Speaker 1: Is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross.
Speaker 2: One ain't down. Good morning, and welcome to a Thursday
edition of The Matt Thomas Show with Ross. Today, I'm
coming to you from Charlotte, North Carolina. Ross is back
in our Houston studios. Ross, I miss you. So we've
spent a lot of time with each other in the
last four I think that's a lie. I think you're fine.
But that's okay, Matt. I will say I did not
sleep on the pull up couch bed. Thank you. You
know I'm I'm taller and wider man. I needed the bed.
That's true. That's true, that's true. I will say this.
It was an interesting day for me yesterday because we
finished the show and then we drove down to Fort
Laardo to catch our respective flight. You flew back to Houston.
I flew here to Charlotte, and uh leavele us to
say the airfares between Fort Auderdelle and Charlotte are very expensive.
Exactly one airline that actually did okay. I will give
props and I will actually not rhyme them. Spirit you
did well yesterday. We left on time, the seat was nice,
the people were nice. I got huge I did buy
the first class version of Spirit, so they gave us
free snacks. It was kind of nice. Wow, first class Spirit. Huh.
There is such a thing that's like the VIP booth
at Golden Corral. It's kind of that way. I got
free and I can get it free you. But internet
was included. King size bags of M and M's were
part of the package as well. For free. Well, I
mean not for free year. I mean I was paying
a higher fare, but point, you know what I mean. Included. Yeah, okay,
I included for sure. The thing I forgot and I
didn't realize was that you left at one time and
I left five and a half hours after. I didn't
leave the Fort Attadella Airport until our flight was at
nine fifty six. Yeah, what did you do? Did you
go and collect those cards for quarters? I walked the
entire terminal four. I got ten thousand steps in. I
was pretty happy with that. Oh that's great because we've
been eating kind of poorly. Oh there, I mean, when
you're on vacation, these things happen, not vacation. It was
a work work trip. We don't work trips. These things happen,
but you're not running home and opening up a TV dinner.
You're you're eating dinner and you know, people take you
out and what that kind of thing. So Neil say,
I know the Fort Autodelle Airport intimately okay, and everything
was good. Terminal four for life. That's very terminal four
for life, but yeah, a good trip. We hope that
you appreciate it, and we certainly enjoyed our bringing up
our spring training coverage to you. And when now we
are back in the regular mode of a radio show. Now,
we will have some spring training games coming up next week,
which will shorten up our shows a couple of days
next week. We're doing that for the next handful of weeks,
but we kind of need it, and we're gonna get
to something today on the radio show Ross.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: You know what rhetoric is, right, I mean, anybody, I think,
generally speaking, knows what it is. Yes about rhetoric for
four hours a day on this show. Yeah, I mean,
we could be the Mad Tom Show, a Ross talk show,
but it's really the Matt Thomas Show with Ross rhetoric.
We're already starting to see it. You know, the Players
Association hire their new union chief yesterday. The interim guy
was or the number two, guy behind Tony Clark, who
apparently does not have salacious relationships with his sister in law,
got the bump up that we know of so far
that we know of these union chiefs. We've got football
and basket and baseball not behaving themselves. So it's not
in the ordinary. But the reality is we're going to
start to see a lot of rhetoric coming in, especially
with this union chief going to start visiting all the
thirty different major Baseball teams. Rossie, I I was teasing you,
and you're actually teasing some people down in West Palm Beach.
I said, we'll see all in two years, and they
did a double take. It sounds every bit as ugly
as I think it's going to be. They have a
baseball union, Rossie, that is not at this point. Granted
we're February nineteenth, twenty twenty eighth to six. Certainly things
could change a year from now. But when you bring
up the word salary cap, they're like, not only no,
but a hell no, it's it's going to be interesting.
And you've had comments from yeah, the players and are
you are you referencing I saw Chris Bassett had some
basket Yeah, Okay, yeah, it's it's gonna get ugly, But
is it good that it's getting ugly? Now you can
kind of get it all out of the way, because look,
and I was talking about this with you. I mean
I can't remember off air. On air, It's like like,
spell this out for me. Everybody says lockouts coming, lockouts coming,
lockouts coming. If everybody knows that, and we are months
and months and months out, and we also know that
baseball isn't going away, major League Baseball isn't going to
fold up shop. So there's going to be an agreement somewhere.
When do we start inching towards that agreement? Oh, when
games are missed, games are missed, and that they're gonna
just kind of dig in their heels and cost the
owner's revenues. When people lose their jobs, that's stadium employees,
that's players not getting checks, that's not money coming in
from ticket sales and endorsement deals. And you know the
network's aren't going to pay for you can't. You know
they have burn new TV deals for the next couple
of years. They're not going to pay for non games.
I mean it has to hurt the wallet and until
the wallet gets hurt, We're not going to see anybody
make any sort of substantial movement. What we're going to
see is we're going to see, as I said about
two minutes ago, ROSSI, rhetoric. Rhetoric. Now here's winning in
the court of public opinion. Yes, now here's the hardest
part about us as fans, and I'll put us as
fans forget about media on this. I mean, I've dealt
with this all of my broadcast life about labor strife.
I mean we've I've talked about it way too much
that I never thought I would. But it is what it is.
So we're all labor. Right, You are labor, I'm labor.
We do not own the radio station. We are not
senior management, We have no ownership stake in it. We
are simply employees. So in theory, you would think, generally speaking,
the average person is going to be like, you know what,
get ticket for the man. You know, if not for us,
there is no sports talk seven hounty, if there is
no your on an hour is playing, there is no
stadiums being full, there are no television deals, there are
no competitives. So it's easy to go on the labor side.
But the reality is in this is you just said
a minute ago, this will get resolved. It may be
way too longer than we want it to be, but
it's going to get resolved. How painful it gets, we
won't know. We saw ninety four season go away. That's
how painful it got. And that was tough, Ross because
you were a kid when it's happened. But man, it
took a long time. Didn't didn't mean we went away forever,
but it took a long time to get people back.
But as I'm saying all this, even though we are
labor and ninety nine percent of the people that are
listening to our show are labor, you have to think
of it from the owner's side of things, because they
do ultimately control the business. And if they don't get
what they want now it does take some push and
a give and take on both sides. But if they
don't get what they want, and I feel like they absolutely,
without any doubt in my mind, they want a salary cap.
If we don't get some sort of salary cap and
or floor, we're never playing baseball again, I should say
never playing it, but is what we played again? Until
there is a reworking of the labor negotiations between They're
not gonna go stand still. They're not gonna not have
a salary cap. They're not gonna have a salary floor
because the owners want to protect themselves and they want
to say, we're going to cap how much we are
giving the athletes. You and I are going of talking
the drive from or from West Palm to Fort Laradell.
Your gut says salary cap, but not a hard cap. Yeah,
my gut feeling would be salary cap, but with luxury
text where teams can you are still going to have
has and have not and of course a salary salary floor.
The interesting thing to me is, though, is that haven't
the players come to the owners saying to open up
their books and doesn't the NBA and the NFL, this
is maybe above our heads, Matt. The NFL and the NBA,
they their salary cap is percentage of revenues. That is correct,
a certain amount of money that is generated by the NFL.
I know this for sure, and I'm surely like fifty
nine and it's definitely it's definitely a percentage of revenue
with the NBA as well. So there there has to
be opening up books to say, how so money is
coming in now. I don't believe Major League Baseball does
that because every individual team has different money. The number
one thing, and I was looking at this because I
like and I had five and a half hours at
Fort Lauderdella Airport yesterday. Oh nice. The number one thing that, frankly,
the two things I should say that separates the NFL
from the other two leagues. One, it's insanely more popular,
so you are dealing from a strength of we are
making more money than anybody else. But number two, and
it's the one thing that was talked about. I think
I'm multiple different things I was reading yesterday. They all
share the same television dollars. That in itself allows Green Bay, Pittsburgh, Carolina,
where I am the smaller market teams to be able
to get to a situation where they are sharing the
biggest chunk of money, and that's the television deals. Now,
I don't know if the television money I know for
a fact it's not as big as it is in baseball,
as it isn't football because football is creating new packages
every single year. But that to me has been the storyline.
The more you can share, the better off the owners
will be because the Dodgers don't. The Marlins and the
Guardians don't spend like the Dodgers and the Mets do.
The Twins don't even spend like the Astros do. So
if you can't get on the same page when it
comes to how you split up the proceeds, I don't
know how you're going to be able to collectively come
together and convince the union the players that they're working
together as one when they don't have equal footing on
the most important thing, at least from the NFL perspective,
and that is they make a crap ton of money
and it's equally distributed on the television deal among the
thirty two NFL teams. Yeah, this is going to be
interesting because there are so many angles to this with
the way I mean, it's it's just unfeasible the way
the economics are in baseball right now, especially the Dodgers
and what they're able to do, and then everyone else.
The players sound like they're going to fight this salary
cap tooth and nail. And historically, we know, Matt, it's
been the strongest major players union in sports. Yeah, creative
for agency to be in with back in the seventies.
It has withstood a salary cap. There are the luxury
tax tax thresholds, but moment ross And again, I don't
want to spend four hours on this, but it's certainly
very important to me because we are in the Baseball
is enjoying fantastic growth. It has a new television deal,
it has full stadiums, The marketing of the sport has
gotten better. The games, I mean, you you had Toronto
in the Los Angeles Dodgers playing a Game seven of
the World Series, and you had two countries losing their
mind over it. That was tremendous buzz and tremendous postseason.
You've got expanded games, You've got international games you're playing.
I mean, their Major League Baseball is going to be
never going to be the NFL. But it's getting damn close.
Well a game, it's getting closer, and a workstop w
just can stop that in a millisecond. And I'm afraid
it's going to happen and it's going to be ugly.
And the thing of it is, Rossie, We've been talking
about this for two years now, and and also we
talk about how long it took people to get come
back in nineteen ninety four, when I mean people had
cable but for the most part, I mean there were
four what four broadcast networks yep. Now, I mean you
get one bad season of some show you love and
you move on and you and I'm not saying us
we're dying. We're diehards. Diehards aren't going anywhere, and that's great.
But we know that they want that they want the
casuals and they want to pick up new fans. So
I wonder if we talk about how, you know, to
an extent, almost irreparable damage was done with the ninety
four stoppage, What if you do it in twenty twenty
six and there's a thousand streaming options and there's a
thousand other things to focus your time on. It took basically, again,
there's no definitive word on this. It took. It took
baseball four years to get over it, and it also
took the fact that Samuy's a couple of juicing guys
going from all time records saving saving the sport. I
think you're right. I mean, I think I'll be finding
I think people will find things on Netflix and Apple
TV and other things and and they will spend other
time watching different stuff. Aaron Judge was with chasing Roger
Merris a couple of years ago. That wasn't what would
you even call it? A tenth of the story that
Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire were not even because every
single night, every sports cast, every newscast, every time you
put ESPN on the Sports center, they were going live
to they were Rossie, they were doing batting practice, live
reports from every stadium. Those two guys were going to
They're not gonna I guarantee, these TV networks and these
stations are not going to use time to do that. Yeah,
Aaron Judge got a lot of coverage for sure, Like
they were doing the live look ins and like coming
up as Aaron Judge and was on MLB Network, but
not ABC and not you know, it's yeah, it's interesting.
Got you guys in a good mood today. I'm happy
about that. Very interesting. Rockets hornets tonight here in Charlotte.
Your favorite referee will be the crew chief in that game.
I don't know if that makes anything difference to you,
do you know, Zach Sarba, No, it's gonna be Scott
throw to your buddy. It's not my buddy, but for
the sake of the show, Uh, ROSSI do who Darren
Peterson is? Yes, we're gonna talk about him today, Okay,
because I'm confused about this whole thing. But yeah, okay,
I want to get to that because I'm gonna give
you the name Darren Peterson. He plays for Kansas. He'd
be the reason why I would never want to be
a general manager in the NBA, and I'll explain that
coming up on the show today. Plus, speaking more business sense, ROSSI,
we are getting one step closer from the Chicago Bears
to the Northwest Indiana Bears. Oh, they're gonna change names. No,
but they're gonna be changing states because Indiana's like one.
We'll give you to you whatever you want. That's why
we gotta be thinking about the Bridgeland Texans or the
Waller County Texans. You never know. Ten fifteen of The
Matt Thomas Show with Ross. If you want to chime
in and join our conversation, we would love to have
you today. Seven one three two one two five seven
ninety seven one three two one two five seven nine zero.
Anything is fair game today. As we did not take
a lot of phone calls the last ample days because
we did have a lot of Astros chatter. But if
you want to get in on the astros, certainly the
Rockets against the Hornets, I don't know was h I
saw the reports on Twitter about Kevin Durant's denials last
non denial of the whole burner thing. It feels like
to me it's more social media driven. I have not
seen any players yet here. I don't I don't think
they were throwing hands when I got when they got
to the hotel last night, so I think that they're
moving on from that. But certainly it's something that has
been at least talked about on the young kids social
media streets. We'll get to that. We mentioned Chris Barrett
from the player perspective of what's going to happen with baseball,
and uh, when are we going to stop talking about
c J. Straub being traded? Ross? That's what I want
to know from you. I don't think we started well,
but whoever started that she should apologize And is it
Makeshaye that those as an apology? I think? So we'll
get to all that. Seven one, three, two five seven
ninety Matten Ross with you here. This is Sports Talk
seven ninety Matten Ross with you. Sports Talk seven ninety.
We are with you today until two o'clock. Rossie, we
have not done shut your bum mass up this week.
We'll do that at eleven thirty today. All right, can't wait.
I told somebody yesterday in Fort Lauderdale politely to shut
his bomb ass up. I forgot about that. Now I
had a pleasant interaction with this person. Now we can tell.
We're gonna talk about this at eleven thirty. No question, Okay,
I will just say I wasn't there and I had
a pleasant interaction with the person who was very polite.
You asked him one question, yes, No, I asked him
two questions. You didn't have a dialogue? No, we kind
of did. I asked him two questions. What was your
second question? I asked him where the bathroom was and
he's like, oh, it's outside. And I said, hey, do
I need a key or anything? He's like not, should
be fine. Thanks. He was very polite. Yeah. I will
just say this person swore at me and I did
not swear at him. Eh. Okay, you know what, Yeah,
we'll get more into this in an hour. We'll break
this down now was I sarcastic? Yes, yeah, you're acting
like you know, you're acting like you had a little
halo on your head and you you went in there
hat in hand and then walked out and got cussed at. Yeah.
But the best part was he couldn't win because he
started calling me names and I just didn't say anything
back to him. That's the worst part. Like, if you
start cussing at somebody, you expect them to cush you back.
I just nod in my head him. I said, you know, now, okay,
I we'll say more a bit. But if you want
to hear Matt's gas gas station story at eleven thirty,
you need to listen to that's here on Sports Talk seven.
We need to listen to the entire four hours. I mean,
we'd like to walk the ten o'clock is still around.
Just wanted to double check. Yeah, we're good. I mean,
we're back. Maybe we're in spring training mode and people
are expecting us to have a bunch of interviews and
play some audio, but we're here for you folks. Yeah,
I think there were phone issues in the last couple
of days. Oh really, shock you. I know you mean,
our parent company still continues to use internet if only
phones and we it's not gonna stop. Yeah yeah, all right. So,
uh if you'd like to call in against seven one
three two one two uh five test lines, Yeah we did.
We did a line toen you do it at ten o'clock.
Line tester, are do our does our multi billion down
our company have phone lines at work in Houston, Texas?
Seventy one three two one two five seven All right,
So let me give you this little knunder about this
basketball player. Now again. I look, if it ain't Houston sports,
and even sometimes in Houston sports, we don't particularly care.
