the best. And they also went on to ask him about his head coach, Bill O'Brien. Laramie, with the exit of DeAndre Hopkins,

Janadian Clowny, Dwayne Brown, and guys like that, I mean, can you just put into your words how you would characterize Bill O'Brien's leadership and how he deals with big-name players on the team? Billy, oh, that's what I call him. In my opinion, he's doing a great job by laying a team. He's doing everything in his best ability. Like I say, it's time for us to win games

and close our games, in my opinion. But, you know, that's all up to the front office of what they do trading wise. And, you know, I'm just here to help the team win games. That was a wee bit nauseating. What? Play that again. What's wrong? Play it again.

Laramie, with the exit of DeAndre Hopkins, Janadian Clowny, Dwayne Brown, and guys like that. I mean, can you just put into your words how you would characterize Bill O'Brien's leadership and how he deals with big-name players on the team? Billy, oh, that's what I call him. In my opinion, he's doing a great job by laying the team. He's doing everything and his best ability. Like I say, it's time for us to win games and close our games, in my opinion. But, you know, that's all up to the front office of what they do, trading-wise.

And, you know, I'm just here to help the team win games. Well, what's the problem? Well, first of all, he's not going to throw his coach on the bus because he's negotiating a new contract with him. It's true. But it was just... Ugh. Because you hate Bill O'Brien. Doesn't mean everybody does.

Oh, no. Everybody hates Bill O'Brien. Just a lot of people. And Texans fans. Keep going. Not Cal. Cal loves him. Janice loves him.

Janice. And probably half the locker room. Deshawn Watson has talked about how he loves Bill O'Brien. He's not going to love him too much. We don't get a big deal. I don't know. It's just... He will.

It's up to the front office. Well, the front office is Bill O'Brien. O'Brien. Yeah, it's up to Bill O'Brien. It's up to Bill O'Brien. We can all say that Texas do this. Let me tell you, that it's Bill O'Brien doing this and doing that.

Laramie's a guy that cannot crush his player on his coach on his NFL life. I mean, question asked, okay, answer was going to be the same. I mean, it just was just, yeah. Billy O is what I call him. Yeah, it's his boy, Billy O, what's the problem? They're not boys. He's trying to make sure he's getting much money. Let me tell you something.

Let me tell you something. Let me tell you, if he doesn't get a dollar more than $18 and a half million a year, will not be saying I love Billio. I don't think it's completely out of the realm possibility that he likes Bill O'Brien. Well, I would think so. You traded me out of Miami for you to come here, and I'm going to make the most money out of any offensive linemen.

Thank you, Billy O'Brien. That's why I do like you. We visit with one of the voices of the Rockets next, and people we miss hearing from, Craig Ackerman on 790. Is the Matt Thomas show. 3, the final hour of the Matt Thomas show for a Thursday. tomorrow we'll have a Friday great debate at 1230 and 1.30. 2.30 tomorrow we'll have our Fantasy 5, the greatest divas in sports history.

A man who is the anti-diva is television and radio broadcaster for your beloved Houston Rockets. It's our buddy, Craig Ackerman. Craig, I haven't seen you in like, I don't know, four weeks, it feels like. Maybe four months. It's been a long time. It's been a long time, you know. How you doing? Are you holding up?

We're doing all right. talking a lot of NFL draft, your favorite thing. It is my favorite topic. There's no question about that. And Craig, I was asking Matt, if it was okay if I drafted him in the biggest sports divas contest tomorrow? Oh, draft Matt? Yeah. What's the field?

Is it just wide open? Yeah. No, it's not. It's former and current athletes. He's just trying to start blank with me. Oh, okay. If you did a wide open sportscaster field, to Matt's credit, I think you'd be pretty low on that list as well.

Thank you. That's why you're going to be a constant guest on this show. Although, although I generally speaking, I've been off Twitter since the shutdown. I'll glance at it every now and then. Twitter can, as everybody knows, can be a fairly negative place. And it's been, I think even more so during these challenging times. So I've just kind of tried to stay off at it as much as possible. But I've glanced at it every now and then.

but I did notice your response to are you missing the four-star hotels and you corrected them to stay five-star hotels. So maybe you might be a little bit higher on that list than I'm originally thinking. Well, I mean, we do stay in five-star. I mean, it's nice. It's true. It's true. These those are the fact. So, okay, forgetting about your role as a broadcaster and just being a connoisseur of the NBA,

Mark Cuban probably has been the most out there in terms of saying things and being, interviewed because he's always been that way. One week he is overly optimistic and maybe he turned a little bit more of a downer tone this week about the resumption of the NBA. As you as a connoisseur and obviously a broadcaster, what has been your watching of tweets from Woj or watching NBA live or any of the other shows about, you know, when this great game of ours will ever resume again? Well, I will a bit. When everything first went down, my gut told me that things weren't going to get restarted until the middle of May at the earliest. Obviously, as the situation has moved along, me personally, I've kind of revised that.

