The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Westbrook Returns, Survey's Are Stupid & Mike D'Antoni

Episode Date: July 22, 2020

Larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas show. 12-01 in H-Town. What's happening in Lunchtimmers? Good afternoon. And welcome to a Wednesday edition of the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. Alongside Sports RV, Ross Villarreal, my producer, Brendan Riley.

He is Brendan Riley underscore, trying to get rid of that underscore. I'm Matt Thomas. It's nice to have you guys with us here on this Wednesday after putting together a yeoman effort yesterday for the full 50-minute show. Yeah, Matt, are you still recovered? Are you okay? I was frankly bothered by the fact that that game went over four hours yesterday. Well, I don't think the 18 wasn't too bothered. Yeah, they're not bothering me much. It was a very lengthy game because the Astro scored 15 runs, which wasn't the story yesterday, but we can, I don't know, we can get to that some other time, unless you want to get to it right now.

But, yeah, it was we had the 50-minute show here. then A team was only on for an hour and that's all because of a marathon Astros game where they knocked out 15 runs. Yeah. So frankly, of all the air staff that worked yesterday, you were like number two in terms of numbers hours on the air.

Right behind Sean Salisbury and Michael Connor. Yeah. And Adam Sager, if you want to throw him in there. Yeah. It's all right. You've missed some time. Well, I usually put in as much work as anybody, Maddick, because I'm doing the three-hour Matt Thomas show.

And then I'm on the split shift. I come back for the night gap. And while we're here, I also, so I was doing the, four hours of radio a day for a while there. And then I took off three and a half weeks because I was sick and I had some vacation time. Sure. So now my, I got

to build my vocal cords back up, Matt. So I was thinking about this and I was talking to Joe George about it last night of the nightcap. You know, like this should be like my spring training. Like I should just come in for like the second hour, get in my reps and then get out because my vocal cords are, they're feeling a little sore, quite frankly.

Yeah, that's about the dumbest thing I've heard my entire life. You get a ramp up, get like three innings in of a nine inning game. So just get me in for one hour. Tell me what hour you want me here. And then I'll also do the nightcap and that just until I get acclimated. Because I'm losing my voice already two days in coming back. Yeah, but we don't want you as our closer. No, I'm a starter. Obviously, Matt. Yeah, so we don't need you six to seven. I'm at least a, I'm at least a Framber Valdez. I'm at least a Framber alert on the station. That's what you want to be. You're knock yourself out on that.

I'm at least a spot guy who's a quadruple. So I'm ramping up though, because this is like my spring training. This is like I, you didn't put me on assignment, right? Okay, Josh. You can't send me to AA Columbus, Texas. You just can't do that. No. In fact, Columbus, Texas, that'd be a shocker if that a AA baseball team. Because what's population of Columbus, Texas? I don't know.

5,000? Ask Aaron Schoble. I'm not sure. Yeah, that's right. It's funny. When in doubt, ask a Shoble. All right, some spectacular news today. Well, it's not spectacular.

Spectacular. It's really good. Russell Westbrook showed up today and was out of the quarantine and practice with the Rockets. And we will find out how that practice went. when Mike Dan Tony joins us coming up in about 25 minutes or now. The Mike Dan Tony? The Mike Dan Tony?

On the Matt Thomas show? Yes. Are we getting weekly hits now? Yes. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. From the bubble.

We started last week and this week we were just going to do one second because he's in Orlando. He's got a ping pong game to get to or some foosball or something like that. Or it could be golf. Don't know. Okay. Is he a big golfer? I didn't think so until he said, hey, I'm playing golf tomorrow. Can we do this at a certain time?

I'm like, sure, why not? Can we ask him what his bubble lunch was? I mean, I guess. Because everybody's intrigued by what the bubble lunches are, right? You know what? He doesn't like to play those kind of games. Right. Like, other coaches would be goofy about the kind of.

Like, I could ask AJ Hinch, if they were in the bubble, what would he be eating and whatnot? Like, hey, I was the food on the plane. He would just say, ah, just the same old stuff. He's just a hunted basketball. But I thought he was kind of a foodie, though. He is about his Italian food. Okay. So we had a nice, a Bologna sauce for lunch.

You know what I can do. Here's what I'll do. We'll ask him how he's getting his Italian fix. Yes. Down in the bubble. He's been having a nice ragu over pasta. I don't know if he's, if you put nice and ragu in the same sentence. But we can try. So we'll ask him how he's getting his Italian grub on.

Okay. Because look, we've all been to Walt Disney World, or at least most people have. Well, I was three. I don't really remember. But there's restaurants of every culture, French, steakhouses, Mexican, Chinese burgers. Oh, yeah, there's everything. Okay. I just don't know if they can get to it or not.

But that's a great AskMDA question. How is he getting his Italian grub on? Speaking of which, did you tweet that out today? Hashtag AskMDA. You know, I only got one response, which just really makes me happy. Well, I'll send a couple today. I don't think to do that. All right. So Russell Westbrook this morning spoke to us in the media and is a full participant in today's workouts. and he's going to say,

well, you know, first of all, just kind of thankful investors to be healthier to be able to go out and compete again. But just quarantined, man, been at home, trying to be productive. Obviously not able to get on the basketball floor, but find a ways to kind of say I could do as much condition I can probably do.

But as far as that, we'll see once I get out there. But that's the last thing that I worry about, honestly, because before I had to quarantine, I was in a pretty good shape. So I should be all right. Yeah, a lot of that today. And look, when you're back and you're not, Russ isn't like doing a lot of media. Ever. Unless he's on with us. And he's great.

Oh, spectacular. But generally speaking, it's not a huge fan of just being pepper with questions. So was how you're feeling, going good, can't wait to get out there. you play Friday, and these will be the types of things we can ask more of my coming up in a few minutes. Well, that was good at the end there because, I mean, my main concern was his conditioning because when you're, at least for me, the fatigue was really bad. I wasn't doing a whole lot, so I was hoping that he's going to be able to stay in shape. He said he was in really good shape beforehand, so he's not worried about his conditioning at all. Yeah. Also, he brought up

being in the bubble and being with all of his teammates. I think it's going to be very, very vital for us to be able to bond and stay very close-knit because time, like this, I think it kind of only allows you to be able to come closer. I grow apart. And I think that we're such a good place from what I heard from not being here. My job is to

come in and just fit alone right with everything else's doing. Fit in with everybody else. Or you mean be the second score? Yeah. And distributor and energy guy and glue guy. And not shoot a lot of threes. And never shoot a three-pointer. Unless

the shot clock's running up. How about, I the corner wide open. Go ahead. Perfect. But make sure there's no hand in contesting your shot. Exactly. There's nobody within as NBA.com slash stats would define it as wide open. Yeah. No pull-up threes with nobody in front of you. Right.

Just explode in the lane like you've done in the last three or four months. And that's what he was having playing the best basketball of his life. Unfortunately, it coincided with the James Harden downslide. So now if you get them both playing well, rockets are dangerous. Yeah. A couple of the things. The second L.A. Clipper has left the bubble.

Yes. Pat Beverly said there was a family emergency. He tweeted out earlier today with the teardrop gif, not gif. I guess emojis. Emoji, yes. Yeah. And I don't know what that means. I'm not a huge fan of that, generally speaking, because then it means it leaves a lot of things up from interpretation.

People do that on Facebook all the time. I, if you're a Facebook friend of mine, I value that tremendously. but I don't like it when you go to Facebook and say thoughts and prayers needed at this time and then you just leave it. If you're going to go to ask us to feel sorry for you, which I am all for doing, because everybody wants to be felt sorry for once in a while, you've got to explain what's got. What's up?

You don't have to give the play-by-play details. My mother is ill. I just lost my job. I don't feel good. And again, not looking for a... full 15 minute description. Lost a 5-team parlay, something like that. I mean, if you went to your Facebook page and said,

I lost a 5-team party on the fifth leg, because Chris Brown missed a kick, because we've done that before. I would have gone to Twitter. I mean, I would have gone to my Facebook page and said, please feel sorry for me. I need thoughts and prayers. And I would have gotten a handful.

True. But you can't give me the, you know, so whatever is going on with Pat, hopefully it's good. But it troubles me that it's a teardrop, emoji and nothing more. And again, who's even to know what that is? Sometimes people will fear the worst.

Yeah, just, and I would say just don't leave it up for speculation. In anything. Well, you'll tell Pat next time you have him on. And he'll ask how your wife is. Well, again, if we need to send him some dinner, I mean, he lives in Pearland in the offseason. Is that right? Yeah. Did you know that Shaq lived in Pearland, too?

Yes. I feel like that was the worst, that was the best kept secret. out there. Apparently out there, it's, I mean, JJ, is he still out there? But I don't know if he's moved since he's gotten married. The reason why I ask you is, I think there's just a house out there. And then maybe he visits. Because if Shaq really lived here, you'd be seeing pictures and photos and things of him being

in places. Shaq's an outgoing person. He's not going to go just between his house and the airport where he's got a flight of Atlanta for the TNT show. He's going to be out and about. I don't really believe he lives here. And he's not necessarily inconspicuous. He'd be hard to hide.

Hey, who's that 7 foot 350 pound guy? Oh, yeah. Is that Taco Fall from the whatever team he plays on? No, that's Shaq. Oh, okay, that makes sense. So I'm calling BS on Shaq living in Pearland. Unless you live in Pearland right now, and you've seen him. I heard that years ago, right?

He's been there for a while. But a lot of people have multiple homes. That's true. Especially with Man of His Incredible wealth. Yeah, you want to be in West Palm? You want to be perhaps in Malibu? And Pearland, Texas. That's why something, I wonder if there is a kid or something that lives here or something.

And that he comes in to see this the kid. But even we wouldn't know all that. He fathered a child here. And he just comes up. He comes over for Christmas. And then he's out. Drops off during, it comes for a week during his birthday and Thanksgiving. That's it.

Matt is going full palms up, shoulders shrugged right now. Is it accurate? I don't know. I don't know what's shacks. Does it sound reasonable? I don't know how many children Shaq has peppered throughout the country. I don't know. Is that what you're calling it peppered?

Yes. Okay, I got you. 1212 on the Matt Thomas show. We have some Astros breaking news. Well, it's not breaking. It happened a couple of hours ago. But it concerns not them, but somebody they played. I'll discuss that in a matter of moments.

If you'd like to be a part of our show today, you may do so. At 713-212-5-790. 713-212-5-790. And look at ESPN. Astros hit parade. We're not talking about the number of hits they had against two Kansas City teams. It's the number of times they've been hit in the spring training.

Curl the F-up, ESPN. And who else? Yahoo Sports. All of you. Watch these damn games, and you'll see that 84-mile-per-hour pitches. Just save it, Matt. I got to get some. We got to get it.

All right. Let's get off for chess. but we'll give you the news about a member of the Royals that might impact the Astros. Let me tell you right now about Oop Steam Cleaning, a 281-8-220561. 281-8-2-2-0-561. With all this rain we've had and the future rain that we're probably going to be getting, that means your dog's going to be afraid to go outside, which means they're going to cause some problems inside.

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281-8-2-2-0-561 and online, oopsteam. This is Craig Vigio. Vigio. Back to Matt Thomas on Sports Talk, 790. Oh, we're having some fun. You're home with the Stroes. Some of you all are sending me tweets with Shaq who won the Humanitarian Award

for his work here in the area and I'm like, that's the reason we brought it up. I saw the exact same tweet that you saw. Listener says that Shaq's daughter went to Clemens High School. So there was a child involved in this. And then somebody says, I bet that Shaq... What was her name?

Shaquilla? I don't know. But I'm telling you, I bet you if we took the last 365 days of Shack's life. I bet less than 50 of them and it's been spent here in Houston. Okay. Just a pure guest. Wasn't he a cop in Florida too or something like that? Yeah.

I bet that Shack keeps a residence in Pariland for tax purposes. That's probably smart. Man, it'd be nice to have those issues. Where should we go put a house down somewhere? Where's my tax haven? Is it Monaco or is it Paralland, Texas? Or as the Weather Channel says, Perlund. Do they say that?

Oh my gosh. So bad. Yeah, it's not their fault. Yeah. They don't know. I mean, they're just trying to give you weather updates and areas like humble. Yeah, I was going to say humble as well. All right. Before, I'll let you ran about the hitter by pitch. But I'm going to tell you that yesterday, actually Monday, excuse me,

there was a member of the Kansas City Royals that actually went 0 for three in the game, played six innings, and his name is Hunter Dozier. He is a utility infielder out there. Actually, he does a little bit of everything for Kansas City. struck out twice flew out to right while playing six innings in right field Hunter Dozier yesterday was announced or this morning the Royals announced tested positive for COVID and is being placed on the injured list so let's let's be rational about this

are you excited about the next COVID free Friday on Friday show I am excited about the COVID free Friday it make okay good yeah but what are we going to talk about Did we cover three hours about doing COVID talk on Friday? I was only one that couldn't do it. Yes, that was the problem is Joe was allowed to talk COVID. I was allowed to talk COVID.

