The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - The Matt Thomas Show : Dusty, Peacock, MLBPA Director Weighs In on Astros

Episode Date: February 21, 2020

The Matt Thomas Show w/ @SportsMT, @SportsRV, and @ProNickLow 2/21/20Live From Spring Training in West Palm BeachTony Clark of MLBPA discusses Astros Immunity (0:00)Brad Peacock and Julia Morales (38:57)Dusty Baker (1:24:40)Our coverage from Spring Training is presented by Karbach Brewing and Discover The Palm Beaches.

So much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas show. 12 o'clock at each town. Good. Welcome to a Friday edition of the Matt Thomas show from West Palm Beach, Florida. Final day of Astros spring training coverage here on Sports.

Sports Talk 790 alongside Sports RV here in West Palm Beach. Niccolo is back in our Houston Studios. I'm Matt. I hope you guys are in a good mood today. It is certainly an interesting time around these parts here in West Palm Beach with the Astros. Today, literally ending about 45 minutes ago, the Astros wrapped up a three-plus hour meeting with the Astros. executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, Tony Clark,

former longtime Major Leagueer. Now, he is the lead dog that represents the union. That union is split on how the Astros were treated during this whole ceiling, stealing signs. You have members of the union that are mad. The Astros didn't get their World Series taken away. You had members during union that felt like the players should have been suspended. and then you have members of the union known as the Houston Astros, who were given immunity for the testimony and the information that they brought to Major League Baseball.

So needless to say, it is a fractured union, to say the least. Tony Clark comes in, meets with a lot of national media. I happen to be there. I got some of the film of it. Matter of fact, if you'd like to check out my Twitter account at SportsMT, you will see three clips. He spoke for about 50 minutes, but I felt like I got to the best three or four clips, each or about two minutes or so. But it just gives you an opportunity to hear questions that are being asked, and Tony Clark answered.

And we will try to squeeze in all three of the various clips that I recorded. But we'll get the first one in here first. This is Tony Clark after leaving the clubhouse, after meeting with the Astros. Normally these meetings are an hour in normal springs. this one went three plus hours. Here's Tony's opening remarks and a couple of questions from the media after he spoke to the Astros. Oh, it's disgusting there.

I wanted everybody to know it was disgusting how I had you guys in the move. But I will offer you this. Having an opportunity to go through anything and everything over the course in the three and a half, four hours was very beneficial on multiple levels. And it afforded each of us an opportunity to talk about. about where things are now, where things are moving forward. And one of the things that I did truly come to appreciate was what the guys are going through,

what the concerns had been in the past, with the concerns are moving forward, how contrite and direct the guys were with where things stand, and an appreciation for making sure that the game is in the best place possible moving forward in the types of conversations that need to be had in the future. That humanization and appreciation for each of them individually, collectively was something that was appreciated over the course of the discussion. What surprised you guys did at the meeting? Anything?

Is that surprise meeting here? No. That guys are passionate, that guys are committed to making sure that the game now moving forward is in the place possible for those that come after them. No, that doesn't surprise me. There's a lot of the conversations. But guys frustrated with how Spring was gone in terms of players on other teams speaking out against them. Adam? Guys are frustrated in the focus being on the types of things that were part of this conversation,

meaning this isn't a, I know it is being reflected as a sign-stealing technology issue, but the truth is that technology discussion goes way beyond what is coming out of a replay room. There are things that have happened in our game in the last five to seven years, particularly that that's being created by club culture of pushing the envelope on efficiency and quantifiable metrics that are positioning clubs to make certain decisions. This culture that exists against the backdrop of technology is manifesting itself in a way where you heard me say over the last few years that we need to have a conversation about what our game is and what our game looks like.

That again is Tony Clark and we'll mix in a couple of other clips from the press conference. I mean, well, in the press crimes, it was a hey, come meet in front of the studio here at 790. Our little makeshift West Palm Beach studio where he and about 25 reporters were there. And again, you can catch the video on my Twitter account and we've also reposted it to support 790.com. Ross, he's got a tough spot. He has a split union right now on this. most of his contingency,

whatever you call it, group, they want blood. And the thing that I continue to be flabbergasted by, and maybe that's too strong of a term, is that every one of them members of his union, his group would want the same sort of leniency from Major League Baseball if they were put in that situation. Well, to quote Carlos Correa,

If you don't know the facts, you need to shut the bleep up. Those have been the guys, the Clevengers and the Marquacases and the Bellinger's, those are the guys who've been coming out and not understanding and not figuring out. Or perhaps LeBron, James, we can throw him in there as well. Oh, well, hey, your union needs to do this or needs to do that or whatever. The fact of the matter is, and the MOBPA has come out and said this, that there was an immunity deal struck, and that that's the way it's going to be, and they're not going to punish anything,

and you even have the Evangeloch article about how if the MLB did try to put certain restrictions on the Houston Astros or their players or suspending them on it, they would have had grievances and they would have lost because the rules and the regulations and everything was not

properly communicated to the players and if that happens you can't be punished for breaking rules that you didn't know were being enforced. Yeah. So it's just, it's a non-starter. So, I mean, unfortunately, every baseball player in the entire league can come out and say they want the Astros players to be punished. It's not going to happen because proper procedures were not followed.

And what Tony has said today and he is going to go to all the camps, he can knock out Arizona in about two days because there's just, there's like three main pockets of camps in Arizona where Florida's a little more spread out. You've got to go to one coast and the other coast and the type of thing. But he is going to visit with all 30 teams in the next month. And I think things will be talked about will be. Retaliation is going to be one thing. Yes. Speaking out is going to be another thing beyond the initial comments. I mean, apparently Mike Clevenger said some things today, basically calling the Astros a bunch of swear words.

Cool. Good time, Mikey. Yeah. You know, this could ultimately change what players can do with their union because if you're going to be, you know, unions are only going to be as strong as when you're all collectively together. And if this is going to be a massive split that's going to last for a while, there could be a new kind of philosophy within the union. And I think that's where Tony Clark has to balance it and when the entire Players Association has to balance it.

You know what? Even though you might hate the Astros, even though you might be really, really mad at what they did, they are still part of your union. Yeah, and you're going to have to educate. I think the biggest part is what Tony is going to have to be doing is educating. I don't know. So if there's going to be a PowerPoint presentation with all the pertinent points,

like, hey, this wasn't communicated. They broke these rules. They're not going to be punished. You would want the same thing if you were breaking rules that weren't communicated to you. That's how the union works. And you're never going to get, whether it's this issue or this issue or anything else going on with the MLBPA, you're never going to get 100% of the people to agree on anything. The most important thing to me, I think, is that a lot of the people of players that are speaking out are speaking out from ignorance.

Here's a thing to me. He also mentioned multiple times about 18 and 19 not being a thing. So I think he has to communicate to everybody as well. Let me ask you this. From just a pure human aspect, you know, we love our cell phones. We have no, we can't keep focus for more than five seconds. Look at you staring at your computer right now. So we're doing this market radio show.

How did he keep their attention for three hours? They must have really had a lot to say. Go-go dancers? No, I don't think there were go-go-dancers in there. Lab dance breaks? Nope, no, no. There might have been a, let's go get a coffee or a sandwich. But three hours with 25 grown men in a clubhouse, there must have been a lot that needed to be said.

And it felt like to me that the Astor is like, look, we understand we're going to take our knocks, but we're not going to be the punching bag for an entire year. Probleming, they don't get to control that. They don't get to control what the media says about them. They probably have a chance to air their grievances to their union chief that. says, hey, look, we may not, as you say, get along and agree with everything, but I don't want to have to go to every city and play against somebody and, A, worry about what a guy is going to be saying and maybe what a pitcher might be throwing and what kind of extracurricular non-baseball

activities may happen on a particular game. They don't want to worry about their safety. There was talk, a conversation about family safety. I mean, this is taking on layers that I don't even think the Players Association, and certainly you and I never thought about. Yeah, I'm sure there was a lot of stuff to go over with, I mean, what's happened, and I'm sure that he was asking details and all this type of stuff. And, hey, what are your concerns? And, hey, if we're going to go to other teams, what do you want them to know?

So it doesn't really shock me that much that it was that long of a conversation. Oh, I just think that the average 24-year-old or 26-year-old doesn't want to have a three-hour conversation about anything in life. And they did with their union chief. Well, yeah, as they should. This is one of the biggest scandals in the history of the sports. Yeah. And like I said, normally use visits are like an hour.

This one went into the third hour. We've got a lot to get to today. Dusty Baker's going to join us on the radio program today. Our good friend, Julian Morales, makes her yearly visit with us on the spring training beat. Plus, speaking of the union, JJ Watt did himself no favors, Ross. He does not like this 17-game schedule. He does not like the fact that you're going to have one less preseason game. You know, they're worried about player safety or are they worried about player revenue.

he did not do his union any favors by going out and basically arguing what they, I think, try to collectively bargain with the owners. And I think if you watch any of the national TV shows today, a lot of ex-player said, JJ, you may have your issues with this, but you're going to get compensated. And there's only so much you can do to argue with your bosses. And one game, especially when you're eliminating a preseason game, and you're putting more money in your piggy bank, isn't necessarily going to be the worst thing in the world.

It's not like they're asking to play that 17th game for pennies on the dollar. Oh, they are. Did you see that? Apparently in the new CBA, the max extra game check you can get is only $250,000. J.J. Watt game check is about a million. Did the union completely think this is the worst thing in the world? Did his union agree to that? Now, it's only affecting guys that are making, you know, over whatever 250,000 times 16 is,

what's that $4 million? Right. So only guys who are making over $4 million a year, which I mean a lot of the NFL, especially guys on rookie contracts aren't. Correct. So it's- I don't think JJ,

and here's the thing. JJ is one of the most well-known NFL players, but he is in the minority in terms of the super-rich. Those guys that you just spoke of would love that 17th game check. They just would. And again, you know,

it's really too much inside Mr. Football kind of stuff along the way. I just don't know. that he represents when you're telling about what percentage of the NFL players would love an extra $250,000? Probably 90% of most of them, yeah. And their membership

in the union is just as important as JJ Watt. All union players are created equal, correct? Sourries are not, but union representation is. And that union said, if you're going to give us this extra money to play a 17th game and eliminate a preseason game, I'll take that money.

Yeah. Go ahead and read that. It's going to be cat. Under the proposed CBA, they'd get an extra game check, but it would be capped at $250,000 per sources. This is according to Tom Pellicero. Pellicero, yeah, Minnesota guy. So the highest paid players would be playing for less than usual, and that would include JJ Watt, one of the highest paid players. Okay.

I guess the issue would be, could you find the 50% that are 90% of players that are making way less than he is? would they be necessarily against this? We'll see. I don't know. I don't know if he did his union affairs because that union is negotiating this and this is what was discussed and collectively bargained.

JJ's getting this first notion of win. You're going to tell me I'm only going to make $2.50 in this extra game? Well, like we just said with the MLBPA, you're not going to get 100% of people to agree on anything. I think JJ is going to fall flat on this. This is going to happen. You're going to get a 17th game.

You're going to get extra playoffs. you are going to get extra compensation and you're going to eliminate one preseason game, which I think at the end of the day is probably going to be a good thing. It's going to be hard, I think, for America to feel overly sorry for players only making $250,000 for that one extra game. It is the Matt Thomas show. We are here in West Palm Beach, 713-212579 if you'd like to join us. 713-212-5-790. We also, as I mentioned, Dusty Baker, Julian Morales, some of our best stuff from over the course

the week. A lot to get to between now and three o'clock here on Sports Talk 790. This is Sports Talk 790. Live from Astros, free trains and excitement. You know, this is a new beginning. Exclusive coverage from West Palm Beach is brought to you by Carbock Brewing, crafted for serious fun, and by the Palmbeaches.com. And again, a huge thanks to the Palm Beaches.com. Really, if you guys are coming down here, gals as well, to check out anything revolving around your at Astros from places to stay, place to eat shop. Check out the Palm Beaches.com.

And also our hotel was fantastic. The Palm Beaches at the outlets right along I-95, really close to all the West Palm Beach things. About 10 minutes from the ballpark to the hotel at a great breakfast this morning. Ross leapt through it, but it was still great. And we look forward to having a lot of you, if you're thinking about coming down here to check out the Astros and spring training, staying at the Hilton Garden in Palm Beaches. And you can check a look at our Twitter accounts and our Instagram for the appropriate hashtags and ways to get a hold of those fine folks. Again, thanks to Palm Beaches and the Hilton Garden in Palm Beach's 95 outlets.

It is an anything goes Friday. Ross and I struggle last night. We're going to sleep very well on the plane going back to Houston, and I'm going on to Salt Lake City to meet with the Rockets tonight. These 1043 Eastern Time starts for NBA basketball, how does Eastern Time Zone? sports fan do it. I just, I don't think they do it. I think they don't. Especially, people always talk about the East Coast bias when it comes to, like, West

Coast College football games. There's no way anybody over here is staying up for a USC Washington State game on a weekly basis or anything like that. I think you know what? Maybe this East Coast bias thing is real, Matt. We love it because we get home from the bars, we can watch the fourth quarter of our favorite game. Exactly. Or if

we're just tired after going to our 7 o'clock game, we just get in the house, turn on the television, and we fall into a peaceful slumber watching Washington State beat UCLA, as you mentioned. Right. But there are some amazing games in a Western conference. Like anything involving the Rockets, certainly, for obviously Houston. But, I mean, there are a lot of Laker fans, a lot of LeBron fans.