I'm trying to stay as optimistic and hopeful as possible, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but it will now be somewhere between the 1st of June and the 15th of June. So that's kind of where I've revised my thinking, maybe perhaps I'm a little bit too overly optimistic, but I desperately want to go back to work. I imagine most people listening right now want things to return to normalcy as soon as possible. So I'm trying to stay as optimistic as possible.

So originally I was thinking middle of May, but I think that was overly ambitious and now I'm keeping my fingers crossed that maybe this thing in some form or fashion what that means, I don't know, can kind of get cranked up around the middle of June. Yeah, I was hoping that the resumption the regular season could pick up, and then it went from that to maybe four or five games to

if they have to push this as far as they can, which we don't know what a drop dead date would be, but could they go right to the playoffs? I would hope they wouldn't because I think everybody needs a little bit of a regular season tune up. But what, you know, you've heard Vegas, Bahamas, empty arenas, practice facilities, give me your envision. When we get the all clear, what could we potentially be returning to? Well, you know, I was a, that's a, similar question by Gordy and Indy when I was on Tuesday about, you know, if you had a choice to pick between the Vegas option or a cruise ship option, and I kind of kiboshed the cruise ship. I think if you can sequester, if it comes down to, all right, this is the way

we're going to have to do this. If you can sequester the league, now I don't know what that ultimately would mean for people like us. I have no idea. But if you could sequester the league, i.e. we're talking about players, coaches, support staff in one location to start the resumption of games in some form or fashion. And I think they desperately want to get in

some regular season games. I mean, there's a lot of factors that have to go into this in terms of, you know, the collective bargaining agreement with the players. There are agreements with all the various radio and TV networks for all of these teams that have some triggers in,

particularly with the RSNs, that they have to get in a certain amount games, I believe, before they have to start, I don't know what that number is. I don't know if it's uniform, but before they have to start refunding payments to RSN. So there's a lot of factors that go into this. But I think if they're going to put everybody in one location, to me, with their longstanding relationship with Las Vegas in the NBA Summer League, which has become an enormous success. I mean, it has grown exponentially over the years. To me, I think that would seem like the most logical place. You have a ton of hotel space.

you have quite a few arenas available. And I think from a player perspective, and this is the answer I gave this to Gordy and Indy the other day, I think even if people aren't in the building for the players to play in an actual arena with some seats in it, will give them more of a realistic feel. I think that will benefit them more. And so I think if they're ultimately going to do this,

and they're going to put everybody in one location, And of all the things I've seen bantered around, Vegas seems to me to be the most logical. And again, I could be wrong on this, but it's my understanding that the virus reacts adversely to heat and humidity. And so if we're talking the middle of the summer in Las Vegas, there may not be humidity, but there's a heck of a lot of heat. So who knows? Craig Ackerman with us with us here on the Matt Thomas show. And Craig, let's just turn it to basketball for a second. I would say that even before all this happened, this is one of the more.

bizarre seasons for the Rockets anyways with all the trades and hardens shooting slumps and coming up and coming down and and jelling with Westbrook, I mean, if we're just turning it to basketball only, and I said, summarize what's happened to the Rockets up to this point and where they were, what would you say? It has been an interesting season. You know, the team completely reconstituted itself around the trade. deadline. And so, you know, I still think they were in a period of rediscovering themselves, how ultimately they could play without a traditional five, if you will. I think we saw flashes

of where it was going to be amazing, some issues in terms of where they were going to have to kind of overcome some struggles, the things that they needed to do to be successful playing small, which was play with even quicker pace, more possessions. It had to be able to force a lot more turnover, keep the turnover numbers down themselves to sort of balance out the rebounding discrepancy. And the standings are so tight. I mean, so even though they're a little bit further down

than perhaps maybe a lot of people were expecting and hoping and probably, my guess, would be from an organizational standpoint, further down the standing that they thought they would be. Ultimately, the season started at this point, there's still only a handful of games from jumping up to number two, possibly number three. I think under the circumstances, finishing higher than three was probably ruled out. But I think if they finished third in the West, you know, under normal circumstances with this new lineup, I think everybody would feel pretty comfortable with that and would take that moving forward into the playoffs.