It's just Matt. You abstained. I did. I'm unfortunately abstaining about a lot of things lately, but that's how to hear nor there. So he's close to the plate. He's close to the catcher. He's close to the umpire.

He's close to his. teammates. We're going to get a lot of this, right? We just are. I think so. I think especially, I mean, we talked about yesterday you had the 346 tests in the NBA bubble and 346 negative tests. That is correct.

They're in a controlled environment. You had, I think, NHL was it 800 tests and two positives. They're in a controlled environment. Baseball's not in a controlled environment. NFL's not in controlled environment. I think those sports are more in danger because of the nature of them coming back and

being in a bubble situation that absolutely this is going to this is going to happen and continue to happen so if you're the NFL as much as you'd love to go see how the NBA is doing you're really making you're paying more attention to the in MLB because first of all more players second of all in different venues no bubble and they'll be traveling involved and you're you're doing they're doing their own facilities and their own training camps and all that type of stuff you're doing 30 it's going to be 32 obviously for the NFL 30 for major league baseball yeah those are the the guys that you need to be modeling yourselves after and and you're you're doing you're keeping an eye on and seeing how things are going for them.

All right, 713, 21, 2,1, 5, 790. Mike Dantony coming up in a very short period of time. Right now, Andrew is in Baytown, the Matt Thomas show. Andrew, how are you? Living a dream. If I had a tail, I'd be wagging it. How are you guys? Outstanding, what a way to put it, but thank you.

So, fun fact, Shaq probably has spent more time in the Houston area than you might realize after he just appeared on Zero, the rapper's new album. and he also drops Brainbuster, the words Sugar Land Mansion. So don't hold him down to just Pearland. He's got homes in different area codes. So shout out to Hunter Dozier, fellow lumberjack of mine screwing it up for everybody. Sorry about that. Go, Jacks.

See you. All right, thanks, Andrew. Yeah, did you catch Zero's new album, Matt? I'll, want to you answer your own question. Did I catch Zero's new album? Yes. Okay. You downloaded it on Spotify.

The day it came out. No question I would have done that. Right. All right. So, next time we get, we don't get Shaq a lot on the air, probably once in a decade. Okay. But next time, like, if I go back, I remember I had Kenny Smith out or you here, you were gone. Who can recall?

That's right. I don't remember being with Kenny Smith. I had Kenny Smith on a few weeks ago. And I said, hey, well, next time I'm in Atlanta for the Rockets, I want to go to TNT Studios. Done. So I'll ask Shaq. I'll say, Shaq, be truthful, honest and true. How many days a year do you spend in Houston, Texas?

Obviously, it's enough to get an award. Yeah, he's doing enough philanthropic efforts to get an award. So that's good. He's a community man. But how many communities has he won awards it? That's the question. And he was on a Zero song. Yeah, you can't argue that.

If you're on a Zero song, you're definitely going to be at least 25%. Of course, Matt, you know Zero is the Mo City Dawn. Yeah, duh. Okay. So last night, I took a nap because I fell asleep because the game was so out of hand. I wake up and it's like, I don't know, 15 to 2, 15 to 3, something like that. And I see a bunch of random at Sports RV tweets about Yahoo Sports. I'll let you finish the story.

Look, this is the issue. And this was happening in spring training. So this is kind of old hat. And in spring training, the Astros were getting hit at a high rate. And it was guys with like number 88 on their jersey on breaking balls in the sixth inning by guys that weren't on the Astros in 17. getting hit by some random pitcher on the Pittsburgh Pirates or the Washington Nationals or whoever, who wasn't even in the Major League Baseball in 2017. So look, you want to make fun of the Astros.

You want to do your stupid, irrelevant, trite, tired, uninspired, uninspired, unoriginal, unoriginal trash can jokes. That's fine. But also try to have a little bit of logic in your head. If you're one of these stupid troll accounts that wants to go after the Astros or you're, one of these 21-year-old, fresh out of college, social media managers for one of these sports websites, just try to know sports a little bit. If you look at the situations where Jose Al-Tuvae and Alex Bregman and George Springer got hit yesterday, it is in all likelihood.

I am, you can't be 100% sure because you can't be in somebody else's brain, but 99.9% sure if you just use one little thread of line. that they were not hit intentionally, that this is not Astros beanball, that the Kansas City Royals and Jorge Lopez, who couldn't hit the side of a barn with the ball yesterday, and he was all over the place. And he's not going to be intentionally hitting people on one-two change-ups while the bases are loaded. So I understand you're frothing at the mouth for anything Astros content, because you slap Astros on it as Buster-only has shown us.

As Sam Miller has shown us, you slap Astros on your headline, you're going to get a ton of clicks. You're going to get retweets. You're going to get likes. We understand that. But also just try to hold yourself back a little bit and think for one second. Think for one second about whether or not these hits were intentional. Nope. I'm talking to you, Houston Astros, Astros, Astros, and Sports Center, and Yahoo, and all these other stupid Twitter.

website. Listen here, you dork, Jeff Passon. Yeah, and sports used to be respectable, buster only. And the Sports Center Twitter account intentionally cropping out that the bases were loaded on this. I mean, you were just being intentionally disingenuous

for clicks and tweets and likes. And I understand. That's what we do anyways. That's what CNN does. That's what Fox News does. That's what every website does. You want to sensationalize things. You want to go to where the water is, to let people drink. They hate the Astros right now, and that's the content you want to bring them.

But you just, you look petty, you look small, and it's just, it's pathetic, quite frankly. I can't anymore. It's just awful. And it's you, Jeff Passing, you big dork. It's you, I just like saying Jeff Passing, you big dork. Go ahead, man. Go ahead. Go out to Jeff Passing. Get a colored shirt on for the love of God. And you, Buster Only, you know better than this. All of you do. Now, Yahoo 20-year-old. social media guy doesn't know any better. He just doesn't. We'll table this.

We're going to get back to our frustrations. But Mike D'Anne's going to join us in the next segment of the radio show. We're very excited about that. So those of you on hold, do not go anywhere. We get to you after Mike Dan Tony here on the Matt Thomas show. But first a word for TGS insurance. Would you please, please, please do me a favor and save money in your home policy? You can do that today by going to text in the word money, M-O-N-E-Y, the 23-23-23-M-M-O-N-E-Y,

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and starts saving big on then home policy, it'll just take you a few seconds with TGS insurance. Text money to 23, 23, 23, 23. Betters, ballers, and bangers. This is Sports Talk 790. Home for your home teams. 1231 on Sports Talk 790. It is the Matt Thomas Show, Matt Ross, with you.

We go to the bubble, Orlando, Florida, Walt Disney World War today. I'm assuming that Coach Mike Day and Tony is in excellent spirits because, A, he's healthy, and B, he's got Russell Westbrook back. Coach, how are things? Good, Matt. How are you doing? No complaints. No complaints.

So how did Ross look this morning? I look good. Athletically, obviously, but pretty good shape. Probably did about 80% of our practice. He looks good. So nothing out of the ordinary. I mean, kind of picked up where he left off. You said 80% was just more as a precaution or anything else?

Yeah, I mean, you know, we played about five games of six-minute games, about 30 minutes. He probably played about 24 of them, and everybody else pushed a little bit harder, but you don't want to get his legs to make sure that he's okay. And before, I mean, he could have done it, but I know he was risking it and kind of, you know, work him up to a level that I don't know if he played Friday or not,

first scrimmage, but after that, should be ready to go. I'm going to assume the gentleman were very happy. His teammates were happy to see him. Did PJ really, was he really surprised to see Russ up and around and able to come work out with him? Do what now? Was PJ really legitimately surprised to see Russ today?

PJ? PJ Tucker? No, well, why would it be surprised? There was a Twitter feed that's like he couldn't believe he was there. I'm like, that's why I was kind of confused by it. I don't know. Who knows?

But you shouldn't have been surprised I was hoping earlier, but it didn't happen. and just good to happen here now. So what kind of things, I mean, I would assume you wouldn't hold things back because Ross wasn't there, but were you able to elevate and put a few new things in today because he was able to be with you guys in Orlando? No, we were just, we had to go over the things where we went over, which is okay, a little bit of a refresher, of course, somebody else.

But for him, a couple new plays and a couple new wrinkles, just trying to, you know, add a little bit of whatever to it. Coach, it's Ross here. Do you think this is, you guys, to me, it seems like with Eric Gordon and the injuries that he was battling, and same thing with James Harden throughout the season. This break, in my mind, benefits you guys somewhat more than other teams. So do you agree with that statement? Yeah, I think, you know, we'll see, obviously. But I think Gary Gordon definitely benefit from it.

And you're right, some other guys, the same thing. Other teams, I don't know what they were dealing with, nagging injuries here and there, but it'll help us gather ourselves a little bit, be recharged. And, you know, we have to play at such a frantic pace that it should help us in theory. But, you know, to make it a reality, we won't have to play faster and harder, see if we can do that. Busy with Mike Dan Tony here on the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. Coach, you have been in the bubble now for a couple weeks, give or take.

have the practices not necessarily ramped up but are they crisper than maybe they were say four or five days ago? Yeah, it's getting better. Still a little ragged at everyone's while. They're kind of tired of playing against each other and do normal stuff that you would find in the training camp.

But I think that, you know, everybody's getting the rhythm back a little bit. They're looking pretty good. And the timing and the attitude has been great. They're getting to a nice rhythm in the bubble. where, you know, it's mostly like training camp. You're eating and you're sleeping and come back and faxing and go back and eat and sleep and come back back back. So once you get in that routine and then we start playing games, it'll go back quicker.

I think guys are in a pretty good place mentally. Was that a concern, not necessarily for just you and the Rockets, but just for all the coaches when you guys get together about keeping the guys mentally well during this time, knowing that they're going to be there hopefully a long time. And on top of that, they're way from their way from their kids. friends and their family? A little bit, but I just go back to you. It's like USA basketball.

Exactly the same thing we did when we'd go over to China or Japan, and you don't, you know, maybe that day didn't go on the excursion out to the city. So you're mostly hanging around the middle room where you're having, you know, you're just talking with players or here, at least they're, you know, they can go on boating or they're doing, they're having some activity. So, no, I'm going to be concerned. I thought that players would, if you like basketball, it would be great. And when the competition starts, there's going to make three or four games a day that you could either go to or watch it or on TV.

And so it's going to be basketball 24 hours a day. But I think, you know, there's no distractions. It's just, you know, working on their craft. So, no, I didn't have a, you know, I thought players would have that pretty quickly. So eight games left in the regular season resumption. coach. Besides, of course, winning games, what is it you want to see from the team? What are some of the things that you're looking forward to see out of your group? I just make sure that we get our timing and our chemistry and how we want to plan that we're doing.

I know that we'll make mistakes, and I don't know how the eight games will go. You don't even know the teams that you're playing against. So they, you know, like the Lakers, they have nothing to play for it. They're going to be first. So does that, you know, know, so I don't know if it's a true test all the way through, but I think everybody individually has to just try to get their teams ready, and then we'll see where the two spots. We'll see if we go up a little bit on the standings or slip a bit.

It doesn't really matter. He's still playing against the same two, three, four teams that you would meet anyway. It just might be a different order. We know we have to meet, and we'll try to be ready for them. Mike Dan Tony with us here on Sports Talk 790. Clearly, you'll want to get to a rotation come playoff time of 8, 9, 10, whatever the number may be. But for these first three scrimmages, is this just a case where you want to give everybody just a little bit of time? Because my guesses are all antsy to go against somebody not named their own teammate.

Well, I'm not going to get everybody a little bit of time, especially the first they're going to play in 10-minute quarters in the first one. And that'll mostly be, you know, James got to get Rams up here and start to play for a minute. So there's not a whole lot of men to play everybody. You know, we have like 13, 14, 10 guys. So we'll probably play 9, 10 guys, and then going to the second scrimmage and engage it from there. But, you know, I rely on medical staff and the players themselves to see if they need more minutes, last minute, see how they're doing and see what they need to work on. But obviously, the rotation, we're trying to get it down right and just making sure our main group of guys are ready to roll when it's, time to go. How much time have you guys spent on the different courts where you'll be playing

these games in the next few weeks? Players have not seen them yet at all. And we had to walk through the coaches. You know, a couple of us went over to look at it and it's going to be pretty impressive. I think the NBA does an unbelievable job and, you know, I don't want to get too far ahead, but I think you guys will be, wow, that's a pretty good fan experience to watch the games, a lot of a lot of stuff that, you know, that's going to look real. And I don't know. I think the players will be surprised.

I think it'll be fun playing that way in that atmosphere. So looking forward to it, actually. I know that you said you were planning and wearing a basketball coach in the games. And I know that you're trying to be safe. But let's be honest. The reason why you're going to do that is so the officials can't read your words, right? I mean, because you're not going to be able to hide you coach. You know that.