They're not staying up for the Lakers and a Portland Blazers and start at 1043. Not happening. Yeah, Clippers are good. The Utah Jazz. Denver Nuggets. Damien Lillard and what he's doing is interesting. You're not catching any of that on the East Coast, right? It's hard for us.

Now, granted, I'm with the team, so it's. I'm always going to be in local time, but sports Harvey, I don't know how you do it, my friend. It's just how Astro games at 9-10 suck. Yeah. Because those bad boys end 1215, 1230. God forbid they go to extra innings or anything. Yeah, at least with an NBA game,

you know that you're done two hours, 2.15 after. By the way, the Rockets, I mean, D. Destroyed, whatever that was wearing those white uniforms with yellow lettering. Hey, it was the Warriors. It was what it said on the front of their shirts. I don't know. Was it like the Santa Cruz Warriors?

Francisco, but that's okay. The only, first of all, everything looked really good. Jeff Green helped out. DeMarie Carroll helped out. Russ was good. James was good. James, I don't think he even played in the fourth quarter. We were in and out of sleeping, so we don't know.

All I know is that Russell got tossed. Another ejection for him. It's his second one of the year. His technical count is getting up high. He's up to 13, I think, now. And 16 is when suspension starts. And when you would normally go, well, that's the most awful thing in the world. What if you time it properly?

If he really insist on getting those three more technicals. Well, the first half of a back-to-back or something? You stole the words right out of my mouth. Oh, that's terrible. Because what you do is you make him active. We have one less player. Okay. Which the Rockets could easily do.

How about he, like, he can appeal the suspension, but then drop it right before the one part of a back-to-back? Can you do that? That's true, especially the opponent is not great. You know, what? If he's going to size of, well, do I play either Charlotte or do I play Philadelphia? I know which one I'm going to go with. But, yeah, it's hard for us Central Time. The Astros, it's just hard.

But for the NBA, that bad boy did not start until 1043 Eastern Standard Time, which means New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, not Chicago, Chicago, Central Time, Cleveland, all of this part, Charlotte, Orlando, Miami. They're not watching this game. No. Especially when the Rockets got up like. to 25 point first quarter lead. I don't even think the second half.

Probably Shaq and Chuck and Kenny weren't even watching the game. Well, they don't care what time zone is. They're probably not watching it to begin with. And all seriousness, we'll move on to some other things. But if you're the NBA and your ratings are significantly down, which they are, is it because so much of the powers in the West and that the best games, I mean, look,

the opening game last night was Brooklyn versus Philadelphia. I hate the East period. I really had a tough time. The only reason why Ross and I, well, we shouldn't say this on air. That's fine. Well, we just had a friendly wager. Friendly non-cash wager because I'm going to be an employee. So I just want to make sure we were who has set up the radio equipment today.

And I lost because of a miracle. Miracle finish. Overtime finish. It was Sixers minus a seven and a half. Yeah. They were getting crushed. Then they rallied. Then it was my only hope was overtime.

Right. And my only hope in overtime was for the nets to completely wet the bed. And they did. They didn't make a field goal in overtime. First of all, you should wet the bed with those uniforms. What the hell are they wearing? It's like they're wearing what their junior high nets teams would wear. You know how you have junior rockets and these uniforms have gotten out of control.

I didn't think they were that bad. Oh, well, the Eastern basketball is just bad, period. So we had to wait for that game to be over with an overtime. They had to start the game on NBA TV, which we didn't enter. hotel don't have NBA TV, which I got to tell the owners, we've got to fix that. Right. But, yeah, it was, thank God we went. Ross and I each knocked back a super extra large Dunkin' Donuts coffee after dinner last

night. That's the key to staying up for TNT Thursdays. I was kind of wired. I got to be honest. I was in the exact same position, a position. Let's take a quick time out. We'll come back, take some phone calls. Dusty Baker's going to join us.

Julian Morales is going to join us. I don't know what else players-wise, because I don't think they thought Ross, meeting was going to go three and a half hours. Probably not. Their whole schedule is probably thrown off, and it's raining out of it. And it is raining here in West Palm Beach. If you missed our conversations with Alex Bregman and James Click, we'll play that in the back half hour

of the show today because first of all, Bregg's is one of our favorite guys. And James Click, I'm becoming a fan very quickly. Me too. I like them. All right, 713-212-5-7-90. Anything Goes Friday. It is the Matt Thomas show from West Palm Beach. Welcome to Palm Beach.

and a new season of Astros baseball. I'm very excited. We can't wait to get out there and play again. Exclusive Astros spring training coverage on 7-9 is brought to you by Carbock Brewing, crafted for Syria's fun, and by the Palm Beaches.com. Our good friend, Julian Morales, is going to drop by for a visit the next segment of the show. If it is anything, goes Friday. 713212-5-790.

We come to you from West Palm Beach, final day of spring training coverage. Astros open up. spring training tomorrow night game i don't think i like night games in spring training why not i don't know it just feels like it's daytime it's 80 degrees toasty outside let the people get the warmth i mean you're gonna get all uh all bursunberg it's called sun lotion tan screen whatever okay sweat we're off monday by the way because the astros we are yes so um i hope you all miss us what am i going to do with my day i that's a great question my mother's birthday's money so I'm taking her to lunch oh wonderful that's how that's no I don't need you

anywhere no because you're a little creepy I want to learn a little bit about you I'm not creepy I want to learn a little bit more about young Matt we've spent the last I got a lot of questions we old Mrs. M's sports and T we've spent four days with each other we're going to Lake Charles next week this is I just don't know that's true it's a lot of time with you I've had enough of you all right 713 212 577 let's go to Ray in Montana we're going to our first call today in the mountain time zone hi Ray Yes, sir. Hi. I got two responses for the Astros. I just heard this on the radio, believe it or not, by Rush Limbaugh.

Nobody's talking about the 1951 Giants versus Dodgers, ironically, World Series where the Giants use the telescope to still signs. But we're the first. We're the first. Okay. Second of all, believe it or not, I work with a Dodgers fan. and they got so I left it alone I wouldn't say nothing to him but I got to the point where I had to file harassment charges on him because I am a Navy veteran that has hearing loss from it and he said one time he made the comment well maybe if we used some trash

cans you would understand what we're saying so um just thought I mean if this whole thing's gotten out of hand it's so ridiculous so I'm gonna hang up now and listen to what you have to say Thanks a lot, Ray. Sorry you were getting abused, harassed at work. He had to file a lawsuit against a guy because they were harassment charges, I guess. Over with Dodger and Astro fans? I guess so.

It's gotten that intense? Well, I don't know. Sounds like it. That's what Tony, I mean, Ray says. I didn't realize those streets in Montana were so rough. Apparently they are. But people have been talking about the Bobby Thompson thing and the wires from 1800 and Jack McDowell 1980s. All of it has been.

talked about. All of it I understand. All of it is valid, but also the Astros broke the rules too. So I don't know what else to tell you. Everybody wants to talk about bring up PDs or bring up past things that happened or even the Tyler Skaggs thing. Astros fans want to bring up. It's all really noise to me. What is the Tyler Skaggs thing? Well, there's a talk of how a PR, someone in the PR staff of the L.A. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't really have all the details on that. there was something new. Yeah. There was... No. It's so, I mean, like, what does that

have to do with what the Asheros did? Really nothing. So, I mean... Here's what happens. And I told you this before. Everybody, if something has ever happened poorly in sports, well, you want, well, that happened and they got punished this way. Why are our guys getting treated this way? Yeah. It's

impossible. There are so many different things that have gone wrong in sports. There has been so many whether it be peeds or or sign stealing or illegal pint tar bats. I mean, there's everything doesn't have to be judged to scale.

You know what I mean? And that's my only point. Yeah, it's like if I mean, if I get caught for doing something with my parents or cheating on my homework, I'm not going to, it's like, well, what about that time my brother borrowed your car without you knowing in the middle of the night? It's not, one doesn't have anything to do with the other. So it's just

it doesn't matter. What I would suggest is this. And look, I'm just one person and you all can say, Matt, go to hell on this. Go to hell, Matt. No, first way, Go ahead and say what I want to say first. Don't worry about what happened with any other team unless, I'm going to put it in unless it's the same exact allegations. If there is concrete evidence that the Boston Red Sox did things in 2018.

It's being investigated. And it's being investigated. And the penalty is similar to what the asteros is. Then you can judge that. But don't judge if a baseball team got away with using cork bats. in the same conversation as whether or not they're using science right because what's what it's going to do is it's going to drive you crazy i had a message on in from uh twitter from someone and this person i'll remain nameless john mclean basically no he doesn't follow me uh had lost this person she he or she felt like they had lost their minds because of just the overwhelming well this happened in

1975. This happened in 1983. What I'm going to tell you is this. We're going to judge this and there's going to be a notion that this baseball team did not deserve the World Series and that's never going to change. There's talk of censure which is a word I don't normally use

and was brought up by yesterday by Buster Olney, ESPN story. Let the national media do its thing. Let the local media do its thing. Let outside fans do its thing. What I'm going to suggest to you and Julia Morales and I talked about this and you hear this the next segment of the show.

Just watch the games. There's nothing that you can do that's going to create a, well, I know this, or my friend knew this. What's done is done. They're not going to pull the trophy. They're not pulling down the flags. They're not taking their memories away of 2017. Just live for the season and just be prepared for it to be probably a lot more interesting

to see what fan reaction is. But don't let it overcome your life. And I feel like that's happening to some people. I really do. I think there are people getting way too invested in this and way too deep in this. And you're also, it's like you're fighting against a brick wall. When you're going against people, especially people who are like just trolls on Twitter and they're calling themselves, you know, Mr. Betts with a picture of Muky Betts.

You're just hiding around some kind of burner account or not yourself. It's like don't argue with people with no followers who don't have their likeness or name on their Twitter account. They're this Dodgers fan the 71399-9-44-7-7-66. It doesn't matter. Like just it's easier just to not pay attention. Let's go to next up. Willie and Friendswood on the Matt Thomas show. Willie, how are you?

Hello, Willie. Hey, yeah. Go Cougars in that basketball team first off. Anyway, I had a thought yesterday, with your umpire behind home play, and the umpire over at first base, did they not hear any banging on the trash cans? It's not that far away, is it?

I just don't understand that. You can play series after series. And these umpires all rotate fields, I assume it's not the same guy showing up at Minute Mae Park. Were they not aware of that strange sound? It certainly wasn't coming from the stands, I would think. You know, the umpires have not spoken, Willie, and you're not the only person's ever brought that up.

there's a lot of ambient noise in a game the umpires are really focused on what's happening in between the lines I don't know if any umpire has ever gone to a major league baseball official I know that if you are going to take the oath of a major league baseball umpire you are supposed to notice everything and report everything that you see and hear yeah that's an interesting angle I mean people have talked about it as well even though the homepire the home plate umpire you think he would have heard something at some point you would have um my thought is

is that Major League Baseball probably said, hey, keep an eye on some sign stealing things. I just don't ever thought they would have thought that cameras and banging of drums of trash cans would have been in. So, yeah, I don't know. The Major League Baseball umpire Association has been very quiet about this. So I can't speak to them. But my guess is that they have been called into action, especially with games that involve the direct banging of the trash can. And before all this came out with Mike Fires and the story,

The MLB was aware of these types of allegations and other teams bringing it up against the Astros. Yeah, it was basically well-known in baseball. Well-known in baseball. Jonathan Lucroy said as much yesterday. And Major League Baseball, it feels like to me didn't have enough. So going back to our conversation yesterday in the show, did Mike Fires go to MLB and say something directly before he and they went to the athletic? I don't know. I don't think so.

So why did Mike Fires' commentary gain some abstraction? Is it because it was a former Astro teammate? Yes. And he also went to a journalism source who was going to run with this. You're telling me, I mean, if you are running the athletic, or you're the reporter that gets this, Evendra, which, a matter of fact, is here today at Astros Camp. And you've got an ex-player in that own clubhouse telling you this?

You're not sitting on this. No. That's firsthand account. Yeah, absolutely. You don't need second and third sources. If you are in that room, that means you know exactly what was going on. And I think Major League Baseball couldn't get that from anywhere else, which is, does that mean the power of the media still is there? Very strong?

Obviously, it does. I think so, yes. It really does. Of course. Let's go to Todd and Cyprus. Well, actually, we'll do this. Let me get a timeout and we've got to get to a break. Todd Hank tight will get to you in the next segment.

Plus, we got Julian Morales visit straight ahead. It is the Matt Thomas show. Todd Hank tight will get to you and our friend Julia from AT&T Sports. She joins us as she does every year here from spring training. A lot of time. I don't want to start off slow. It's a new season of Astros baseball. And this is exclusive Astros spring training coverage on 790.

Brought to you by Carbock Brewing, crafted for serious fun. And by the Palm Beaches.com. Julie Morales, visit Top of the Hour on Sports Talk 790. Dusty Baker's going to join us. We may not do Florida story today because we've just got everything. is all sort of out of kilter. Okay. Because the Players Association meeting went three and a half hours.

Wow. That's... Or you could just have Dusty prepare for a Florida story in case he shows up during the segment. That's true. I bet he's got some Florida stories. He played in Vero Beach. He's usually about Great Fruit League stories.