Greg Ackerman, one of the broadcasters for the Houston Rockets with us here on Sports Talk 790. How much retro team NBA watching have you done in the last few weeks? No, it's not my thing. And I may, you know, maybe I'm different, but I'm not a classic game. If I know the result of the sporting events, it typically turns me off. Even if it's something that happened as recently as a week ago, if I know the result of the sporting event, it takes a lot of the oomph out for me. And Matt, as you know, I've become a pretty big. Premier League fan and I have my

team and I can pretty much stay away from when they play seeing the score and so but once I do even if I'm a couple hours behind it ruins it for me. So I'm not much of a classic game watcher but under the circumstances

what else is there right? I mean if you're dying for sports content at this juncture in terms of games that's really all you have and to try to get creative analyzing, discussing, reminiscing all those classic games

is all the sports fans have, unfortunately, right now. The craziest thing for me, Craig, is the style of play. And look, we're about the same age. We were younger in 20s when the Rockets were winning championships. I mean, my teens and when the Lakers and Celtics were going after it, but to put a basketball game on that you see in 2020, compared to a game, even say, in 1995, 25 years ago, night and day would not be a great enough example to discuss the differences in the style of NBA basketball we see today.

How about like no spacing versus tons of spacing? Perfect, perfect. Yeah, the game has changed. The game has changed dramatically over the last five years. And even if you go back five years ago versus where the sport is now versus where it was two seasons ago, the difference in stylistic style has jumped even in the last couple of years as the vast majority of the NBA has sort of embraced and understood the mathematics that are behind the pace and space era of the NBA.

I like now, and I might be the minority. Maybe because we're around it. Maybe we're around it every single night. But I see top of the key jumpers. I see mid-range games. I see centers exclusively in the low block with their back to the basket. I'm thinking, how do these games ever get to 105? I mean, there were games that were like...

Oh, they didn't. I was watching the Sonics and the bullets in 1979. Again, I was going way, way, way back. But they were like going, this is an amazing game. You did that because of the short shorts, right? Okay, don't out me like that. 86, 85, or 30 seconds left to go. And I'm like, 86, 85, that's like mid-third quarter in today's NBA.

Yeah, I think I... And I think since we're in the rocket's bubble, and it's, frankly, it's a bubble. Darrell's philosophy has, and then it's sort of exploded under Mike Dantone. These two guys have changed the way that the NBA game is played. And because we're involved in that, and we know both of them personally, and we have grown to understand the rationale and reason behind why this is the best and most advantageous way to play the sport, I think we have been quicker to adopt that philosophy than some people on the outside. I like exciting high-scoring games. I like the fact

if you're up 15 or you're down 15, the game is not over. 20 years ago, if you were up by 15 points, or you were down by 15 points, pack up your back, and go home. You weren't coming back. But now those leads mean absolutely nothing. Really, a 30-point lead isn't what it was 20 years ago, but a 30-point lead, you probably feel, okay, I feel pretty comfortable with a 30-point lead. And that's why, in particular, you see the Rockets who embrace this style and the, now I'm a little off with the term I'm trying to think. The word escapes me. But the variance that this the style of play results in is why you see dramatic

point swings, particularly with the rocket, because they take this philosophy to its extremes. And so that's why people lament that the rocket can't hold on to a 15 point label. First of all, watch the rest of the NBA, and nobody is doing it either.

But to me, that's what makes these games so exciting, and the reason why you see Mike and Tony with his rotations, he does not pull his regulars, until like two, two and a half minutes left in the game, and again, that's spread right open because he knows that the math will add up quickly,

even if you're up by 15 points, and that's why he does not feel comfortable with those leads because the data reinforces those centers. And again, we're involved in this every day, but yes, I agree. I like the style of play now. I like the fact that there's tons of scoring. I like the fact that it's faster-paced.

I like the fact that you're giving the best athletes in the world an opportunity to showcase their skills at the highest level. And again, I like the fact that there's no such thing as a big enough lead anymore in the NBA. We'll leave you at that. Take care of you and your family, and I look forward to seeing you very soon. I don't know when that's going to be, but hopefully more soon or rather than later. Maybe in Vegas. You never know.

Who knows? Yeah, we'll keep our fingers crossed all the best to you and Ross and everybody at eye heart and all the listeners out there. I hope everybody is safe and healthy, and we can get back to normal as soon as it's safe to do. That's our buddy, Craig Ackerman, Rockets Radio and TV here on Sports Talk 792.17 is our time. We are back with more in just a moment, including, again, Laramie Tunsell, ready to say, yeah, I'm ready to negotiate with the Texans. I want to get paid the most because I deserve it. And it's his turn to get paid, so why not?