But I want to give you this. This a kid
by the name of Darren Patterson. He is uh expected
by some to be the number one overall picking this
NBA draft coming up. He's number one in the latest
ESPN Uh yes, I saw uh. He is insanely talented,
but he just there's one problem with his life. He
doesn't necessarily play a lot. He's missed a bunch of
games with a variety of ailments, some physical, well I
mean all physical, but you know, some like bones, legs,
and some of it was I'm not feeling well. So
here is a guy that has been playing for this
national championship contending team in the Kansas Jayhawks. Last night
they played a game at Oklahoma State. He scored twenty
three points in eighteen minutes. That's pretty good, right ra awesome,
that's pretty good ratio, right points. It's amazing. He took
himself out of the game because he said he had cramps.
He misses a lot of time. He doesn't play thirty
minutes almost ever. And if you just did a little
bit of a wiki search on him, or just Google
search Darren Peterson, you're going to find that he is
the anti cal Ripkin. He is the anti I will go, well,
we'll use the local angle this. He's the anti Kevin Durant.
Kevin Durant, thirty seven years yars old play is the
third highest minutes guy in the NBA. Number two is
the Men Thompson. So I mean, you could use aim
Men Thompson or Kevin Durant as your standard, and you're
gonna tell me for a guy who has barely played
this year for a variety of ailments including cramps and
not feeling good, that I'm going to invest millions and
millions and millions of dollars into this guy. To be
the number one pick in my draft when the draft
apparently this year in the NBA is supposed to be awesome.
Ross if this guy, and again I don't know much
of him, mix up what I see in the highlights
and Sports Center and obviously his delf. The coach at
Kansas yesterday said, yeah, we would have liked to have
gotten more out of him. He would fly out, just
said it. We were kind of surprised when he called
his name and said I gotta go to the bench.
He was cramping up. How are you supposed to build
a franchise around a guy that just doesn't have any
sort of endurance. Maybe because he's nineteen years old and
he can improve, But if he's pulling this at nineteen
making whatever he's making a Kansas, how the hell is
he gonna be a twenty three when all that money
is guaranteed. I don't know the makeup of the young man.
So I feel like if if I made a judgment
on that, I'm gonna make a judge. Okay, good, he
does no chance know how He's never going to make
an All Star team. He's not going to the Hall
of Fame. He's going to be a bust of a
big He's the worst. You know, No, he's the worst
player I've ever seen. Any franchise who invests in Darren
Peterson is making a massive mistake. I'm put my name
on it. This would be a terrible pick. Why would
you pick Darren Peterson cramping in his legs? How weak
is that? He's the worst? Spicy? Yeah, let's go with that.
I'm sure I wasn't expecting that. But it's a concern.
Self tells reporters. I thought we were past it, but
obviously we're not. It's certainly a concern. Yeah, look, it's
doesn't sound great. Obviously. I don't recall any any other
recent high level college player continuing to pull themselves out
of games with cramps or having some kind of flu issue.
I believe. I believe he called out of a game.
We could say he had a running nose. Oh really, yeah,
or quote unquote fool wants to be at one hundred
percent and also maybe he wants to preserve himself for
that draft cash. You know what. He kind of reminds
me of And I saw this first hand many years ago,
and I think you were making fun of me at
the time, But I think I'm right now, Well, tekas
Ben Simmons, I told you when I called a Ben
Simmons LSU game he didn't love basketball. I didn't make
funny you about that, so somebody else did. Schmish morty, Oh,
smish boy, that's right, smish morning. You can never take
any shots to LSU players because you're just wrong. I
don't think Darren Patterson loves basketball. Peterson, excuse me, okay.
And if you're doing load management when you're a freshman
at nineteen, it's not gonna get any better because guess
what they're going to do. They're going to give you
better nutrition, They're going to give you better hydration. You're
gonna have no more excuses and no, by the way,
be paid five six million dollars a year and more
than as your NBA career moves along. The reason why
I brought this up is like, if you're a general manager,
it's ten plus million for a first pick. Yeah, and
your job is incumbent and successful. I'm building players due
to draft. How do you take this cat when he
doesn't love to play? You investigate more. I mean, he
could have legitimately had a flu in the cramps. I
don't know, And I said, it's rare. This is the
first time we've been doing the show. How long that
sixteen years? Have we ever talked about a college foot
about basketball player for the lottery pick pulling himself out
of games with cramps? No, So I'm definitely cognizant of
the fact that this seems like a rare case. Or
maybe maybe he doesn't like best Getball, but I don't know.
He also, to your point, he also could be saving himself.
He's like, man, why am I wasting my energy at Kansas?
I'm gonna be out of here anyway. I don't know.
I just I don't think it's good for college athletics.
I don't think it's good for this guy, and I
don't think it's a great way to promote. You're Hey,
we're taking Darren Patrick Peterson with everyone picking the draft. Oh,
tell us about his college career. Well, you know, he
played four games and then he played and then he
got a high water mark for twenty two minutes. Let's
get Let's get him some pickle juice. Let's go. Is
that what we're gonna do? Yeah, let's get him some
better hydration. That's what I'm saying drink more water. It's
just it feels like this is a disaster into making it.
I would monitor the situation. I'm just me personally. I'm
not gonna jump jump to conclusions too much because I mean,
I've heard of the guy, but I don't know. It
doesn't sound good, and Bill self doesn't sound happy. Bill
Self's dealt with a lot of top lottery pick he
certainly has. Yeah, I just thought it was just a
really odd way for this guy was crushing it and
all of a sudden he's cramping up. He's like twenty
three point did he hit his over? Oh no, wait
a minute, wait just a minute, asking now, you're they
got bad? You just gave him a gambling aspect to it.
I just asked if he hitded over. I just asked
a question. All right, Thanks for that. Ross. Now we're
now we're getting him sponsored by a betting service. UH
ten thirty one on The Matt Thomas Show with Ross.
If you'd like to say hello, we are here for
you today at seven one three two one two five
seven ninety seven one three two one two five seven.
Nintie Ross and I have been separated for what how
many hours? Have been separated. Now, uh, seventeen hours and
something like that. We should discuss our takeaways from Astro
spring training camp. Came back matt in Ross with you
onto this Thursday. I'm here in Charlotte for Rockets against
the Hornets. You see, Lam mellow axe Ball got an
accident yesterday hearing downtown Charlotte. Somebody hit him. I did
see that. I saw the video too. He's okay, that's good.
I think he get he got in from he got
into an accident in a high end sports car and
then somebody picked him up in another high end sports car. Uh,
it looks like a it's like a hummer or something.
Wasn't like an eighty wasn't like an eighty nine ship
ad or anything like that. Yeah, he yeah, apparently he accidentally,
Yeah he went. Yeah, he went in the middle of
the lane or he swerved. He's okay, though he'll be
playing tonight. Meanwhile, Miles Bridges and Mussa dia Bata will
not be playing. They were busy throwing hands against the
Detroit Pistons that are serving a suspension. Okay, that's good.
Good for the Rockets. I don't think it's terrible. Put
it that way. Rockets at thirty three and twenty. The
Hornets are at twenty six and twenty nine. The Hornets
have won nine of ten before the All Star break.
All right, seven one three two one two seven ninety
seven one three two one two five seven nine zero
The launch pad the night starts at five o'clock. Yes,
tip time at six, and you'll be hosting the Rockets
trap calling show after the game, after the Rockets get
the victory and cover the four and a half versus
the Hornet. You heard it here first. Oh yeah, by
the way, did you see that. I got a couple
of my picks right like yesterday, not every one of them.
I saw people giving you credit for the Yukon one,
and I thought I brought that one up. No, I'm
giving you credit for that. Okay, I'm definitely called the
Creighton upset. I was like, wait a second, our voices
sound similar. No, they don't. They were like twin brothers exactly.
I did have Kansas at Oklahoma State, which did cowering,
and this is my favorite one, the one I did
not get right, You're so close, so close. I did
have USC at home getting points against Illinois and Ross.
You have a final score in front of you. I
don't have it. What one do? Sixty five? Yeah, it
didn't work out. Well, that's okay. Collectively we went two
and one, two win one on the locks of the week.
That's a winning week match you. I got inside the information.
I didn't sell the information that Kansas head about Kansas
and Kansas even know about it. What a scam? Okay?
All right, so you and I have not spoken since
we set our fond farewells. You got on our flight
a flat at a normal time. I had to wait
five hours. But it's on her here nor there. I
mean mine was delayed a little bit. I was fly
by way nice and smooth. Well, there was an old
lady with a hacking cough sitting next to me. First
of all, she was in the middle. Okay, now, she
just she was confused. I think she she got a
middle seat. And then I was like, hey, can I
get by you into the my window? And then she
moved to the window seat to try to give me
the middle seat. Oh how nice was that? How courteous
of you to do that? No, no, no, no, I was like, no,
that's my seat. That's funny. I was like, no, I
like the window. I'm a bigger guy. I like to
be you know, I don't like to be in the
aisle and I don't like to be in the middle.
I like to be in the in the window. And
then she want a place to rest your head. And
then she was hacking coughing, which was fun. But eventually
she did put her mask on so and went to sleep.
So that was good. Okay. Other than that, flight was pleasant. Okay.
So any takeaways that you and I you and I
not organically organic conversation coming up, Any takeaways you would
like to let the audience know about our three days
down there in West Palm Beach. It just feels like,
and I know a lot of Astros fans still can't
wrap their head around the biggest takeaway is that this
infield logjam is not going to be a problem deep
into the season. It just feels like something's going to
get happened. Is going to happen. As far as a
possible trade, I'm feeling pretty Maybe it's just because he
was so nice and pleasant, Like I'm buying stock on
Zach Cole, I'm buying stock on Christian Walker. Oh I
being biased? These are all guys we interviewed, and I'm
buying stock on Spencer Aragheddi. What's up. I'm not saying
I'm gonna hit on all of them. Yeah. The thing
that kind of threw me off a little bit was
Dana yesterday on the show discussing that the corner outfield
guys are not guaranteed to make the roster coming out
of a spring turn. He said, well, we hope they
make the team. Was something he said something basically to
that effect, Yeah, which I'm with you. It was an
eyebrow raiser for me as well. It wasn't like I
was startled by a bet. It was, Oh, we're looking
forward to giving these guys every opportunity to be major
league stars, but we've given them faith and we're ready
to do this. It's something to me that, Yeah, I'm
still waiting for the phone call to come in that's
gonna give me the best deal for Eastside that's going
to include an everyday corner outfielder. And one more thing,
I'm feeling better about my chips and Queso bet about
lower Feedo taking an A B with the the All
Star Space Cowboys. Yeah, I think you're right about that,
because I mean, he when he went to Toronto a
year and a half ago that he didn't wasn't given
a whole lot of length to me. He'd have many
how money at bats he did have last year, not
very many. I think it was around one hundred plate
appearances or something like that taking but I wasn't. Kurt.
We had him on and he talked about how he'd
kind of he had been changing some things in his
setup that were really working for him to Toronto and
he's trying to replicate that here in Houston. So he's
he's not a spring chicken. He'll be twenty seven and
on May eleventh. But that that's what the Astros looking
for because they don't have a lot of If you
don't have top hundred prospects, Matt, you're looking for late bloomers.
So that's what you gotta do. Yeah, I will just
say that Lopermania will get under way fairly soon. The
first time that Cam Smith goes oh for four oh,
Zach Cole strikes out with the bases loaded. Yeah, you
know what, we should try to do that at some point,
predict the storylines because you in years past we've had
Dubond needs to play every day. Right, we've had low
Prafeto needs to play every day, Chas McCormick is being
held back by Dusty Baker. But we we should do
a predict the storylines. Okay, we can think about this
for a minute. So let's do this coming back. What
are we gonna be? Why don't we trying to come
up with three preposterous storylines? Okay that astro fans and
maybe even even will expand it to astros Twitter is
losing their mind. You're gonna glom onto. Yeah, okay, yeah,
three preposterous storyline, not preposteros three. That's a better phrasing
of that. Why isn't this happening? Gotta happen? Kind of storyline?
Ten forty four The Matt Thomas Shold Ross seven to
one three two one two five seven ninety seven ninety
Matt and Ross with you here. I'm here in Charlotte
Brockets and Hornets. Tonight we'll have it for you beginning
at five o'clock with the launch pad at six o'clock
tip time here on Sports Talk seven ninety All right,
so let's do this. If Lop low Berffedo is the
number one, how we want to describe this not the
astros hot early hot takes. You want to go with
something like that, Yes, uh, Astros Twitter Twitter hot takes,
Twitter takes, Astro Twitter takes, what future Astro twitter takes?
How Like, Okay, I'm having a hard time with three,
but I have one right off the top. Well, there's
one that's a staple of every single year and is
low hanging fruit. Go ahead, Joe a spotted screwing up
this game. Oh yeah, that but that's not is that
like on the the full time menu and we're going
we're looking for the rotating menu. Yeah, we're looking for
like the Mahi mahi of the Astros Twitter hot takes. Yeah,
because that's a staple. Well, you know what it could be.
It could be the MiG rib of hot takes. It's
not the full time menu, but it's always around three.
It's like the tour of Italy at Olive Garden. It
just it's gonna be around. It's not going anywhere. So
here's the first thing I thought of, Time to bench
Christian Walker. Oh yeah, why is an estad paradeus playing
over Christian Walker? Yep, that's that's one. That's that's any Honestly,
it hurts. It hurts me to hear that Christian was
so nice. Let me tell you something. If we could
root for players which we differently, which I do se
we root for anybody weren't an Aster uniform. But yeah,
I'm not especially root harder for him. I'm gonna I'm
not gonna get pomp poms out, but I'm wishing you
can wish them the best for sure. For sure, if
some guys in a hole and doesn't want to speak
to us, I don't always wish him the best. Yeah,
you know if he breaks in armaments and a bass.
I mean, we're not biased that way or anything. We
would never hold grudges on this show. Oh are you
kidding me? Chance? Okay, so I gave you one. You
have one that you thought of. Uh, well, that's a
good one that you and we're gonna go with low
Berfdo you said as a staple, that's kind of a
staple that's on the full time menu. Okay, I'm gonna
go with Esak Pratis needs to be playing over Carlos
Coorea if he struggles at the plate. Oh, that's the
natural spot. I'm gonna give you one. But it's this
is also more the tour of Italy. This is on
the one that's always there. Why doesn't Jim Crane spend
more money? Oh yeah, that's definitely. I mean, that's think
that's that's special for twenty twenty six. Sadly, how about
this is too much of a staple. Lance mcculors needs
to go to the bullpen? Uh wow? Oh how about
this one. I'm I'm gonna take I'm gonna pivot off
that a little bit. How about it's time to this
is fresh for twenty six. Just pivot, take your loss
and release him. There's no reason why he's taking up
a major league roster spot when there are other guys
at Sugar Lane who are more willing or more deserving
of a shot to get up here on the big
league team. That's a good one. I'm trying to think
of who's going to be because normally there's Can there
something something come out of the backup catcher situation, because
that's kind of an underrated topic it is, and it
really wasn't talked a whole lot about it while we
were down there. But there isn't anybody that's asking for
more Sajr Salazar time. You know what I mean if
you had. I mean, I don't think even think the
general public he has any idea who Walter Yannick is
nowanic cover they're pronouncing it, you know it, because he
he's he's a little older, and he has not made
a serious I mean, we're not hearing daily updates from him,
either a double A or Triple A. So he hasn't
made double A yet. I don't think there's really nobody
pushing for playing time there. Remember, because way back in
the day, when George Springer was club and home runs
left and right, a certain radio host on the station
would play old timey music and give us updates about
how George Bringer was doing for the Triple A team
and why is he not here and all that kind
of stuff. So I don't know why. Maybe Bryce Matthews.
Bryce Matthews could be the guy. Uh, there could be.