Yeah, I bet he's got some great ones. Bus rides back in the day. You know, frankly, everybody was here in state. Now there's like six teams left. It is really bizarre. 713-212-1-2-5-790. 7-1-3-2-5-7-90. Let's say how to Todd and Cyprus on Sports Talk 7-90.

Todd, good afternoon. Good afternoon. How are y'all doing? Good. Good. Yeah, I was just kind of pulling in response to earlier, you know, fans comparing and bringing up past cheating incidents and all that. I think the reason why it seems so prevalent is because this has gotten so, I mean, gotten to a point

where literally players are calling out for Aschos players to get, you know, beat up and drilled. They're getting, you know, all these threats and stuff and everybody things being made. It's escalated so far when, while the Astros certainly did break the rules, they crossed the line, they shouldn't cross, and they deserve to be punished. It's like people are forgetting that even that very year that the Boston Red Sox got fined, The Yankees got fined, even though MLB claimed they couldn't find enough evidence on the Yankees. They still find them. So why are you going to find a team if you couldn't find, if they didn't find something was going on?

And then even just in 2018, the Brewers were accusing Dodgers of stealing signs. And so you've got all these, you know, players that are just completely acting like they've never done anything wrong. And the Astros are just being made just in this huge villainous scapegoats of this whole thing. that it's like at some point there needs to be some defense. I mean, you can't defense breaking the rules, but you can defense that, you know what, this is kind of just what was going on in baseball. And the fact that even though even other players,

I know Logan Morrison has come out and said that, hey, look, the Dodgers and the Yankees have been doing the same kind of thing, the Red Sox doing the same thing, is that no one else is being investigated except Boston because of the tie with Cora to the Astros, that it's like, you know, it's one thing, for us to be punished for what we did. But if we're going to be fair about this,

other teams need to be investigated for their issues as well. And it's not happening. I mean, maybe something more will come out after this Boston investigation. I kind of doubt it. What they're saying is it sounds like they're trying to say that what Boston was doing was not as big a deal. I guess a little cheating is okay if you're Boston or New York. But it's just at some point I feel like,

and I think a lot of fans feel this way, that someone needs to step up and kind of, to go on the offensive a little bit like, look, we screwed up, but let's be honest about how baseball has been for the past several years and really, you know, forever. I mean, this is not a new thing. It's just made such a big deal now with social media the way things are going. Yeah, thanks, Tony. I think you're bringing up support.

I don't think they are trying, major league baseball is going, well, if it's Boston in New York, we're going to penalize them less. All major league baseball teams are created equal, depending, no matter what their demographics are, and how big the cities they play in. I will say this. Tony Clark being here today was a little bit of what the caller was just saying. My guess is if we were privy to that three and a half hour visit, that XYZ Astro, it doesn't really matter who it was,

probably stood up and said, hey, Tony, why don't you tell this player to STFU? Because guess what? I bet you will take me five minutes to find something illegal that another team has done. if there has been so much under talk, Ross, of it being so widespread, and that's what clearly with Tony Clark said, he says, look, we're talking about this being all over baseball,

then why are they coming after us? Because they know that maybe their own house isn't clean. And that's what I think the Astros are probably saying, is that you know what, we screwed up, we got caught, we deserve the punishment, but there's a lot of righteousness out there that probably shouldn't be there. Yeah, but there was some kind of discussion about, I mean, how this is in the history and how this has probably been more widespread than maybe we even know.

I mean, there's been talk of people saying, of course, the Red Sox and the Yankees, but even more teams than that. So it would be interesting to be a fly on the wall during that entire conversation. And it's funny because the very first thing that was asked was what you all talking about? Tony's like, I'm not going to tell you. If I wanted you to know, I would have about you in the room. It's just like this, Ross. when in the mid-1990s when I was doing radio younger

and steroid talk was coming to play. A lot of fans would call the show and say, well, thank God our Astros didn't get caught. And I would say with all due respect, if you think that 29 baseball teams took steroids and one did not, you are hiding your head in the sand. So there were a lot of really big superstars that got caught with steroids.

There were also tremendous amounts that did not get caught, that were not put in the Mitchell report. True. That's, if you really wanted to equate things today to what that was, that's how this feels, is that the report came out and the Houston Astros as a collective team, did this, this, this, and this.

It didn't mention other teams. It's only, we only know of one other active investigation. But my guess is Tony Clark is running around these teams because he's got to protect both sides of his union. And Tony Clark, if I was him, say, y'all look be mad at them you can say you know but keep say your initial comments but don't let this linger and more importantly let's make sure that you're in a spot where you know you might be in a particular spot where you may be with other teams that have done the exact same thing short time out we'll start the second hour of the matt thomas show next we start getting some astro guests in there

workout is done the weather has opened up a little bit we'll do that next here on sports talk 790 is the Matt Thomas show. Here we go in the second hour, the Matt Thomas show coming to you today from West Palm Beach. The pride of West Palm Beach is Brad Peacock. Can I say that? Sure. Yeah, I was going to say hometown, high school. You've got a 10-year reunion coming up, 20-year reunion?

You're not a long time of a 20-year reunion. Just 10 years. It just passed. We ended up getting canceled. So, yeah, that was end of that. Because they would have made you probably pay for the whole thing. That's probably a smarter decision on your part. I think it was a couple years ago that it got canceled.

Okay. So you don't have to worry about accommodations. You have a house down here? I do. It's actually me and my wife just built one pretty close to my high school. Really? Do you throw the annual team barbecue for the guys? No, no, no, no.

I just go out there and I went out to tryouts and talk to some of the guys out there. I'm talking about the cookout for these guys in here. Oh, for these guys? No. No, I think I invited some, I usually invite some young guys fishing, and I'm a big fisherman. Oh, I knew that, yeah. Yeah, and we all go out and I take them out fishing, and they get to experience that for some of them for the first time,

so it's pretty cool. Brad Peacock with us here on Sports Talk 7-90. Real fast, we'll get this out of the way. You had maybe the longest meeting with your union rep ever in the history of union reps, right? Would that be fair to say? Yeah, it was a good one. Did y'all take a break or anything? I was telling you're a bunch of 20-something-year-olds,

you can't not pay attention for three straight hours. You're going to be on your phone or something. Everybody had a lot to say, apparently. Everybody was locked in, and it went really well. the good things were said and we're pretty happy. Minds at ease a little bit more than you were before the meeting. Would that be fair to say? Yeah, it went really good.

That's all I'm going to really talk about it. No, I'm good with that. I just want to make sure that it was cool. No, it was great. It went great. So let's talk about camp a little bit. I know that you've been derailed a little bit time-wise, but where are you right now as we speak?

So I'm a little behind. You know, I expected it, but shoulders feeling great. I'm up to, you know, 100 feet. I should get off the mountain here in the next few days. pretty excited about that. That's one of the unfortunate things is that you can fall a little bit behind this time of year and be okay. You just don't want to be in a situation where it lingers into the start of the regular season.

Exactly. We're taking a slow just because I don't want to go through what I did last year. Right. I just taking it nice and easy. And I feel great right now. I'm happy to be where I'm at shoulder-wise. It wasn't even my shirt. It's my neck that's causing the problems.

But, you know, I'm happy where I'm at. And throwing programs going great. like I said, she'll be out the mountain here pretty soon. So it should put you and lands in a separate category. Just take it easy. We need you for April 15th, April 30, it went over the start of the season, is that both you guys, I think, are projected

to have a huge part of this baseball team, so there is no need to rush right now. Exactly, man. I mean, I don't want to rush into things right now and have it feel like it did last year. So I'm glad it's feeling good. I'm taking it slow, and, you know, that's all I can't do right now. There's a little adjustment, obviously,

with a new manager, having the same coaching staff, does that make that little transition a little bit easier for you guys, you think? Absolutely, man. You know, seeing Joe and all the other guys here and Stromy's here. And we all miss AJ, obviously. Right. But, you know, glad to have Dusty here. And he seems like a great guy.

We got to talk to him. I got to talk to him a little bit. And he seems like a pretty laid back guy. So one of the things that we've noticed with him is that he is literally a clean slate with every. everybody. You could have had 35 home runs last year or 120 games or had an a area of six. He's going to judge you based on what he's seeing in person as compared to what maybe the stats or what maybe what the video said. So that in some respects can give guys some new life and probably will challenge guys even been really good to still kind of amp it up with the next. I think everybody comes in the spring training, you know, trying to do their best, obviously.

Right. Now we've got a new manager, clean slate for a bunch of guys and it's going to be a fun year. Oh, how are you, is there anything you're focusing on or just besides health or looking at or trying to zero in on for yourself as far as any goals or anything like what's, what are you looking for in 2020? Because obviously the discussion has been that you're probably not going to end up in the rotation, be a pull-pin guy. So just just your outlook for 2020. For, you know, personally, I just want to be better against lefties this year. So whether it's, you know, learning any pitch or I'm going to talk to stromy whenever we get off the mound. and we already talked about some rhythm stuff so like just having more rhythm my delivery and all that good stuff but uh

i'm gonna talk to him sit him down or sit down with him and see what uh he wants me to do so i think we had uh josh james was also talking about rhythm uh so what just to explain that more to us so i'm more like when i come set i'm still like so i come sat down at the belt and when i go to release a pitch i'm still down my belt so i'm going to start you know get some rhythm bringing my hands up and trying some new things and all that good stuff. Are you done with the windup? No, I'm going to roll with it this year. Are you really?

Yeah. I think so. I liked it. I like when you went opening up and ending out of the stretch. What made you think about doing that and what would you think the end result was of that? So like I said, rhythm. So we were talking about it into last year, but, you know, I don't want to blame on my shoulder, but I was just going through a tough time with my shoulder last year.

And, you know, so I went through the wind up. up trying that, went back to the stretch, you know, but I need to stick with something and, you know, roll with it this year. So I'm going to do the wind up and just try to get more rhythm this year. So, yeah. And this, again, nobody knows the exact answer to this, but if, as you've said, the shoulders just didn't feel right at times last year, how do you fix that in the middle of the year? I mean, you don't want to shut it down. You also don't want to go up there and hurt your team. So there's a balance on that. Yeah. So I had, I just pitched through it. I mean, I had a couple injections last year in my shoulder and my neck and trying to fix it that way.

So the last one worked pretty well. How thick that needle, by the way? I don't know. I didn't look. So, yeah, I mean, I'm just, I don't want to do that again, obviously. So, yeah, just trying to stay healthy. There are spots in a bullpen because of a departure and there's a spot in the rotation. I'm looking forward to seeing with, are you kind of, if just an observer kind of looking forward to seeing how this.

bullpen in this rotation shape up and who makes what. And so there are some questions. And years past there haven't been. This shooter's got a couple of spots clearly open. Absolutely, man. I'm sure any guy near, you know, we have a great group of guys and everybody's pulling for each other. Sure.

Sure. So, you know, whoever ends up not getting the fifth spot is going to be in the bullpen. So they're still going to be in the big leagues. That's how I look at it. You're still going to be in the big leagues living out your dream. So I'm sure they're going to be happy about it, whether, however they help the team. So, yeah.

Lance is going to be hopefully get back in that starting rotation, but I think he's going to be an innings limit, clearly. I mean, when you come off with Tommy John, which means that that middle reliever, mid-leverage role guy, is a very important one. I think you're prepared to handle that. You've done it in the past. I told him already.

I was like, I'll throw however many innings you need me out of a bullpen, whatever they need. Josh James is multiple-endings guy, Devo, multiple-enings guy, you know, Framber's in the bullpen or whoever, multiple in it. So we got it covered for sure. What is it like, as you've done both,

what is your off day like after you've pitched, let's say two innings and you've thrown 36 pitches? I mean, do you need the same sort of day off that you would need if you went out and pitched 5 and through 85 pitches? I mean, does your arm notice the significant number of pitch difference? No, I feel like you get the same amount of soreness, but obviously, you know, if you throw two innings, you have two days off.

So you can mentally prepare for that and get your workout in. Yeah. Do your rehab or, you know, shoulder stuff. So that's what I need to get on a better program. doing that after I pitch, you know, the night after doing my shoulders work or whatever. So I need to get a better. So you're talking about right after you pitch? Yeah.

And then that's ice. In the day after. I just need to get a better routine to stay healthy. And I think I have that this year working with the guys in the training room right now. So we got a good plan on doing that. So that mean like icing up and then even even, do you take that ice back to the hotel? I don't ice. I don't ice.

So you've got a bionic arm? I used to. No one really ices anymore. Tell the truth. Really? It's more like, we have these new things called the BFR. It's like little, I don't know, they cut off your circulation. Oh, that sounds good.

Do all that stuff. So it's a lot of new stuff other than icing, yeah. A lot of guys don't iceing. So James Click coming on from Tampa, obviously we know they're privy to using the opener. Have you guys heard any conversations about that possibly happening here in this year? And what are your thoughts on that in general? That's my dream job. Really?

I'll be an opener, man. That's because you want your headlines in the media notes, right? Get a fresh clean mound out there. Right. But no, we haven't really talked about it. But, you know, I think I've done it a couple times already. So I did the playoffs last year against the Yankees, and then I did it in Seattle. So I've done a couple times, and I like it.