We'll discuss that. If you missed the visit with, well, we didn't have a visit. We had, what's the guy's name? Samuel L. Jackson. He had a little poetry for us. We'll run that again for you if you didn't hear it earlier on. And your phone calls are welcome at 713-212-5-7-90. Frequent hand-washing, face mask and toilet paper shortages,

and no fucking sports. We have to quarantine ourselves. Strange times, brother. Strange times. Call for strange sports conversations. Jump on in the freaky fool. Sports Talk 790. 2.21.

on Sports Talk 790. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross and Nick. I'm Matt. If you're home, which hopefully you better be home, if you have never had a chance to call the radio show, you're more than welcome to get in on anything. Again, it's hard for us to necessarily get into a meaty sports topic because there hasn't been any sports for three weeks,

but we've got enough going on. Laramie Tensel's contract situation. As I said before, about three or four days ago, I don't think people are going to be actually awaiting their Twitter release to see in their Twitter account to see if Laramie's got a new deal, but it will show a sign that the Texans have negotiated something in terms of a big contract with a high profile player that actually worked out well. Because everything has been, I mean, Bill O'Brien has signed all these mid-level guys, right?

I mean, who's the most, mid-level to lower? To overpaying for lower-level guys. who has been the most impactful Bill O'Brien signing as a general manager. Now, granted, he's only been the official general manager since the end of this season, but he's been the de facto general manager for probably 5% or anything. There was an article yesterday that ESPN put out, and it had the biggest signings of every NFL team, all 32. Okay.

Listed as the biggest signings for the Houston Texans. Was? The resigning of Bradley Robey? and the signing of Randall Cobb. And it could have been giving DeAndre more money. It could have been the signing of Laramie Tunsell. It could have been the resigning of Deshaunel Watson.

Those things, and they can still happen with those. Yeah, I think it will be amended in a couple of weeks and the Laramie Tunsell deal will get done. Here's the thing about Randall Cobb. Ross, he's going to be fine. He will catch passes for the Houston Texans. He will score some touchdowns. I don't envision him being this,

oh my God, he's 38 years old, can't run around anymore, can't get open. I mean, he still is going to be able to catch some passes in the NFL because, frankly, he's a smart guy, he's been around the NFL a long time, and he understands that if Deshawn Watson keeps the ball on his hands long enough and he escapes pass rush, he'll be able to eventually get away from anybody that's trying to cover him. Randall Cobb coming here is not bad for Randall Cobb's career. The question's going to be, how much pressure does a Randall Cobb and a Kenny Stills, that combination, how much pressure will those two gentlemen have trying to replace the production

of a DeAndre Hopkins? They'll have to get somebody in the draft as well. Are we absolutely sure they're going to go wide receiver in the first round, or the second round? Maybe. No, maybe. If you're saying we're not sure, then the answer is no, you're not sure. Yeah, you go to the board, Matt.

Best available player. Bill O'Brien doesn't have a board like Rick Smith does. Of course he does. Every general manager has a board. No, he's got like, he's got. You're not going to say we absolutely have to take a wide receiver in the second round. No, that'd be foolish. We're going to have our draft contest again.

Uh-oh. The two main positions would be wide receiver and cornerback, correct? Pass rush. You need some pass rush. Because, you know, you don't know if JJ Watts going to be ready to go for you. A full season. Hadn't done it in a while. Yeah, he'll be coming off a torn pack.

And outside of that, I mean, what do we, literally who's their second? If we're saying, even saying J.J. Watt is their best guy getting after the quarterback. Who's number two? Jacob Martin. Wow. That's a massive drop off. That is a massive, massive drop off.

So pass rush. The three things, most important things in football are the quarterback, the man who protects the quarterback, and the man who gets after the quarterback. But who's that deep threat? I guess Wolf Fulow would be the deep threat, provided he can stand the football field. You'll see. Because I think Wolf Fuller's hands were probably better than we thought.

Now, he's had some drops. Every receiver does. He's outrunning his hands have been improved since he's got in the league every year. The only thing is you just can't go to that game's play category and hit 16 on that number. Yeah. Short of that, it's been fine. And the problem is that even when you think he's going to play and you're waiting until like Saturday 8 o'clock for the injury report to come out or who's going to be activated, Then you either get really excited because you're like, wow, this is going to be great.

He's going to be able to play and stretch the field. Or you get this disappointed of, oh, there we go again. He's hurt. We know he's a huge dynamic element to what the Texans want to do. So if he's healthy, which is a huge, if is holding a lot there. Because he has IH injury history. Yes, he does. I will never.

I'll like that you switch down. I will never utter IP ever again. No, it's fine. IH is what we're going with. Yes, very much an IH. This team's got quite a bit of IH. It's football. Yeah, it's true.

I bet every team that we have that has key players as IH issues. All right, Rossi, would you like to read what is on the comment line on the caller there that's on the screen at this point? This is 227, by the way, on 790. Go ahead and read it out a lot of for the audience. Dan on the southwest side. That was what I was looking for. Oh. The other part.