I mean, he needs more. Last year it was Doobi's
got to play every year? Every day? Oh gosh, cam
Smith absolutely, without a doubt, must make the twenty twenty
six twenty five roster coming out of spring training. Oh
how about how about Calvin Bigio never got a fair shot? Uh,
there'll be some maybe some fans. Doing that, you're disrespecting
the the legacy of Craig Bichio. Yeah could could could
Cavin not making the twenty six man roster and uh
hurt their relationship between Craig Bigio and the team he
only played for. Yeah, that doesn't feel like hsizzle to
it on there. We don't you know what we really don't.
We have low Berfido and we have the infield mess
until it gets resolved. Because anybody that doesn't perform in
an infield is I mean now again, I you could
actually you could out go with you know, maybe he
does yournin want to play more left field, but no
one's asking for that. It's not like you're you're he
has this. He is a defensive gem and that the
Astros are precluding him from doing what he does best
because the thing he does best is hit the baseball.
He's an he's a decent enough fielder, but he's not
gonna ever threaten for a Gold Globe award. Hmmm. Maybe
maybe ross Woop turned the corner. Maybe we're gonna live.
We're gonna live on little Berffito time the entire season. Uh,
how about if if Brian a braid he blows the
save early on. Oh, he just can't do it. He
doesn't have the mental Uh yeah, he just doesn't have
the mental fortitude.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Or like let's say he gets he pictures thirty
one pitches. He was great and high leverage last year.
I think he started great ross and he dropped a
good Oh you mean when he was out there for
like eighty games. Well, that's what he's been doing. He's
the work course exactly, don't Let's see. I felt like
to me that September was a labor some month for
him in terms of a number of pitches and get
you know, there was a lot of congestion on the
base paths way, but too much for a guy that
you're expecting to be a one, two, three ninth thinning guy.
Because that's what Josh was be where he got hurt
save situations two six e er a last year in
thirty seven games. Give his log in front of him, yep.
How many pitches was he throwing in September games per rounding?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, I'm sorry you I have his page. I
can pull the game lugs one second. Yeah, that's what
it felt like to me that when Josh was out
that it wasn't the one, two, three eleven pitch inning.
There was guys at first and second. Again, I could
be just mixing my games up here. Uh, going in
order from last outings eight twelve eleven. Then there's a
thirty two in there where he got four outs. Yeah,
then twelve eleven that's all good to me. Then a
thirty and this is the start of the month, so
maybe you're thinking of the start of the month. Yeah,
maybe thirty and nineteen and a thirty and those were
all one innings. So he did labor for three outings
in the beginning of September, but then he settled eleven
twelve thirty two with four outs, and then eleven twelve
eight last outing he got. Yeah, he got a couple
outs on eight pitches. Okay, you know what I'll take that.
I'll be more than happy with that. So, I mean,
do I think the Brian brew you can do is
absolutely But it just there were times in September that
I think we were doing post games going, Okay, any
worry is that I'm going to fall off. Let's get
the second hour of the Matt Thomas Show with roll started.
We are a half hour away from shut your babass
up and ain't nobody got time for that. And I'll
have a story that I'll is funny when I when
I give you my stories, I feel like I'll lose
these stories more times than I wined him. I'm just
going to throw that out there, but I really thinking,
I think yesterday I did nothing wrong. I wasn't there,
so you'll be hearing it. As I gave you my
version of the mouse, I want to hear his version
of the story. No, you don't, cause he's gonna use
swear words and I didn't swear at him. Seven three
two two five seven.
Speaker 1: I is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 2: Ross. I just saw the video of La Metal Ball.
He swerved into oncoming traffic. Yikes. Rah, Yeah, it looked
like he was a little distracted and across the median line.
I'm gonna tell you all something, and it's because I
have been guilty of it for I mean, ever since
you and I have worked together. I spent too much
time texting and driving. And it was a terrible, terrible
problem I had for a long period of time, and
I got a lot of close calls over it, and
it was ridiculous and I should have never done it,
So now I voice the text. Yes, that's a game changer. Now.
The only frustrating thing is when they get the wrong
you gotta slow down and make sure you're slow, going
down and enunciating. So what do you have to do?
You have to slow down and then the Siri text
tells me back what she says, and I have to
sometimes do it two or three times, but that's still
better than trying to text and try it at the
same time. Shout out to anybody that does that. And
if you want to send me weird text with illogical
thoughts in it, I'll know that you're driving. Yes, let's
put it that way, all right. Seven to one three
two one two five seven ninety seven one three two
one two five seven ninety Kyle sent us a couple
of good ones ROSSI on Astro Twitter storylines, and Justin's
got some on the phones as well. This one, I
don't know if it's going to be one. Why won't
the Astros updates on Renault Blanco and Hayden west Nesky recovery? Yeah,
I don't know if it's top of mind, but they
will probably be. Eh, Yeah, probably fine, the next two.
Why did we get Nick Allen? We love Dubon. He
will go to the Hall of Fame. That Kyle that
that's a banger right there, my friend, you replace Kyle
Allen with with Maurice Jo Duboni. Nick Allen, what are
you doing? Masa Dubon was the greatest utility player in
the history of the Astros. Bill Spiers, sorry, but you're out.
It's now Nick Allen's turn or to be the there
Maurica Debon's to be the turn to be the hero.
And then we'll probably get some whis and Zach Cole
playing more well. I think you know. My guess is Ross.
If Zach Cole makes a major league roster, he's going
to be the starting left field on opening Day. He's
gonna get he's gonna get looks. And again it's it's
just I'll be curious to see the leash for everyone.
That's what's important, because I mean, baseball is a game
of it's the it's the long game. You played the
long game in baseball more than any other. Christian Walker
was terrible for a couple months and then he was
great for a couple months. We've seen this from you know,
Kyle Tuck, somebody as good as Alex bregmant. If we
only looked at his April and May's a lot of
years here in Houston, we'd be like, why is this
guy out there? We gotta look at the June, July, August, September.
So what if? You know what if Zach cole is
is it gets off to a slow start and he's
got to figure some things out, and then all of
a sudden he's he's busted down a triple A. I
don't know, man, it's it's it's tough decisions to be made.
Or how about this any triple A Astro picture crushing
while other guys are failing. Miguelola or a A J
blue Ball if you will. Oh, JP France seems to
be a fan favorite. I think it's the stash and
the respecs like, okay, here it is. Why are the
Astros carrying Lance mc colors when AJ blue Ball? Oh yeah,
Migueliola would be better for this dude. AJ blue Ball
is a good one. He's a good fan favorite too.
I love AJ blue Ball. I'm a big blue Ball fan. Yeah,
that's it. Insert Triple A picture killing it Yes, replacing
one or two astro pictures who are having an off run. Yeah,
we're gett We're working on this list. This is a
good job by y'all. Let's talk to Justin in eleven
oh seven of the Matt Thomas old Ross. Justin, good
morning to you.
Speaker 5: Good morning. Okay, we're gonna have a repeat of the
Kyle Tucker saga his injury. It's gonna be with Josh Hater,
and it's gonna be. Why won't the astros tell us what's.
Speaker 6: Wrong with Josh Hater?
Speaker 2: Oh? Come on, I mean, I'm not saying you're wrong,
but you spoke that into his existence. What are you doing?
Speaker 5: It's gonna happen.
Speaker 2: Again. I'm not gonna say you're wrong, but I don't
I want you to be wrong. Well, I've already I
told you this when it when the injury was first announced,
that I'm not anticipating him anytime soon, and I'm when
he plays, he plays, I'm not going sooner rather than
later or Man, he threw ninety feet today in spring training.
That must be awesome. He's on the on the precipice
of coming back. Damn it, you, Justin, You're right, this
is terrible seven. Thanks, Justin's it? That's it? When are
the astro is going to be more forthcoming about Josh Hater?
I don't know. There were videos yesterday him throwing yesterday
while we were on the air. He's having a catch,
having a catch. Okay, fine, he was playing catch, you
were we were listening to ages. That was that what
we got that from. Yeah, okay, Oh he's doing kind
of hard. Yeah, that's it. Why aren't the astros being
more forthcoming on Josh hat Why haven't we seen your
frame by frame breakdown of this? No? You know what,
I think the astros will have learned a little bit now. Again,
they're not going to be like, oh, here's our medical
report when we're on a PDF. You all can enjoy this.
They're showing the video on Channel three here in Charlotte
of the Lameloan. He's totally his fault. Yeah, sorry to
interrupt you on that, Pat, That's okay, Yeah, it was
kind of startling there, Okay, So yeah, but I think
the astros are going to be better about it. They're
not going to give you updates every twenty four hours
like maybe some people want. But I think they could
be better about it. I think the national perspective, perspective
perspective on this and the way the Astros were being
so naive about the Kyle Tucker situation did hurt them.
And I don't know if it ever hurt them with
free agency because I think ultimately in the day it's
about money. But I wonder if there are people like man,
are they protecting guys or are they misdiagnosing? And that's
why I think part of the reason why they want
to get a new set of eyes on the Astros
Medicals team. And I think they made a lot of sense.
How was Jeremiah Randall doing these days? He has got
a job. I can't remember where was it the Braves
or something I wanted? I was gonna say, first blush
answer was the Braves?
Speaker 3: On that?
Speaker 2: Okay? If we both did that, then it's probably right.
We heard of he checked his LinkedIn. Yeah, I don't know.
Apparently his wife's speech real peach, h okay, just going
on that out there. Eleven ten on The Matt Thomas
Show with Ross if you would like to chime in,
we will have phone lines available before you had seven
one three, two one two five seven ninety seven Pirates.
Now you're second guessing ourselves. I don't know there is
a Jeremiah Randall with the Pirates. So oh, I mean,
how many Jeremiah Randall's are in Major League Baseball? It's
like Joe Smith in baseball. I don't think so, I
know one, you give me another one? Hey, Jeremiah Randall
the backup catcher for the Reds okay, very good seven
one three, two, one two five seven ninety seven one
three two one two five seven nine zero. It is
the Matt Thomas Hill, rossim here and Charlotte what'snight the
Rock to take on the hornet you rad for the
second half of the air Ross can't wait. I'm feeling good,
I think, yeah, hopefully.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: I've been putting a lot of stock into this team
needs a rest and refresh of the All Star break.
So if they come out and go like, I don't know,
two and six in their first game, I'm gonna be
feeling real sad. But they looked fluggish. They were travel weary.
They had the weird yoya They had all those like
eleven out of fourteen games on the road, and then
they were yoyoing a bunch of town like a little
but all Star break. We're all good, Maddie. Yeah, it's
all good, baby. Whin win Thursday, win, Saturday, and I'm
feeling good. What do you think about Kevin Durant's response yesterday.
I think it's he sounds guilty. I think if he
had nothing to do with any of the burner accounts,
it would have been no. Man, that wasn't me. That's
funny how the internet ran with that. But I have
nothing to do with any of those accounts. He didn't
say that, so I will say this, and again I'm
not privy to ask him that he ascid answer. I
think I think it's a dead story, but you never know.
I mean, it's it's social media. But somebody did tell
me yesterday not affiliated with the team, that Kevin Durant.
And you would know this because you've followed his life
way closer than I have. Loves intrigue. There's a little
devil inside little NXS if you will, okay about Hey,
would I be capable of doing that or would I not? Yeah,
he wants, he wants to play the game in mess
with the media. That's possible. But I think when it
comes to like yeah, I mean smirching the names of
his teammates, calling them trash and calling former teammates really
really horrible name. I don't know. It could be a combination. Again,
the easy thing it would be is if see, let
me give you this interpretation, if he has he probably
smirched the teammate before in the past, Yes, right, yes,
we've done that here at the station. Oh and how
I mean every single one he is? Oh yeah, the
things I've said about Ross Oh lord lord lord, Yeah,
somebody get back because some of that gets back to me,
by the way, I know, I know, sadly. Uh but
uh so if he says I never have done that before,
then someone would say, well, I've got absolute proof. Again,
I think largely it's it had to be asked, it
was certainly answered, and again to me, it gave more
more intrigued than anything else. But if the Rockets win
five of the next seven games, no one's going to care. Now,
if they lose six in a row, then it's well,
Kevin Durant's device, you know, Kevin Durant is he's about
to become the fifth high most explosive score in the
history of the NBA. Oh how close is he to
catch an MJ. I'm glad you asked I did. He
is four hundred and thirty one points away. Okay, so
four games, four games of one hundred points. It would
be quite the run, wouldn't it.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, if he scores twenty on average, it's gonna
take him twenty more. He may not even get it
done before the end of the year. You don't know. Oh,
he's gonna get it. I mean, barring injury, barring injury. Yeah,
four thirty one behind Michael Jordan for fifth all time.
He's always gotta have down Michael freaking Jordan. Michael Freak
He's he's got to get his turnovers down. He's averaging
almost six turnovers in the last four games. He's going
to he's a little tired. You promise he's right? No,
but yes, yes, you know what I will promise. You
gotta make that one of your locks of the week,
my lock of a week, and put my name on it. Away.
Would you say six a game for how many games? Uh?
It's six a game for the love of the last
four Okay, In the next four games, he will be
under six turnovers per game. Oh, we have my personal
guarantee wait to go on a limb on that one.
Thank you job. That's that's what we call it, the
NBA analyst. Yes, sir, all right, shut your ball mass
up eight. Nobody got time for that. Coming up in
fifteen minutes.
Speaker 8: A right sit down, let it tway.
Speaker 2: Sports Talk seven ninety coming up in about ten minutes.
My interaction with a fine young man at a Fort
Lauderdale gas station yesterday. I thought he was a lovely fella.
You weren't living my life, so you don't know the
car relaxing and closing your eyes getting some red. No,
was it relaxing? I know, all right. Chris Bassett is
a Baltimore Orioles pitcher. He has pitched with Toronto in
the past, but he's best in Oakland. He's feels like
he would sometimes he would either go six innings of
shut out ball against the Astros or then get crushed. Yeah,
one or the other. He is on the subcommittee for
the Players Association, and apparently if you're on the subcommittee,
one of the things you are a sub of is
you are in the labor negotiations. When asked yesterday about
the salary camp in baseball or a potential salary cap.
Here's the quote. The salary cap doesn't fix anything. If
you look at every major sport that has a salary cap,
we have the best parody. The salary cap is not
the issue. Having suppressed salaries across the league so owners
can make more money is not the answer. Now stay
with me now on this, quoting Bassett, Like, if I
tell you in twenty five years the Dodgers will be
playing and going to the ten World Series and winning
seven of them, is that an issue? Because that's the Patriots.
Then Chiefs have been to six or seven, the Philadelphia
Eagles have been to four or five. The parody in
our sport is better than any other sport. So we
will make changes to try to help the so called
bottom teams out. But a salary cap and suppressing salaries
and taking from players to try to help the so
called bottom feeders spend more that is not the answer.
Because again, if you're trying to make a competitive league
across the board, we have proof that every single league
has less parody than ours. So how can you sit
there and say a salary cap is going to fix
this when every single salary cap sport has less parody
than ours. It makes no sense. Whant to chew on
that for a minute. I will say, now, when he
says there's the better parody than any other, he's talking
about teams that have appeared in the World Series. You're
talking about leagues. When he says teague, Yeah, I know.
But what is the definition of we have better parody?
How is he defining parody? Is the champions or that
there have been numerous different World Series champions in the
last ten years. We have seen the win, we have
seen the Braves, when we've seen the Nationals win, we
have seen the Rangers, when we have seen the Dodgers win.
He's saying, if you go look at the NFL, who's
typically there. It's been New England, It's been Kansas City.
If you look at the NBA, you think of what
largely what the NBA, Well, there's been parody there. Denver's
won a championship, Golden States won a bunch. It seems
like there's been a fair amount of parody in everyone.