So you're telling me that guys don't manicure the mound properly when you're out there? No. So when the reliever comes in, that mound is messed up. Okay, before we let you go, let's out. somebody who has the dirtiest mound messes it up the most yeah i don't know framber probably oh i'd have more respect to you to said verlander or somebody like that that's funny there's a smart veteran move yeah yeah you're gonna have said anything i don't you just know they all keep it good but at least you threw somebody under the bus it's good hey brad it's nice to visit with you

thanks sir for coming by i know it's been a long day with all the meetings and whatnot uh take care of that neck we want to see you out there uh ready to go opening day my friend i'll be ready sounds good thanks bram much. Brad Peacock joining us here on the Matt Thomas show. Let's say how to our good friend William Morales, who we visited with us earlier today on the radio program. And we talked about what it's like being around here in this 2020 camp and how different it's been from years past. You get the informal interviews, you get the little stuff, little anecdotal things. Tell me the demeanor of most of the guys you've talked to. Is it about the same, or do you notice a little bit of a difference? It's a great question. I'm actually glad I'm

getting to talk about it because I think people need to know that once they have sat down with me, I've gone through, let's see, probably 12 interviews or so. Yeah. We're just, I worried coming in, you know, I knew how much media was already at spring training and in the clubhouse and the questions that were being asked. And I knew kind of the vibe just from afar. I was wondering how it would be for me to ask what I usually ask for, which is a lot of these guys' time. You know, 20 minutes in spring training is a long time when these guys are getting here at the crack of dawn. spending all day preparing their bodies and they're trying to get back into the swing of things or here all day or whatever getting their work done

So for me to pull them aside have them sit down and to really get into some deeper things that we can't do during the regular season But this is this is the really our only shot I was wondering if you know if they didn't want to maybe go as as deep or you know how they would feel about one more interview that they would have to do They have been fantastic so you know just going going back this is a great group of guys they always have been they've been great to me it's why I love this job so much is because I'm surrounded by such a great group but they have sat down they've been so willing to talk about 2020 finally talk about the season that's right in front of them getting their their bodies right their minds right all the things that they love to do this time of year and they've been talking about each other so it's just

so highly of each other you know you can tell they've missed each other that fun banter is back they've been I had Joe be a genie be Joe be a genie yesterday which made me laugh do you ever get them off mic I mean that's it's a Took a second. But, you know, things like that, and this made me feel really good. I'm in a really good place. So you say odd, yes, it was odd coming in. I thought it would be a little strange at times dealing with all the extra that's going on.

As we sit here talking, I mean, how many media members are standing right outside the store waiting for Tony Clark? So, you know, it's just there's a lot of extra, but at the end of the day, these guys have been great, and they are so ready to just talk about the upcoming season. I will tell you this, and I don't think I'm giving you any breaking news. You're going to be in a position this year, unlike any other with the field reporting that you do for AT&T, because you're going to hear it from the fans. I'm very curious about the first road trip. Oakland, and especially Anaheim, where there has been consistent talk of thousands of Dodger fans.

So have you mentally prepared for just the things? Because you always hear strange things. And some of the things you can report, some of the things you cannot. My guess is it will be 10 times the intensity, probably everywhere, and I said this on the air, with the exception of Boston, because they may be getting the same sort of treatment here in the next couple of weeks. Yeah, no, I'm mentally preparing that. You ask that, and it sounds a little dramatic, but no, I have been. I've actually thought to myself, you know, what is it going to be like? Because I do know, I've traveled now.

This will be my eighth year to be with this club, and then I sit right next to the dugout. I am so close to what's going on in that dugout. So I hear what they can hear, and they can hear what I can hear. And some of the ballparks, you know, fan bases are, you know, a fan base like Seattle where it's not packed every night. You can almost hear them better in what they're saying. And I wonder how that's going to be where we can hear every single thing that a fan is screaming their way or, you know, places that are more packed and it's too loud. Maybe you can't hear anything. I'm very curious.

I'm very curious what fans are going to try to do and try to say and try to sneak into the ballpark with and use as a noise maker or what you. what you will. I just, I, I've, I've spent too much time thinking about it, I think. It'll just be, you wouldn't believe what I heard next. Right. Is what I think it's going to happen. I'm probably going to have some stories by the end of the season. But we're still going to do our job and got to call some games.

So I'm ready. Let's do this. Yeah, my guess is your broadcast. Not that I, I know your AT&T executives very well. You're probably going to let the drama of the crowd and the game itself dictate more as compared to letting it being a long exhaustive conversation between you and your two broadcasters. I will say this, and we'll look ahead here in just a second.

You and I have the very good fortune to have in the past. You get to talk to AJ you did every Friday on your shows. He was with me every Tuesday, and so we're going to miss that. I don't know what Dusty's going to be. We're going to visit with him today on the show. It feels like we're going to love him right off the get-go, but it will be a different difference because AJ, you felt like every intricate part of the organization top to bottom

from what was happening to the minor leagues and major leagues. And still to this day, Dusty's still trying to get a feel of his 26-man roster he's going to put together here before the start of the season. Yeah, which has been a little bit different for me. Yeah, just coming in, I knew I was going to have AJ and Jeff both sit down with me and break down every single player. Like you said, every little detail of this team, a little different.

But you know what? We've been leaning on the coaches more this time around because they know this team. Brintstrom knows this team in the pitching side so well. So we've been leaning on those guys. But yeah, a little bit different. I am letting Dusty have some time to figure out his guys and some of the competitions and letting him watch use his eyes for a little bit before I make him sit down and give me a dissertation on every single player that might make the roster. James Click, you know, we're just getting to know him.

I just sat down with him for 30 minutes. I mean, I didn't even feel like we really got into the team just because I want to know about him. I want to know about his philosophies coming in and how he got this job and what kind of position does he feel like he's in. And so much getting to know, right, which will probably be a little bit of what you do with Dusty today. Right. As we just get to know these guys and figure it out. And then we can go from there. But we know the team.

You know, I mean, you and I both. This team didn't change much, if at all. Yeah, I'm curious about how the starting rotation is going to look. Garrett Cole, you just cannot make up for his absence. I'm curious about how the outfield shakes up, whether Kyle Tucker takes that next step. I'm curious about who replaces Will Harris in those, you know, key high leverage innings. For sure. Really, that's about the three things I'm really most curious about.

Yeah, you know, I think this team will miss Robinson Chorinos in a lot of ways, but Martine Maldonado can absolutely get it done in that, in that he has that calming presence with the younger guys. He does a really good job. But the innings that Chorino's caught with some of those young guys that was crucial for Jose Orquite. Orquite doesn't pitch that well in the World Series without Chorino's being right there by his side. But to have Martimaldonado, I mean, this is a lot of,

a guy that's going to catch every single day. I think we're going to see a lot of Dustin Garneau. You've got to take care of these catchers. But yeah, I mean, other than that, yeah. I mean, you hit it. Those are the things that we're watching for, but it's kind of a quiet camp. Yeah, all right. The yearly obligatory Julia Morales question about as you travel around the league,

tell me, remind me again, where you're afraid for your life the most when it comes to foul balls being hit. What stadiums are? Cleveland, progressive. For sure. It's because the camera well where I usually have my little office. if you will. Yes.

They put me in there, is lower. It's below field level. And those screamers that come down the first baseline that just, you know, worm burners. Yeah. We, we, everybody's at home going exactly, no, it's feeling like, yeah. We'll just ricochet in ways that you, I'm just careful. Because you're very, look, you're very social media conscious. You get the IG, you're on Twitter all the time.

You can't look down very often, can you? Oh, but I'm so good. should, somebody should watch me in a game. No, don't watch me. But, oh, they watch you. Don't worry. My, I have good tempo. You know, pitchers have good tempo.

Yes, you know what to do it? I have great tempo and rhythm. So, you know, it's like I know when to tweet and look up. Like, I've got, in certain pictures, too, I've got them down. I know exactly how many seconds. Like, this mental clock in my head, it's a weird skill that I've picked up. So what is your, so what's the clock time on Justin Verlander then? You should know that, right?

I can't tell you the time, but I can feel it. I know when he's on the mound. It's like, in my peripheral, I can kind of see him work his way around. You know, the little things that they do to get themselves ready, you know, Garrett Cole would swipe the ground, excuse me, swipe the dirt with his foot and, you know, he'd do it towards the back and he turned to the front.

And it's just, I knew the timing. And I was like, okay, got to get that tweet out. Here we go. All right. Last question. We've heard you in the past on our radio station doing some play-by-play of some spring journey. You can do it again this year?

Yes. You better tell us today so we can record it. Well, yeah, I will. Let me get some things ironed out. on the dates, but we do have 10 spring training games. We want everyone to tune in 25th is our first one. 26 and 27th or our first three. We'll be back in March.

Sometime in March, though, you'll see me. And I'm doing some radio. But watch on AT&T SportsNet. So excited to be back with Blummer and TK. It's not even funny. I miss those guys. They're just my family. All right.

The talent of Julian Morales joining us here, as she does every year for our yearly spring training visit. More coming up from West Palm Beach in a moment. It's the Matt Thomas show. And this is Sports Talk 790. Talk 790, live from Astros' spring trains. And excitement. You know, this is a new beginning.

Exclusive coverage from West Palm Beach is brought to you by Carbock Brewing, Crafted for Serious Fong, and by the FOMbeaches.com. All right, 120 on the mat, Thomas show. Thanks to Brad Peacock and Julian Morales for stopping by for a couple of minutes on the radio program. Dusty Baker is going to join us here in a matter of moments. We're kind of in a waiting time hold because I think everything from today was mixed up a little bit. Ross and I fight over

cords. I'm not fighting. I am. It's okay. You touch my knee. In a caressing position. It was not caressing. I was trying to get you. Folks, Ross was caressing me. Tony Clark spoke today, the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association. We have all three of the

sound bites on our blogs and the Twitter accounts at SportsMT and at Sports Talk 790. Let's Nick, let's play segment. number two. I broke them up into three different clips and each poke brought 15 minutes, but just to give you a little sample. For those of you don't know, Tony Clark, former

Major League Player and now the executive director of the Major League Baseball Player Association, he met with the Astros for more than three hours today. And here are some questions and answers from Tony. A lot of it coming about the concerns the Astros might have had, they definitely had Ross with how they're being portrayed during all this. And here's a little bit from Tony Clark. We'll play Ross. We'll play a Nick We'll play segment number two, which you can find on our website at sports 790.com. They just want to make sure that the truth and its truth remains the truth and that is not being manipulated and it's not being undermined.

And that the information that comes out in a report to suggest considerations in 17 were this and no considerations in 18 were there and no considerations in 19 were there, that that remains true following a report that suggested as much. So the guys are understanding, and you've heard them apologize with respect to 2017. They acknowledge the concerns that seem to be out there with respect to 2018 and 2019. And the guys are wholeheartedly focused in on making sure that themselves and players on other team and our game in general, whatever in the conversations we need to have with the other side to make sure that our game is in a better place moving forward, that we have those. Are they concerned about retaliation?

Well, when you have comments publicly that suggest certain things may happen on the field, it's hard to ignore those. We'll continue to have dialogue with other guys on other teams as it relates to how the game should be played on the field moving forward against the backdrop of whatever concerns those guys have, but it's hard for them not to hear the commentary that's out there. Okay, and we're going to play with more of it. Josh Redick in the clubhouse just to our right says apparently he put a, video up Ross of his five-month-old twins and a comment on Twitter which again I'm not going to let Twitter dictate the national narrative I'm not going to let do it but one of them said I hope your kid gets cancer there's just such a small small part of America

that is ugly and nasty he says another response was I will kill your entire family this is awful as mad as America is you're going to take you're going to be a lunatic's everywhere yeah it's uh i mean you don't even want to give credence to these type of people these are people who have sad lives and have nothing to do and they're either doing this for a reaction or they're doing it because they believe it because i mean they've got their own type of personal problems i don't mean to go all lebron james on you because sure when he was talking about like these people need to look at themselves in the mirror but a lot of them probably do or they're just wasting your time you're either a troll or

you're a sad individual and you don't really have time for either and it's unfortunate that some somebody would come out and say those types of things on Josh Reddit comments, whether they meant them or not. And it's just some of the worst of society that we often see, usually on the Internet, where there's anonymity, and there's no repercussions for your actions or coming out and making those types of threats and comments. Yeah, it's funny. When you say something wrong or you report something wrong or you want to be mean to somebody, you just delete your tweet or say sorry. Yeah, or you're hiding behind some kind of burner account or something like that that doesn't have your name or you. your likeness or anything like that on there either.

Yeah, I, you know, there's absolutely 100% believe that's to be true. Josh would make that up. Josh is, that's not his business. He's, there are too many good guys in baseball. And Josh is, you know, not enough nice guys. And Josh is one of the good ones that we, and that's not fair to him or his family. But I will say this. Josh is a grown-ass man.

Josh's wife, Josh's kids, and obviously they're very, very young. They don't, they're not going to want to see that. No one will want to see that. I would be as incensed as he probably is. when he first saw that, even if it's just one single person, to think that somebody in this world of ours has so much hate for a sports team that they thought that would be cute to do that. All right. It doesn't make any sense. All right. 125 on the Matt Thomas show.

It is anything goes Friday. If you'd like to chime in, you can do so. We've got phone calls coming in. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. Dusty Baker is going to join us here in a few minutes. In the last half hour, if you missed our conversation with Al-Lavis. Gregman and the new general manager, James Click.

We're going to have it for you. Ross and I have to catch our flight back to Balmy, Houston, Texas. Is it Balma? I didn't even know what the forecast is. I thought it was still kind of chilly. Let's go to the Accuweather Center. Nick Lowe, what is in our current temperature in Houston, Texas right now? I don't know.