Well, one, one, they won't be able to see my face. They won't know if I'm saying anything to them or not. But I'm going to think about it is, Matt, all seriously, instead of being serious, is that we're in trouble right now because we haven't been wearing masks. And if we wear a mask, then everybody can say to work, and everybody can get this thing done. So obviously we have a platform, that's one.

Right. Two, you know, I want to keep my players safe, and hopefully that and the rest of my coaches. And you do it because, because it's a right thing to do. And now we'll definitely be doing it. What was it like hearing around

the bubble when the results came back yesterday, all those players took tests and you didn't have a single positive result? I hope that resonated with the guys really, really well. Yeah, I think so. You know, they've done a terrific job. Just to get here, you've already tested two or three

times negative, at least a three time. I probably did about seven times, but two days in a for sure. And then once you arrive, you're being quarantined. You're tested another two or three times over two days. So that's like four days of four tests. And, you know, that probably weeded out some. I think some guys during that time got a positive, especially when they first got here.

But after that, once you're in here and it's controlled and you are testing every day, then shouldn't get in here. You know, and everybody's, most, I would say, most people are very responsible and knowing how important it is to pull this off at a safe manner. And most people are, you know, definitely going by the protocols, them asking, distancing and sanitizing everything and taking, just making sure that it's too important, too many people that some knuckleheads will mess it up. So everybody's doing a good job. Well, it's certainly very encouraging to hear. The most important question we wrap up our conversation, coach. We were talking about you and what you like to do on the road

and where you like to go eat and whatnot. A lot of our audience is curious about how you're getting your Italian fix during this time. It's tough. It's been a little challenging, a lot of challenging. But you know what? Like I said, I think I can have one of that. The food's getting better every day. And, guys, like, you know, again, we understand what we got to do and why we're here.

And this is not bad at all. But, Coach, you know, your owner of this basketball team we all work for owns restaurants. He can really come up with something special for you if you needed to. Tell me one more time because Philadelphia, guys, we just walked off. Oh, I just said the – Sorry about the word. Yeah. I just said that, you know,

Tellman runs a few restaurants. I don't know if you know that or not. He can really create some special menu for you if you needed a little bit of something, something on the side. Yeah, we've been ordered out from his restaurants. Yeah, it's been great as always. All right. We'll tell Joe Embed, we'll see you in the finals.

And you and I will talk on Sunday because I've got the Rockets Grizzlies game. We're looking forward to calling the game and talk with you again. Thanks for the time and we'll visit you later on. That's good, man. You got to take it. All right. That's Mike Dame Toney with us here on the show. Do you think they're doing a lot of that?

Hey, Joel, what's up, man? I don't, yeah, I think so. Ben Simmons, what's up? That shot looks great. Yeah, you know, people have always complained about how the camaraderie between teams rather than hating each other and how everybody grew up together through AAU and they all know each other. And there's just not that animosity that there was in like the 1980s when everybody's

getting fist fights. It's going to be even worse now. Everybody's going to be there. Everybody's best friend, right? Do you see who's getting along now? Who's that? Charles Barkley and Draymond Green. Oh, really?

Mm-hmm. Oh, I thought you were going to say Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell. That's long done. Unsavageable. No, that's, yeah. Remember, I've had a pretty good summer predictions. Yes. You and I argued about whether that was going to go bad.

It's ugly. It's, well, you know, they're all right. I think they're going to leave. He's going to pass the ball to him still. Until they get a limit. And he's like, I'm getting the hell out of here. One of I'm going to say that. Actually, Donovan's like, I'm going to get the hell out of here.

unless you trade. And then Rudy's going to be gone. And Rudy's playing for the Charlotte Hornets. Dang. 1244 is our time. We got some phone calls to get to on the Astros. We've got to do some more bitching about Yahoo and ESPN. It's just so, so irresponsible.

It's just low-hanging fruit. And look, we are in sports radio. We are the epitome of low-hanging fruit. We just are. Certainly as you age. Which, thankfully, we're all doing very gracefully here on the show. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212.

570 with a message here for the Shell Federal Credit Union. Would you like to get low interest rates on your new vehicle? Use vehicle, perhaps a refinanced vehicle. It can happen all today by going to the Shell FCU website at shellfcU.org. ShellfcU.org. Auto loan rates, listen to this, as low as 1.99% APR. And you get two skip a pays a year. And you get deferred payments. And you get $250 in cash bag. there is never a better time to refinance your vehicle or get a new vehicle today with a nice low interest rate than doing it right now with the Shell FCU. If you live, work, conduct business, go to school, go to church, anything in Harris County, you, my friends, may join the Shell FCU family. 713-212-579 if you want to join us. James Click was on with Sean this morning, and we will replace some of the best parts of that coming up at 1.30.

And if you may have missed our Mike Dantony visit, shame on you. We'll replay some of the best parts of that Coming up at 230. Plus, believe it or not, today, get 252 As we give away More Twin Peaks gift cards. Eat, drinks, scenic views, and available curbside.

Yeah, and they'll take your temperature when you walk in. Are they open inside still? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, they should. They serve food. By the way, it's hard. I'll say this.

Very nice menu from them, by the way. Went to Big City Wings yesterday after the big show. But somebody in the group we were with wanted to have Chinese. Chinese food restaurants. very difficult to find a place to dine in. Really? Yeah.

Most are, I mean, not most of the, I would say 80% are doing the takeout. That's good. I mean, Chinese... Most of it's a heavy takeout and delivery. Like, shouldn't pizza places and Chinese places just be thriving right now? Because those are the traditional all the time delivery and takeout. Yeah. That's right.

But I just want to say, if you're looking for a sit-down Chinese place, a little more difficult. Hmm. Okay. Well, just sit down and eat at your house. I went to Big City Wing, sat down. Watch the Astros. Do they have a terriaki flavor or anything like that? Yeah.

Go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get you some of that. You're doing good. You're fine. All right. 713212-5-790. 7-1-3-1-2-5-790. Brett in League City on 790. Hi, Brett. Hello? Brett? Yes, sir. You're on, Fran. Go. Okay, good deal. Well, I just want to say, you know, obviously the plain fruit that y'all been talking about with Yahoo and ESPN, obvious clickbait, getting the royal treatment, I think, was one of the ones. of the headlines. It's just, it's just, man, it's, it's such an old story. You know, that was 2017. If I recall, the nationals beat us 2018, the Red Sox Warren. And this is just desperation, journalism at its best. What's going to be great is when the Astros do give double rods to 2020 and MLB and all these haters and go out and win the World Series in 2020. That's all we got to

do. I understand. We as, a group are sick and tired of being called out, like, we're the ones who did something. And I just, you know, these guys got to have better storylines to write about. I mean, there are things on this team to write about. You know, there are great storylines with Houston Astros. I just, I'm sick and tired of it. I'm ready for us to just get baseball going. I love that the rockets are coming back.

Let's just try to slowly get things back to normal. We'll do it safely. But, hey, man, go Astros. kick everybody's, you know what, and until 2020 where they can stick it. Couldn't have said it better myself. Thank you for the phone call. You know, I get teased, and most people do that are older than, if you're the oldest coworker, like in the three of us, I'm the oldest. Yes. But I'm also the wisest. Okay. Brendan, I don't mean to throw you, but I'm going to throw your generation under the bus.

Your generation right now is the one that's being hired by Yahoo. making $9 an hour. Your generation is the one being hired by... You think? Oh, no, quite. There's nobody in the world. And there's no 45-year-old social media managers for major websites. And here's the thing, guys.

In all seriousness, those jobs are only going to pay so much. So you're going to get young people fresh out of college doing those jobs. Right. To gain experience. They're not journalists. They're, what can we do to get our numbers up? And that's exactly the only reason why Yahoo exists is, is to get numbers up.

I mean, they laid off a bunch of their writers. How many writers do they even employ right now? But yeah, they're just looking to get clicks. Have you guys been to Fox Sports.com lately? There's nothing there. There is literally nothing except videos. They have zero reporters, I believe, in their employ. I mean, they let Ken Rosenthal go.

They let, who else was Jay Glazer used to write for them? Yes. All that's gone. All of it. So what we have to do, Remember the other day we were talking about What was the clickbait thing that I didn't look? Oh, it was that stupid opening day

And how we can't boo for the Astros Yes. I didn't. What we lose when we can't boo the Astros. I'll tell you what we lose when we can't be the Astros. Nothing. So I saw the Yahoo Sports tweet. I've seen other tweets.

Just don't click it. Yeah. Harder than done. And this is the thing too. Is a lot of those, Yahoo and the scrolls, and these other websites and these other people, they were, you can lift somebody else's video, right?

If somebody tweets out of video, I can copy and paste that and put it on my own tweet. They were all lifting the SportsCenter tweet, which was intentionally misleading because it cut off both of the sides where it shows that the bases are loaded. And you know what? I went through SportsCenter's tweets

because I was like, you know what, maybe I'm crazy, maybe they just crop everything to make it mobile or something. I went through all their other tweets. All their other tweets had all the graphics, all the scores, all that type of stuff. They put up the Astros thing. The score and the graphics are cropped off

because they know if people see that the bases are loaded, they will figure out that this was not intentional. Also, you're missing the miles per hour, which shows it's a breaking ball. All that type of stuff is intentionally cropped out to elicit a certain reaction, which they got. So you know what? So let's go back to the key point.

That's what it is. I'm blaming your 20-year-olds. Because you are the ones taking these jobs at $9, $10, $11 an hour and you're basically doing everything you can to get clicks so your bosses can appreciate the fact you get these massive clicks on something stupid. See, but that's also not their fault. Bosses want clicks.

They don't care how they get them. Our boss is here with it when it comes to the digital side. We want clicks. We don't care. We get them. It's people your age's fault, Matt. What? If we throw out a bunch of heavy-chested IG models and it gets hits,

they don't care how the sausage is made. They want clicks. All right, I'll ask this question. Would you like to see more heavy-chested, flat-bellied, women on the What's on Match Mind show page. It's a simple yes or no. I upload them in yes.

But you know what? I'm so glad that I didn't click Yahoo yesterday. They didn't get one from me. Good. Now did I see it? Yes. Did I shake my head? Did I do a little research to see what the Miles Prow were on those? Certainly did. And it proved the point that it was just

a slip. It was a young pitcher that lost control of a couple of pitches. Yeah. Or hey, whatever. But they failed to mention that because The clicks is what Yahoo! Guess what? You ain't getting them from me. Yahoo.

Do you have a radio network now? No, that was brief. That's gone. I think. Okay. Well, maybe that's what you deserve then. 1256. Second hour, the Matt Thomas show, James Click.

A replay coming up in 35 minutes here on 790. Left side to Westbrook on the baseline for the tie. He makes it. And he's fouled. This is Russell Westbrook. One thing's for sure. I did not get my. Amazing style from Matt Thomas.

Oh, Hammer job! 713-212-579 if you want to join us. James Click was on with Sean this morning, and we will replace some of the best parts of that coming up at 130. And if you may have to our Mike Dan Tony visit, shame on you. We'll replace some of the best parts of that coming up at 230. Plus, believe it or not, today at 252, as we give away more Twin Peaks gift cards.

Eat, drinks, scenic views, and available curbside. Yeah, and they'll take your temperature when you walk in. Are they open inside still? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, they should. They serve food. By the way, it's hard. I'll say this.

Very nice menu from them, by the way. Went to big city wings yesterday after the big show. But somebody in the group we were with wanted to have Chinese. Chinese food restaurants, very difficult to find a place to dine in. Really? Yeah. Most are, I mean, not most of, I would say 80% are doing the takeout. That's good.

I mean, Chinese... Most of it's a heavy takeout food. Like, shouldn't pizza places and Chinese places just be... thriving right now because those are the traditional all the time delivery and takeout yeah that's right but i just want to say if you're looking for a sit-down chinese place a little more difficult okay well just sit down and eat at your house i went to big city wing sat down what that watch the astros do they have a terriaki flavor or anything like that oh yeah yeah there you go yeah yeah get you some of that you're doing good you're fine all right 713 212 5 790 719 uh brett in league city on 790

Hi, Brett. Hello. Brett? Yes, sir. You're on, Fran. Go. Okay, good deal. Well, I just want to say, you know, obviously the lady fruit that you've been talking about with Yahoo and ESPN, obvious clickbait, getting the royal treatment, I think, was one of the headlines.

It's just, it's just as, man. It's such an old story. You know, that was 2017. If I recall, the Nationals beat us, 2018, the Red Sox Warren. and this is just desperation journalism at its best. What's going to be great is when the Astros do give double rods to 2020 and MLB and all these haters and go out and win the World Series in 2020. That's all we got to do. I understand.

We as a group are sick and tired of being called out like we're the ones who did something. And I just, you know, these guys got to have better storylines to write about. There are things on this team to write about. You know, there are great storylines with Houston Astros. I'm sick and tired of it. I'm ready for us to just get baseball going. I love that the rockets are coming back. Let's just try to slowly get things back to normal.