So I'm wondering what the measure is and what exact
numbers he's using. And I will also say baseball is
susceptible more to randomness than the other two sports if
you do us, especially certainly NBA. NBA is the least random.
In a seven game basketball series, which each game is
like two hundred possessions, generally, the better team is gonna
win in a seven game series, generally speaking, barring injury. Baseball,
I mean, you get like you get Joe West calling
a home run that wasn't you get I don't know,
a ball rolling off of at the top of the
wall at Fenway like stuff can bloops and weird stuff.
I feel like baseball is more of that than any
other to what we talk about, like the worst, the
worst of the absolute worst teams can still win like
they win generally sixty plus games. Let me put it
this way. And I don't know if this is a
comp or not. I can't tell you that a small,
a small market team may win a bunch of NFL
games next year. There might be a chance that what
was the smallest of the market teams would be your
Jacksonville Jacksonville's. It could be your Carolina's. It could be
to a lesser extent than the Packers up in Green
Bay with Milwaukee. I have a pretty good feeling, not
guaranteed feeling, but a pretty good, feeling rossy that we're
never going to see a Marlins Versus Guardians World series. Yeah,
the Diamondbacks caught lightning in a bottle and made a
World series. Like, oh, it's great parody the Diamondbacks were.
The Diamondbacks made a World Series. Ye, but the Diamacks
weren't even good that year. I mean they won what
like eighty four eighty five games and they got hot
in the playoffs. I don't know. I guess we can.
There's a number of examples we can think of, Like
the Patriots, for example, you could argue didn't deserve to
be in the Super Bowl. So maybe we can do
this to every league. Can you have a league that
has a floor without a ceiling, without a cap? I
mean theory. I guess you could only a salary floor
and no salary cap, correct, right, I guess is there
a way you can do that? You could do it,
but I don't think you can get the owners to
agree to that. That's what I think Chris Bassett wants.
He even said as much as quote He's like, we
want to helpbout bottom feeders. We want to make sure
they're more competitive because generally it's what is Let me
look it up. What is the floor in the cap
in the NBA, Yeah, salary four is one hundred and
forty million, which is so yeah, they're their floor is
ninety percent of the salary cap. That's not going to happen.
In baseball, cap is one hundred and fifty four million.
Floor is one hundred and thirty nine. So baby, let's
just call it one fifty five. Yeah, that's only fifteen
million a wig room. There's no way baseball owners agree
to that. No way. So the owners are going to say,
all right, you want a floor, We get that, but
we want to cap too. Yeah. I'm generally in these
types of situations, generally on the player's side, but I
can't buy the oh, we have more parody than anybody else.
You can't use parody as an explanations as a logical
reasoning for no need for a cap. The Havelves have
a much greater long term advantage in baseball than any
other of the major sports, and it is because of
the lack of a salary cap, and the Dodgers, while
enjoying it now, have basically said, hey, we want our
contracts are already crazy right now because of us are
large part because of us. You're we need a governor
and the players ball players like, well, that's your fault.
You can't control your spending and that's on you. You're
the ones that want all these players. So look, you
can see if I'm both sides of this, for sure,
you absolutely can't. There when when when you go to
a player and you say we're putting a cap on
something that means they're going to cap the amount of
money the players are going to get, there will not
be a Los Angeles. There will not be in New York.
There will not be a Chicago that will say budget
be damned, because you if you have a cap, you
have a budget, and that's what the players do not want.
Let's talk to our buddy Aggie doug here. Maybe he's
an economist. Chair on the Matt Thomas l Ross eighty.
What do you got today?
Speaker 8: I am definitely not an economist, but I do know
that this is basically playing from a different rule book.
I mean that's all it is. I mean you basically say, okay,
well our field is you know, one hundred by you know,
seventy five, but the Dodgers field is only eighty by
sixty It makes absolutely no sense. You can't play with
a different set of rules. Just because the Dodgers have
more money, that doesn't make them basically they can go
out in money with it. I mean the Yankees used
to do it in the eighties and the nineties. So yes, absolutely,
I agree with Bassett that that's not a recipe for success.
It's not a guaranteed recipe for success because obviously we
know the Yankees they sucked even when they had, you know,
paid all those players. You got to pay the right players.
The point of having this whole parody conversation, it's a
different sport. In the NFL, if you have a franchise quarterback,
you're probably gonna make the playoffs. In the NBA, if
you have one or two superstars, you're probably gonna make
the playoffs. So for them to sit there and say, oh, well,
you know, if we pay you know, our top fifteen guys,
let's just say top fifteen out of twenty six significantly more,
let's even say twenty five to thirty percent more than
any other team can even afford, not even like they can,
but they can afford. So that's a completely different set
of rules.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I I'm not smart enough to do this ad
any of us are. It's hard for me to cross
over sports and say, well, if one sport does it
one way, we should do it another way. I I can't.
I can't figure that out. And I'm more going to.
Speaker 8: Think about it like if you have a stud pitcher, right,
Like if you have a stud pitcher, or like like
we had or done and we had you know, you know,
our two or three pitchers that were great with Framburg
and dressin Verlander. I mean, but we had to have
a lot of other guys do a lot of things,
and we paid them a lot less money than the
Dodgers would ever even think about paying. So I guess
that's just my point is that when you have the
ability to pay thirty percent more for even a guy
that's just the guy on on some other teams and
that's just your plugin guy or your bench guy, that
makes absolutely no sense.
Speaker 2: Thanks Zachie Doug for the phone call. Appreciate it. There
the players are definitely afraid ross if there's a cap,
there's not enough money to go around. Yeah, it's interesting.
If there's a cap, then the Dodgers just bank all
these profits that the players have no access to that
is correct because the television deal for the Dodgers doesn't
change unless the Major League Baseball owners collectively say we'll
take all of our TV money and put it together.
And the Dodgers have no interest in doing that. Ook cap,
We're gonna take this straight to the bank. And then
if you make a cap for you know, the same
cap for the Rays is the same cap for the Dodgers.
That's that's just letting the Dodgers keep all their cash
and the players. You're not allowing the players to get
into that. Yeah, I don't know, this is interesting. Yeah, again,
we got a lot more minutia to go to over
the next calendar year. I would just say the overriding
sentiment was I wouldn't be booking West Palm Beach for
twenty twenty seven. Put it that way. Seven one three
two one two five seven ninety seven one three two
one two five seven, Nintie, I will be telling you
about my pleasant interchange exchange with the West Palm Beach
uh gas station of attendant seven one three two one
two five seven Auntie shuts you obamass up. Ain't nobody
got time for that next year? On seven ninety all right, Jonathan,
you've not heard this story. Ross, you've heard the story.
Faith the music down a little bit, keep it going
a little bit. But here's what we gotta do it. Anybody
got time for that? Shut you Obama? Ass up seven
one three two one two five seven ninety seven one
three two one two five seven honty. So Ross and
I will left West Palm Beach and I said, let's
stop and get some gas close to the Fort Ladodella Airport.
So he pulled off to a gas station. I went
to put my credit card into the machine and the
machine wasn't working. It said, please go see attendant. So
I went to the attendant. I said, Attendant, I'm filling
up my gas to take it to the car rental place.
I'll come back and pay for it when it's all done.
He goes, how much do you want? I said, I
don't know. I'm filling it up. He goes, it's a
simple question. How much do you want? I said? I said,
I don't know how much it's going to cost. He goes, well,
what do you need? I said, don't you understand I'm
filling the car up. If I fill it up to
fifteen dollars and it's take twenty five. I didn't. My
job was not done. So then I was starting to
get it. Man, I said, put two hundred and forty
nine dollars in there. You said that. That kind of
got a mad. He goes, bro it's not difficult, I said,
I'm trying to fill my car up. I'm taking it
to the car rental place. I don't I can't guess
how much it's going to cost. I was wondering why
you're in there so long. He said, give me an amount.
I said I don't know the amount. And I said fine,
I'm out of here. I said, you don't know what
you're doing, and he goes, you have a nice day, sir.
My response was I don't want you to have a
nice day. That set him off. He comes out of
the little gate here, you know it, a little little
window area. Yes, bulletproof glass, bulletproof grass, and start bullet
bulletproof glass and start swearing at me. If you mfor,
you don't know the f you're talking about. Just all
the good ones. Oh nice. He then gets out of
his little room and comes outside. I didn't see him,
Oh I did, I said, Ross, let's get out of here.
This guy's losing his mind because I told him I
did not swear in him. I said, I don't want
you to have a nice day. Now. I think he
can put a certain amount and then refund you. I
think that's what they all He kept saying was, bro,
how much do you want? I was like, dude, I
don't know. I'm trying to fill the car up. So
he comes out, He's throwing his hands up, yelling at
me again, and I simply just not at him as
we drive off. I didn't call him a name. I
didn't put the mental fingers up. I didn't want to
call I didn't want to call him at that at
the gas station. But you told me not to do that,
So I didn't do that. What were you gonna do?
Call him and do what? Just tell me it was gonna.
I didn't want to, just want to make sure he
knew he I didn't want to have a nice Why
don't you say it to his face, Maddie, I did.
I said, do not have a nice day? Well, you
don't gonna call him in and then talk mess No.
I didn't feel like I needed to. But he came out,
he came out of his little glass area. Then he
comes outside. That is the if you if you found
me a stack of bibles right now, That's exactly how
it went down. Okay, I did say, give me two
hundred and forty nine dollars, and that didn't make it
very happy at all. Wow. So for that guy who,
by the way, the machines don't work outside, and the
fact that I cannot fill up to the appropriate level
because it's a full gas of tank, I say, ain't
nobody got time for that? Ain't nobody got time for dead? Now,
I will say, I just needed to uh use the
bathroom number one, and I just asked him where the
bathroom was. I'll say, is there a bathroom in here?
Because I tried to find there was none inside. He said, oh,
it's just outside right right around there. I'll say, okay,
do I need a key or a key code or anything.
He's like, no, it's coping. Everything was pleasant with that
guy seemed very nice to me. It's cordials, two different
conprocess have a smile on his face. I didn't get
I didn't get any any you know, any bad vibes
from the guy that I don't know you were asking
to take a piss. I was looking to get gas. Yeah,
So I don't know. I'm feeling like you incited this
young man. False. Why first of all, I think you
can tell him to put like fifty bucks on there,
and then if it's less then you just you should
go back or you just why didn't he offer that?
It's an option to me? I don't know. Maybe maybe
you're yelling him too hard. Matt. He did give you
the option. He just needed amount. Oh, Jonathan, what was
I supposed to say? Man? This is what I do
when I go okay?
Speaker 9: Because so you just say my car gives around like
twenty five thirty ft up.
Speaker 2: But I don't know if this is a record car.
I don't know what this thing costs.
Speaker 9: So that's what you So all right, you just give
a ball parking mount and be like all right, put
thirty five in there and you go and you pump it,
say it's only put thirty two and you go in
back in like I was saying, only two?
Speaker 2: Can I have three dollars back? Okay? But what if
I short it? What if I asked for twenty five
and I needed thirty five? Then I can go back
and do this again. Yeah, I mean, yeah, not my fault.
Your equipment sucks. He would brow to me, bro, how
much do you want? So I said two hundred and
forty nine dollars. He was more upset when I said,
do not have a nice day. Yeah, that that was rude. No,
it wasn't. I could have said something way worse. Life
had said something way worse. You could have said something worse.
But that doesn't make it not rude. I could have
made fun of his hair. What was wrong with his hair?
Looked like I hadn't wash it in weeks. It seemed
fine to me. I don't know. Well, you didn't have
a chance to intimately talk to him. You you want
to know where they didn't have any issues with his hair.
He just had some long locks were kept very well.
I mean, you know what, he was in the right.
I was in the wrong. The customer is always wrong.
That's what I heard all the time. So I guess
what I did. We went across the street the seven
eleven I used my credit card, had zero issues, had
a very pleasant go Oh, you didn't have to go
ahead and get and get the receipt. I did, But
I didn't make a big deal of that because you
know what stuff happens. Maybe the paper machine machine was
jammed up. Bro, it ain't hard have a nice day.
I don't want you to have a nice day. And
that's what got him really mad. I don't need to
give everybody to have a nice day. It wasn't the truth.
He didn't want me to have a nice day. He
want me to have a terrible day. Any but I
got time for gas station attendant to extended in all
the branches, and you slapped it out of his hand. No,
he didn't. If he sent an olive branch, you just said,
all right, I'll turn the pump on for you, and
then you can come back and pay for this when
you're done. You didn't trust me. I wouldn't trust you either.
Shut your bump ass up. I'll just go with people
getting on planes with hacking coughs. Ain't nobody got time
for that. Nobody put your mask on, cover yourself up,
do whatever you can. Come on, man, there's two people
on the plane yesterday, the entire plane. Oh no, that
I could hear. And then within a few two people
within a few rows. Oh and you know what on
the flight in the lady that was talking the whole
flight super loud. Ain't nobody got time for that either, Jonathan,
what's the matter with you? Uh?
Speaker 9: Me and my girl had like a little restaurant sitting
at the bar and this older white couple comes in.
It's a it's a it's a Mexican joint, and they
just start what's the best way to put this? Start
questioning every single thing that's in the food and the
items over and over again, like, oh, is how the
beans cooked? Asking the barton like she knows, over and
over again, kind of like be raiding her because they
don't know, like, oh, my husband doesn't like this, Like
you gotta make sure it's this way or he's not
gonna give you a tip.
Speaker 2: Ain't nobody got for that. Man, If you don't just
order your food, you.
Speaker 9: Came here like, I don't doesn't make sense to me,
Like why are you doing that? Why are you be
raiding this poor lady? Just old and cranky.
Speaker 2: That it used to happen as a as a former waiter,
people say, I remember one person came in It's like, hey,
do you use pepper on this? Yes, we use pepper
on everything. Okay, this needs to be cooked without pepper
and it needs to be on a grill that no
one is gonna get pep. I'm extremely allergic to pepper.
So this needs to be cooked separately on a different grill,
not near anything else that gets cooked with pepper. And
we're like, yeah, sure, man, I'm sure whatever. And I
mean it was grilled without pepper, but it wasn't on
a different, a different cooking certain they could go back
in the back, can be like, looks go spitting their food.
I don't know. I just that's gonna you know, saying
I just never would do that. I just I think
that's so. That's yeah, I think that might have happened
to us when when Matt asked the lady if the
tea had been brewed yet at the other restaurant we
were at, Ring no oh oh yeah, because it took off.
We asked her to Man, I'm like, man, they're gonna
spin my tea. Now. Matt goes, hey, has the tea
been brewed yet?
Speaker 8: What?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 8: More?
Speaker 2: Man stuck over there, Man, wait a minute, I got
something for you. When I was at McDonald When I
worked a McDonald's in high school, women would come in
and ask for no salt on their fries, which means
we had to clean off the fry bat because there
was salt to bran in the bottom. Anybody got time
for that? If you're not putting? Oh yeah, if you
can't eat fries a little salt, shut your ball mass up.
That's a tip people used to uh to try to
get fresh fries. Yeah, yeah, really onto your scams? Oh slave,
all right? Uh seven one three two one two five
seven ninety seven one three two one two. I just
got a on my Instagram account. It was a photo
of me of our stuff in West Palm Beach. Some douchebag.
It just said, Matt, why don't you just die from
terminal cancer?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 2: On Instagram? On Instagram people are usually pretty pleasant there.
He doesn't, he doesn't follow me. I don't even get
where this comes from. I just block him. That's a
where'd you post on my uh? On my Instagram at
sports mt Matt, why don't you just die from terminal cancer? Okay? Thanks?