Some 40-something? Let's give a second look at. I see 54 and clear is what I'm looking at. Okay. Good flying weather. I'm kind of chilly this weekend. Maybe I'll make a pot of chili or something. Well, all right.

there it is. Ross is going to invite you to his house to cook a pot of chili. Yeah, $10 a bowl. You're charging that much? Furniture is 52 degrees Fahrenheit, humidity, 42% winds 10 miles per hour. There you go. You are probably the least attractive meteorologist in Houston, Nicklow. Are you okay with that? I can try it in a

miniskirt. Will that help? No. No, it makes... It makes it worse. Let's say hi to Steve and Huffman on 790. Hi, Steve. How's sunny, Florida? It's not... Well, I actually, was raining all day today. So the claws have finally broken, but thank you

for asking. We're having a good time. Well, listen, I've been busy with work and stuff and I've been paying attention like everybody else. I guess what's really kind of gnawn at me a little bit is I think I'm older than you. I'm in my late

60s, and I grew up in the Midwest. I followed the Cubs, the Cardinals. And I'm just trying to think back on those players role models, damn usual. Ernie Banks, you know, the guys that played in the Cardinals, Kurt Flood, Lou Brock. You know, that would have happened back then. Yeah, there's some anger, but would they have come out and said what these guys are saying?

You know, I wish I knew what was coming. I did 100,000 home runs. Yeah, they're cheaters. You know, they're talking like five-year-olds. They're not being role models for kids. And Marcaicus, you know, You better check those comments because they're borderline criminal in the courtroom, you know, what he said. I couldn't believe that.

Now, having said that, what I'm concerned about is the knuckleheads going to the games and the pitcher's taking retaliation. And I guess my concern there is Rob Manfred. I heard his press conference the other day. This guy is Kleenex. I mean, he should step in and make a hard step. statement, have you hurt these guys in any way? You're suspended for the year without pay, period. Yeah, I don't know if Rob Manfred's in the mode of hard stances on that.

That would be probably as hard of an agenda to pass along. Oh, by the way, you throw it a guy, you're going to miss an entire year when you didn't penalize anybody that was involved. Now, that's not going to fly. Thank you for the phone call, Steve. They have already talked about harsher penalties for who was it, the pirates and the Reds or who was in there. They always fight every year. So they were talking about harsher penalties for intentional hitting.

And one of the things that you have when those types of things happen is proving intent is kind of difficult when it comes to baseball. You can always, as a pitcher, say, I didn't mean to do it. I lost grip. The pitch slipped away a little bit. Right, exactly. So, I mean, knocking them out for an entire year, I think. Maybe if it's like Ross Stripling or well, they don't even play the Dodgers, but if it's somebody who's come out and said, I will hit the players like Mike Clevenger,

I think he would deserve a harsher punishment because he's talked about. Tyler Bauer? Trevor, don't call me Tyler Bauer. Trevor don't call me Tyler. I got you. I always get confused on what his actual real name is. By the way, when you get it confused, it's okay. It's okay.

It is Tyler Bauer then. We're going to roll with that. Tyler Bauer. I mean, those types of guys, I think we might see some kind of harsher penalty. All right, our time is 129. It is the Matt Thomas show. We've got Dusty Baker coming by. We've got conversations.

We had Alex Bregman earlier and James Click. We got you as well. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-213-2-5-7-90. Welcome to Palm Beach and a new season of Astros baseball. I'm very excited. We can't wait to get out there and play again. Exclusive Astros' spring training coverage on 7-9 is brought to you by Carbock Brewing,

crafted for Syria's fun and by the palm beaches.com to all of our sponsors for our spring training coverage covering now two weeks we've been down here between yourself me grinding Michael Connor Chris Gordy we thank our friends at the palmbeaches.com we thank the Hilton Garden in Palm Beaches outlets we thank Carbock Brewing take a look at all of our tweets all of our blogs all of our Instagram We've, I think we've done a pretty good job, but giving you kind of the feel through sites and more importantly, sounds of spring training.

But a big thank you to all of our 2020 spring training sponsors of Palm Beaches.com. If you're coming down here to check the games out, hotel, car rental, restaurants, things to do. And again, the Hilton Garden Inn, what a perfect place for us to go. Stay at their hotel. It's about 50 minutes from here.

And the outlets are right there. Restaurants right along 95. It's a piece of cake. So check out all of the great things. starting with the palmbeaches.com and follow that up with our friends at the Hilton Garden and of course, Cobbock Brewing. So we just heard of Craig Ackerman Soundbite. We're trying to rally here.

Staying up to 113 in the morning Easter time is a little bit of a challenge, especially with the Rockets were up 30. Yeah, because, you know, Matt, we had to get deep down and break down. How was Damari Carroll looking in the fourth quarter minutes? Maybe they did a whole lot for the game because it was out of reach. but Damari Carroll getting some time and Jeff Green getting some time. So both new rockets getting a little bit of a look in the rotation,

which I think is welcome from basically everybody on the team. I mean, nobody played more than 30 minutes last night. That's a godsend for the rockets. May I make a small request? I've not done so yet. Okay. Just one. I'm flying to Salt Lake City from here because I'm meeting the rockets.

I've got to change planes. Is there anybody that has a private aircraft that could take me? Oh, please. Well, let me finish. Go ahead. it'd be a lot easier if I had a private jet that took me from West Palm right to Salt Lake City. What you whine about it, fancy Matt? I'm not wanting.

It's just a call to arms. A call to arms? Yeah. To what, help you out? What have you done for these people? I would, I'll tweet about them. I'll say thank you. You don't even have 30,000 followers.

I mean, how much is that offering to the people? Yeah, that's true. Maybe if we would have had passing on the air, you'd have. you said, hey, these guys aren't half bad, but we didn't have mine, so we don't get a chance. But, yeah, if you have a private aircraft, then get me to Salt Lake City, pick me up at Palm Beach Airport. I don't know, about two hours or not. Greatly appreciate that. You think we're on at River Oaks Country Club or something?

I don't know. You never know who's listening. Charter you something up. I actually do you hear of getting you. Do you think Cal's listening? Bob used to listen to the show. That's a fact. But I don't think Cal does.

Apparently Bill O'Brien listens to sports radio. I've heard that, too. and I believe 100% believe that. 5,000. Is there such thing as 5,000 percent believe that? No, I mean, you could say 110% or anything, however many you want. Over 100. Yeah, but the Rockets did a nice job yesterday. The game was frankly never competitive.

No. You know, you kind of needed it out of the break. Beautiful, right out of the gate, just knocking down threes like crazy PJ Tucker, 5-5 from three. It was beautiful. A wide-open offense. I mean, especially, I mean, yeah, it's Golden State Warriors, but they literally lost this team on, on Christmas a couple of months ago. So we can talk about how they're not a very good team,

how they haven't been playing well, they don't have a lot of talent, et cetera, et cetera. The fact of the matter is they are a professional NBA team and the Rockets blew their doors off from the word go. So it was a little bit encouraging to see there. Because I'm open and honest with you and our radio audience, I've been a Rocket fan since I was eight or nine years old. Okay.

PA announcer two different times now a radio broadcaster for them. And so I'm going to be just be an open fan. I'm just going to be, even if I wasn't directly involved with the team. That's the team I grew up with. I'm noticing there are more and more people gravitating towards, wow, this six, nine and shorter lineup may have some lengths to it. Am I doing that because I'm trying to find optimism out there? Or am I really sensing that there is a group of people that are respected NBA voices

that are saying, you know, we knew what the Rockets were with Clint, This certainly has been intriguing what they are without him. I think there is that, and a lot of it is because they're winning. If their Rockets were losing all these games, everybody would be saying, well, this small ball thing is terrible, and it's never going to work. But they're winning games. I think people are finding realizing it's not that huge of a deal, because especially when you're playing with Russell Westbrook,

you want more shooters out there, and the Rockets are taking a lot of threes, and especially the new addition, Robert Covington, I mean, more often than not, he's been doing pretty well, five and ten from three last night. He was, and he was making some tough ones, Matt, with guys on him and the shot clock running down. That's what I really like to see.

I mean, I don't want to say anybody can make wide open threes because Russell Westbrook is one of those guys again. But there's guys who can make tough threes, the guys who can make open threes, and if you can make those tough ones with the shot clock running down with guys on you, which so far in his rocket's career, we've seen that from Robert

Covington, that's going to be a huge help. Because here's the thing. I don't care how tall the Lakers are or the clippers or how deep they are. What we saw last night, and granted, it was against the Sucky Warriors. And Ross, they're awful. Yes, they're bad.

But PJ Tucker gets open threes against the elite teams. So does James Harden. Yes. So does Austin Rivers. It's not like what they saw last night was a team that just said, well, we're going to stay at the free throw line and not graduating beyond that.

If the Rockets hit their open threes, which is a lot easier said than done, but super teams can do it. Golden State hit open threes and won a championship. Why can't the Rockets be in that mix to win the Western Congress? Well, it's going to be coming down to defense and rebounding. The offense is going to be fine. The offense is going to be one of the best in the league.

And we've seen even, like, game one against the Lakers, we talked about how Chaville McGee didn't hardly play in the second half. He played like 50 seconds of that fourth quarter, and Dwight Howard played zero seconds of that fourth quarter. So what the other teams are going to have to do, despite Kenny Smith saying, well, when the Rockets go small, you go super big. That's ridiculous and nonsensical. What teams are going to do is they're going to go small with the Rockets,

and then we're going to do it with as much talent as you have when it comes to the heavy hitters, teams like the Clippers or the Bucks, or I don't know how great the Lakers will be at adjusting to small ball, but there are other teams who can go small, and that's what they're going to do to combat the Rockets, and then that's what we're going to see. When teams are ready for that for a seven-game series in the playoffs,

that's when it's really going to come to the test, but as of right now, it's going to be completely fine. They're going to win games, because they're just going to have shooters all over the place. And that's the thing I think towards the end of what you said made the most sense, seven game series. You don't have to think about the next opponent. You don't think about getting on a plane going somewhere.

When you play a series of seven games against the same opponent, you're going to be able to stare at them. The memories of playing what they do. Where James likes to shoot on the floor. Where Russ likes to take that mid-range. Where he likes to elevate and go to the lane. These are all things that will be fresh in your mind that you have to, and again, you're also asking for a Rockets team,

for that matter any team, to be good five times, four times in a seven-game series against a team that may pose problems for you defensively. You've got to be at your best in a short period of time against a quality team. There's no Golden State in the middle of playing the Los Angeles Clippers in a first round. I think one of the benefits will happen. When the playoffs do start, there's just about nothing that any team can throw at the Rockets that they will not have seen.

Even last night, we saw the Gold and the playoffs. Golden State Warriors go into a zone for a little bit, and then the guys are getting wide open threes. We saw them double James Hardin. Guys are getting wide open looks. We've seen, of course, when the Utah Jazz were using Rudy Gobert as the primary defender on Russell Westbrook, that's, I mean, everything that you can probably possibly throw at, the Houston Rockets, they will have seen.

So that's at least good on that side. All right. We will visit with you on the phone. If you'd like to join us at 713212-5-790, still ahead before the close the show. we will spend some time with Dusty Baker, the manager of your beloved Houston Astros. A lot to get to with Ross and Nick. I'm Matt here in West Palm Beach. A lot of time. I don't want to start off slow.

It's a new season of Astros baseball. And this is exclusive Astros spring training coverage on 790. Brought to you by Carbock Brewing, crafted for serious fun, and by the Palm Beaches.com. Being overblamed, too. They can be contrite, but are they? upset that they're taking all the blame for this? Well, I think they understand that in the world that we live in, in the technology that's available.

There's a lot of availability out there across the league, and they understand that at this time, in this instance, they have been the team that's been affected the most. They understand that. They understand that. Tony, you represent all the players across the league. I would imagine that maybe the concerns of the guys here might not be the same as concerns of guys on other teams right now, maybe more so than in the past.

How do you sort of balance how you do your job, protect, represent them, when it may be different than what you're hearing of the players from other teams? I will never apologize. I will never apologize for protecting player rights. It doesn't matter what team you're on. It doesn't matter whether you're a first sip of coffee or you got 20 years. I want to apologize for that. I'm not going to apologize for it here.

If another team finds themselves in a similar situation, we will protect their rights as well. So there's a fundamental here that's not going to change, despite the fact that Houston's in a tough spot. The players in Houston are in a tough spot. Moving forward, that fundamental isn't going to shift as a result of the challenges that exist here versus the challenges that exist somewhere else.

The guys will understand that we protect all 1,200 guys, continue to do so. The guys on the other teams understand it too, that you're here to protect the playwrights. I mean, there might be guys on other teams that think... We think they do, but I'll tell you what, we have an opportunity during the course of the spring to get in front of all 30 clubs. And by the time we get done, I'm pretty sure they will, if they don't already.