We'll do it safely. But, hey, man, go Astros. Let's kick everybody's. You know what? And until 2020 where they can stick it. Couldn't have said it better myself. Thank you for the phone call. You know, I get teased.

and most people do that are older than if you're the oldest co-worker like in the three of us, I'm the oldest. Yes. But I'm also the wisest. Okay. Brendan, I don't mean to throw you, but I'm going to throw your generation under the bus.

Your generation right now is the one that's being hired by Yahoo making $9 an hour. Your generation is the one being hired by... You think? Oh, no, quite... There's nobody in the world. And there's no 45-year-old social media managers

for major websites. And here's the thing, guys. In all seriousness, those jobs are only going to pay so much, so you're going to get young people fresh out of college doing those jobs. Right. To gain experience. They're not journalists.

They're what can we do to get our numbers up? And that's exactly the only reason why Yahoo exists is to get numbers up. I mean, do they laid off a bunch of their writers. How many writers do they even employ right now? But yeah, they're just looking to get clicks. Have you guys been to Fox Sports.com? com lately? There's nothing there. There is literally nothing except videos. They have zero reporters, I believe, in their employ. I mean, they let Ken Rosenthal go. They let, who else was,

Jay Glazer used to write for them. Yes. All that's gone. All of it. So what we have to do, remember the other day we were talking about, what was the clickbait thing that didn't look? Oh, was that stupid opening day and how we can't boo for the asteros? Yes. I didn't, what we lose when we can't boo the Astros. I'll tell you what we'll lose when we can't be the Astros. Nothing. So I saw the Yahoo Sports tweet. I've seen other tweets.

Just don't click it. Yeah. Harder something done. And this is the thing too. Is a lot of those Yahoo and the score and these other websites and these other people, you can lift somebody else's video, right? If somebody tweets out of video, I can copy and paste that and put it on my own tweet. they were all lifting the SportsCenter tweet,

which was intentionally misleading because it cut off both of the sides where it shows that the bases are loaded. And you know what? I went through SportsCenter's tweets because I was like, you know what? Maybe I'm crazy.

Maybe they just crop everything to make it mobile or something. I went through all their other tweets. All their other tweets had all the graphics, all the scores, all that type of stuff. They put up the Astros thing. The score and the graphics are cropped off because they know if people see that the bases are loaded,

they will figure out that this was not intention. Also, you're missing the miles per hour, which shows it's a breaking ball. All that type of stuff is intentionally cropped out to elicit a certain reaction, which they got. So, you know what? So let's go back to the key point. I'm blaming your 20-year-olds, because you are the ones taking these jobs at $9, $10, $11 an hour, and you're basically doing everything you can to get clicks so your bosses can appreciate the fact you get these massive clicks on something stupid. But that's also not their fault. Bosses want clicks. They don't care how they get them.

our boss is here when it comes to the digital side. We don't care. We don't care. We get them. It's people your age's fault, Matt. If we have to, if we throw out a bunch of heavy-chested IG models and it gets hits,

they don't care how the sausage is made. They want clicks. All right, I'll ask this question. Would you like to see more heavy-chested, flat-bellied women on the What's on Match Mind show page? Yes. It's a simple yes or no.

I upload them in the yes. But you know what? I'm so glad that I didn't click Yahoo yesterday. They didn't get one. me. Good. Now, did I see it? Yes. Did I shake my head? Did I do a little research to see what the miles per hour were on those? Certainly did. And it proved the point that it was just a slip. It was a young pitcher that lost control of a couple of pitches. Yeah. Or hey, whatever. But they failed to mention that because the clicks is what Yahoo wants. And guess what? You ain't getting them

from me. Yahoo. Do you have a radio network now? I know. That was brief. That's gone. I think. Okay, well, maybe that's what you deserve then. 1256. Second hour, the Matt Thomas show. James Click, replay. Coming up in 35 minutes here on 790. Is the Matt Thomas show. 101 on Sports Talk 790.

Hour number two, hour one. Started with a update on Russell Westbrook, and he is going and practicing. Wonderful. Sounded like what had Mike say, 80%. Yes. Friday still seems kind of iffy. I would say so. Maybe we'll see him Sunday when the Rockets take on Memphis.

That'll be the first game that I do on the radio. We'll have a radio of all three of the scrimmages. And then a week from Friday starts everything against the Dallas Mavericks. I can't wait. Wonderful. Let's go. Get everybody in shape playing together. No more.

No positive test. Well, so far so good. just make sure that Dwight Howard doesn't start saying, oh, don't get the vaccinations, don't get, just rebound the ball. You offer nothing else in a side of, and rebound when the game started. You offer nothing else to society,

except just rebound the basketball. You don't even need you to score. That's what we've been saying all this whole time. All it takes is one numbs goal to ruin this for everybody. That one numbs goal might be Dwight Howard. It might be Dwight Howard. We cannot have that. Right.

Or Alex Caruso or anybody. Equal opportunity on that. What did Alex Caruso do? Nothing. Oh, okay. Pat Beverly left the Clippers today. He and Montres Herald have both left. Family emergency, that's, um, that's not good.

That's awful, but it's weird. And when they come back, is it 10 days they have to quarantine or what is it? It depends on what they've done while they were gone. Okay. I think it's anywhere from as little as 2 to as many as 10. Okay. But here's the thing. If you're in family emergency mode, we all know what they are.

Death and a family. illness, something. Is it a baby count? We don't, yeah, we don't know. Point being is this, are you really thinking about getting a test done during that time? No. My guess is if everything clears and the emergency is no longer an emergency, they'll jump back on a plane, go to Orlando, but they're probably going to have to sit

out a lot of time, which I would think then at this point makes Montrez, Harold, and Pat Beverly iffy for the start of their regular season. I would imagine so. To me, though, I don't think Doc Rubbers is necessarily losing any. sleep over this, but you do want to get a little bit of momentum because the Western Conference is so over competitive this year. I know that for some teams, these eight games are vitally important and they want to try to make the playoffs.

But to me, this is almost certainly on the Rocket side, and I would say for the Clippers as well, it's pretty much almost like a preseason. So you don't expect to see massive changes in the Western standings? I mean, even if you do it, normally you want all the changes because the Rockets would want to climb to four for home court advantage. There's no home court advantage. And they never worked out. I've been out, Matt, so just let me know if I'm wrong.

Did they do any type of special treatment for the team that's the number one C, Los Angeles Lakers? That's the right thing to do. Don't gimmick the, don't make this a gimmick. I'm totally fine with that as well. So, I mean, there's really not a whole lot on the line. If the Rockets, their first round opponent right now is the Nuggets. Then they would then take the winner on the Dallas Clippers. To move up.

So they play the jazz, I guess. Well, here's the thing. being purely selfish on this, if you think that you've got a better chance of staying in the Western Conference playoffs by beating one of the L.A. teams we talked about this yesterday. Yes. It's the Lakers over the Clippers. Yeah, I'd rather get on the four or five side of the bracket.

So you've got a little bit of work to do to get to either four or five. But five doesn't mean anything more than four, except you wear the dark jerseys one more time in theory. Okay, you know what? That's what I want. I want them to get to five so you can avoid the clippers for as long as possible. But will the clippers, and this mantra is Harold Pat Beverly situation take away from,

because they are to me the most mentally potential schizophrenic of the group. I think they got the most talent over the Lakers, but I think the Lakers are a more mentally strong basketball team. I just do.

I think the Clippers, for some reason, they look like they can combust in a moment's notice. And I hope that these two personal situations involving Harold and Beverly aren't going to do that, but it does open up a question mark.

Like, you know, are they vulnerable staying in the number two spot? I mean, do they have a chance of dropping the number three? They are a game and a half ahead of the Nuggets, so they could drop to three. Now, how far are they in front of the number four seed? They are three games ahead of the Jazz. It would take a massive implosion from the drop to the four or five. Yeah, losing three games and eight games is going to be pretty tough. Yeah.

And again, look, especially if you're taking on the Sacramento's and the phoenixes of the world, you're going to have a chance to get fat and happy. But needless to say, very excited about the return of basketball. And we have the return of baseball this Friday with the Astros. Jose Al-Tube with a knee contusion bruise, whatever they're calling it. Contusion, I think. Yeah, doesn't sound severe. We'll give you a further update from James Click coming up in about 25 minutes.

His day to day. But aren't we all? Yes, Matthew. Some of us are, when you're COVID, you literally are day to day. Yes, you are. That's true. Because one day you're like, do I lose my sense of smell? Do I lose my sense of taste?

What's my fever like? I mean, that's what it is, right? You just sleep the whole day. And you don't even know what day it is. Well, that's actually been all of us for the last six months. All right. 713-212-5-790. Let's say hi to Clarence and A-Leaf on the Matt Thomas show at 106.

Hi, Clarence. How you doing, Matt? I'm well, Clarence. What's up? Man, that's the first time I talk to you. I always talk to Ross a lot. But I need you do me a favor or not. but I want you to look up Ira Savage Lewis,

defensive tackle from Baylor. Wait a minute. You've already called me to do this once. Your son. Your son. You've already called my show one to do this for me. Yeah, just check his accolades out because Black Lake is going to have a problem. Blacklock, you mean?

Yeah. Okay. What kind of problem is he going to have? My son. So you're telling me, Your son's going to outplay the second round draft pick. Oh, without a doubt. Oh, okay.

Does he know this yet? Matt, Matt, check it. Acculates out of bail and you'll see. Okay. I'm going to hang up and listen to it, Matt. Okay, well, we may not do it right this second, but we'll eventually get to it. Thank you.

This Clarence's weekly Iris Savage Lewis update. He has called at least me once. Oh, he called me on the nightcap at least four or five times. And every time it takes me a few seconds to figure, oh, this is Clarence. He's proud of his boy. And that's okay. I forgot how many sacks I got him to guarantee. I think he guaranteed me like four and a half sacks.

But basically he's already bringing up the Baltimore material here on Sports Talk 7-90. He's telling us that his son is going to be more productive than the upcoming second round pick of the Houston, Texas. Do you think his son has any idea his dad's calling to talk about him? He's probably embarrassed a little bit, but that's okay. So fathers are supposed to embarrass their sons. Oh, let me tell you something. I live for embarrassing my daughter. Really?

Oh, my God. It's just my favorite thing to do. And the best part is, guys, she knows it. What do you do, like, in front of all the volleyball girls who say something dumb? Oh, yeah. I'll go in there and do a dance move or something just to, you know, or I'll scream her nickname or something. It's just, it's my passion. I never had the passion for this for my boys.

I do for her. Really? Because girls are so emotional. about everything. And it's not fair to your daughter because most people aren't used to being embarrassed 12 to 3 Monday through Friday. Yeah.

Matt Thomas embarrasses me at least six times a day. Oh my God. All of you are a part of the show. By the way, I owe you an apology. Me? Yeah. We had a great Monday night meeting on a Tuesday yesterday.

Oh, yes. And one thing you're going to be admonished about was we did a question that Gordy thought of is name five people. Four of them you've actually met, talked to, doesn't mean not have a long-standing relationship, but just four of the five people are legit people you've talked to, maybe taking a picture with said hello,

one was bogus. I'll give you mine. Okay. Chuck Norris. I even forgot my list. Chuck Hogan. Chuck Norris, Hulk Hogan, Sammy Hagar, Spike Lee,

and who was my last one? Dom Deloese. No, not Tom Deloese. Deloese. Oh, John McLean. Don't know, no answers. Oh, David Spade. Yes.

And all the guys on our Tuesday night meeting had to guess which one was the bogus one. Well, except me. You did not guess. Did I sneak, did I, would I, did I fool you at all? No, actually, I was, I got it wrong. I thought, I couldn't remember you meeting Chuck Norris. I didn't remember that story. Chuck Norris was I met in 2004.

All the others. Well, I remember you making a you going up to David Spade and saying, hey, remember that time Chris Farley died? I didn't say it like that. You've taken a story and have fully embellished it, and that's fine. That's the gist of it. That's the short. That's what I told you.

It was much more of a longstanding conversation. But the person I've never met is Spike Lee. Yes. Sammy Hagar, I saw at his restaurants. That was a great plant by you because you travel around with the NBA. Right. So people figured you had a met MSG, and that's what I figured. So it was Ross's turn to do this.

Yes. And Ross, who were your five celebrities? It was Greg Cook, Indy Kalu, Sean Salsbury, Sean Jones, and Kim Kardashian. Again, you just mailed the question in. So I must have been so shocked and dismayed by the fact that you gave us such a crappy question that I skipped you on doing impersonations. Let's run through what everybody did.

Adam did Jim Rhone. Yes. Gordy did Daryl Morey. I did my patented Bill Cosby. Yes. Adam Sager. He did Joe Biden. Yeah.

Which basically just means he kept losing his train of thought. Correct. And then Wax did a commercial with Geico. Yes, as DJ Khalid. I'm sure that went over your head. No, I absolutely saw it. It was the best, it was the most surprising. I forgot to ask you which one you were going to do.