Uh, the hookers are still enforced down here. Where's down here? That's we're about to find out. Dan, where... Bisson at, Bisson at and Center Parkway. Bissinette and Center Parkway. You have been, were you proposition by a hooker?

Uh, well, there was one looking at me funny when I pulled in here just a minute ago, but I just kind of just shook my head at her. You want to wonder, how does that work? Yeah. Is it like Justin Verlander waving off A.J. Hinch? She just waved her off? Yeah, just kind of just, you know, kind of the queens wave backwards. Okay.

But I wonder how does that work with social distancing? Yeah, you probably want to social distance yourself from a sex worker at all times. And especially during an outbreak of this type of virus. And also, she could be a carrier of many viruses. Dan, I want to ask you a question. We don't know who you are. We don't know your last name. if you're married or single.

We don't know you at all. You know who I am. You know who I am. I just don't go by that no more. But anyway, go ahead. Ask you asked away. I know who you are? Yeah, we've talked to several.

Oh, yes. Oh, oh. Okay, okay. Dan, how many prostitutes have you asked to go on a date in the last five years? Zero. Okay. So you thought, how about 10 years? I'm happily married for almost.

24 years. Okay, 30 years. Okay, my point is this. We appreciate you listen to the show, Dan. So you said to yourself, I'm over here in the southwest part of town, and I'm seeing a prostitute. I'm going to call Matt and Ross and give him an update on things. I appreciate you doing that. I'm just curious, what made you pick up

the phone and call? I just thought it was a PSA that needed to be said just in case, because, you know, there are a lot of weirdos that listen to your show, Matt. Oh, no question. I have the largest weirdo account in the marketplace. I'm very comfortable in saying that.

Anyway, last question. Was she by herself or was she with others? Oh, there's about 20 of them walking up and down the street right here, dude. And what's the cross street again? It's bison it and center, center parkway. Center Parkway. Nick? Yeah, it's right off.

Yeah, let me look here. Where can I find it? Are there any hotels in the area? Yeah, there's several. 9,800, Center Parkway. Okay. Dan, tell your wife, yourself, stay healthy, stay social distancing from everybody, and we'll look forward to hearing from you soon. Yeah, our anniversaries are real close.

That's how I know. And you've been, I've been, we've been, I think I've been married like a year, maybe two years longer than you. Yeah, I got married November or 97. We got married in December of 90s. Perfect. All right. Happy early anniversary to you and your bride. So if you're looking.

Have a good weekend, man. But see you later. All right. So if you're looking for love in all the wrong places, I just pulled up Center Parkway and Bissinette. There's a Papa's barbecue there. Give me the major cross-street. I don't know where Center Parkway is.

We don't need to know this. Oh, it's okay. There's somebody driving around going, I'll go by there and see it at least. What do you want a live broadcast? Oh, man, I wouldn't. Oh, geez. Maybe a moral report.

I don't know. Oh, boy. All right. We don't want an oral report, Matt. 59 and Beltway 8, Southwest side, basically. That's the area we're talking. talking about. Okay.

And it's a middle of the afternoon and he's got like a bunch of women just walking around looking for tricks. I guess so. I don't know. Okay. That's why our audience is special, Ross. They give us details on things even we don't ask for them. Does anything anything go Friday on a Thursday?

Or is it Thursday? I don't know what day the weekend is anymore. Until we get sports again, every day is anything goes show. That's true. And I don't know what day it is. It is Thursday. I was right. I got lucky.

I feel like we should bring back the non-Florida stories, but the problem is that every one of them will involve COVID, and I don't want to depress the audience. Are you sure? I'm not going to, nobody's going to be, Nick's not going to be like, hey, my story is 800 people died today. That's not going to be his story. Have you met, Nick? He's a little bizarre that way. Maybe if there was fecal matter involved somehow, then he would do it. All right. 232. If you've not heard a little story time with Samuel L. Jackson, where we replay it because it's just perfect for this time of year. It is the Matt Thomas show 713-212-5-790. The CDC and health officials are talking about flattening the curve. Flattening the curve.

To us, that sounds like when the Astros beat the Dodgers in 2017. You can kiss that one, goodbye. Flatting the curve? Yeah, still champs, pal, still champs. This is Sports Talk 790. Stay the f*** at home. The rona is spreading. This is no joke.

It's no time to work or roam. The way you can fight it is simple, my friends. Just stay the at home. Now, technically, I'm not a doctor. But mullah-hs listen when I read a poem. So here I am Sam B. Imploring you. Keep your ass at home.