Give him a free give him frober veldas. Thanks. Steve
is a USAF veteran. He's a fan of the forty
nine Ers, the Spurs, the Giants, the University of Houston, athletics,
proud husband, father of nine boys. You know what your
nine your nine sons hate you, Steve. You're a douchebag.
You're setting a great example for your nine sons. Shit,
obam ass up man, All right, nut job. It looks
like to me this must be a bot account of
some sort. It's gotta be right. I don't know what it's.
I don't see the the is it on the last
picture you posted? It's the one with the three photos
I did, one of me talking about Joe wanted me
talking to Yeah, yeah, where I didn't get any photo credit.
It's fine. I'll give it. That's okay right now. No,
I don't worry about it. No, it must be it
must be a hidden Did you hide the comment? I
don't see it. No, it must be a hit. It
says there's two comments and then there's only one shows up,
so the Instagram probably hit it. So that's good. People
can't see it. Not good. Seven one three, two one
two five seven ninety. Let's talk to Robert and Cyprus.
He's got somebody, he says, anybody got time for we'll
do that next year on seven ninety. Back how the
phones will go. It's seven one three, two one two
five seven ninety. Let's go to Robert Cypress, Robert, what's
the matter with you?
Speaker 10: Hey, I'm just calling about the mate possibly, uh, the
free agent we can pick up on the offensive line
or whatever on the offense, and uh, what what do
you think on the top five lineman's draft possibility for
the twentieth position we're in And I'll hang up and
I'll listen to you.
Speaker 2: Hey, nobody got time forda exactly, So that's exactly what
I would have said, perfectly done. Jonathan says that's not
what he was told when he screened the call. Yeah,
you go look it up. I'm not gonna go tell
you I don't know how five offensive linemen are. I
believe in doing an entertainment show, not a not a
not a, not a lecture series. No, you go look
it up. Now. Ross has done more time, He's done
a more deeper dive on the offensive line. Sure, why not?
I think the Utah tackles are good. I think somebody
saw I think I had saw somebody mocked Caden Proctor
that tied the Alabama tackle to the Texans. Good because
I've seen a lot of him playing. I want to
make sure that he does. This is maybe more a
question for I don't know, Chris Gordy. Yeah, go to Gordia,
give you the breakdown of Alabama lineman. By the way,
anybody that plays in the SEC is an amazing NFL
prospect and if you play any outside of the conference,
you probably suck. You go by the draft numbers and
the Pro Bowl numbers and the All Pro numbers. SEC
is doing pretty well now. In fairness to the caller,
we will have experts on down the stretch, but that's
you just can't come across for anybody got time and
then shut your bomb ass up to asking about the
five best alignment that you think it could be available
at twenty eight. That's not what this show is. Well,
this show is is people making fun of me for
being just trying to I just wanted I wanted some gas.
All I wanted. It's all I wanted him. When the
guy told me not he had to have a nice day,
and I said, I don't want you to have a
nice day. He was he was a little charged up there. Yeah,
we did have a half. I'm trying to just think
of him, trying to put myself in your shoes, Matt,
because we had a half tank. But I don't know
how much gas that that thing holds either. We had
a we had a re rim rearrain mm hmm. And
I mean, I'm gonna guess it holds like twenty something gallons?
What was the gas? I even look And I will
be honest with you on this. The next time this happens,
if it does, I will ask for fifty dollars and
then I will get the change back. Yeah, you know,
that's all we can do in life. Matt is learned.
But I mean, I mean, are we trusting? Am I
gonna trust a gas station that can't use the credit
card machine properly in the in the Yeah, I've done
it before. It's I've been places where that. Yeah, they'll
just refund the money on the card. Okay. So again,
because I mean, it's it's not their fault. They have
people who go and say that and then I'll just
run off and maybe that's and that's a that's the
problem of that area. I don't know. Yeah, but I
just was like he he was like, bro, what do
you want? I'm like, bro, two hundred and forty nine dollars.
He didn't seem very happy with that. Remember, he should
have just charge you for two forty nine and let
you get the gas he didn't get in my card.
He'd have done that for sure. Uh Yankees Keith on
seven out of eight? Keith, what's going what's going on?
What's the matter with you? Well?
Speaker 3: I'm hoping when I heard these rumans I heard, is
not true that the general manager saying, uh, just ain't
our year. And they ain't made it even clearer by
not getting anybody in the in the uh in the uh.
You know, we didn't get anybody doing a chance we
could get somebody. And I'm hoping that at the horror
monger didn't say what he said about his own team.
If he did, ain't nobody got time for that.
Speaker 2: Ain't nobody got time for all? Right, he's talking about
the Rockets, the horrormonger, Kadi, everybody's got new term. Doesn't
that mean like a like a John? Oh no, no,
that would be a pimp. Who's the uh jigglow? Is
the horrormonger, the chip the pimp or the John? I
don't want to look this up. Are already looked at snoop.
I already looked up Snoop Dogg's Doggie Style album and
it's the person that deals with them. Okay, so the pimps,
so like a pimp's assistant. Uh no, that's the junior pimp,
the vice president pimp, the vice pimp.
Speaker 11: Yeah, let's just say that, you know what, Let's just
do that. No, no, no, how about this, John, the pimps,
people that gets the pimp system. Do you even need
pimps in twenty twenty six?
Speaker 2: I think so? I don't know. I mean, can't Venmo
just take care of this? Usually? Well, as you know, Matt,
pimping ain't easy. Apparently not, it's And I never saw Oh,
by the way, Yankees Keith since he called in, I
wanted to and he always talks about his great predictions
and that I wanted to read something that I wrote down.
Go ahead. He did have Rabel as Coach of the Year. Okay,
he had Jabari and Tari traded okay, and Matt Stafford
as MVP, which was correct. But he als said the
Rams beating the Patriots in the Super Bowl. Yeah. Well,
I mean he picked a couple of chalks, right, I mean,
he didn't go on on elimonade that stuff. He had
a mentomp says an all Star wrong, and Katie and
I r and the Rocket's not making the playoffs. Yeah,
and she never said this wasn't our year. He said it.
Maybe he said we we. His words were basically like, uh,
you know, with all these injuries, has us thinking maybe
it's not our year something like that. Yeah, or phrasing different. Yeah,
Dustin on seven and Dustin, what's the matter with you?
Speaker 3: The guys that eat lunch at the gas pump and
I gotta wait till they get done?
Speaker 2: Oh man, nobody's got time for that. I'll take two
bites of my taco and then I go, Dustin, I
need a ruling. Are you still there with us? Dustin?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: What if you get one of those roller like tacos
or hot dogs and you can finish it if you're
getting fine? Yeah, if you see somebody behind you, you
gotta go. Yep. I'm with Duston. I'm very fair. I
get you very much because you don't want to drive
and get yeah, mustard relish all over your shirt. I
can I can crush a fried bean burrito while I'm
getting my gas at the Kingwood gas station.
Speaker 9: A fried bean burrito at absolutely, but we don't eat tomas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because mister Texas has a wider palate than that,
a wider palate. Yeah. How many of you? How many
of you? Let me tell you something, how many of
you eat fried bean burritos out of a gas station?
This guy that makes you mister Texas. Are your qualification?
Your qualifications?
Speaker 4: Are?
Speaker 2: You drove to love at that one time and you
fried bean burritos. We went to that gas station yesterday.
They weren't fried burritos there. I didn't have anything zilch
in Florida. Nope. Kso on seven outy case So, what's
the matter with you? Quick question?
Speaker 3: What do you guys think about people?
Speaker 8: People who check their food and the drive through after
getting their food.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent for it, one hundred percent for Okay,
I'm gonna say the same thing. Sorry, I gotta check
what I paid for?
Speaker 5: Man, what the hell was all that crap?
Speaker 3: Tell you all you are mister.
Speaker 2: Texas, Thank you, Thank you. A man called what, a
man named Casey So calls me mister Texas. That's all
the validity I need. Oh look we got we got
a full offensive line breakdown from Chris Gordy. Oh no,
let's go. We need people listening to the show. We
don't be able tuning it off like this. People like
Texans Talk and Draft Talk. Matt not in February. M
all right, what's he gonna do it? Twelve and a
half an hour he sent us an email. Oh, he
gave us the line. You guys are we got a
full breakdown. All right, the news at noon coming up
with se C flavored offensive lineman. You're gonna break down
all I e vega e from Penn State. That's what
separates us from the rest of stations in town Scott
and river Oaks. Scott, what's the matter with you?
Speaker 12: How was Palm Beach? I was so busy last three
days I barely got to I didn't get to hear
as much of the show I would have liked.
Speaker 2: How was Scott? Scott? Scott, shut your bumb mess up. Scott.
Speaker 13: We let you go up man.
Speaker 12: I went to UH spring training last year. I have
a buddy that lives in West Palm Beach, so I
stayed with him. That's beautiful spot. If you guys, I
want to pitch in on pitch purchasing some real estate
down there in like their downtown area by one of
those mansions, so we can go to spring training and play.
Speaker 3: Golf with with Jim every year.
Speaker 12: Just let me know.
Speaker 14: We can see if we can make it work.
Speaker 15: But what I don't got time for. Uh, I'm tired
of this idea of floating Eastauk was there? Did you
guys hear any any possibility of trying him out in
left field for eighty games a year while all were
down there? I mean not Dana not being able to
trade this guy and then now making him feel isolated
about part of the team.
Speaker 12: I don't know if that was the vibe y'all got.
Speaker 2: We all were there, but Scott was, and thank you
for the phone calling, give the news and news that
was he's going to be traded that you got the
same thing. Yeah. By the way, someone on Instagram not me, man,
this is not me. Somebody's asking did you say wider palette? No? Wider? Okay,
we just want a clarification. Let me tell you, y'all,
if you ain't eating fried bean burritos when you go
get your lottery tickets in your gas, you ain't part
of Texas shit. Obam mass up man exactly. Oh that's
to you, oh man, I'm gonna tell you all something.
When I get back to town on Sunday, I'm gonna
go to that gas station than when I go to
on North Park and Kingwood. Yes, and I'm gonna pump
get some gas. I'm gonna go in and get the
bean breed. I'm gonna eat it live on Instagram. No,
We're good and it's gonna show you again what I
represent the Lone Star state better than anybody else in
the marketplace. Ridiculous. Twelve oh two The News at noon.
Speaker 1: His Neck's the mac Thomas Show with.
Speaker 2: Ross inn h Town. Our number three of the Mack
Tamba Show with Ross begins with the News at noon.
Ylse Matthew. We start the News at noon talking about
the Winter Olympics as now Canada and United States are
facing off in the women's hockey gold medal game. You'll
be getting a live updates matt from I don't know somebody.
It starts in about ten minutes. Who you got, Tmusa.
That seems about right all right. Elsewhere the News at noon,
Rockets are back in action from the All Star break,
as are you, Matthew taking on the Charlotte Hornets. LaMelo
Ball expected to play despite his accident that he caused
in the streets of North Carolina. Rockets holding as four
and a half point favorites in this game, you have
who suspended, Mussa Diabat and who else Miles Bridges, Miles Bridges.
Miles Bridges is suspended, as is Mussa Diabate. I feel
like they should be a rested and refreshed Houston Rockets
team as they take on the Charlotte Hornets tonight and
then they will take on the New York and Knicks
on Saturday. Yeah, back to every other day schedule for
the forseable figure. Still, I think there's six sets of
backs to backs between down the end of the year.
By the way, Yeah, that seems ridiculous because there's only
like thirty something games I know, so over a third
of those are going to be back to backs. Fine,
it was fun hanging out with you, that's all right. Well,
it'd be a long playoff run too, hopefully I hope
so too. I'm all for that, all right. What else
is going on in the Major leagues? Baseball Players Association
have quickly moved to name Tony Clark's successor as they
announced a unanimously elected Bruce Meyer as their new interim
executive director. Their voting board is made up of seventy
two major and minor league players elected by their teammates
on two year terms of service. For those who are
unaware of the representative for the Houston Astros is Hunter Brown.
I was very surprised what we found out about that. Yes,
I mean he's kind of young, but he's an ace
and it seems very intelligent. So in years past had
been less colors junior. I can't remember who else, but
it is Hunter Brown. As the NFLPA board appoints Bruce
Myers at Meyer as interim executive director, expected at some
point he will be full time executive director as the
successor to Tony Clark. As it looks like both sides
playing to the public talking about the owners and the players.
Chris Bassett, we mentioned this early in the show, one
of the latest to fire back at the idea of
a salary cap in Major League Baseball. He says, the
salary cap is not the issue, having suppressed salaries across
the league, So sorry, my patriot, fresh by itself, having
suppressed salaries across the league so owners can make more
money is not the answer. You brought up the Patriots
in the NFL, and also said the Chiefs have been
to six or seven Super Bowls, Eagles going to super
Bowls over and over again. He said the parody in
Major League Baseball is better than any other sport. First
blush poll question for you ready for this? Okay? And
not holding you too. That's not even a gut feeling.
Please don't the over under of number of games being
played in twenty twenty seven. I put the number at
sixty one games. Okay? Good? Now, the number that popped
in my head when you asked was one hundred, so
I will say over okay. Did I think once you
start yeah, covid. I think once you start getting under
one hundred though, okay, So I said sixteen, Yeah, you're
taking the over up. I will take the over Okay.
I would lean over too. I think if you missed
an entire season, you could have long Now again, the
owners are obviously much more prepared for this than the
players are. Although if you're making crazy money, you look
twenty five million dollars or till twenty fillion dollars, you're losing.
But if you're making that ridiculous money. You're doing it,
you've done it for a long period of time, But
that's money you'll also never get back too. Yeah, And
I think the more I think about this, I mean,
why should the Dodgers spend as much as Tampas as
Tampa Bay Rays. I kind of get the player's side
on this. Well, they're also the owners are saying that
as long we want to put a cap on ourselves
because we don't want everybody coming to us and saying, hey,
we'll just went in doubt, We'll go to the Dodgers
and play. Yeah, they want to use the cap as
an excuse to say we can only spend so much. Yeah.
But but you know, to the player's perspective on this,
nobody's forcing the Dodgers to pay all this money. Nobody's
demanding that the Dodgers overspend to get Kyle Tucker and
show Hey Otani and Freddie Freeman and all those kind of guys.
They're doing this on their own. Yeah. And one more
quick news item, Matt with the Olympics Australian reporter Danica Mason.
Are you familiar with her work, Matt, Nope, let me
ask you this is it worthy? Of a Google search. Well,
she's from Australian, she's on TV. What do you think
I would? She's attractive? Okay, well she has to have.
She has issued an apology after getting all on air
while being a little drunk during the Olympics and randomly
talking about iguanas she was slurring her words on the
live Winter Olympic broadcasts. Having totally misjudged, she said drinking
alcohol before appearing on camera. Well, when was she judging
it was gonna be okay to do that? I don't know, Matt. Now,
I might have had a cold win or two. That
was you know, what's the statue of limitations on this?
It was the twenty twenty two World Series celebration show
when we were on to three am after ten o'clock.
You can drink as much as you want. Okay, good,
because let me tell you something. When the Astros sucked,
you know, I got that marketing machine out. Good. I
didn't even hide it at that point. I was like,
you're making me do one hundred postgame shows of a
team that's losing one hundred games. Yeah, I'm having a cocktail. Okay,
Well I found her Instagram and you have lost me
for the segment. So all right, that's the news to do.
Thank you very much for that. Twelve fourteen is a
time we are going to hopefully between the two of
us and the great listeners of the Matt Thomas Old
Ross try to end this ridiculous is CJ Strout on
the trademarket. Let's cuss and discuss next twelve fourteen on
Sports Talk seven nighty. All right, we're gott to end
this nonsense of CJ. Strout's trade talk. But Ross was
able to dig deep into the audio vault that is
the ever growing iHeart sports networking. We found the young
lady that works for the Australian TV network correct Channel
nine Sports in Australia or her name is Danica Mason,
Matt Judge.