Yeah. I mean, sometimes in these things you get glossed over, it's okay. Because you're doing so much, Matt. You're so busy. Thank you. As the pivot man, which we appreciate you, the host. Yep. So I present to you in the last 40 seconds.

into this segment. Ladies and gentlemen, Sports RV with an impersonation. Well, Matt, I would like to see if you'd want to have some Nolan Ryan's all natural beef. Now we have the finest Angus cows anywhere

and I think you should come up at any Kroger stores or perhaps H.E.B. Or Wind Dixies and get your Nolan Ryan all natural beef. Okay. I would give that on a scale of 1 to 10 about a 4.5. Thank you. You sound like anybody that lives outside of a major metropolitan city in Texas.

Well, that's what Nolan Ryan sounds like from Alvin, Texas. But you sound like you could be from Livingston. Well, he's from Alvin. I didn't say it was a good impression. Okay. I did not get to do my Bill Cosby long enough. Probably safely, because again, Bill Cosby is a taboo. While we're grading impressions.

You didn't like it? It was at least a nine and a half man. People were howling during the conversation. At you or with you? Probably. All right. 713, 2.1. 12-5-7-98.

So, again, an open apology to Sports RV for not being able to do his amazing Nolan Ryan impersonation during our Tuesday night meeting. We have no meeting next week because the Astros are playing, but the following Monday will have a meeting. So please check Facebook for all the details. And it's a lot of fun. You can go watch it. If you're after the show, after the 18, after the nightcap at 7 o'clock, you can watch it again. For sure, for sure. All right, 713-1-2-5-7-90.

Russell is back. It's good. Don't have a Luke Bahmutee update. Luke Rashar-Bam-Mut. You're the only person ever bring it. up Richard. Luke Richard. It sounds good.

But he doesn't even say it. Like he's a French monarch. All right. We have a dumb survey I want to give you results on. Okay. You know how there are people that do polling for a living? Yeah. You know, ask a question.

Okay. You were going somewhere else. I got results of a really dumb-ass poll that will give you on that about the future of sports, at least for the rest of the 2020 season. Right now, I want to tell you about what's happening at bronze roofing. They have been in the Houston area for over 30 years, quality work at a fair price, and roofs, hey, can stay with you 15, 20 years comfortably if you have them checked on a semi-regular basis. With all the rain, when we've had the last handful of days, if your roof is leaking, you're a little concerned about it. I want you to call 281-481-480-999, and get yourself a free estimate.

They'll come out and see you, give you that free estimate. And if everything is good, then you walk away going, man, thank you, Braun. if something's bad, they'll give you that estimate. It'll be fair. It'll be right on the spot. And you'll be able to know exactly what you're going to have to do in terms of repair and cost. 281-480-9900 and online at bronze roofing.com. B-R-A-U-N-S roofing, bronze roofing.com. On the trail, it's hard.

And it drops it down with a left-hand hammer. This is Coach Dan Tonin. Matt Thomas is a great guy. And I always listen to the radio show. I'm mute. What a shot. From the world of Major League Baseball, Mookie Betts and the Los Angeles Dodgers agreeing to a new contract extension.

Twelve years. What? What? $350 million. Wow. $350 million. We can do a mooky bets. believe it or not today?

We could. Just saying. Bela, you started, we're going to start giving out one of the questions at 2 o'clock every day to host. Oh, that's true. We need to cut.

We need a topic pretty quick here. How old is Mookiee Betts? I mean, he's no 19-year-old. I'm going to guess 26. Let's see how. Believe it. Is he 26?

I don't know. I just believe it. Oh, he's 27. He's 27. That's what I almost said. first. Guys, that's mind-blowing money. First of all, he's not going to finish

12 years as a Los Angeles Dodgers. Probably not. I would imagine. Anything can happen in 12 years. We might have baseball in 12 years. That's true. So obviously, Major League Baseball, or i.e., the Dodgers, are not concerned about the financial future of their sport because they're just putting $350 million in the piggy bank of one person.

Correct. That's intense. Do you know who loves that, by the way? George Springer. George Springer. Is he guys the number one free agent now? I don't keep a lot of huge track of who's a free agent who's not. But when I've always heard of Mookie Betts, George Springer's name wasn't too far behind.

Twelve years, $350 million. Damn. Just get your kids out there playing baseball. Lucky Bet's one. This is just according to MLB.com an article. J.T. Realmuto. Marcus Simeon. Ahead of George.

Tyler Bauer and George Springer. So they're like top six. Yeah. The fifth. They have them fifth. By the way, the Astros shouldn't empty the piggy bank for J.T. Riumoto next year.

They should? Absolutely. Do you know what the three catchers are for the Astros right now? I don't. Dustin. Garnon. Paul Bacco.

Garrett Stubbs. and Martin Maldonado. Who did have a tape measure shot in the game against the rolls a couple days ago. That's right. It's a little doughy. Put it this way. Not going to strike the fear in anybody's lineup. Somebody's got a bad ninth, Matt. When you're the Yankees, you have Gary Sanchez?

Yeah. And granted, he's a passball machine. Exactly. He hasn't got any better defensively. Like, a lot of us thought he was not. So that's worked out well. He still hits the crap ton of the baseball. I'm just not sure if the three guys,

guys I just mentioned are the future of the battery mates of the great pitching staff the Astro should have in future years. Man, it's already pretty much a murderers road lineup. Then you had JT around Mutu. But you're going to have to. Do you want to beat the Yankees? Yes. Because that's the real, that's the realism here, gang.

We've got to be honest and true with the people on this radio show. This isn't the Astros competing against anybody in the American League West. It isn't, frankly, against Minnesota or Cleveland or anybody in the Central. It's about beating them damn Yankees. And that Yankee lineup, Ross, is filthy. It's pretty good. Filthy. You know what?

I'd go trade from right now. I don't know what they have. Unfortunately, the Astros minor league system has been decimated. Decimated. Decimated is a little strong. Okay. It's not as... Is that better?

Combed through. I mean, the specials are still there. He's got to really search for him. That's true. Would you trade J.T. Real Moto for Forrest Whitley? Forest looked pretty good last time he was out there. Would you trade J.T. Riamuto? I don't like saying Ria Moto.

Real Moto. It sounds like a nice sangri that you. What kind of sangri do you want to now? I'll have a Ria Moto. I have a J.T. Real Muto. Yeah, that's, you know how there's like there's drinks named after men? Yes, J.T. Real Moutos? Yeah.

I'll have a J.T. Real Milto, heavy on the Grenadine. Yeah. Would you trade him for Kyle Tucker? You know how hard it is to find great catchers that hit? Yeah, I would trade him for, for, well, he's 30 already, though. then another thing, and he's going to command big money. Here I'm spending Jim Crane's money. I know.

I mean having Kyle Tucker under control, that's one of those things you have to weigh. Is having somebody under control? I don't think Kyle Tucker moves because the chances are the Astros outfield could be a complete three different spots next year. None of them are guaranteed. At this point, none of them have contracts for next season. So you've got to keep Kyle Tucker. I agree. Even though Real Motto could be that solid hitting catching for the next handful of years.

And Force Whitley is supposed to be a future anchor. of the rotation. All right. I got to read this survey real quick because before we get to the conversation that... Survey says. Well, that's not a sexual, so this is a real legitimate sports survey. Something called the Harris Poll.

You know the Harris Poll. I know. I just want to discredit it. Something called the Harris Poll surveyed 1,970 U.S. adults last weekend. That seems really small. No, that's enough for a sample size. What's population?

United States. A 300 million-ish? So you're telling me that less than 2,000 people is a good sample size for 300 million people? If you're going across all demographics and stuff, if you're doing, if you're reflective of the demographics. Well, I'm calling BS. I think it's not big enough. Okay.

Only 32% of them believe the NFL will have a season. What the hell do they know? That's my point. This was not a good survey. More stupidity. Just 24% think college football will be played. Let me tell you something. The NFL is going to play this year.

But if you're in that group that believes there's going to be no NFL, then you really should believe there's no college football going to be playing. Why would college football not have that kind of discrepancy? You would think there'd be a lot more people that think college football because they're not getting paid. Yeah, I think that would be a little more difficult. Only 29% of Americans believe the NBA will be able to finish its entire season. 29. Who are these Nimrods? They're not sports fans.

What does it say in the methodology or anything like that? He doesn't say. He doesn't say. He doesn't say. He doesn't say. He doesn't say, or anything like this. No, it just says a rando survey.

You know, when you go on rando, what happens? Also, 45% believe Major League Baseball will be able to complete its schedule.

So less than half on that. Basically, they went and found 2,000 negative nancies out there and said, please answer my poll question. And who are getting, who are getting called on these polls?

Is it like people with landlines and they're 66 years old? More absurdity. Less than half of Americans say they miss watching sports on TV. That's BS. Every sports fan

that considers himself a sports fan not a diehard, but just even a mediocre sports fan is going to say they miss sports. That's stupid. It's like saying, I like to go to nightclubs, but I don't care if they play music. Now, we're in a sports bubble.

What percentage of Americans do you think are huge sports fans? Out of every 10 men? Yeah. I mean, diehard sports fans? Yeah. Two. Hmm.

I was thinking three or four. Yeah. No, radio ratings don't even indicate that. That's true. I don't know. It's difficult. Because if you are a diehard sportsman, you don't want to listen to sports talk on the long.

I mean, I just think of the, like, the Super Bowl, right? Everybody, it's the biggest sport event of the year. It gets giant ratings. Over half the country doesn't watch the Super Bowl, according to Nielsen ratings. Yeah. It's like, what are the, I don't know what these people are doing on this first February or Sunday of February. What are you watching?

The Puppy Bowl? What's on HGTV today or something? I guess. Is there a lifetime movie network you just couldn't miss out on? Property Brothers Marathon perhaps. Okay, so here's more absurdity. Less than half of Americans said they miss watching sports on TV. 58% of men

said they miss watching sports. Only 35% of women. Americans were asked about supporting NBA players being allowed to put social justice causes on the backs of their jerseys. 49% say they support the move. 51 say they oppose it, basically

I always say about America. It's 50-50. Yes. 55% say the move is just for PR purposes. 44% will say it's an impact. So a little more than the 50-50 split. 65% of African-Americans say it will have a major impact. 36% of white Americans say it'll have an impact.

64% of white say it's just for PR. 35% of black Americans agree with that. So it just feels like to me that they just got too many random people. but that's maybe maybe we maybe we overestimate the power of sports but to answer your question of every 10 if we took 10 random men in Houston Texas I would say we'd find two diehard sports fans I think we would find five very mediocre sports fans and then we would find three that just don't like sports

nothing wrong with those three yeah you're ever at a party and you meet a guy that doesn't like sports like what's wrong with you like I had a What do you do? I have a friend of mine, and I won't name who this person is. John is that my number. Texting me, when does the NBA resuming? Uh-huh. That's in that group of five that likes sports.

But just doesn't pay spectacular attention to it. Yes. 129 on Sports Talks. Your phone calls are coming up. Plus, James Click from this morning, Sean Salisbury Show, believe it or not today at 250. the topic today would be Let's do Mooky bets Mookie bets

At the end of the day I was probably had to make a bunch of stuff And Mookie's you're going to get the first free one at 2 o'clock So be ready for that 129 on Sports Talk 790 National Sports Talk Houston Sports Talk This is Houston Sports Talk 790

Home for your home teams Time is 134 still ahead in this half hour, the James Click replay from this morning's Sean Sonsbury Show. We've got some folks that want to say hi, so let's get right to it. Let's go to Biscuit and Sugar Land on 790. Biscuit, what's a good word? Cougar Man, Cougar Man. What's happening, my brother?

I'm well, yourself. Oh, man, I'm doing well, man. I was supposed to be in Cancun getting married this week, but, you know, a pandemic says something different. Well, the JOP would be just fine, right? Lies, lies, not true. Go ahead. Congratulations ahead of time. Yeah, yeah.

But you're hitting on a subject that always has been sore for me, man. If you are not informed on the issue, why would you comment on it? My meaning is, if you're not a sports fan and you don't even follow sports, how can you have an opinion on it? I don't know how people do that, man. And like you say, there's always, you make you run across people, say they're sports fans and you you ask them, hey man, what about Anthony Davis?

And they don't even know what sport he play in. You know, it's like, okay, are you a sports fan? Or you just, if somebody just likes to comment. Like I don't like politics at all, Biscuit, that's just me. So if one of those Harris polls called me and said, give us your thoughts about this, this, I probably would say thank you but no thank you to hang up on them. I'm only going to fill things out that I think I could give you some responsible

answers to. And this dumb-ass poll gave me no responsible answers. Right, because if anything, and I'm with you, to me, the sport, and I think all of them are going to have issues and may not get all the way through except for maybe the NBA because of the bubble, but the sport is going to have the most issue, in my opinion, is college football. And so I don't know if college football is going through. But the rest of them, you know, the NFL, you know, you got, you know, different things they could do or whatever and maybe push it back and, you know, move things around. the college football and all these guys testing and then they got the young guys is their that's their talent pool as young guys and expecting them to do the right thing all the time. Yeah, so, but yeah, I'm with you mad if you can say don't know.