If you want things to get done, back to normal. Don't panic. Just use your dome. Wash your hands. Stop touching your face and stay the at home. Motherf-a-it's no time to gamble. Look around. You're not at a casino. Just stay the phone as if your name was Trenton Quarantino. Sure, you can still see your friends. Use the mother f on your phone. But unless you just ran out of groceries, please stay the at home. Thank you for doing your part to flatten the curve because that is steep. And now that your home, please feel free to go the to sleep. Be it. An American Treasure. Wise words from Samuel L. Jackson.

By the way, I've saved something for the last couple segments of the show. You know, we talked about yesterday how the weekend television viewing habits of MLB and NFL network and the NBA channel are put, let's put up as many crappy anti-Huston events as possible. And they're not going anti-Huston. It's just Houston has been on the wrong side of a lot of epic comebacks and great wins. And basically like in the history, in sports history, if one, One team has been on the wrong end more than any other or one city.

Houston is there up there just about as much as any other. So I put on MLB Network last night. Oh, boy. 2005, ring a bell. Oh, it was the, was it the Chris Burke walkoff? Nope, that would be a happy moment. Was it game seven that Roy Oswald started in the NLCS? That the Astros won to clinch the World Series?

It was game six, I think. They went to St. Louis and won in game six, I think. Was that right? Yeah. Yeah, that was not that game either, which then precluded him from pitching game one of the World Series. He had to be held off to game three. No, Ross, to answer your question, or answer my question,

they put game two of the World Series on between the Astros and Chicago White Sox in 2005. Oh. Where the Astros jumped out to a one-nothing league, fell behind 2-1, tied to 2-2, took a 4-0. two lead. And then the wheels came off because of the Astros bullpen. Dane Wheeler did himself no good. Chad Qualls comes in with the bases loaded after Dan Wheeler loaded him up.

Chad Qualls. By way, including also a very controversial hit by pitch by on Jermaine Dye that really wasn't, but that's under here nor there. I forgot about that. You watched it? I did. Oh. First pitch, Chad.

Falls throws to Paul Canerco, Rossi, the very first pitch he throws. It leaves the yard in left field grand slam. The White Sox score four in their half of the inning. So it is six four white socks after seven. It's six four white socks after eight. The Astros get a two-run single from Jose Viskayo. Jose Fiscahino Yeah

To tie the game at six Ninth inning Yeah Brad Lidge Mm-hmm Versus Scott Podsignick Go on Right field

Yes Two nothing late Chicago White So I'm going to ask the various Those games were all so close That's what made it that much more painful I'm going to ask the networks to stop It's kind of like that when the rocket swept the magic,

a number of those games were really close. Game one was 5-3, game 2-7-6, game 3-75, game 4-1-0. So the Chicago White Sox won the World Series by 3, 5, 6, by a total of 6 runs in 4 games.

Wow. What can we do to... It's very Houston of that shows to do that to us. Yeah, what can we do for the network to have this stop? well nothing why is Houston can't we just have a sucky day in Atlanta sports history

we're going to be Buffalo Bills Day that's going to be comeback day the oilers are there Joe Montana Day not only is are the oilers there losing to the Chiefs you have the what was it the what bowl game did they lose the Cotton Bowl You have Joe Montana and Notre Dame beating the Cougars

Yeah what bowl was that? Cotton Okay You have that Let's see if you want to watch Stockton and Malone Day. That's not going to go well for the Rockets. The World Series. Let's see.

Who else? It's just, it's not been great, Matt. Warriors Dynasty Day. That's going to be the Rockets losing in the Western Conference Finals twice. So don't you think at this point, they being those networks owe us a day of good stuff? Could we fill up? Triumphs?

A whole day? 12 hours Now let's say this all seriousness We'll do the final segment of the show Let's fill out the ESPN Happy Houston Day Can we get 24 hours of sports? Yeah, I think so I think we can too

Because what you could do is you could have The four Orlando wins The four Nick wins Yeah I mean They're going to place four of those though We got to put game one where Nick Anderson Missed the free throws Game four will they win it

You got to put Rocket 6 Where they win it with John Stark Six and seven. So that's four games at two and a half hours apiece. It's ten hours. We've got to carry 14. Then where we're going. Well, that's what we've got to figure out.

17 is just going to get people angry because they're going to call it tainted and they're cheating. Can we even put 17 on there? No, we can't. We'll figure this out in a minute, 243 on 790. Stay calm. Stay informed. We'll let you know when. First pitch is moments away.

Your games will be back on. Yeah? And it looks like we'll be dusting off the Reggie Bush Vince Young debate in the meantime. And what should they do with the dome, huh? And is Matt Schaub and elite QB? Just kidding. Just kidding. No, really, we're just kidding.