Speaker 7: The drunkenness literally the like the price of coffee under
here is actually fine. It's more of the priceive coffee
in the US that we are going to have to
get used to. I'm not sure that the Iguanas, where
are we going with that one? But anyway, let's get
into today's quote because there is splendy happening back home.
We're going to start off with some actual Brisbane Rocos
gearing from the actually their trip to the US at
the UK rather because Rice Walsh has stolen the show.
He of course did that in the last few ASH series,
crowning for four tries and claiming England's fans but rich
out of the UK just three months following that UK
Club Challenge.
Speaker 2: I've heard worse. No, I can't know. It was not
formulating sentences. She started talking about sometimes tended to work
that as well. We're sober. You started talking about iguanas
and coffy coffee prices, which, yeah, I guess they're high
in America. I don't you know what that you can
get the best coffee for the value is? That is
the old rim rtins in camp. That's what I heard. Yeah,
that's what you and you and Lopie were talking about. Yes,
Joe cook two cake, donuts and a coffee for three dollars?
Are you kidding me? Delicious? All right? So did she
lose her job? Suspended or just admonish? What was her
penalty does she have? She has just issued an apology.
I have not seen anything about her losing her job.
I mean, I'll be honest with y'all, and I don't
want to besmirched names, so I'm gonna keep it name
free in this. Some of your favorite TV anchors when
you were growing up as a kid would go to
many a lounge in between the six and ten newscast.
I don't have a couple of pops. M Yeah, she
said she should not have a head of drink and
she was cold and an altitude altitude and had skipped dinner. Okay,
well that makes a lot of sense. Now, that makes
a lot of sense. All right, Ross, can we are
we gonna have to and I know the boys in
the morning we're talking about this today. Do we need
to crucify Top mcshafe for bringing up this whole c J.
Stroud trade conversation? We played the audio people, we crucify
the people who ran with it. Because he's doing a podcast.
He's like, yeah, you know you think of these trade
candidates like, I don't know, maybe c J. Stroud. It's
basically the way it came off to me. It wasn't
like sources close to me say CDJ Stroud is on
the trade block. You float out a name of a
quarterback who struggled and could possibly thrive every elsewhere, and
then all the aggregators and content creators. They jump on
it and make entire shows and videos and all that stuff.
And this is just the nature of sports media in
twenty twenty six. There's so much of it. Yeah, you
have to think of new ways. I mean, because let's
be honest, it's not a really robust time, uh for
sports we don't have I mean, the NBA doesn't necessarily
move the needle. The Olympics are cool, but it doesn't
move the needle you're I mean, if you if you're
watching the TV shows, they're getting into a lot of
hypotheticals on the NFL front. Like I turned I literally
turned down ESPN this morning. I want to woke up
and it was Is it a bad sign if Lamar
Jackson does not attend OTAs with the Baltimore Ravens. That's
why doing national sports is depressing. We can always find
some nibble of the thing to get to on the
Houston side of things, but could you imagine having to
go in now, Graham. We're probably probably making six times
that we're making ross. Yeah, putting on some makeup and saying, hey,
can you go two segments about whether or not Lamar
Jackson should show up at OTAs. Yeah, I would like
to get whatever salary Jason McIntyre is getting from Fox
to go on and say, Mike Evans hasn't sniffed a
Super Bowl. M Yeah, that's not great. That would be
Super Bowl champion, correct with Tom Brady and the Buccaneers
within the last six years, yes, twenty twenty one. Mm. Yeah,
I mean we get stuff wrong, oh my god. Yeah,
and we don't want to get things wrong. But you know,
when you're it's just but when you hire so authoritative,
like the national folks are always so much more authoritatives.
Local guy, I think I know everything nothing. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's exactly right. Okay, so get Bayless. Well he's doing
a pot Steve eh and he's making thirty million dollars
and he's doing great. He's Oh, by the way, did
you see this? I forgot to mention this to you.
Do you see what Pat McAfee's doing now?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: I did not. He hired an entertainment agent. Okay. He
wants to get into television and movies. Oh, like he
wants to be an actor. Correct, huh, you know, good
for him. He wants to become I don't know his
words or somebody that was involved with him the next
Sylvester Stallone. Stop Stop, what does that even mean? It
wants to be like a Rambo remake. I mean he's
always got his guns out. Yeah, action figure kind of guy. Yeah,
for sure. You know what, you only get one life,
and Pat McAfee's trying to live his best life. I'm
wishing him the best on his journey to be the
next movie superstar. It's not gonna happen. What all you
can do in life is try, So I'm wishing him
the best. I mean he's doing very Look he's he's
transformed sports television. Yeah, how though, is what does he
do that's so different? I guess I just well, it's swearing. Okay,
it's brosky swearing, and and there's a segment of population
that likes that kind of stuff. I can tell you
that years ago, all my son's friends, which are you know,
twenty two twenty three years old, thought Pat McAfee was
the greatest thing since sliced bread. But then it wears
on you. And it's when you don't reinvent yourself, when
you're the same, it's the same stick every day. I mean,
putting on Gronkowski or Brady or JJ Wattie. It kind
of just kind of runs it out of gas. And
so though that twenty two to twenty three year old
doesn't find Pat McAfee nearly isn't endearing or is entertaining
and is funny as it does, it's a twenty six
or twenty seven. That can be said for a lot
of things. I mean, people grow up and grow out
of certain things, but that you know, look, uh, the
best thing that Pat does, to his credit, he has
kickstarted Game Day. I mean, when Lee Corso was down
the home stretch of his career, Pat McAfee an energy.
The kicking contest that he does on Saturdays. It's a
huge part of their show. He does have he does
have a niche and he does and there is some
talent to that. But yeah, just going on your TV
show and swearing and having a bunch of your guys
on who by the way, you're paying to have his guess,
I mean Aaron Rodgers wasn't doing it for the kindness
of his heart. He was being paid a lot of
money and you know there was a good return on that.
But yeah, Pat McAfee doing movies, I mean he's he
seems like he could at least try it, right, I mean,
I don't I don't blame him trying to do this.
Can you think of one successful person that's gone from
sports media into acting and been successful or sports athletes? Yeah,
I guess sports athletes. I guess we can think of
a bunch, but I think of him. I guess more
of a media person at this point.
Speaker 9: Would you count Stephen that Smith to be on that
show he's on that he's on the was it Guiding
Light or whatever?
Speaker 2: General Hospital? Come on now? Around for a long time?
I'm sorry, I know we have. I tuned to our
resident expert on sober much better.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 2: Mister steven A is gonna go run for president? Apparently
it sounds like, no, he's not. I mean, he is
doing a lot of political stuff. He is, he knows.
Oh god, well he doesn't have my vote because I'm
not voting for no. I will literally vote for it
literally anybody opposite. Literally am not voting. So okay, all right,
so really quick to wrap this up? Uh? Do you?
Cassara's got to be laughing his ass off right when
he's seeing these things, because you know, you know, he's
seeing He he may be saying he's not seeing it,
but he's really seeing it. Yeah, he's got He's gotta
be because even if you are the biggest CJ non defender,
you're not going to just trade a guy for two
lives playoff games. If CJ was terrible the entire season
and underperformed and basically didn't get you to the promise
line like going to the playoffs, then I could see
this being a more of a of a decent conversation.
He just never matched what he did in the first year,
and that's what people are looking for. And here's the
thing to be a CJ defender if you want to
be for a second, there's no reason why he can't
go back and be that what he was a couple
of years ago. But he's done it once unless you're
of the belief that the injuries have cost him some
of that twitch that made him so special, or that
other teams have been able to figure him out. And
that's why I think this upcoming year for the Texans
will be the important year because you'll be able to
answer both of those questions. Twelve thirty It's a Matt
Thomas showld Ross Sports Talk seven. I me, Ross, what
is today's edition to believe or not? What? Yeah, we're
doing that. We have we have a we have a
lot of prize and giveaway today.
Speaker 11: Nothing.
Speaker 2: What did we say? Didn't some people die recently? I
would presume a lot of people have died recently. Easy e.
He's been dead a long time. Robert Duvall passed Robert Duvall,
and then somebody else famous, I thought, I can't remember.
I also wanted we could do Astros players, so I
gotta got good information on that. You wander that too,
what's up to you? We got at spring training. Yeah.
And by the way, tomorrow on the show, we are
allowed to talk about Florida stories because we were in
the state of Florida this week. Oh that's right, So
I'm very excited about that. That'll be Jonathan. That'll be
the easiest search for you all ever been doing your entire
life looking for a crazy crap that happened in the
state of Florida. That's Roger seven one three two one
two five seven ninety seven one three two one two
five seven ninety It is Matt Ross Jonathan with us here.
We're here at two o'clock. It is the Matten Ross
Show here from Charlotte on Sports Talk seven ninety Matt
and Ross with your Well thirty five. It is Sports
Talk Sevenati. It was fun talk. It's a Masters Baseball
with you folks the last to three days. So storylines
that Ross and I came up with that were not
necessarily organic to just us, but everybody was the infield
looks like it's playing nice, but there is a It's
not Ross, it's not a dark cloud. It's not They're
they're professionals, they get it. There is value, an extra depth,
for sure, but when you are void in one particular
part of the game and strong in the other, you
don't normally go into the season going well. Our outfield
offense may be horrible. At least we have an extra infielder.
That's the reason why I think there will be phone
calls made. It may not be during spring training, it
may not be during the start of the regular season,
but I would be completely and utterly shocked if Esak
Pretts come August first as wearing Houston Astros uniform. Yeah,
it would be the all time I'm saying all time
shocking moment, but it would be one of the all
time shocking. Of course, think of the always caveat barring
out of injuries, right right, that's right. Other takeaways, at
least for me, and I'll let you jump in on
a couple of these as well, that the corner outfield
spots are still very much up for grabs. There is
a lot of pitching for his team, and there's a
lot of guys probably bumping around in that clubhouse. Ross.
I think they're the number four or five starters, that
they're going to be probably the one or two starters
at Sugar Lane, if it makes sense to you. I
think they're still looking for a left handed bet. Dana
Brown is not hidden that notion as part of what
he's looking for. I think that they're going to probably
still try to kick the tires. Maybe I'm getting a
little additional depth of the catcher spot. Caesar salas Are
has never shown an ability to be a long term
number two for in his career, so as he gets
longer in the tooth and his more experienced, I can't
imagine that being a plan. Uh. And we got to
keep an eye on a couple of the things in
the injury front. One is when you know, Ole jan
Air Diez Bill start running soon, he can hit, he
can catch, but that's just sixty six percent of the game.
And then ultimately, you know, when does Josh Hader start
to test things a little bit more than just throwing
on flat ground from ninety feet. But for me, all
things considered, now, the first storyline is the biggest one.
It's and it's been a storyline the Astros have had
for several months. This is nothing out of the ordinary.
But for me, this first storyline, as big as it is,
the rest of the stuff is kind of stuff that
every team's kind of going through right now. Yeah, there
certainly are a number of different stories, a lot of
it's not massive impacts to the season. And the good
thing to me is that you have answers to questions
when you say, okay, well, who's gonna end up at
the back of the rotation, when you got like six answers,
who's gonna be in the outfield? You have answers. You
don't know who it's gonna be, you don't know who's
gonna take over the reins, you don't know how good
everyone's gonna be. But at least if you go to
Dana Brown and say, what's your plan here? There's a
plan A, plan B and a plan and C. It
feels like with all these types of things that were
talking about, and then when you bring it to the infield,
there's a great plan A, and then a great plan
B and C or whatever how you're gonna configure the infield.
So most of the problems are are good problems to
where you don't think there's massive holes in the roster
where they're gonna take some kind of long shot for
something to happen for them to be good. Yeah, I'll
say this, I don't I love what could be a
fun season. I mean, I'm trying to think what we
how do we fill A year ago at this point,
we will You know what it was. We were just
talking about Kyle Tucker being traded. Yeah, and who is
this Cam Smith? And who is this Hayden west Nesky?
And oh, by the way, you're getting rid of a
five to a player. We were all kind of shell shocked.
But then Cam had that great march and it became
a huge Well, this guy's got to be on the
baseball team. He's got to be in the opening day roster. Yeah,
I remember his story number one from from around this
time last year. It was out two. They move in
a left field, that's absolutely right, and the fact that
they had been working at it for several months. It
wasn't just something that he just showed up at Florida
and said, let's try this thing out right. It's interesting
that we're now on a spot where that has no
longer come in a conversation because you know, look, as
you know, great infield position players tend to move around.
Great catchers become ultimately first baseman towards end of their career.
Guys that go from shortstop that have an amazing range
wound up ending at third base. Carlos Carlos Korea being
your example that cal Rip can be maybe the ultimate
example of that. But to have Jose who's the metrics
were not great the last handful of years, wasn't just
last year, it was years before that going to try
something in the left field, because you're thinking, well, if
you're going to go put him in a if you're
going to take a minus defender working, he hurts you
the least. He goes out to the left field, tries it,
and probably nothing public has ever been said, but this
has got to be a situation that Jose said, like
I tried this and this is I don't want to
do it, and I'm hose Altuve. Hm. Right, I think so,
because when he got back to second base last year,
it wasn't like he all of a sudden had his
additional range that he didn't have before. Right, he didn't
catch the fountain of youth over there playing second base. No,
the numbers weren't weren't good there in a very short stint.
So the question, so the Astros have decided for a
guy that has met as much as he has for
this organization in you know, whether you want to call
him the greatest or the second greatest of all time,
he deserves the opportunity to play where he wants to play.
And he'll be thirty six on May sixth, thirty six
years old. Wow. I remember when he got called up
me too, like crazy in the minors. Oh yeah, and
moved up very fast too, right, I mean little stops
at each one of the three different spots. All right,
So but yeah, I don't I don't come away going,
oh my gosh, this is this crowded infield thing is
gonna be the worst thing in the world. I'm not
proposing that it stays this way. I want to make
sure I'm very clear on that, because I'm telling you
the moment that outfield slugs one home run per series,
you're gonna be screaming for some outfield help. You just
are now. The easiest thing can happen is if Zach
Cole can do what we thought he did in the
month of September, and obviously Cam Smith has a bounce
back second year, then you're really dealing with strings. That's
a huge if. At this point twelve forty three, it
is Mat and Ross. We are taking this program today
until two o'clock seven one three two one two five
seven ninety seven one three two one two five seven
nine zero Rockets start the second half of their season.
Although today this is game number fifty four, so down
the twenty eight games left to go. What are your
expectations If you want to chime in on the Rockets,
I'd love to talk about the Rockets with you, guys.
Seven one three two one two five seven ninety twelve
four to nine of The Matt Thomas Show with Ross
seven one three two one two five seven ninety My
timeline for My friends of Chicago are all flipping out
ROSSI about the Bears taking one step closer to going
to Northwest Indiana. I can't. It's harder for us to fathom,
but could you. I mean, look, we the Giants and
Jets playing New Jersey, so that they've been doing that
for forty years. That's nothing out of the ordinary, and
not that like going to northwins Indiana. It's two hours
away from downtown Chicago, but it is still weird for
a team that has had so much history with Chicago
and Soldier Field that they're going to go out of
the verbs yeah and beloved and embraced. I mean, I
think they're the more recent one too. Is Kansas City.
I mean, the people in Kansas City love the Chiefs absolutely,
and they love them in Kansas too. It feels like,
I mean, it was shocking in itself that I mean,
did do they just keep asking for more and more money?