That's Tony Clark, the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association. How hard do you think his job is this offseason 1 to 10? 8 and 1-5-9? Harderman was another time Because he's going to have a This Do we know if this is like the first clubhouse he's talked to? I don't know

It doesn't know He's going to have to kind of Disseminate this message Throughout all these teams And he's going to have to deal with a lot of more Different personalities and different viewpoints And different Just angles of this

Right Than he's ever had to deal with But That's part of being MLBPA head, I guess. There's going to be fires that need to be put out, and this is going to be one of the bigger ones he'll probably ever have to deal with,

but it comes with the territory, I guess. He was asked, is this the most difficult thing he's ever to deal with? He says, well, he didn't say that. He said it was the most interesting, because what he's got is he's got, okay, there are 36 guys on a major league roster, 30 teams, so what's that,

750, give or take a little bit more? Yeah, 790 or 780? 790 sounds like a good number. where probably 760 of them are well I didn't say 760 there's 25 26 of them are like cut us him a little bit of slack there are over 700 they're like get him censure him take the trophy away

but here's the thing you have to if you're in his position you've got to understand that everybody in your union is going to have a different viewpoint on this and that's why I'd be curious to see how he handles it he felt like at least as he was saying this to the audit to the media that was here earlier

that by the time he gets to all the different clubhouses, which there are 30 of them, which he will have to address in the next six weeks, that maybe things will have calmed down a little bit. I think they probably feel better in that clubhouse today. I don't know if he visits the other 29

and they're all of a sudden going to like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. We'll leave him alone. I don't feel that's going to happen. I don't know what's going to happen to everybody, but I think a lot of people will get more of perspective on this and hopefully get more educated because I think that was the biggest problem is people not knowing about what's going on in 2018 and 2019, which he talked about right here. And I think he's going to talk to the other clubs about that type of stuff.

And just from when we had Brad Peacock on, he just, he didn't give any, without giving any specifics, he said it was a really good meeting, really productive meeting. He's really happy with the way it went. So I think, you know, if somebody like Brad Peacock, who's been around this game a while and has seen a lot, thinks that it was a pretty good productive meeting, that hopefully it'll be the same for most of the other clubs. If I was Tony Clark, you know, I would do it and say, all right, hey, everybody, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Detroit. Y'all are we mad at them?

And I'll respect the fact you've got an opinion on this, but your house better be clean, too. Because if we find out that you've done stuff, all bets are off. So just be careful what you want to say because everything is on the record. And I think, as I said before, I'm not going to go back to steroid users. I'm not going to go back to people that use cork bats. I'm not going to go to people. What I'm going to do is I'm going to say if this has been such an ordeal and people have been sideways, and rightfully so,

you better make sure if you're going to be out there unspoken about how you want a trophy back or you lost an MVP or a batting title, if it comes back and you're a part of this too, that's where I think you deserve the wrath. I'm not going after 1990s steroid. I'm just not. I am going to go after someone who is very, like if Bellinger, If we found anything about the Los Angeles Dodgers, not being choir boys, heaven help him.

That's what the Yankees think of us, especially Aaron Judge. Glaver Torres wasn't there in 17. I think his first year was 18. So, I mean, it didn't surprise me a ton to hear from him. But for Aaron Judge to speak out the way it does, it kind of struck me a little as odd because literally they were disciplined in 2017. Jim and San Antonio on the Matt Thomas show. Hi, Jim. Hey, how are you?

Can you hear me okay? Yes, sir. Go ahead. Okay, I have a statement to make, and then I'd like to ask a couple of questions. The statement is basically, you know, there was a memo issued before September 15th, or at September 15th. Prior to that, there were no rules on this type of sign stealing using video equipment. That's number one, and the question I have is that when they did the player investigation, I mean, we've done. don't know a lot about it, and I like your opinion on that.

How do they know they cheated in the postseason? Was it because of some statements that maybe some disgruntled pitchers like prize, I don't know, maybe Ken Giles, you know, and I'm not trying to, you know, Gregerson, I don't know, the ones that weren't maybe happy with, you know, the team may have say, oh, yeah, they cheated in the postseason. I mean, how are they verifying all that? Carlos Correy said they cheated in the postseason. Yeah, Carlos, it's in the report.

Yeah. They said it wasn't effective, and everybody was changed. They tried to use the trash can scheme in the playoffs, but it apparently wasn't very effective because people were changing up their signs so much. Yeah, thank you, Jim, for the phone call. I'm not going to get into the semantics of when it was. The report has indicated everything.

So if you look at the report, they're going off that, and that's what we have to go off. It's in the postseason, and Carlos said we tried to do, it in the postseason, but apparently just wasn't effective because teams had gotten wind of it. It was so loud and all that type of stuff. So whether you want to believe him or not, he says they tried,

but it wasn't effective in the playoffs. Is the Matt Thomas show? All right, we're getting worth that Dusty Baker's going to be joining us here shortly on the Matt Thomas show. Fingers across. I just got a text. No, I'm telling you, this is really good. Okay. I just want to make sure if the chair is right.

He's been very busy. He's been in meetings. High-level meetings. And, of course, I imagine he was around for the players meeting. Well, maybe not, right? Did he get it? Does he in that? That's a good question.

I don't know. I would assume that that would not be a... He would not be in there. Yeah, he's not a member of the union. Right. He was. Yeah. When he was back when he was rocking polyester suits.

Oh, man. I just, I really like him. But I told you this the other day. I'm really looking forward to that. first managerial decision he makes. Who he pulls, who he pinch hits for, bullpen, that kind of thing.

That's what I'm looking for because right now it's a lot of, he's kind of the calming voice in the organization. He's getting to know the players. All that kind of stuff that you don't have to necessarily have to you go, well, you know, like tomorrow's starter for the spring

training, who cares? Position players aren't going to, the normal guys are going to be there. Who cares? I want to know about his son How old his son is the one he picked up Did he pick him up? 2002, that was him, yeah, I believe so Good, yeah, good information on that right.

Okay. But yeah, Dusty Baker's going to join us here. Was it his grandson? No, no, that's Darren, I think. Yeah, so now we're looking it up. This is nothing like show prep minutes before he comes on the show to talk about that. Here he comes right now. Skip is here.

This is great. Nice to see you. Have a seat, sir. I meet you. All right. Dusty Baker with us here. Make sure the microphones work because I'm all like O'Fergna on this one.

Let me handle this, Matthew. I know you are in a high profile meeting, so we appreciate you taking 10 minutes of your time. Well, hey, everything's profile. Everything's trying to hide. This is not necessarily that a low-key spring training has it. No, not really. That's okay.

Okay, so let's talk about your life. Yeah. Major League baseball player, you've been through strikes, steroid areas. You had to manage Barry Bonds. You got this going on. I mean, you could write a serious book about your life. I know.

Then you'd have to tell the truth. We want non-fiction, skip. We don't need fiction. I know you do. Every day we've been here the last three days and we're leaving today. You have been surprised and marveled and impressed with something new. What does that like to be able to meet these young men, get to know them, but go, you know what? I like their approach because you honestly, you walked in with a slate that was like, I've only seen them on television.

Right. Well, you know, number one, I like them. Yeah. And number two, they like each other. And I think that's, I mean, that's huge. I mean, this is a very close-knit, you know, a bunch of guys. Yeah. And, you know, they have one goal is to win.

I mean, these guys, I mean, that's all they talk about, you know, getting back to the World Series, winning the World Series, and, you know, that's just right up my alley. But could you say that for every team you've ever managed? No. I mean, most teams I manage, you know, really didn't have the personnel when I first got there. Yeah. You know, other than Washington.

You know, I was with the Giants. We were next to the bottom where I went to the Cubs. You know, I think we were on the bottom. And then Cincinnati, you know, they were close to the bottom. And so, you know, I inherited a real good team in Washington, you know, that had fallen down some. You brought them back up. Yeah.

And then being up with this team is on top. And, you know, there's certain pressures of, you know, when you're starting on top, but the thing about it is, I mean, that's a good pressure to have. Yeah. You know, I mean, you know you have good players. I mean, they know that they can play. You know, they know that they're good. You've got a good system I've seen, you know, I've focused probably more since I've been here on some of the minor league kids that are possibly help us at some point in time this year or ensuing years coming.

And so, you know, I had one minor league young man asked me, says, man, you like me. being around the young guys and I says yeah because it's easier to teach you know young dogs new tricks than it is old dogs you know new tricks but these guys the old dogs aren't that old right and so it's it's it's been nice it's been nice to be back it's been nice to to to you know come back to west palm because this where I started I started here in 1968 and don't age yourself like that you're trying to do that hey I'm proud of it because I'll tell you man all the funerals I went to the last couple years while I was off you know you got to be thankful for every day that you know that you're given here on this earth so like I'm proud

to be where I am yeah you know in my life and you know proud of my family and just a grateful I'm thankful for everything well we're happy to have you here AJ and I had a good relationship and I've heard nothing but amazing things from you and I will say this and I'm not trying to blow smoke here but every one of the guys we've had on this week is like Jared Hughes in a matter of fact said hey I get to go play for a guy like Dusty Baker I mean you've you've made a lot of friends in this business. Tell me what it's like, what it will be like for opening day for you and what are you like in the middle of the season. I mean, do you have to stay even slower? Have you been able to, because you managed for so long, no one to push the right buttons, no one to really get mad at

them and then no one to get them to get them. Well, you know, a lot of that's up to them. Yeah. You know, you don't get mad just to get mad. But, you know, I mean, you have to be genuinely mad or try to stay genuinely happy. But, you know, opening day is the same. as it was for me in 1971, my very first opening day in Cincinnati. I mean, you know, it's like the start of the, you know, the Indianapolis 500 because you know that that, you know, when you start that race, you know it's going to be a long race. I mean, you look at the calendar. It looks like September or never get here. Next thing, you know, it's an all-star break.

And then you're going down the stretch in September and you, you always wonder what the year is going to be like. Right. Every year's different. You know, is this going to be a year where nobody gets hurt? You doubt it. This is going to be an easy year. You doubt it. You wonder, you know, how it's going to be, you know, which guys are going to have, you know, outstanding years.

Are you going to run away with it? Are you going to have to come back? You know, every year is different. You know, when I think about Chicago Bulls and I think about, you know, Phil, I was listening to him about, you know, how every year is challenging and every year is different. but every year is equally, you know, as exciting as the last one or the next one. Well, I heard that you're a Sacramento Kings fan. Is that right? Well, kind of my dad is Sacramento Kings fan.

You know, my dad was he died 10 years ago, and I kept his tickets. And, shoot, I've been a season ticket holder since 1985. Now, my son, he really loves the Kings, except when they're playing whatever team LeBron's on. Oh, no, you've raised that one. Is that what you did? I raised that one. Hey, man, let me tell you. I've raised a front runner.

So has he, by the way. I mean, my son would be watching a football game, right? And he's pulling for one team. He has all these jerseys. And then he'd come down in the second half of whoever's in the lead. He'd switch teams in the middle of the game and make sure he wins. Dusty, I'm one of the Rockets radio announcers. And I'm raising the same child that you're raising.

For real. I'm telling you. I work for the Rockets. Oh, yeah. Hey, I love the Rockets. I mean, I went to see him play. in Sacramento. Yeah, we've had some success there, actually. You've had quite a bit of success there. I mean, the beard does that step back. He probably scored an average about 40 points

a game over there. It is a normal camp in the fact that you have to figure out your back and your rotation is. That's good. That's normal. Extra outfielder. And now you got the 26th man. So as much as this other stuff has obviously taken over, you do have some normal managerial decisions to make. Oh, yes, I do. And, you know, I'm not going to make them by myself. because you don't I don't know all the personnel you know like you know you got to figure out who's a fast starter you know is a guy going to look great in the spring and how's he going to do during the championship year I mean so some of this I have to rely on Strom some of this I have to lie on Joe Espada some of you know I have to lie on Snitger to you know you got to determine is this guy you know can he hit a breaking ball because in spring training you know everybody is throwing basically fast balls. And if they can get their breaking ball over, then most time you're out. And then you got to determine, I've noticed that, you know, guys that throw a lot of breaking balls in the spring look unhittable. And then once the hitters get their timing,

then, and then boom, then they become hitable. But the main thing is we're going to try to go away with the best, you know, 26 players that we have. You know, do we carry an extra pitcher? Do we carry an extra catcher? Do we carry an extra speed guy, a defensive guy off the bench this is going to be determined by you know how the you know the rest of the team feels physically and what goes into those types of things getting to know the players so how much of is leaning on on your other guys how much of it is personal meetings with the guys or how much is it i'm just going to trust my eyes what goes into that well all the above i mean uh you know there are a couple of guys that i you know i need to talk to uh because they appear as low impact

guys but you don't know what's going on internally uh and So, you know, a lot of it, you know, excuse me, excuse me, we're going to depend on our stat guys. We're going to depend on the guys that have been here. You know, I like to depend on my catchers because they're, you know, they're the ones catching, you know, these guys and I say, hey, man, what do you think? What kind of stuff does he have? You know, Stromy knows all these guys better than anybody.

You know, Gary Pettis knows, you know, the defensive abilities and deficiencies. And he also knows, you know, who can run. I mean, I'm looking at the stat. on how I get, you know, a guy did last year, and this one guy might have stolen a lot of bases in the minor leagues, but does he get jumps and would he have been successful in the, in the, in the big leagues? And there are the guys that haven't run. Like I talked to Bregman, he used to steal bases, but he was having hamstring problems last

year as to why he didn't run. And so I got like, okay, you're going to take care of Bregman's hamstrings, and, you know, you let me know when you feel, you know, when you feel good. I got some intelligence free. Gary Pettis is going to send everybody every time. Yeah, well, hey man, I had a guy in San Francisco. We was calling Waving Windle. We called Gary Pettis the windmill.