The Houston Sports Talk continues on Sports Talk 7-19. Big Ben 621, it's not nice. He says Qualls came in and did his job and cleared the basis. Okay, so Ross, we have about nine minutes to figure out the other 14 hours of the day. So here's what we've got confirmed on our We have game six Starks Shot blocked by Elijah on

Game 7 where the Rockets win at all We got games one and four of the 95 series That's two and a half hours each time's four It's 10 hours Kiss of Death game Kiss of Death game gets us a 12 and a half I'm going to go Mike Scott no hits the Astro

No hits the Giants to win the American National League West. Wonderful. That's three hours. That's 15 and a half hours. We got nine and a half hour, eight and a half hours left. Are we going to go World Series game five? 17?

That's a good four hours. We would need a ruling on that. Carlos Correa says they couldn't do it during the playoffs. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's put four hours in on the World Series game five with the double by Bregman to win it, right? Yes. 19 and a half.

We're down to four and a half hours left to go. any of the Cougars making the final four? Chris Burke walk off. That was 18-in-in-game, so. There's four and a half hours right. We're done. We didn't use any colleges. It's gone. It's gone.

Chris Burke! That's it. We did it. You hear me? ESPN, MLB Network, NBA channel? You can't always... Oh, by the way, the Samson shot to win the Western Finals in 86. One of the greatest finishes in NBA playoff history.

Was that the one when Elijah one was out of the game because he got in a fight? I don't know if Elijah was in the game or not. I just know Samson took the in-bounds pass, threw it up, and made it. And Mitchell Wiggins, I think, was almost going to tap the ball in. He had to take his hands away from it so he didn't tap it in. Yeah. We can do this. But I'm tired of watching all of our networks putting on crap that Houston didn't do.

What is Atlanta's Day? Remember Cleveland had a documentary about them about how all their teams didn't win? I don't want a documentary about Houston because we won quite a few things. We've got a World Series. We've got two NBA championships. But when is Cleveland going to get today? Like putting on Cleveland, the worst of Cleveland, let's watch 100-loss Indian baseball game. Let's see the Browns lose their 15th consecutive game.

They were on the losing end of the drive by Elway. They showed all that. This can be done. They're on the losing end of the shot. They're on the losing end of the drive and the shot. that kind of by Michael Jordan. I lost LeBron twice, although they got their championship,

so I can't really feel terrible for the city of Cleveland. It was like one in 50 or 60 years or whatever it was. Yeah. The Indians still don't have theirs. The Browns still don't have theirs. Yeah.

Just there are way worse cities. Like Atlanta. The Hawks have sucked for what? 25 years in a row, give or take. Yeah. The Falcons have gone to a couple of Super Bowls, but have not won them. They lost a hockey team.

I mean, it's time for these sports networks who do a great job of showing old games to pick on somebody else. They're not doing it intentionally, Matt. Yeah, they are. Just a lot of people stepped over Houston on their way to greatness. Yeah, all they're doing...

It's not their fault. It is their fault. I'm mad at the time. I'm tired of it. It should be a Houston free sports. I'm not going to take it anymore. It should be a... It should be a day of no Houston sports.

I mean, I don't care we're funneling and providing them hours and hours programming. Well, Vince Young was from Houston, and he'll be on ESPN tonight, winning the national championship. We should put all the university. For the greatest state in the union. We should put the U of H win over Florida State because that was one of the great beatdowns

in college football history. It's a third string quarterback. Nobody cares about that. Because we knocked the second one out and the first one was afraid of play us. He was afraid. Yeah, a lot of people were afraid to play us. Very scared. A young at Oliver, a great football team led by Greg Ward.

Yeah. No doubt in my mind that the university. versus Houston was the team that people did not want to play. And Tom Herman allowed that win to catapult him to one of the greatest programs in college sports history. And made them purely average. Texas Longhorns football. He won a Sugar Bowl. He never should have left.

They got eight wins last year, right? Yeah, who'd you beat? I don't remember. Yeah, who did you beat Texas Bowl? Texas, uh... How can we forget already that big, huge stepping stone victory? It was... It was Alamo Bowl went over Utah.

Yeah, Sam Elligerner just says, hey, we'd always want to have B8 and 4 every year. He didn't say that. And everyone's like, who are you, A&M? He didn't say that. All right, somebody's going to help us with some programming. Patrick and Bel Air, give me some more Houston sports program we can help these networks to put on positive stuff. Definitely got to go with this shot from Ralph Samson to beat the Lakers.

Definitely got to put that one in there. You got it. And it is a little bit painful the next game, but how about the game that we beat Louisville in in 83? Against the doctors of dunk. Yeah, that's it. You've got to have both those in. What happened after that?