Is it? Is it Bud Adams style over there where
they keep losing all these votes where they're gonna have
to move from from Missouri to Kansas. Well, what it
is is they want what Jerry Jones has. They want
these monstrosity stadiums on cheaper land, and they want the
extra stuff around the restaurants, the club's, the hotels. Is
there a bunch of stuff around eighteen? I guess the
Texas Live stuff is not far from eighteen and T
It's pretty close. Yeah, you also have Jerry Jones on that. Yeah,
six Flags is over there. Yeah. Arlington is kind of
like the you know, the entertainment area of the Metroplex.
But I think the district in Atlanta where the Braves
play has made a huge difference for them as a franchise.
I thought I read recently that a lot of the
Texas Live restaurants were closing in Arlington. Well that's because
Arlington is just not great. Yeah, I mean, can you
can build it and try? But I wonder I try. Yeah,
How's how's uh Pud Rodriguez's Taco Hut doing or whatever?
Why wouldn't it be like an Italian bistro? Mm there's
I think there's the uh Troy Aikman's eight, right, it's
like a beer place or something. I was at DFW
last week and uh Drew person as an eighty eight restaurant,
and maybe they may have just paid for his name,
But you know, I'm something that true, true Drew Pearson,
not just going through the menu at the DFW Airport restaurant.
I think the Adulas Garcia Testosterone Clinic is doing very well.
Like god, oh wow, wow wow wow. But and I
feel like overcoming full circle on this because everybody thirty
years ago, ROSSI, when you were growing up and when
I was younger in this you were trying to refurbish
downtown and they're like, hey, we're good. Yeah, it was
a big deal when the Toyota Is the house that
Stevie built, was getting built downtown. Well, the first stadium
that was built like downtown downtown for baseball was the
Baltimore How they took the Camden Yards area and turned
into a big shopping and restaurant district, and they did
a good job with that. They were supposed to be
all these restaurants and bars popping up around this, I
mean minute made no nope, Toyota Center, no nope. I
mean I like rt RAR, but it's a couple of
blocks away your house Blues yep. Yeah. And and the
number one thing is they want Torreltown is going to
be largely you know, run by the bye by Howard
Hughes Corporation and the Texans who are in cahoots with
each other. Yeah, I feel like it can definitely work
because a the land is cheaper in B Texas. I mean,
Houston is just such a spread out city anyway, right right,
Torreltown is one thing it's gonna be. Do they poke
the bear at trying to go for a stadium out there?
I think you try. Oh, I think they do too.
Now there is presidents that say you can, you don't
have to have your practice facility where next to where
you play. The great greatest, greatest case of that is
Los Angeles, the Raiders and the Rams, the Raiders, the
Rams and the Chargers. And in Dallas, I mean the
star up there is I mean it's got to be
forty miles from from Arlington, easy from Farnw Dallas to like,
uh what about the play, Like where do the players live?
I mean, I guess it doesn't matter. They got to drive.
Usually they live close to where the facility is. Yeah,
because that they would my players driving as a little
a little as possible. LaMelo Ball says, hello, yeah exactly.
Tyreek Hill says hello. And you think about it, You're
only there ten times a year, minimum max twelve when
you think about it. Yeah, but yeah, if you oh man,
this is gonna be very intriguing to me. And how
much of this can you get if a team, if
you're at how much how much public tax assistance are
you going to get when you can't win the big game?
I don't know. I mean, even as we said Kansas City,
they they're like going to every other super Bowl, they
won three recently, and they first try to get a
roof on earrawhead and they're like, no, shut you by. Yeah,
and then they're like, let's refurbish this a facility that
looks awesome. It's a perfect football Now we're good. We
want our own place once you a tear down Ara
hund and build it's a new facility. No, we won't
do that. Oh, cam is well done, because honestly, from
where Bridgeland is to where like Waller County would be,
that's probably fifteen more minutes. It's far though. Yeah, but
you're only going ten times a year, Rodeo wouldn't be there.
You're building your own place. How much does that matter?
I think I'm being honest. I'm not trying to say
one way or the other had no, no, no, you and I
don't know the experts. I don't know's on this. I
do believe there's going to be a dissolving of the
relationship between the two. Not that that's bad, but it's
just sometimes you just want your own stuff. Oh it's
only thirty three minutes from around here. That sounds terrible.
It's not great. I mean I used to drive in
when I had to drop camera painting off at to preview.
I drive in from preview to come to the show,
and it was an easy drive.
Speaker 6: Long.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of miles on there. Don't remind me
vehicles many You get the oil change every two weeks.
I got to oil filter change now. I did it
last week. I said change it now.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Bridge, I can tell you I've got some great friends
that live in bridge On. They're all for this. Everything's
gonna go up in value. Oh yeah, I'm sure they're
happy now. And again there there's so much money over
there that it's not gonna be You're not gonna see
no disrespect to Timmy Changs, but they're not gonna there's
gonna be some hiring places to go. Hey, hey, now,
let me hating non Macho's like that is it? Mancho's
even still there at six ten. I don't know how
they have been there in like ten years. Hey, I
like the one on West Time or still kicking? Is
it really good for them? You can't go inside. We're
tired of being on you ever since the pandemic. They're like, nah,
we're sick of every every weekend. We're for you. We're
on YouTube every weekend with people getting these brawls. By
the way, when I flew MIRRT yesterday, I was I
was ready to throw hands. Nobody wanted to throw hands. Yeah,
everybody was polite. The plane was clean. Now granted I
looked behind me. Everybody was stuffed in like sardines. Like
I'm assuming that a normal airplane's got thirty five roads.
This one had sixty six. So you were a little
on top of each other. Wow, I'm just kidding. It
wasn't that bad. It was like a triple decker on
a plane. They were like, what do they use to
when you uh, the stick thems on top to put
people upside down on the flight. Charlotte, you can live
with that head rush. I just saw some broadcasting news
Matt that I think it's gonna make you upset. Can
you talk about the top of the next hour, Yes,
I can. Twelve fifty six. Finally, before I read it,
what is it that said, take some deep breaths before
I read this? Coming up? How do you know I'm
gonna be mad about this? I have an inkling? All right,
that's a radio. That's a radio teas ladies and gentlemen,
believe it or not. Coming up in fifty minutes. It's
a Matt Thomas show'd Ross here on seven nati's The
Matt Thomas Show with Ross. Want to shout out a
new IG follower of mine sports are but his name
is Matthew, and he says he sends me.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 2: He says, matt that guy that wished you dead just
got you a new IG follower. Don't die of terminal
cancer at least until your career ends on your terms.
Maybe he's an oncologist. Thank you very much, Matthew. So
that's the thing is, folks, if you feel sorry for
me at all that somebody wants me to die of
terminal cancer, follow me on at sports mt on Instagram.
You're you're asking for pity follows now, Yeah, I mean yeah, Okay,
I got a lot of activity on my Instagram at
sports RV Matt. This young lady Naomi nine seven four
six two three just liked a bunch of my tweets.
I think, yes, she's into me. Yes, as a matter
of fact, she's asking for my number and I want
to meet up later. Yeah. Things are going well. So
if you would like me to not have terminal cancer,
follow me on Instagram at sports mt All right, so
I'm very curious what this broadcasting news is. Well, did
you see who is being added to March Madness coverage, Matthew?
I did, Okay, Nay Burlson. It's going to be in
the studio in New York City for min March Madness. Yes,
this is the man on CBS NFL coverage. Also he
hosts many game What game show is he on Hollywood Squares?
I thought it was another one too, Nope, that's it okay,
And now he's on March Madness, Matt your thoughts good
for him. Now he does host something, so it's not
like it's going to be outside his comfort. He's on
the NFL today, not the host, but he is the analyst. Yes,
and he also is one third of the CBS Morning
show that I mean really nobody watches, but that's on
the Hero there. He does host that too. He does
host the Hollywood Squares. I have a serious problem with that, serious, serious,
serious problem with that. So honestly, with that, I wish
him but the very very best as he learned. As
he does the studio hosting of the NCAA tournament, which
I have not seen him do anything in performed basketball,
I'm sure he's going to be great at it. He's
a professional. He's able to take his career as a
football player and with his media exposure and carve out
a nice career for him. Again, no problem with him
hosting CBS Mornings, No problem with him hosting the March Madness.
Serious problem with him hosting the Hollywood Squares. M oh.
He was also on the Minnesota Love Boat, remember that
whole thing. Were you were you in Minneapolis when I
went just moved there, just moved to Minneapolis October of five. Yep,
because it happened. I got my first year, my first
day on the air there was January of six, so
they were still talking about it for sure. Wow three
months later, Well people don't know it was a escapade. Yeah,
it was. They were talking about it. It was a sex
party on Lake Minnetonka, Yes, with seventeen Minnesota Vikings players.
And was it consensual or was there some issues on that?
I believe it. Well, it was consensual, but also paid
I believe. Oh so paik in sensuality. I mean, isn't
in my boat paid contentuality? If ironically enough? Oh, I thought,
you know, I thought you're gonna do it. I thought
you're gonna tell me, do you know? Also, the ESPN
announced today, you know they're they're not doing ESPN Sunday
Night Baseball anymore. We knew that they're doing Sunday Night
women's sports. Oh I think, I mean I did see
that from Chris Gordy alerted me to that news. Yes,
they're gonna mix up. They're gonna have a w n
B A and NWSL games on sounds great. You know what,
there's an audience for it. Enjoy yourself. Much as we
love sports, we don't watch everything. I mean no I can't.
I mean you clue into out or whatever you want to.
By the way, Speaking of which, Canada leading USA won
nothing in the gold medal game. In the second period
this is the gold medal game here. Yeah, are we
the favorites? I think it's a out of fifty to fifty,
but slight favorites. You us say this is total guest
on my part. I don't know. Are you a lot
of bead Olympics? Yeah? Why not? A lot of his
security have been based do bet on though temper? What
the temperature is going to be today in Houston? That's true?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, I look, I know everybody's losing her mind
yesterday because of the USA hockey. Oh minus four eighty,
get it together, USA. Ooh, that's a super heavy favorite.
It's about almost five to one for people unaware. That's
like USA beating Russian eighty miracle. Those are probably longer odds.
I hope. I think. I don't know, minus for eighty.
Let's get it done, ladies. Let's go wake up one
one nothing in this in the second period. Oh, they've
already played twenty plus minutes then yeah, yeah, I love
Cole Thompson, part of our morning team. But he's trying
to again, this is this is what hockey fans have
done every single time here in Houston. Something cool happens
international and it Hey, this will work in Houston. I
don't know if people understand that we're russ We're we
are a sweet, fun, interesting sports market, but we're pretty
damn finicky too. Front Runners, I'll say it, what's up.
I've lived here my whole life. I can I can
call it my own. Well, but tell me how many
cities are not front runners. It's probably more cities with
like hundreds of years of fandom. Like people still show
up to Cubs games when they're terrible, but also the
Cubs have been around since the early nineteen times, right,
but they don't go to White Sox games. I don't.
I mean, I wouldn't consider a White Sox fan being
a front runner fan. I mean they're just, you know,
so they're never I think there's more front running in
sports than maybe even people. You need longevity, and you
need good winning history, and then there's just not a
lot of that here in Houston. Yeah, you do need that,
and you need a rich hockey history, and you can't
use the Arrows because that was thirty years ago and
the Arrows were fifty years ago. And as I've said
with anybody that ever asked me about it, it's not
about filling sixteen thousand tickets. Now, that would be a
huge part of it, obviously, But it's about what you
do in the corporate community. Can you get automotive and
beers and airlines and furniture places and insurance companies to
spend millions of dollars to back up the product itself.
And that's where the rub is. You can't go you
can't go to gallery furniture every time you're looking for
a sports marketing dollar. He's only gonna have so much
money to spend. You can't go to a particular dealership
over and I mean, they're gonna want return and if
those and if it's sixteen and people looking at it,
and that's it, and the television ratings aren't good and
it's hard to get the games on or it's it's
hard to find them. It's there's just so much more.
It's not a it's not a sport that says if
you build it, they will come and they will eat
it up. It has to be really good, especially because
there will be people the first year or the first
two seasons that we'll want to embrace everything about it
because it's the new, cool, hip, sportster thing to do.
But it's it's too big of a business. The hockey
is the fourth of the of the Big four. But
it doesn't still mean that guys don't get me paid
millions and millions of dollars. And it doesn't mean that
it doesn't take millions and millions of dollars operating. Now,
there's good profitability in sports franchises, obviously. That's another thing
if you buy, if you buy a team for expansion, uh,
you know you're gonna have to recoup that money pretty quick.
I just my gut tells me the corporate community just
couldn't back up the dollars that it would take ultimately
to sustain even if the team wasn't doing great on
the ice. But I could be wrong. It's not up
to me. But it happens. It happens. I don't watch hockey.
I don't get into hockey. Maybe I'll watch. I mean,
I got this Olympic gold game on, But do the
men's play men are going to play the goal for
the gold too? Right? I think the championship game, the
gold medal game is they're in the semifinals. I think
the gold medal game is on Sunday, right in the
sure why not are there any Olympic watch parties the
big the big bar downtown that was the hockey bar
on a business Oh, I know, the pub. Yeah I
didn't Peder bills. I mean, there's midtown real estate expensive, Mattie,
I know, I know, But yeah, I applaud I will
say this. I applaud the thirst that some people have here.
But it's it's it's so much more than just oh,
I'll buy tickets. It's you know, you'd have to get
your arena up to code, you'd have to have a
build a practice facility. I mean, and it's easy to
sit there on your couch and say I'm gonna go,
I'm gonna go, and I'm gonna get season tickets, and
then when you get the it's can be how much
I'm good. You always will have more interest of verbal
interest than actual interest. Right because again, if you know
the Rockets and you've been a Rocket fan for all
your life and you know basketball, you're gonna suck it up.
And Sarah, I want to sit downstairs, gonna cost me
one to fifty If you're spending that down to sit
downstairs in a hockey and you don't know the intricacies
of hockey, and you just want to be in the building.
It's harder to spend that one fifty per ticket. Let
me take a loan. Let's get you on the games. Mattie.
I've never called a hockey game. Uh yeah, Craggs are
getting chippy? Oh are they throwing hands? There's more like
chucking more shoving? They don't really, They don't really throw
hands in the girls hockey, do they do? They do?
They cat fight? At least what does that mean? You
know what women cat fighting is? Explain it? Uh, Jonathan,
explain what women in a cat fight do?
Speaker 7: Ah?
Speaker 9: No, you know what, man, I'm gonna put this back
to you.
Speaker 2: No, all right, I'll start. It's time for a break,
mat If you like to break two Oh damn, I
want to go to it. We gotta break. We gotta
hit our brakes on time. That's that's important.
Speaker 8: Well.
Speaker 2: I was gonna tell you all what women do when
they cat fight, but I can't do it now. Oh
well seven one three two one two five seven ninety.
Don't ask I'm not telling you seven one three two
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Thank you to Andrew and Nico, who also do not
want me to die of terminal cancer. Got two new
followers on that, so you know, whatever works, maybe it's
maybe it's a diving again the people that do you
want me to die of terminal cancer? I do not
want you to die of terminal cancer. Man. Thank you.
I appreciate that very much. One eighteen on The Matt
Thomas Show with Ross, We've got Rockets basketball. I'm here
in Charlotte for tonight's game. Tomorrow I'll be in New
York City for the Knicks and the Rockets on Saturday night.
All right, Ross, We've not really got much in the
on the Rockets so far today. What do you want
to see? And then I'll give you my hands. I'll
let you go first. What do you want to see
from the Rockets over the last third of the NBA season. Yeah,
just a little bit more energy and this is what
I think was kind of sapping them and they were
able to well, they lost that last game as the
Clippers and Kawhi went Leonard went New Clear and he's
just been so good what do you have nineteen points
in that fourth quarter or whatever it was. Wow, that's right.