You know, somebody called you and ask your opinion or something, you'll say don't know. It's just, and I'll run through the results again. It just, it just didn't make any sense to me. Biscuit, sorry about the postponement of your wedding. Have you got a new date set? Oh, yeah, well, you know, we had to go ahead and go to the courthouse, but we're going to do a retake next year and do what they call a symbolic ceremony on the beach. All as well.

All as well, Biskke, good hearing from me, my friend. Thanks for the phone call. Let me just run these real quick again. So just make sure that I'm not missing the boat on this survey. 32% believe the NFL will have a season. It's an odd question. 24% think college football. The percentages should be way higher for college football.

Thinking they will have a season? Yeah. No, they should be lower. I mean, I guess here's it. The discrepancy should be larger between the 24% of people that were pulled. These people who are answering this, Paul, probably just don't know much about sports. Or they're casuals, like you were saying. Yeah.

Here's the one. 29% of Americans will be NBA will finish its season. I mean, have you not done any checking of what's going on down there? 346 negatives. 45% believe MLB. That's just the opposite. MLB is having way more difficult of a time staying COVID-free than the NBA is.

Correct. Oh, I shouldn't have done that hurts. You're okay? No. God. 58% of men say they miss watching sports. You mean to tell me that four out of every 10 men don't miss sports? In this poll.

What the hell are y'all watching? That's what I'm saying. Like you go to a party or you got a bar or something. and you should meet people you haven't met before. You start chatting. And that's my go-to. I just talk sports because it's basically the only thing I know about that it can converse about. So you just find a guy and you start talking about sports.

And then you can tell sometimes a couple of minutes in, you're like, this guy doesn't know a damn thing about sports and it doesn't seem like he cares. I'll give you an example. What is he doing with his life? I'll give you an example of something happened to me about four or five years ago. Guy we have dinner with. And again, I'm not going to mention this person. And good person, but just no need to embarrass the person.

person. We were in the middle of the Astros season. And he's like, yeah, I'm big into baseball. Love baseball. He goes, so what do you think about Mark Texero doing his thing with the Yankees? I'm not making this up. Well, maybe he just likes to read his sports. Is that what you're going to go with?

Yeah. Okay. You stay with that. He likes to he just goes and reads box scores every morning and he doesn't listen or watch. First of all, who's reading box scores? I work in sports. I don't read box scores. I used to.

I used to read the box scores every morning. I used to do fantasy baseball back in the day, and I'd get the USA Baseball Weekly. It would have every box score of every game that week. Wow. And then you'd have to buy hand fill in this, whoof. But it made me more knowledgeable to baseball. As the Commish? Did you get paid to do that?

No, I just did it. Assistant Commish? Just did it. All right. Because I'd love me some baseball. Still do, but now let the computer do all the heavy lifting. Fletcher. East Houston, may I call you Fletch?

Yeah, you guys are going to rake me over the cold because I'm a lifelong sports fan. I'm a coached basketball for 25 years. I like the NFL. I like college football, not as much as NFL. I like mixed rockets and like NCAA. I like to watch the Astros. Usually if the Astros aren't on, though, I'm not interested in it.

But the other sports, if like the Texans or the Cowboys, because I'm one of those crazy people that like both. If they're not on for some reason, then I'll usually try to find another game to watch, and I've kept up with sports my whole life. But I'm just going to say this, not having sports for this long, it's just actually I've started filling my life with other things. And then with all the political stuff and all the social justice warians,

coming out in sports. I'm just saying it's made me a lot less interested. And if it goes on very long, you know, there's a whole lot more important things in my life and I can just, you know, and like I say,

I've been part of my life since I was six years old and I'm 53. And I'm just sick of all the crap. And I'm, if they keep it up, I just, I'll quit watching. Thank you for the, Fletch. And by way, we're not going to rake you over the cold. you're entitled to your own opinion.

I can't change who you are and what you are, and that's fine. I will say one of the very last things he said, I think, will ultimately cost a segment of the population. The social justice stuff will. Well, I think the first part of what he said as well. He said, you know, I found other things to do. There's been no sports for months. I need sports.

We've been talking. Well, a little different. Obviously. Yeah, I think you and I are the same. But even if I didn't have his job, I would need sports. There are a lot of people who are casuals and who don't care. And then they've been watching a lot of shows and they say, you know what? I haven't been watching these sports and I've been okay.

And we've made it. We've all lived, well, relatively, you know what I mean? I mean, we've all made it through if we have. And it's just been, I think there are going to be people like Fletcher who aren't going to just come and jump in with two feet and be back into sports because they haven't needed it. Yeah, I just, I'm in that, you know, we talked about 10 people. I'm in that two that has to have it. I have spent way too many weekends in the last six months staring at my television going,

please put something on live. And this MLS crap is not satisfying. NASCAR is, I need the real stuff. I've got a nice Manchester United, West Ham 1-1 draw going on right now. They played 84 minutes, and there have been two goals scored. Yes. Yeah, I need real sports. All right, 143 is our time.

The visit with James Click is next. Those of you on hold will get to you as. well to 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. If you want to join us on Twitter, you can do that as well. At SportsMT, at Brendan Riley underscore, and at SportsRV. The show goes till 3 o'clock. Believe it or not, Mookie Betts, who just signed a brand-new 12-year contract with the Dodgers.

We'll have it for you at 252. Big City Wings. You know, this Friday's National Wing Day? I, yeah, you're like, what? Well, that's what big city wings here is here for, is to take care of all of your needs for big city delicious tasting wings on National Wing Day. So go to the end of the eight locations and say, yes, I heard Matt Thomas talking about National Big City Wing Day. And you're like, okay, what does that get me?

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This Friday, national wing day, enjoy 75 cent wings from Big City wings. Daniel House. Hey, it's Daniel House. Matt Thomas continues now. On Sports Talk 790. All right, a couple of things I want to get to before we let you hear where James Click had to say this morning as part of the Sean Salsbury show. first and foremost, Jose Al-Tube was day-to-day. He's actually practicing right now at Minutemate Park.

So he's like, day-to-day, I'm out there playing. So the Dique problem is just a little owie. You can't put awe on an injury report, can you? That would seem kind of... Discomfort. Yeah. Boo-boo. Leg-booboo?

I would love if they did that. That'd be funny. Also, Hunter Dozier played outfield for the Royals a couple days ago. One o' for three. You're like, why did Matt? Does anybody care? Well, he tested positive of the COVID and he played against the Astros. So it is what it is. We're going to get stuff like that all the time, right? No surprise.

It's going to keep happening. Yes. All right. So good news on Jose. Don't know about how the effects of Hunter Dozier is impacting the Astros. They're working out right now as we speak at Minutemade Park. And speaking of the Astros, James Click joins the Sean Salisbury show every Wednesday here on 790. We replay some of the best parts of it. And we do so here by asking the general manager to recap what he liked out of his team's two games in KC. Great to see the guys out there in the field.

First of all, just, you know, playing somebody besides ourselves. It was invigorating for them. It was great for all of us to watch it. And certainly really happy with the performance that they were able to put in. Don't want to single anybody out. But, you know, George was in mid-season form. And Paredes is one of these young arms that we're excited about seeing what they're. can do. James, what have you learned on the restart about your team? Just how professional they are

and how seriously they take not only the job on the field, but off the field. All the conversations that I have had with them about what we're going to have to do to stay safe and what we're going to have to do to get this season to the finish line have been very impressive. They're all taking it incredibly seriously, and we're trying to do the same thing. And, and keep them as safe as possible. So just the professionalism, I think, is the first thing that comes to mind. Will Dusty have the conversation or has he or have you with your team about how you react to if it gets out of hand with the beanball business?

Well, I think you hit it on the head in the beginning that this is exactly why Dusty's the right guy for the job, and he's been through similar things. Maybe not something exactly like this, but he'll happily talk to you about when he was with the Dodgers and he used to. play Eunice Cabell and the Astros and the scuples they used to get in. So he's been through this, but we also have confidence in the commissioner's office and some of the new rules that they've put in place this year. Even before COVID, they were talking about making sure that none of this got out of hand. And now that we have some new rules in place because of COVID, that kind of thing

is not allowed. And our guys are going to be above board. They're going to be professional about it. And I expect all the other teams will as well. Absolutely. Update on Osuna. Looks good through a very good bullpen two days ago. Stromi left me a voicemail immediately afterwards raving about it. So we're hopeful we'll have him here pretty soon, but he's doing everything he can to get ready as soon as possible. And we'll Presley start the closer roll? That's a question for Dusty and Stromi, really.

I believe Dusty's addressed that. But this is the luxury of having a couple guys to the back of the bullpen that maybe one day one's not available, and you feel just as good going to the other one. Josh James scratched from the start, weather-wise, and understand hasn't pitched against another team this restart of the spring. Any concern about him going in only having pitched in inter-squad or scrimmage games against his own team?

No, I think that's almost part of the course for a lot of these guys. Obviously, Lance is the only starter who's pitched against another team. So they're all professionals. They're doing an amazing job of getting ready. And Josh, even before he got here, was facing hitters from other organizations. He just happened to be in the same area that he was. And so while he may not have had a chance to start yesterday because we thought we'd be dodging thunderstorms all day,

he has put in the work before he got here against other team's hitters. And to be honest, if you talk to our hitters and our pitchers, they'll say that facing this team is a great way to get ready. The hitters will talk about having to face Erlander and Grinky and, you know, what that does to your process. And the same thing with our pitchers, you have to try to go through this lineup. There's no better way to get ready for a season than to face the quality players we have on this team. If this is the Lance McCullors, which we've seen in the past, we're going to get,

you must have been awfully impressed with this start for him. Absolutely. And I haven't had a chance to talk to him face to face about it, but he was obviously, you know, very, very optimistic about the season, even going into that start. And the gratefulness that he talked about, I think, hit it on the head. in terms of being able to get back out there, face another team, go as deep into the game as he went. And the stuff that he had there spoke for itself. James, you've been around a lot of pitching coaches and obviously managers.

Why is Brent Strom so good? Communication. The ability to talk to the pitchers, the ability to get across the coaching points that he wants to make. And then just the willingness to work with. them, the willingness to learn, the understanding that not all pitchers get out the same way and not all pitchers are as effective if we try to put them all in the same box. He's, you know, if you've got a plus change-up and a fastball, he'll work with you one way. And if you have a different set of stuff, he'll work another way.

And just the preparation, the communication, and the flexibility are the things that I think really separates Johnny. A guy hits a gapper and drives in the go-ahead run and no fans are cheering. will it take an adjustment period for these players to get used to it during the regular season? I would imagine so. It's obviously something that we're not going to know until we get there, and that's a good question for those guys. It's certainly an adjustment for those of us who have been in the stands watching these inner squad games,

you know, and there'll be six of us in the stands. And, yeah, somebody hits a gapper, and you want to stand up and watch it, and it just feels odd. And so I'm sure it feels odd to the players as well, but this goes into the preparation that we're talking about, and it also goes into why the ability to get up to Kansas City for a couple days was so valuable to have a dry run of that feeling in another stadium with another team, but with no fans in the ballpark, and just getting used to that.

And once you're comfortable in it, then the performance will obviously be better. If you're sitting there always looking around, staring at these seats, you're probably not focused on the game. what's the next level for Kyle Tucker? That's a really good question. I mean, it's really hard to say. The natural talent is obvious. I think the next level is whatever he wants it to be.

And he's looked very good this spring. He's putting in the work, and you can see him watching the veteran players that we have and trying to learn from them and trying to say, how did they get to where they are? How did they get from the point in their career where I am to those levels? So it's hard to say on what the next level is for Kyle, but he's doing everything he can to get there as fast as possible. With Altuve now, with the contusion, I know you're not the doctor, but anything for us to be concerned long term about with this?

No, it's just it's a bruise from the impact at the plate and the initial reports were, you know, that he used day to day. And I'm sure that he's going to do everything he can to get back out there. All right, I've got to leave you with this one. are you looking outside the organization for any additional pitching? We're always keeping our ear to the ground. That's part of the job. We wouldn't be doing our job if we didn't continue to look externally. But at the same time, I mean, you brought up to Reddit at the beginning of the conversation.

This is part of why we're in a good spot because our player development people and our scouts have gone out and found these guys. Our player development people have developed them into guys who can step in and contribute at the major league level. So we'll always look for help, but the bar to clear to help us out, even though maybe some of these guys are a little young or a little inexperienced, the bar, just from a talent standpoint, is pretty high. So we'll always look, but we feel pretty good about the guys we have. That again, James Click, which you heard this morning at 930. You can every Wednesday and then some of the best parts of that today. We had Mike Dan Tony at 1230. If you missed some of that, we'll play some of the best parts of that coming up at 2.30 plus believe it or not.