That's the windmill. Well, that's fine with me. Just, just, just, you're going to get to be safe. Pettis is going to put the hold sign up, and you're like, what? And so what I'm going to say? Like, oh, no. Oh, yeah, good call. Elizabeth, this is a big one.

I want to talk to you for hours, but you've got to go to the meetings. How did you handle Barry and Jeff Kent in the same? clubhouse holy smokes no but that's okay i mean they were both kind of mirror images of each other and uh you know i used to tell them that they remind me of uh of that movie um with tony curtis and sidney portier when they were both handcuffed together yeah and then uh one guy was going to throw one guy over the cliff but if he threw him over the cliff he's going to throw himself over the cliff and so uh you know i didn't mind those guys i mean i knew them i mean you know I know which guy, you know, to leave along, which guy to talk to,

talk to him individually, and, you know, neither one liked to be embarrassed, but both of them were great, I mean, great players. I mean, if Barry and Drive him in, Jeff Kent would drive him in, that, you know, like, you know, those are the kind of guys, especially, you know, like Jeff, I mean, you know that he has your back, and you know what you, what you see is what you get. He softened up, obviously, post-group, as a younger, reporter. I've been around a little bit. Oh, yeah, I believe it. He was an

SOB. I mean, I'm going to be honest with you. He was a tough guy to talk to as an astro for sure. Yeah, yeah, well, I believe that. But you know, I mean, I talked to him about, I don't know, a couple weeks ago. Did you know all right? Yeah, yeah, he's doing great. And I told him I might, I might go up to Austin to see him on an off day or something. It's a shorter trip. Well, see, I haven't been to Austin since I played my first game there in 1967 in the minor leagues. Wow. So I'm here, and that's the most improved town, you know, you know, in America.

You know, I heard they got great music. Oh, that's okay. I got some friends that are there in a Texas Hill District. Hill Country, yeah. Yeah. Watch the traffic, though. Well, there's a lot of traveling used to. Yeah, that's true.

We look forward for you to see the guys of the next 30 days. So when we visit again, hopefully on a semi-regular basis, we'll get a feel of that. Give me your greatest Astrodome moment as a player. My greatest Astrodome moment as a player was I wasn't playing. and I was on the bench at the time my rookie year, and then they gave Hank Aaron a day off, and I think I got three or four hits, and then they gave Ralph Gar a day off.

I got a couple more hits, and then they gave Rico Cardi a day off, and I got, you know, three or four more hits. You did well on those off days. Oh, yeah, and then they traded Rico the next day, and I started playing every day. after that. But I tell you, my worst moment in Nashville was. Noon

Ryan, I was the last hour, and knowing Ryan's no hitter. Well, see, did you notice? I didn't ask that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know something? To this day, I hate to see the first basement stretching to get the ball and I know them be out. And then you've got to run back across the field while they're jumping up and down and dodging traffic coming out of the dugout. I'll tell you, that was one of the worst days I had. We've seen photos of you in the polioster suits back in the day.

Oh, that was clean, too. Yeah. Well, you were. At least I thought I was. I had a fought you to him. We want Astro Retro Day, which means Astrorette fit day, too. So we want you wearing the polyester suits. Well, you got to get me afro, though. I better be quiet.

I better be quiet. You guys might just do that. Skip, look at me. I can't even give you that. Hey, enjoy this time. We welcome you to the city of Houston. You got a fan base that's ready to watch some major league baseball and get all this other stuff out of the way.

Oh, yeah. Thanks very much. Everything in time. This is Sports Talk 790. Live from Astros, free trains and excitement. You know, this is a new beginning. Exclusive coverage from West Palm Beaches brought to you by Carpock Brewing, crafted for serious fun, and by the Palm Beaches.com.

Welcome back to the Matt Thomas Show here on Sports Talk 7-90. Ross Villarreal with you. We'll have coming up the conversation we had with Alex Breggman and also General Manager James Click. Just had Dusty Baker in the last segment, and I was telling Matt during the break, the worst part about that interview is that we had to cut it so short. Yeah, I could have talked to him for 10 hours.

Right. And I'll never get that chance. I mean, I think he's going to like us, but we're never going to get 10 hours with him. Well, collectively. Imagine a dinner with him? Yeah. We would never, we would just be eating.

He would never get to eat because he's always telling us a story. That would be great. It would be awesome. I bet he's got some really juicy Kent Bonds, like you guys back off. The big red machine. I don't the big rubber machine, but the Los Angeles Dodgers being in Cincinnati, eating that horrific chili they have there.

I just. Yeah. And his polyester suits, he was like, I was looking good, wasn't it? And he said, I'll beat you up if you didn't see if you said I wasn't. Yeah. I mean, so much stuff. So basically, we're rooting for him because he's still grabbing. And the reason why he's back, he's not back because he's bored.

He'd like to grab one World Series championship before his, before his very successful manager career crimes to an end. I would like him to grab one as well. National media, not so much. Probably not. Let's get a couple of calls in before we get to those conversations. Let's say hi to Aaron and Kingwood on 7-90. Aaron, thanks for holding.

Good afternoon. Hey, guys. I was just listening to the Dusty Baker thing, and I really enjoyed that. I was just kind of wondering, what do you think AJ is going to be doing in this next year? I was just wondering, you think he's going to be like doing a, and part of the adding some excitement, doing some trawling and calling various shows after the, after baseball games, talking about how managers aren't doing a good job. No, I think. He's a good.

Do you think he's going to call us? Like A. A.J. Animal or something? What are you thinking he's going to do? He's going to call in or assume him and question Dusty Baker's bullpen decisions? Yeah, like, AJ just calling. You've heard the whole thing as far as what things people.

complain about but you know you have AJ call up and go man this new manager is just not getting a job done the guy last year was able to handle the team what you know what's going on I don't envision that being a scenario but thank you uh no I think AJ is going to be incredibly low key because he wants to get back into managing yeah and I think still about he's you know he's got to repair his image. Part of that was down the MLB network, but part of that to repair an image will be just time away from the game. Yes, I agree.

So, no, I would not think that he would under any circumstance find himself calling it on post-game shows. Now, there have been other people that have other managers that have called in as pranks. I think then the Toronto manager calling. Yes. What's his name? Gibbons. John Gibbons?

Yeah. I think John Gibbons called in one time and was prank calling. I don't envision Dusty Baker doing that. I think Dusty probably, I mean, does Dusty even have a, like what kind of cell phone is Dusty have? Is he, is he a flip phone? Is he a flip? Does there, is there an antenna on it? Does he go iPhone or is you just go?

He's got a giant Android and he has no idea how to use it. That's what I'm going with. Yeah, I think I'm going to go with that too. Let's go to Howard and Memorial on 790. Hi, Howard. Yeah. Can you hear me? Yes.

Yes. Okay. If I were Mr. Crane, I would recognize that my brand has been damaged. And I would hire somebody to write a book about the history of how teams tried to enhance their chances of winning over the last 20 or 50 years. And I would put the greatest spin I could on what happened over the last five years with the Astros. That's number one.

And number two, with Big Poppy calling the pitcher a snitch, I lie with that picture, I'd be somewhat nervous about how I'm going to be looked on in baseball in general and around the country. Basically, I think Ortiz said he broke the code and he was a snitch. and that is not something you can put on your employment resume. No, and Major League Baseball, thank you, Howard, for the phone call address that today. They want to make sure that Mike Fares,

no matter where he goes or his family goes, feel secure. I wish them well on that. I would like to say that society is normal and average and won't do anything to potentially hurt, Mike. but there are crazy people out there who is I mean I'm trying to think of somebody

a player a professional even athlete in any sport who is kind of like persona non grata in a city like Mike Fires is kind of going to be in Houston I mean revolutionary hated everywhere no not hated everywhere I don't think I mean do people in I don't know the Washington in Washington DC hate Mike Fires

I don't think so they don't know who Mike Fires is though they don't know who he is but they're not going to hate him I don't think I'm talking about the way Mike Fires is seen in Houston. Is there somebody we can come up with is... Equally hated? I mean, I don't know. Dremont Green when he came to Houston. But that was just for the game and he left.

Dremont Green shows up at a grocery store downtown. You're getting his autograph. I can't imagine Astro fan running into Mike Fires at a Denny's and wanting to say, hey, can we get a picture with you? Right. People would still get a picture with Dr. I'm just trying to think out a lot of an example of, you know, them and if anything happened, their incidents or any lack of safety or anything like that.

Nothing. We pontificate for a while. We'll come up with something. On our drive to Fort Lauderdale. Real fast for the last call before we get to our conversations, Anthony and the Woodlands. Hi, Anthony. Hey, guys. Maybe y'all have already answered this question, but I have a question that may be a little far-fetched.

Do you guys think A.J. Hinch could ever or will ever be a part of the Houston National Organization again? I will say no. Probably not. I think for AJ, personally, it'd be better to be in a different uniform. I agree. If he ever ends up in one at all, which I think he will. I think he will be a while.

It's going to be a while, and I think he would be better served if he did it in a different uniform, just for his own mental health and probably for the organizations as well. Welcome to Palm Beach and a new season of Astros baseball. I'm very excited. We can't wait to get out there and play again. Exclusive Astros' spring training coverage on 7-9 is brought to you by Carbock Brewing, crafted for Syria's Fawn, and by the FOMBeeches.com. All right, welcome back to The Matt Thomas Show.

Ross and Matt are beginning to make their way back to Houston. But they did get a chance to sit down with Alex Bregman. In case you missed it, we're going to bring that here for you right now. And here it goes. Close front of the radio show, the Matt Thomas Show, Sports Talk 790. I'll never forget the time you came in in full robe. I mean, that made you a legend in our town. The picture still is all over the place.

Where's that robe right now? It's at the house. It's at the house. I don't feel like even as many years you've been allowed that you're a robe-wearing guy around the house, are you? Never, never. No, I just normally rock Lulu Lemon chilling, workout gear.

I'm around the house. What did you wear when you propose the girl? I actually had to dress up that time. I was wearing some jeans. Oh, really jeans? You're really stepping out. Wow. Yeah, I got it.

I got that. She must have known something was up. She was like, caught a little off guard. I kept telling her to straighten her hair. All right, can you give us the 30-second rundown of how it went down? When was the moment? Where did you do it? How romantic?

Did you pull it off? So it was in Aspen, Colorado, and I had four of my friends there and us, too. And Reagan actually came up to me and said, hey, let's go to breakfast this morning. And I was like, oh, perfect. They'll go up to the top of the mountain, ride the gondola up. Yeah. And we'll go get breakfast. Little did she know that 21 of our family and friends are going to be there at the top of the mountain waiting at the end of the day

But we leave breakfast and she actually tells me she's like hey when we get back to Houston like let's go look at rings together And I'm like or you can just see if you like this one And you feel pressure you like you know I held it in for a few minutes and waited because I knew she wanted a photographer First of all I applaud you for getting 21 people up there with your buddies And no one saying a something about nobody said a thing They all turned off their location services were sworn to secrecy. They wouldn't tell her. And she had no clue.

She was shocked. We rode up to the top of the mountains. She's like, do our parents know I want to FaceTime them right now? I was like, let's take some pictures first and go get a bite to eat, and then we'll call them on the way to the airport. I made her pack her bags the night before she thought we were leaving. Then everyone was there. We stayed three more days.

It was a blast. Unbelievable. And you did the right thing by talking to her dad first, correct? Yes, yes. Oh, yeah. I kept telling her that I was scared to talk to him, but I wasn't. I had already talked to him well before that. Yeah.

I was going to say I was scared to death. 1997. I don't know today's kids do it in 2020, but that's neither here nor there. You and I have known each other for a long time, and so I always come into you and say, how is your off-season? Things chill, and obviously it's been a different season. And as I told Chris Tivinsky a few minutes ago, you got an audience to listen to us right now that is all into you guys that cannot wait for the games to start. Is that the overall perception of what's going on in that clubhouse right now is just, we need to get these games going here.

Yeah, we're excited. We got a great team this year. We lost a few people, but we added a few pieces. I'm excited. I think it's going to be a great year. We got a great team, great offense returning. And then Verlander and Granky, the top of rotation, is pretty special. So I got McCullors back. That's basically like a big free agent acquisition.

I like it. I mean, we're going to be really good. Now, as Dusty Baker said, he's got a governor on him. So make sure he doesn't want to try to throw 200 innings in his first month the season coming back. Who needs Lance for a full six months? Oh, he'll be ready to go. Lance can't wait.

Lance is fired up. What do you think about the hair? Who? Lance's hair? Oh, legit. He's got great flow. One of the better hairs on our team. Devansky's hair is good, too.

Yeah, I didn't realize that. You're going to have to grow yours out now. You don't want to see that. It's not a good look. I got to keep it clean cut. Yeah, Jake Warren, New York Metsky are just kind of odd right now. Yeah, that's weird. That's weird.

I faced the guy that we got in the trade for him the other day in live A. And he threw me a 95-month-hour cutter in on my hands. I was like, holy cow. It's pretty good. See you, Jake. It's been nice knowing you. Could you imagine that? You're a lot better known. Give me a thought or two about Dusty Baker.

It feels like you could sit down with him. I don't know how many times y'all sit and meet before days. Maybe it's every day, but is he a huge storyteller? Is he a, hey, I need to get used to you? What's it like right now as you guys are with each other now for a couple weeks? He's trying to get to know everybody. He has to meet a whole organization of people. And he's getting to know everybody.