Cool comments about like hookers walking on the streets or anything. But, I mean, I just try to bring those to the table, you know? Thank you. Let me tell you something. I. Yeah, I. That's whatever. Yeah.

I get sports commentary and I get hooker updates. The E.J. shot. It was at game five of the 97 W. UCF. That was a great shot. Jim Foley on Rockets Radio. Oh, mother! Just perfect.

Gene and Jim. Those are my faves. Those are my all-time faves. No, your favorites are Craig and Matt. No, my favorite time faves are Gene and Jim. Come on now. What? I'm right here in the room.

I'm sorry. Well, you're my third favorite producer. That's fine. I don't care. I never stayed up with a radio under my pillow to listen to you, Matt. I'm sorry, no offense. None taken. I don't think.

Wex still has his beard. I think it's good. How does the missus like the beard, by the way? He looks like he's a mechanic. Come over that one, and you'll be fine. Yeah, come over to the dark side. You social distance with Matt as much as you can, though. She's fine with it.

She doesn't mind. I'm not any further or closer to her than I ever have been, so it's no difference to her. So we are all practicing social distancing before social distancing? Oh, yeah. You've got two kids at home. You know how it is, Matt. I feel like my dog is more responsible for my social distancing. We try to do our best.

It is amazing, though, and I'm sure you guys have noticed the same thing. I mean, we have, you know, the windows that look out to the front of our house, the street in front of our house. I could sit there for three hours and never see a person walk by. Now it's just a non-stop street of people. Same way. All right, so we were talking about, you know, yesterday had the Astros White Sox on from 2005. Yeah. So here's our 24 hours of positive Houston sports program, because every day somebody's

blanking on us. Game 6 and 7 of the 94 Rockets, one in four of the 95. That covers 10 hours. Kiss of death is going to be another two and a half hours. Chris Burke's home run in the 18th inning is four hours. Elijah once... Even condensed. That's true. Elijah or Samson hitting the shot in the finals in 86. Mike Scott's no hitter in 86. Am I forgetting anything else? Yeah, that's unfortunate. All those awesome postseason series, the 80 series, the 86 series,

It's the games that they didn't win that were awesome. That's unfortunate. That's why they're the ones that are being put on all the time. What about the OJ. It's still amazing. You have multiple things to crush the Astros with from that White Sox series. I mean, almost every game had something. I thought it was going to, when I first saw it, I thought it was going to be Jeff Blum's home run game.

Right. That wasn't it. Could have been for the Pesednik game. Instead, it was the Kinerko game. And instead it was the Blum game. They got plenty of shoes from, unfortunately. I just told the audience, they lost that series by a total of six runs. I was on the air.

during the time, doing post-game shows, and then for the years after, and it sounds stupid to say, a highly competitive world series finished four games to none. Highly competitive, intense, late-ending drama all the time. Very close series.

They didn't win a game. Things I remember about that series, because I wasn't here in the time, I was actually in Utah. I remember the roof being closed and people being pissed, and I remember Phil Gardner after losing game four.

No, they closed it. They wanted it open. Didn't they want the weather good? They wanted it open. They wanted it closed for more noise, right? No, the roof was closed, was it not? I don't think this is a huge issue in 05 as it was in later years. But I thought, I thought Commissioner Seleek forced them to keep it closed.

I believe he did. Yeah. I thought they wanted it closed for noise, and they forced them to open it. Was that some other time? I think that was some other time. Okay, maybe that was some other time. Yeah, I just, and then Phil Garner was going around. around the stadium, shaking hands of everybody.

Good times, man. And then Cecil Cooper a couple years later, and then... They ran through a string of... Then the down turn. What were the managers going to do, though? I mean, I wouldn't put it on Cecil or even Bo or Brad Mills. I mean, what were they going to do? It's funny that all three of those guys have not been managers since they've been fired by the Astros.

But guys like Brad Mills had got a job immediately and still has one. Sure. And Bo Porter for a while, too. All right. That's Wex. He's part of the A team. We love that show. John and Gilbert Hang tight.

I promise you that I think if you want to hang tight with... Is it Gilbert Gilbert? Gilbert? No, it's Gilbert and Spring Branch. No, not that Gilbert, Rob. Not any way, anyway. Hopefully he's okay. He's fine. He's down to a bike, though. All right, those of you on hold, we'll get to those guys with Adam and Clinton and Wexler.

We're with you tomorrow where we're going to have our Friday great debates, where we'll let you choose at 1230 and 1.30, what we're going to talk about. Biggest sports divos ever in sports, past or present. Tomorrow, the Fantasy 5 at 2.30. Have a great rest of your day. A team is next.