And by the way, just to update the most recent information, Jose Al-Tube is on the field at Minutemay Park working out. They're going to have a simulator game coming up at 2.30. And Josh James is going to start for the Stros. Lance McCullors, who looked really good the other night Monday against Kansas City, will be a guest of Adam and Adam today in the 8 team at 530. So we've got your Astros covered for you here on Sports Talk 790. Final hour of the Matt Thomas show starts in a matter of moments. We're going to hear from Russ Westbrook as he made his triumphant return.

to not return, the first ever visit to Orlando in the bubble. He's there. He practiced and we'll let you hear what he had to say about being back with his teammates. We'll do that to start the final hour of the Matt Thomas show here on Sports Talk 790. This is the Matt Thomas show. It is 201 on Sports Talk 790, the final hour of the Matt Thomas show. And we will get a recap of Russell Westbrook and his first day of practice from his head coach. Mike Dantone, who will put the best part of that coming up in a half an hour from now.

But right now, here's a little from Russ today. What does he have to say, old sports, RV? On his recent days, how he's feeling. How is he doing? How's his conditioning? Well, you know, first of all, just kind of thankful investors to be healthier to be able to compete again. But just quarantined, man, been at home trying to be productive. obviously not able to get on the basketball floor

but find a ways to kind of say I could do as much condition I can probably do. But as far as that, we'll see once I get out there. But that's the last thing that I worry about, honestly, because before I had to quarantine, I was in a pretty good shape. So I should be all right. So he's not worried about his conditioning. That's good.

So we shouldn't worry about it, right? You know what he said today on the Zoom call? he said the worst part of his COVID was having the sniffles. Yeah, he did say that. It's stuff he knows. Yeah. Okay. Good friend.

Here's the thing about COVID. And I'm not telling you all something you don't already know. We have people that are asymptomatic who have nothing. And we have people that are dying. Yes. Is there, and I'm not a doctor nor do we play with on the radio? Is there anything in the world? Like, if you get the flu, you get it.

There's not a minor flu. It's a, no, no. There's two different strands, but a flu is a flu. Flu does, in theory, most people kick their ass. Yeah, is there asymptomatic flu? Like, if you get a form of a cancer, something's going to have to change, whether you have surgery, chemo, radiation, whatever. Is there anything in our world, in the medical world that has been given a diagnosis

and given a name that has such a wide-ranging sort of, a thing? effect to the average person? It's different to every person. It is. I don't know. Like, for instance, some people lose smell. Some people lose taste. Some don't. Some don't have any results. Some have to go to a ventilator. I mean, this is, it's so weird. It is weird. And I mean, some people, yeah, like you said, it's loose sense of smell. And some people, I only lost it for about 12 hours. And I've heard of people who lost it for days and days and days. Did it scare you? It wasn't I was

In the back of my mind I was scared that it would never come back Yes Because I love tasting food Let me ask you this Not to be weird Yeah But if you lose your permanent sense of taste and smell

Mm-hmm You're gonna live the healthiest life of your life You should You should eat salad every day right Well I mean Or proteins You would never want to eat a piece of garlic bread Because it wouldn't do you any good

You wouldn't build Enjoy the taste of it I guess drunk is a feeling, so you'd still want to get drunk. But you can, you know what? You could, you'd save a lot of money. You could drink the cheapest beer there is. You won't be able to taste it. You get that Natty Light.

Yeah, you could have some Mickeys or some old E or some Cobra. Something cheap. Get stung. Like Keystone Light, I'll have a 12-pack place. Exactly. I mean, we here believe in cold, delicious, refreshing Coors Light. Of course. Or perhaps an ice cold refreshing.

We don't know yet. Well, we'll see. Yeah, we'll see. But it is weird how everything, every person has changed. And you'd get the cheapest crappy wine that you get, you get the two buck chuck from Trader Joe's. Like I would never, you would never crave a steak again. Can you trick yourself into thinking that? You would remember how it tastes, right?

I mean, I wouldn't, first of all, you wouldn't want tasters to lose a taste or smell. I mean, that would be no way to live a life. No, it's like, it would be like if you became colorblind, you could live with living everything and black and white, but you wouldn't want it to be that way. It wouldn't be the preferred way to live. Well, didn't Greg Cook lose his sense of smell? Well, he's got questionable taste. I think he did.

Like, for good? I thought. Well, if you lose your sense of smell, then you're probably, you could, you would eat lettuce every day. I don't think Greg was doing that. But, yeah, I, no, I, the funny, it's funny you say that because I thought about that when it was happening to me and, you know, all these thoughts are running your mind. I'm never going to have this back. How long is it going to take?

Right. What's going on? here. I can't taste anything. And yeah, I did think about that. I was like, well, I guess I could just eat healthy now. I don't, I'd rather be told to eat properly and have the choice of smelling and tasting the food that I would enjoy every once in a while. Then basically, you turn it off and on like a faucet. Well, I don't want to, I don't want to be saying, guess what, man, you got great news. You're never going to worry about your cholesterol ever again. Oh, that's amazing. Why? Because you'll never eat anything that's going to have, be high in cholesterol. Because you, you, you don't want to be high in

cholesterol because you won't really care what you're eating. You'll be the same. You know, you eat a cereal like you love a good cinnamon toast crunch. Of course. Forget that. Brain flakes. I think I'd even rather have my taste and still eat stuff that I didn't like the taste of than not have it at all. But how would you know if you're, I mean, how would you know to enjoy it? No, no, I'm saying, I don't care if you forced me to eat healthy and I hated the taste of everything. I'd still want to taste it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you want the option. Yeah, you want the option. Yeah, you want the option of having good nutritious food, which we should all be doing more of, but that's not the hearing of there.

All right. Also today, Russ discussed being with his teammates now in Orlando. I think it's going to be very, very vital for us to be able to bond and stay very close-knit because times like this, I think it kind of only allows you to be able to come closer. I grow apart. And I think that we're such a good place from what I heard from not being here. my job is to come in and just fit along right with everything else is going.

It's interesting he brought up conflict. It's like, you know, if there's a conflict, he's going to break, there's a conflict? Is everybody okay? What's going on? I think it's going to be a little bit of conflict anyway. Because I got news for you.

There are going to be some dog basketball games. The Rockets may win a game by 30, but they also may lose one by 30, and they're going to be cranky and guess what you can't do. Go to the club, blow off some steam. You can't go away from them. They're in your hotel. room and they're not going away.

Got to go to the shuffleboard court. Maybe call Chris Paul. Hey, you want to meet out of the cornhole? Yeah, make sure you wear a mask and sanitize though. Yeah, and don't invite Dwight Howard because he wants no part of that. Yeah, of course. But, you know, yeah, I think, I think, again, veteran players who know what's in front of them won't have nearly as trouble getting over a tough loss and a young team that's

like, man, I got to get out of here. I'm, I shot two of 11. You know why? Because I haven't had sex or I haven't been able to go out and have a couple of beers. You know what I'm saying? Or like when we were watching last dance, right? And everybody was like, we knew that Dennis Rodman just needed a few days off. Yeah.

He can't go to Vegas for a weekend and he'll be fine. You can't do that. All right, let me give you some players. You tell me if they could survive in the bubble. These are players that are past tense. Dennis Rodman. No. No chance.

Zero. He would be breaking quarantine. Oh, my gosh. Everybody would be in danger. if Dennis Rodman were in this bubble. Magic Johnson. He's a partier. He's a big time partier.

Party a little too hard. Now, older magic's mature. That's what I'm saying. I mean, imagine 26-year-old magic in Los Angeles. He'd be struggling. He would struggle. Okay. Let me give you a few more.

I'm trying to think of... Oh, Sean Kemp. Well, we know he liked to get out there. I think he'd be eventually fine. It's only for a few weeks, right? I know who would be okay, A.C. Green. A.C. Green would embrace it. Thorel Bailey would have a great time.

I got one for you. Would Alan Iverson behave himself? Ooh, that's a good one. No. Alan Iverson's breaking quarantine. He is sneaking out of the bubble. Alan Ivers is getting called on the, somebody's calling on him on the snitch line. Yeah. I'm trying to think of who else might be players that are in yesteryear.

I think Dominique would behave himself. Yes. Larry would behave himself. Hakeem would be fine. The king would be just fine. Who are some really flashy? Charles Barkley. Oh, that's it.

We'll wrap up with that one. Charles is like wearing a disguise sneaking out of the quarantine to go party. Have I told you my Charles Barkley, L.A. story? That time he threw you through a plate glass window? No, that was Orlando. Oh. A younger Charles Barkley. This was the first game.

Sir Charles. This was the first game after they had the lockout of like 99. Oh, he was younger. But he was young, relatively speaking. I was in his 30, 33%. Yeah. Early rocket. Okay.

So you say young Charles Berkeley? I think 76 is Charles. I got you. So I had done a college basketball game, I think, in the Denver area. Maybe it was Air Force. Maybe it was Colorado State somebody. And I said, hey, can we book me a trip to L.A. to go see the Rockets play the Lakers to open up their season?

And the station said, yeah, we can figure out a way to get you together. So I went from Denver to Los Angeles, went to the form to see the Rockets play the Los Angeles, Lakers. and Charles was one of his early games, maybe in his first one, I don't remember. And he saw a celebrity in the crowd. And he screamed at the top of his lungs in that locker room. Do you all see who blank was out there?

I'm going to blank her. Okay. That's all my story. Oh, well, I thought, and then you found out come out later that he did. Oh, he might have. Let's see, can I guess? Let me give you, I don't want to say her now.

I think I may have said her name, but I'm going to give you a clue. because I like to give you riddles. Fair Fawcett. Major movie star in the 1990s and early 2000s, big sports fan, probably known for being a sports fan

of one particular college team. Ashley Judd. 713-212. Damn, I give away too much. Yeah, when you said one particular college team, that was... If I would have said one particular team, that would not have been enough, right?

Yeah. Dang. Oh yeah, we still have to give away a believe it or not a question, Matt. Oh, yeah, let's do it right now. Okay. We're supposed to do a 201. Yeah, Mooky Betts, by the way, is today's edition of Believe it or not. Mm-hmm.

Do we give it away the first question or any question? Any question you want. Give a middle of the pack one. Middle of the pack. Mookie Betts is cousins with Megan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex. Believe it or not. That's a not. It's a believe it.

Yes. Read it again in the answer. Mookie Betz is cousins with Megan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex. And it is a believe it. So hopefully you're listening. And if you get it wrong, we're going to really make fun of you today in about 48 minutes from now. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790.

The reason why we are using Mookiee bets as a believe-in-not topic. We'll tell you about that after we tell you about Shaw's Jewry at the corner of West Gray and Montrose. Open Monday through Friday from 10 o'clock until 7. They go 10 to 6 on Saturday. 30s. Fine diamond jewelry. Amazing opportunities for you to get really, really good deals on jewelry because they've been in the same exact location since 1966. And right now on most of their purchases, the folks at Shaw's Jewelry are going to give you 0% financing for 12 months. There are some restrictions apply. So walk in, meet the staff.

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It's good. Got to the rim and laid it up and in. Wow. It's back. Hey, it's the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. 218 on Sports Talk 790. If you're missing with Mike DeAntony, we're going to play that for you coming up in about 10 minutes from now.

Why is Mookie Betts Ross today's edition of Believe it or not? He signed a massive 12-year, 350 million dollars. contract? $3.50? That was three. It was a massive deal. Oh, no. ESPN is now saying $380 million.

Oh, $380? Thirteen years at $3.80. Okay. Now, what happened to the 12-year deal? I'd make that up? No, John Heyman got it wrong. Smar me, John Heyman.

Dushy John Heyman. Come on, Johnny, boy. Here's who we like. We like Jay Kaplan. A little odd, but we like him. I got no issue with Jake. I don't either, but he knows he's a little lot. Uh-huh.

Uh, Chandler Rome. I love. Just is a constant complaint of everything, but it's, it's so warm and in welcoming. Dripping with sarcasm. And when he claps back on some Astros Karen on Twitter, it makes me a laugh. Mama Neen for Astros. He just gets into fights with her all the time. And I'm just there with the popcorn going, I enjoy every bit of this.

A mama Neefah, Listener to 790, so we appreciate her. Yeah. Okay, what's that, Mama? Brian McTaggart. I've known Brian since we were in college, so they'll never say a bad word about him. Yeah, what's not the like about Brian? I've known footy forever.

I know some people aren't the biggest Allison Footer fans. I love her. Got no issue with it. It's not going to change the mind. But that's about it. Bob Nightingale, super guy. Ken Rosenthal's a good kid. Oh, Ken, Ken.

Yeah, Ken's national. He knows he's national. You just don't like bow ties. Do you? I think, yeah, sure well. What was last time I wore a bowtie? Last time I wore a bowtie? When you were seven.

Probably prom. Okay. That's saying quite a bit. I had a top hat long coattails. Ken was really good with us at a night. We went back a few weeks ago. Yeah. I like Verducci's okay.