He's telling him stories. He's doing his thing. He's making his rounds. He's been great, and we can't wait to get out there and win games for him. Alex, pregnant with us here on the Matt Thomas show here from West Palm Beach. You've always never been afraid to have swagger, and we want to see that. I don't know if you can get it right away. I know the first road trip, everybody's kind of winging out a little bit about that.

How long do you think normally take before I think you really start to kick in here? I think it'll just take the spring training and we'll be back to feeling good. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We'll be ready to go. Because I think everybody, I mean, look, 49 states want Hyde, but the state of Texas, the most important state of the union, needs the Astros to be who they are.

And I think that's, I think if they're going to look to you to say, all right, is he the one showing in the camera? Is he the one high-fiving and showing emotion? Do you feel like that's got to be still you in 2020? I'm just going to be myself. I know who I am as a person. I know what my family and close friends know, know who I am and know how I go about things.

So I'm just going to go out there and play the game that I've always played, have fun, and get after it. Well, if Ross and I had MVP coach, you would have won because you actually played in September, so I congratulate you on that. To finish second, though, what an accomplishment for yourself. I mean, taking just a step back, can you look at that and go, man, I'm – look where I am right now. Yeah. A lot of hard work.

Oh, yeah, a lot of hard work. A lot of people that have helped me throughout the course of my career. And, you know, great, great teammates. That's what it's all about. I feel like the MVP is a big part of how great your teammates are. And to finish second was a tremendous honor. Mike Trout's an unbelievable baseball player. Marcus Simeon had an unbelievable year.

He's a great player as well. And there's a lot of great players in the American League. And it was fun to go out there and compete and be ready for this year. as well. Your guy who's gotten better basically every year of your career, and you talked about coming into camp a little bit lighter. So what is, like, coming in this year as opposed to a couple years ago? What is Alex Bregman now no better than rookie Alex Bregman?

Oh, well, I think just, I think the biggest thing for me these last three years has been getting off to a slow start, man. I've gotten off to a slow start every year and had to kind of make up for it with a strong second half. I think if I played the way I played the last two months, the last three months of the season last year for the first three months and had a full season of that um that's where that's where i want to do that's where i want to be and uh that'd be pretty good so you know we'll come to you after the month of april or may is not off to a great start and

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

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

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

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

That's it. It's interesting to me. How do you think you want to just be normal or do you want to be chip on your shoulder? You know, you want to be emotional but you don't want to be too emotional? Have you thought anything in a way about that or playing? or you're just trying to keep business as usual? I'm going to try and just be the same guy every day when I show it to the field.

Try and get after it, work my tail off, try and be a good teammate. And then, you know, I don't think anyone's going to have a chip on our shoulder based on all this stuff going on. We're going to have a chip on our shoulder based on the fact that we know that we were in the World Series and we were seven outs away and didn't finish the job. So we know how good we are.

We know how good this team is. And it's time to prove that. You want to face Will Harris sometime this spring? No, I was one of my best friends, and I was sad to see him leave. LSU boys. Yeah, he's an absolute stud. So he made a perfect pitch, and Howie Kendrick put a perfect swing on it. Hats off to them.

They deserve to win that World Series. They played unbelievable baseball. Yeah, but we're all worried about LSU versus LSU, right? Oh, yeah, we face each other a few times in live at bats. Who wins? Who has one? Don't, okay, I won't bring it up, sorry. But, no, Will's a superstar.

All right, last thing. Are you ready to go? What do you want to get accomplished here? You've been through a few of these now. Is there anything, now that you're playing a little lighter, I mean, is it, do you notice anything differently? I mean, you're still grabbing everything at third base, I'm assuming. Yeah, I feel great.

I feel awesome. I'm ready to go compete and leave it all out in the field. Are you registered anywhere at this? point what do you mean like when you get married you have to get registered for oh no I don't know if we're going to do that I don't know how that works I don't know it's good it saves me a gift I don't know I don't know how we're going to do that just that I was to say ask for cash but you make plenty of it I'm not worried about you're making it no man this is going to be a fun year I think destination wedding or what yeah yeah yeah we

are all going to go I'm not sure yet but bachelor party that's most important I don't even know I'm not playing so sly right now I'm not to that I'm not to that I'm not to that I'm not to that point yet to figure all that stuff out, but I do know one thing, and that's we as a team are excited for this year. We're going to leave it all out there on the field. And, you know, whatever, whatever happens, happens. A lot of time. I don't want to start off slow.

It's a new season of Astros baseball. And this is exclusive Astros spring training coverage on 790. Brought to you by Carbach Rewing. Crafted for serious fun. and by the bomb beaches.com. James Cook, the Astro, a second-time visitor on the show. This may be the only show you've been on twice.

I've lost track. Yeah, probably. What is the FP shirt hat that you're wearing? What is that? That is my son's Little League team. Are you a coach? No. No, I'm very bad at coaching.

That's not reassuring for Astro fans. That's not my job. You don't pick the players on the Little League team, do you? No, no, no. No, it's called Fossil Park. That's the name of the Little League out there in St. Pete. I think the team this year is the rattlesnakes. Last year it was the Raptors.

So they get to pick them to themselves. They decided on this side. So they've not decided to go with Major League teams yet in this neighbor in this Little League. No, no. The kids, I think, really enjoy getting to pick the names. So I don't know. I mean, you know, could offer it out there to Major League teams if they want to do some marketing strategies, see what the youth of America think.

Maybe they could go out there and try those names. Well, don't ask mom and dads across America because apparently the Astros are being neglected by every team from Pennsylvania to California. I heard. You know what? Time will heal some of this. Are you settled in? Tell me where you are today as compared to where you were when you and I visited on the phone a couple weeks ago. Well, I've met a lot of people.

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

especially figuring out how people like to operate, the things that they like that we have done here in the past, the things that we could do better. I'm in listening mode. I am having a lot of conversations and trying to do very little talking and just keeping my ears open and finding out what they want. As we've said publicly, there are things that we need to do differently. We take very seriously those procedures, and we are working on putting them in place.

We're working on putting things in place where, you know, a hotline, if anybody sees anything, you know, call me, call. I'm not sure exactly who it's going to go to, but I would want to be personally involved in all those conversations so that I know what is going on here. That's a pretty refreshing attitude we'd like hearing that. Let me ask you, without getting too much of particulars, if I took the structure baseball operations of the Tampa Bay Rays, Astros, would the pie chart be similar or is it radically different? There's a lot that is very common. There are some things that are different.

One of the things that I've been talking with the staff here, Pete Patilla in particular about, are some of the changes that have occurred in the Astros front office over the last 18 months. it's no secret that there's been a lot of talent that has left the organization to go to other teams or, you know, left it through less, I don't know the word. Fortunate circumstances, something like that. We know what you're talking about. But I think if you look at what the Astros front office chart looked like 18 months ago, even if I weren't here, it would be dramatically different from what it was.

And there is a lot of work to be done in terms of people who are in new positions who are taking on new responsibilities, you know, making sure that those are the right spots for them where they can flourish as employees, where they can learn new skills and develop and have the career path that they want to have. Let me ask you this. It feels like with any general manager that I've visited with, especially with the Astros, and in baseball in general, if contracts, negotiations, extensions aren't done in spring training, they're largely tabled. and then they're largely that player goes on. And I think we've seen that with Garrett in the past. Justin got re-signed last year, Jose Bregman. Is that a similar situation the Astros feel at this point would be, and I'm not talking about George specifically,

but just your modus operandi. Do you feel like it's got to be done here before the season starts if you're going to do something? It's interesting. It's a conversation that I've had quite a few times over the course of my career because most of these things do tend to get done in spring training for better or for worse.

I don't know if it's because, of the camp atmosphere where we're all here and we're all almost sequestered. Right. And you feel, you know, the impetus to stay with your team or this is the best time to have a conversation face to face. I actually think there's a lot of benefit to not doing it in spring training to using this time to focus on getting ready for the season. Yeah.

Doing what we need to do, get the best team in the field that we can to win a championship in 2020. It may mean that we have missed the boat of having a conversation earlier in the offseason when it would have been productive. But I think that everybody's pretty flexible these days. We all communicate all the time. I would like to think that we'd be open to these conversations whenever the other side is whenever the player, the agent, whomever,

it wants to have them. If you restrict yourself artificially to only having these conversations in spring training, you're probably going to miss out on an opportunity to line up with a player where it works out very well for both sides. Speaking of that and payroll type of things, Jim Crane, obviously, We know him here in Houston, and when he first got the team, what kind of owner is it going to be? Is it going to be a penny pinch or anything?

Obviously, not the case. What's your relationship been like with him and the discussions about, you know, where we're going to allocate our funds and money and payroll and all that type of stuff? The first thing that comes through to me from Jim and, look, I've known him for the better part of three weeks now. Yeah, you're not going to say bad about him at this point. Go way back now. Way back in early in our relationship three weeks ago. I did want to be sure that when I came here, if this lined up, that it wasn't a situation

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

I'm learning whether or not, like, waiver claim money applies to the CBT and those kind of things. But in all seriousness, because of how other teams have talked about it publicly, that was my only guidepost for how to do this. And so I asked the question. And he said that, you know, and this is basically the extent of the conversations that we've had about it, he wants to win. He wants, you know, he wants to win a championship for Houston. and he said something to the effect of, you know, we're over it right now, and that's okay. I don't know if that's going to sustain. I don't know if that's going to, you know, go into 2021, 22.

We haven't had those conversations yet. Penalties escalate, correct? Yeah, every year that you're over, the first year you're over it, it's 20% on the any money that you're over this next year. If you repeat, it's 32 that I think they're 32. Again, it's pretty intense. And then the next year, 50. And there are additional thresholds above it where, you know, if you get more than 20 million in the line, any money of that is to at a higher rate on a surcharge.

If you get $40 million over the line, then you start having your first draft pick move back 10 spots. So there are escalating penalties there. Again, I'm just really digging in on the rules here because I haven't had to in the past. We have not had extensive conversations about it, but the thing that has come through to me in those conversations is when we have a chance to win, he wants to do what he can to win and prioritize the winning. Two final questions for me.

One, you have been on the precipice of making deals with Tampa Bay because every baseball team makes one. So give me how close you got in terms of pushing it to your boss and how anxious are you for it to be. You're the boss. You get to make this one. Yeah. Oh, that's a good one. Is there anything? I mean, if nothing comes to mind, that's okay.

But I'm just curious because, let me tell you, co-pilots are really cool to get to fly the plane, but sometimes the pilot has to take over. Yeah. You're the pilot now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's exciting. Like, that's the, that's the part of the job that I think a lot of people enjoy is, is putting the roster together and having the final say on that kind of stuff. At the same time, in Tampa, they're so inclusive and they're saying, we have such a large group that's involved in those discussions that ultimately those decisions are not really felt like they're made by a single person.

I don't think that Eric Neander says, I'm one of the one who made this trade. what Eric and everybody did at Tampa was to put a process in place, which made us all assess the trades properly and talk about the transactions and potential transactions rationally. And that's something I'm looking forward to here. I don't need to justify myself by saying, you know, I'm the one who made the trade. I'm hoping that the guys will bring the ideas to me. We'll sit around. We'll collaborate. We'll talk about them.

And whatever the group feels is the best decision, the group will make the decision. But we're looking forward to what you and you lie lieutenants do because everybody's marked that way. I mean, even when Jeff was here, when he has been second in Connecticut in St. Louis, but when he makes it, it's a his deal. And with all due respect to your lieutenants, we're looking at your resume. We're going to look at what you did and what you traded for. That's why we're all kind of curious because there are some general managers in sports, and we see it with the Rockets and Darrymore. People are afraid to do it with Darryl's won a lot of the trades. I don't want anybody out of town going, oh, James Clicks, first time general manager.

We're going to try to fleece him. I want you to be ready to go and not be afraid to pull that trigger. Because we're going to be excited to see what it is. And I'm not afraid to pull the trigger. That's not what I'm trying to convey. What I'm trying to convey is that these decisions are not made by a single person. And I'm not saying that to sound artificial or anything like that or any of that. My point is these decisions involve so much information,

involve so many people doing their jobs the right way, that anybody who makes these all by themselves is inevitably going to fall into. to bad habits. That's why I need the team here. I need all of the people here to be firing on all cylinders to help us make the best decisions for the entire organization. James Knight, thank you for making a second appearance on this show. We have a co-worker Adam Clanton who looks just like you. It's really strange. I feel like I'm staring. I don't think so. I think you're a doppelganger. We'll let you meet him down the road. I look forward to it. Hey, thank you very much. Continued success. And as we've coined a term here on the show the last couple days, it feels

baseballing around here now, which is, I think, probably for you walking into this is not the And I think for everybody One of the most difficult things for me About the past couple weeks Other than having no idea where I live Or when my kids are going to go to school Or where my office is or any of those clubs Is

Baseball and spring training should be about that rebirth And about the spring and about that feeling Again and finally get out of the window And start playing baseball again And I know that that's going to be difficult For some people to get their heads around It should be impossible to be impossible for some Sure sure but getting out there

you know the I mean it sounds cliche but you know the crack of that yes it just the pop of the glove the pop of the glove it really smell of fresh cut grass and by the way a fresh cut a astroturf yes as I was telling some of your players

a nine game lead American League West mid-May would not be the worst thing for this team right now so yeah we'll shoot for ten and if we only end up at nine then we'll be sad