At me a vertucci. But I guess it's easier just to say who the douchebeck. Evadrylick. Great guy. We had him on as well. Big story breaks. Yes. Painful, but it was true.

All of it. very matter of fact. I like Evan. Yeah, it's all about the meat potatoes. Okay, so Buster, we used to have a tremendous amount of respect for, but now he's just gotten super petty.

John Heyman is just awful. You've hated him since he was lowercase, John Haman. I don't like when he's lowercase, I don't like his uppercase, I don't care what case he is. When you and I were in West Palm Beach and we saw him walk in the room, was there for 30 seconds,

turn around, and then went to his Twitter and said, how miserable the Astros were. I lost any remaining respect for the guy. For like two days, I didn't know that was him because he looks nothing like his bit moji that he has on his avatar on his Twitter. That's not John Heyman, is it?

Yeah, anybody else we don't like? Nightingale just gets a lot of things wrong, unfortunately. But we like it. Bad cell connection. Yeah. Yeah, he says, he has $350 million. John Heyman? Jeff Passon, 13 years at 380.

Likes rage against the machine. Likes to wear a full suit at 7.50 in the morning. He thinks he goes to bed in the suit? Do you think his wife has seen him naked in the last six years? He looks like he's like the rich kid at Picture Day every day. Yeah, he probably goes to bed with his hair all intact. You think he puts on like a... A gel.

A holding spray, if you will. I'm saying like a shower cap. You think he puts one on when he goes to sleep to preserve the hair? I think he wears several layers of, of, uh, t-shirts. I think he wears full shorts, not boxers in bed. He thinks he's, yeah, there hasn't been. Jeff Passon hasn't been nude to bed since probably 2004. He's a never nude.

He's a never nude dude. Okay. Yeah. Wait, he's married. Again, that doesn't, that further proves my point. I would have never guessed that. Well, like, what is, yeah, I mean, is Mrs. Passon, like, you big dork? Or do you think, man, man, I'm so proud of you, Jeff.

You used to be on Yahoo and now you're a big ESPN guy and now you come out with a blank eating grin every day. No, his not. It's wife's not. It's not going to be able. Okay. Yeah, I don't see her. Okay. That's even better. We don't need to.

I'm just saying, what do you think she's thinking? Thank God I married this gravy train? I'm sure if she. Because that's what Kim Thomas thinks. If she decided to spend the rest of her life with him that she has to like him a little bit. Yeah. I mean, part of the reason why Kim marry me was my potential future income level and it worked that well for her. Yes.

She batted a thousand on that. I wish we could all be making that Matt Thomas money. Woo. It's been a little leaner in 2020. Call our advertising department. 13, 212,000, 8,000. Ask for Missy. Okay.

Oh, by the way, we're going to have some information about the new Good Morning Shipper shirts. I'm not going to try to sell them. We're just going to let, we're going to let Ram Shirts sell them. Okay. And people are interested in those things. Have you seen this shirt, new shirt? I have seen the shirt. Yeah.

You look a little chunky on the shirt. No, he did a pared down model. Okay, good. He dropped a few pounds. Good, because you've been losing a little weight. A little bit. It looks like you just hit the buffet on the one that they did have. I wasn't judging.

No, I'm here to help you. I'm here to defend you, Matt Thomas. That's what I like to hear. That's what I like to hear. All right. So let's do this real quick before we get to the Mike Dan Tony. If Mookies were 13 and 380. Let me do the quick math on that.

By quick math, meaning I should have my calculator. It's like 28 and change or something. Let's take a look here. And again, we're a pretty much. I'm assuming that Jeff Passes' numbers are accurate and the other guys are not. John Hayman, I'm definitely trusting trusting Jeff Passon over John Heyman.

So divided by 13, 380 divided by 13. Why, I'm terrible. Well, don't hurt yourself. I'm divided by 13. Don't fat finger it. It's a $29 million a year. Okay. For 13 years.

What's George Springerworth? See, you'll know this, Brendan. I am terrible about salary predictions, so I don't even make them. Are you a good salary predictor guy? Not in baseball. I'm decent and basketball's a little bit easier. It is a little bit easier.

Everybody's one of the dollars. Everybody's worth $35 million. I'll say. No, not what he's worth, but what do you think he'll get? Is he 5-125? I'm going over that. I'll go 7. 7 and 2.

7 and 190. You're going to give a 30-year-old a 7-year contract? I guess you could. 27-year-old. Just got a 12-year-old contract. Yeah, but part of that to me feels like that's paying for five awesome years of in the rest of the eight years of just another but average. Probably five or six is more likely than seven.

I don't just mention it. I think over five, though. Or do you do what we think is going to happen is that he's going to not be able to make the super cash until 2021, sign a one-year deal, Rake, play 162 games, and then go get his big fat contract. Because in theory, he's probably only got two big contracts left, and more than likely, if it's a longer-term deal, he just has one. How about six from 150? What's the math on that? 25, isn't that 25?

Yep, 6150. God, he is one of the premier leadoff guys in baseball. His power numbers have gotten better every single year. Good defensively. He does miss games every year. Does that come into the part of the equation? True. He is a small IH.

Injury history, yes. We've gotten rid of the term IP because every time I bring up IP, you always say, well, we get in a semantics argument. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody in this world is injury prone because I didn't make up the phrase. Yeah, Mr. Glass. Okay.

If the Astros could offer six years 150, does that impact Carlos Correa's long-term future as an astro? Yeah, I would say so. I would say absolutely it does. And if you're the Astros, do you take these 60 games sample size and say, all right, we've got to figure out what to do here. We don't need to make any move on George until it's time to make that move. But as George say, wait a minute, you had two years to get me locked up long term.

Screw you, I'm out of here. I think he's just going to take the highest bid, whoever it is. I don't think he's going to give any type of hometown discount. There is no reason to make the Astros a favorite under any circumstance, which is unfortunate. But they do need outfielders. And I brought this up on our Tuesday night meeting last night. Do you think him being silent is just coincidental? Or do you think, I'm not going to talk about any of this until I get me some money?

George has not said a word since the return of the summer camp. Or he spoke during any of this pandemic stuff. I mean, we have not heard from George Springer much, if any, even during spring, even during the original spring training. Well, in the first place, he doesn't like being in front of a microphones too much. But he's gotten a lot better at it. He's good. He's good. He's good.

He's very, very good at it. He's very, very good at his job. It's just not his cup of tea, though. I don't think to be in front of the media and talking for, you know, it's not that guy. But my feeling is, I think there's a reason to that. I don't think it's quits. Now, you asked, I think last night, maybe it was the Astros or is it George? I think it's got to be George, right?

It's probably George. Because the Astros would like to have. have one of their premier leadoff guy speaking on the excitement of the season. But he must be so anti-even bringing up his contract that he's saying, I know it's going to be asked of me. I don't want it. He doesn't want to answer that. We can't.

We can say, well, I'd like to get something done, but if not, we'd display the season. Like most guys to say. And then he's going to get asked the same thing, basically every other couple of days. And then it's just going to be the same answer. So it's probably tedious for him. I'm sure it's been a lot of guys in a final years of our contract that speak to the media, they don't, they don't shut themselves off. I just like hearing from him. It's not a question of me personally. I'm just saying, George is a good spokesman for the team. He is a team leader.

And, Grant, there is not a single Astro in that dugout going, man, he's not being a leader by speaking the media. I'm not trying to say that. I'm just saying that I think people like hearing from him because he's dynamic. He's good. He's a good. He's one of the faces of the franchise. But if he doesn't want to speak, you don't want to speak. I just think it's a, it sets up for a tone of disappointment for Astro fans. They better be ready that George might say you've had years to get me locked up. You kept me in the minor leagues longer than I needed to be there.

And I'm going to give you zero the hometown discount. I don't care how good our nucleus is. Yeah. It wouldn't matter if there's really bitterness on his side. I think maybe he just understands the business. Yeah. And he's saying I have for the first time of my life as an astro leverage. And I'm going to take

advantage of it every single change. Maybe he is bitter for them gaming the system and keeping him into contract to least 30 freaking years old. blame his former former general manager for that. That's true. All right. Mike Dan Tony worked out Russell Westbrook. We'll hear how that went next. 229 on Sports Talk 790.

Back to play, believe it or not next. All things, mookie bets for a chance to win a Twin Peaks gift card after I tell you about Oop Steam cleaning at 281 8220561. Get those carpets professionally clean the right way. 281, 8220561.

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I have a tremendous amount of respect for Matt Thomas. In his career here in Houston. Of sorts. The Matt Thomas Show. Real quick from the bubble, Zion Williamson is still not with the team attending a family matter. The Pelicans put on a release today. He said that he is continuing to test negative for COVID. It's good.

which will then help him when it comes to not spending a whole lot of time in quarantine. So obviously, whatever is happening in his life, he's able to still get those tests done while he's doing that. So good for his eye on. Yeah. Has he been staying in shape during the quarantine? Can he stay in shape of his entire NBA career? People were wondering about how doughy he was going to be. Well, he's thick.

There's a difference in being thick and being IP when you're thick. typically gentlemen that are 260 pounds or heavier it's difficult to run up and down a 94 foot floor a lot and how you mean you wouldn't know anything about that but I'm just saying it just generally speaking

so we'll see tomorrow is a Thursday edition of the show the return of non-flora stories for you oh really we had a doozy last week mine was about a woman who opened up an only fans account yes that she does

various dog fetishes. Okay. Yeah. I heard you learned last week what only fans was. I didn't know what it was until last week. Yeah. Did you know what it was?

Because you were subscribing, right? No. Did you know what it was? Yeah. It's on the internet. I blatantly did not know the end. I know what it was. And I'm glad I didn't know.

You know, today's, yeah. Well, last week was today. Now, I might have a VIP account now, but I'm saying last week I did not know what it was. Five minutes left to go on the show. What should we do? We should play America's fastest growing sports game show. We simply called it. Believe it or not, and here's how it works.

You'll call 713212-5-790. 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. Today's edition of Believe it or Not is brought to you by Woodhouse Day Spas. Give out the gift card. Get out the gift of relaxation at Houston Woodhouse Spas.com. The category today is all things about Moogie Betts, who just signed a hellaciously new big contract with the Dodgers. I'll read your statement about Mooki. Statements completely utterly accurate.

You'll say this. Believe it. If the statement's erroneous full of bunk and man up, you will say this. Two, believe it or not, so on all things

about Mooky Betts will win your prize. Ross, what's the prize? Matt, we have a $50 gift card to Twin Peaks where there's curbside ordering available. Scores scenic views

even from the driver's seat come up to grab your favorites without ever having to leave your car. Just head to Twin Peaks. Pull up to the parking lot and place your order and a Twin Peaks girl will be out shortly

with your maid from scratch favorites. Paul on 790, ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Moogie Betts also played basketball in high school. He was district MVP and named to Nashville's all-city team. Believe it or not? Believe it. Believe it. Statement number two for the win. Before signing with the Red Sox out of high school, Mookie Betts was committed to play his college baseball at Vanderbilt. Believe it or not?

Not. That's right. It was Tennessee. Congratulations. Two statements, two correct answers. Mark on 790 you ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Mookiee Betts wears the jersey number 24 in honor of his favorite baseball player growing up, and that was Ken Griffey Jr. Believe it or not? Not. Yeah, he wears 50.

Statement number two for the win. Mookie Betts is cousins with Megan Markle of Duchess of Sussex. Believe it or not. Believe it. They met for the first time in London. Man. Ross, this is a mini reverse skunk. It's not great.

Four statements, four correct answers, two winners. Paul on 790. Paul, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Mookiee Betts won the AL MVP in 2018 at the age of 24, becoming the youngest MVP in Red Sox history. Believe it or not? Not. That is correct.

Fred Linden in 1975 at the age of 23. Duh. Statement number two for the win, Mookie Betz has a child with his fiancé, Brianna. The two have been dating since they. They were in middle school. Believe it or not. Believe it.

Believe it. That is correct. This is my worst day. I'm quitting the show. Damn. We have not had a reverse skunk in forever. You've lost your game. I'm going to cry.

Jeremiah on 790. Ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Mookie Betts has participated in two World Series, the MLB World Series and the World Series of bowling, where he bowled a perfect 300 in 2017. believe it or not? Not.

Believe it. Oh, line at all. Also was Bowler of the Year in Tennessee at a high school. Who thinks a better bowler? Mookie Betts or Chris Paul? Mookie Betts. Last one, quickly. Jimmy on 790, ready to play, believe it or not?

Believe it. Mookie Betts, given name is Marcus Lynn Betts. His parents wanted to have the same initials as Major League Baseball. Believe it or not. Not. Believe it. Oh, his initials. are intentionally for MLB.

It's pretty cool. And then he made it to the MLB. That's pretty incredible. And now is Stinking Rich. All right. He's doing okay for a while. Lance McCullors is also very rich. We'll join Clanton and Wexler. They're up next. They are the A team. We'll talk to you guys tomorrow and noon on Sports Talk 790.