So I want to see the better energetic team. It'd
be nice to see tarry and consistently in back to backs.
You know. One of the things that made me think
they were kind of just losing energy was the fifty
to fifty balls, the offensive rebounding, slipping, lazy, bad turnovers,
just like things that end up when you get physically tired,
then you get mentally tired, and you see lack of
focus and losing guys on basket cuts and not rebounding
and not all the little type of things is what
I want to see. Yeah, I want to see maybe
more consistency in the three. The numbers have dropped after
the first month of the season. Not that they were
going to shoot forty percent of the entire season, but
it runs ebbs and flows on that. I still think
they should take better care of the basketball. They're going
to be a higher turnover team ross just because of
who there's doing the ball handling. There's not a true
true point guard, but you're living on the edge if
you continue to turn the ball over eighteen plus times
per game. Yeah, and then that's the thing. Look, the NBA,
we talk about this. The margins are so thin, and
if you one unfocused, lazy turnover leads to a basket
and one time you lose a guy in a basket
cut that's four points. That's a spread to night spreads
four and a half. Like that, that's the game. It
it can be those little things. They just don't let
them pile up on you. I'm generally pleased. We've got
some phone calls coming in at seven one, three, two,
one two, five, seven, and am generally pleased with the defense.
The uh turnovers bother not necessarily stretching minutes, stretches of
not scoring. That happens with every NBA game. But it's
I don''t even say they turn turn the heat down
a little bit. But there have been some games where
that fourth quarter should have been an opportunity to maybe
rest some guys down the stretch, and they were unable
to do so because that second tier group had a
difficult time scoring. I really do want to see a
men in Katie's minutes dropped here in the next twenty
five or so games. I don't know what's going to happen,
because we keep asking for it, and it has. There
just hasn't been enough confidence in order for that to happen.
But that would be a nice thing to see their
minutes drop a little bit. Yeah, blowing some blowing some
teams out and you don't necessarily have a ton of
easy matchups left on the schedule, but that would be
nice too. That's good you get the guys because you're
you're not You're not gonna all of a sudden, EMA's
not gonna all the start and start playing ten guys.
You've you've had two major rotational players down nope, and
Fred VanVleet and Steven Adams that are not coming back.
So the pathway to limiting the minutes is big victories
are unfortunately blowout losses, but you don't want that to happen.
And at this point, everything has been pretty quiet on
the buyout market, so if they're looking for additional depth
at either the five or the point guard spot, that
has not come into pass at this point. You know,
they have never hidden the fact they liked I mean,
stay true to what they said pre trade deadline. They
just weren't very interested. They kept saying over and over
again they were guys, there were teams that were more
interested in their players, then they were insted in other
teams players, right, And I mean that that makes sense.
And also we have to continue to bring up that
they are so close, they're close to cap out. Yeah,
I wish I and it could take me. If a
fella I went to lunch, you probably could give me
a basketball salary cap for dummies. Lesson with some bad
news matter. They're doing the wave at the USA VERSUS
Canada women's final in Courtina. What's the score. It hasn't
popped up yet. I think it's still won nothing Canada. Yeah,
but what are the Euros do? I don't care? Okay,
so outside of the United States, it's fine. I don't
think it's fine, but I'm saying I'm not nearly as
bothered by it. Okay, still one nothing, eight to forty
left in the second Remember wave Busters, h ou only
focuses on what's happening in the US market, Right, it's
not wave busters Ita for Italy. Let me so many followers.
Wave Busters has here. I think we're at one thy fifty.
It's not terrible, it's good, it's great. I mean we
could you know what again, it felt like last year,
the wave was not as big of a deal at
Dyke and as it was in previous years. I think
I think you're right, man, maybe you're maybe it's working
all right. Back to the rocket. Sorry, I get I
saw him do the wave, and that's okay. I'm glad
you told me that. That's kind of basically breaking news
on that. Okay. So I'm trying to think, is there
anything else I'd like to see, uh read Shepherd be
more consistent offensively? I think he needs the All Star
break low key, he's he's uh, he's he's young. But
as we mentioned, he's played like thirteen hundred minutes. He
only played six hundred something all last year. Mm hmm.
And you're expecting some sort of wall to hit for him,
which would be not a typical of athletes and that
have played as much as he has after not playing
a whole lot the season before. Let's get a fresh
Shepherd out there. I want to see the Dorian Phinney
Smith that we saw the Lakers and Mavericks. I mean,
I'd like to see some of that I forgot about him. Yeah,
not that he's a huge difference maker, but if you're
you're going further down your depth chart. You need some
help offensively if you're playing. If you're starting Tarry Easton
in DFS and Capella and Reed Shepherd are your only
bench players. Yeah, you need some production out of there,
because I'm gonna tell you Clickapellia and going off for
thirty not So you need to get it from somewhere.
And Dorian Finney Smith absolutely has to be one of
those resources. Yeah, because he did it. I mean, that's
the reason why the Rockets put good money in his
picky bank for this year next year for sure is
that he he was going to be a literally a
three and D guy. Yeah. Okay, so that's uh, that's
kind of our our sketch of what we want to
see over the rest of the season. The West is
super competitive again. The Rockets right now find themselves is
the four seed. They're a half game in front of
both the Lakers and Minnesota for five and six. Now,
if the season ended today, the Rockets to the tiebreaker
for both of those teams. The Suns are two back
in the Rockets to the timebreaker with them as well.
But you're talking about Denver in Phoenix. That's three all
the way down to seven being separated by three games
doesn't sound nearly familiar to what it was like. Act
it sounds like every year now the West. It's ridiculous.
I'm glad Yannis stayed in the East at least. Yeah,
the question where will he be next year? I don't know.
I mean, he dropped the he dropped the Wolf of
Wall Street. I'm not bleeping leaving meme. I tell you
if I mean, does Milwaukee make significant moves if they
can get rid of Doc Rivers and Janice is is
now it's his team and has nobody to interfere with
any of the playing and who knows what they're gonna
do on that. I'm telling you a team that you
gotta look out for next year. Not that people are
here in Houston are looking out for this, but Indiana
is gonna be good next year. If Halliburton comes back.
Vitzi Zoobots is a huge addition to that squad. It
just is getting other guys back. If who else is
the neck Nemhard if plays a full eighty two or
close to that, Pascal Pascal second out now uh Matherin
is now playing for the Clippers. But you had to
give up something to get something, so that'll be that'll
be interesting. Yeah, stay in the east, everybody, stay in
the East. Yeah, but it's say in the east, we
want no more West. And you know what if Jog
wants to retire because he wants to raise his horses, like,
that's all by good as well. You already got to
deal with thunder Spurs are already ahead of schedule. They're
they're too far ahead of schedule. Ross So the number
two seed in the West, Yes, they shouldn't have been
rebuilding faster than the Rockets and they're ahead of them.
I'm saying, all right, Uh, let's go to our friend
Doug in South Padre at one seven on seven and Doug,
good afternoon to you guys.
Speaker 6: How are you all doing? Good?
Speaker 10: Question for you?
Speaker 6: I wanted to switch back to baseball if I could
and maybe get your guys opinion on this. You know,
when you look at the last five fellows that have
been inducted to the Hall of Fame, Lance worksman, his
stats are better than all five of them, you know,
Dick Allen, he's got a better average, more home runs,
more RBIs. Andrew Jones for everybody thought was a shoe
in Basically the same stats. He's got less home runs,
but Andrew Jones batted what two thousand times more than
are a thousand times more than he did?
Speaker 2: Few gold gloves.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well true, But you know Lance Lance in the
postseason three seventeen nine homers, forty one RB eyes. Lot
of those guys you know didn't do too well. I'm
just curious why the he doesn't even get a shake,
a fair shake, and it seems like he should. Curious
what your thoughts are on that?
Speaker 2: My thoughts are I love Lance a lot. You see
what I did that? Oh wow, the day unheralded, underwhelming
national run, which I don't understand why. But if I'm
being completely honest, I am a huge beholder of the
best of the best of the best, and I don't
know if Lance makes that group. I think, and and again,
the argument for Lance is that guys of similar numbers
are getting in. That to me says you got to
tough en up and tighten up. Who's who's getting your fame.
I just think that's the way I see it. Yeah,
that didn't to me. Hey, this guy is better than
the absolute worst guy. And then the Hall of Fame.
I don't like those arguments, but I don't. I'm honestly
not super familiar with Dick Allen's career. But as far
as Andrew Andrew Jones, it's ten gold, ten gold gloves
and more. He had over four hundred home runs, which
Lance I think has. Uh, let mean it's three sixty six. Yeah,
and was a part of a team that was going
to the playoffs every year for a better part of
the decade. Right three, Look, I would like I think
Lance is like a fringe Hall of famer. He's just
not a Hall of Famer. Let's see. Oh, he's got
four top five finishes in the MVP. That's pretty good.
Oh no, there's no question that Lance Pertman can rest
today or play golf or hang out with his kids
and go, my god. I was a hell of a
baseball player and he was and played multiple positions for
this team in center field. Well that was that was interesting. Yeah,
only rewire it. Well, only one point two percent in
twenty nineteen and then immediately off the ballot is a crime,
and that's come on. Oh no, no, he should have
gotten much more run than he did. For sure. I
can't argue that at all. One to twenty nine on
the Matt Thomas shod Ross, if you'd like to jime
in and join us, We've got kind of an open
board of conversation pieces. We've been talking some astros, a
little bit of rockets there. Uh, we've got a little
bit of NC double A chatter to get to when
it comes to the NC Double A tournament. This will
come as no surprise Ross. They're looking to add a revenue.
How do you do that? No shocking you. Well, we'll
tell you what they do next. It won thirty seven
ninety all right, believe it or not. It's coming on
in just a few minutes. Topic, Gross, did you figure
out what you're gonna go with? Robert Duvall? Robert Duvall.
All right, Robert Duvall, believe it or not, real quick
before we go back on the phones. Charlie Baker is
the president, Clay, did you know that? Yes, I'm more
of a chet Baker guy. I didn't know who Charlie
Baker was until I read the story of this. I
heard the name. Okay, he met with ten members of
the media in Indianapolis and he would like to see
march madness expanded. Oh really, yes, he would could be
as soon as next season. He would not give you
a definitive time on that, but the wink wink I was,
let's go, is that the official report? Wink wink, I
don't know. Thirty heat. The biggest argument, he says, is
thirty six at large teams is too small for the
number of teams that could get a crack at winning
a championship these thirty six spots. Baker says, that means
you're going to leave a bunch of the top fifty
teams out of the tournament. Right. A couple of years ago,
I was kind of bummed when Seaton Hall in Indiana
State didn't get to the tournament because they both had
quality wins and quality schedules. The more you do to
create opportunities with a so called bubble teams each year
to get in the tournament. So he wants to protect
the automatic qualifiers, which I'm all for. I do like
little conferences getting in, but he wants to expand the
at large. The thing I'm seeing is sixty eight to
seventy six. Who are these at large teams that are
winning championships? That'd be none. I mean Florida was a
one seed. U Kon went back to back. They were
like basically one seeds, right, I mean no, I mean
I think he's adding a layer for to make some
coaches happy. One. Two to add some more dates and
more buildings full of fans or at least fans, and
then three to add extra layer of television. Two renegotiate
television deals. Now I don't know how much the first four.
I mean the first four basically does anybody ever watch
the first four unless you get a Betty hand in
it for some reason? No, Like when Mount Saint Mary's
is playing Alcorn State, Are you guys sit down on
True TV and wants that? I mean, you're looking for
what does that show that's always on True TV when
you make fun of people and uh oh they're practical jokers? Yeah,
people are. I mean that's what people get mad about.
You put the True TV and you got you're looking
for your an impractical jokers show, and boom, there's there's
the show. There's a you know, a first round tournament game.
Thirty five out of the forty NCAA champions have been one, two,
or three seeds twenty six to one seeds, five, two seeds, four,
three seeds. Yeah. I don't think it's about I don't
think it's about giving more teams a chance to win.
I think it's just more chances. It's more opportunities to
make money. Well, it's also trying to get some schools
in it to be a part of the matters, which
again is exciting for the first second round until you
start playing the heavyweights and you want to get when
I'm getting bounced out. Seven of the last eight champs
have been one seed, by the way, man, Yeah, no,
the layer is to add a layer of games. Yeah,
you know, what's what we're seeing with college football. We've
seen it with expansion in baseball. We've seen it with
expansion of the NFL. I boy, I'll tell you what,
is there a number that would be too many? I mean,
do you could we eventually see another sixteen team bracket
getting into playing and going to eighty? Probably?
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Look, as I said, I'm done over estimating the greed
of the of these coaches in nc double and not coaches,
but these schools and the NCAA and ROSS. I always say, well,
you're now this class time they're missing. These kids aren't
going to class. No, No, there's no chance the student athletes. Matt,
That is so funny when administrators and like sports information
directors do that they own sports administra Oh well, no,
they're they're they're they're compensated, and that's why you can't
treat them. You have to not treat them with kid
gloves anymore. There was always a when you when you
got into journalism and sports and radio and entertainment, you
had to kind of treat the athletes with a little
bit of uh, you know, there's still scholarship. Kids are
still nineteen twenty years old. When they're making two and
a half million dollars a year, you're missing free throws,
you're gonna get called on on it. You just are which,
by the way, can they jump ball? Is that what
you're looking for? I mean no, I know, it's like
it's not probably the top five on the agenda. Well
I don't get it. That said, I don't get it.
Why are we doing the possession arrow in twenty twenty six. Well,
we're gonna keep things fair, folks. You've got the possession arrow,
so it's gonna be your ball. What can't they they
can't jump? Why can't they jump something? Is it my door?
You talk to everything. Okay, that's fine, I think. Okay,
I'll talk to Jonathan. Jonathan, you help me out with this.
Why why can't they jump ball in college basketball? Wait?
I don't know this. Only they only they have a
possession arrow. It starts with one team and then it
goes to the other. Well, you've jumped the ball. It's
your turn to get the ball. And then the next time, well,
now we have another jump ball, and then it's gonna
be the other team's term to get the ball. We
can't have them jump for the ball anyway. Never, it
never made sense to me, But now that these guys
are millionaires, it makes even less sense. Like, let's get them.
I don't know if it's like you're trying not to
hurt anybody's ego. They can't go jump for the ball.
It's ridiculous. Well you know what ross which cannot by
the way, you get in room service. Well can I God,
I hate to out somebody, Trey Ackerman, Ryan, No, I
can't do it. Okay, Okay, they I need we need
to help them get the college basketball game down the
two hours. We are using way too many timeouts and
way too many fouls. We we got it. We have
to completely shake up, uh, college basketball. We can't ask
for more reviews. Then there was a certain college basketball
fan saying review everything. Wait a minute, Who's who is
that guy? I don't even know that. He was running
around to everybody in the clubhouse who could listen about
the officiating. Was that Timbout mctagger? Hey, I didn't say
who it was. I said it Ryan Record mac on
seven talking to Joey Loberfield. Did you see these refs?
I know you're going to yrn On Alvarez talking about
the basketball is kind of a risky situation.
Speaker 13: There, Sorry about that, you there? Yeah, okay, Lance Berkman
his numbers will be better. He was injured almost two
complete years in the heart of his career, and unlike
many guys who knocked the tar out of the ball
against bad pitching, Berkman could hit anybody. I think if
you talk to pitchers who faced him, you will be
more inclined to think he should be.
Speaker 4: In the hall and on the jump ball thing at
one point, so in college ball, they're not very good
at throwing the ball up, and there was so many
complaints that they went to the back and forth because
the college refts were so unskilled in throwing the ball
up straight.
Speaker 6: And we'll see y'll soon.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Matt. I hope it's better now. Thank you
very much for the phone call. Is that what it was? They?
I don't I had not heard me. I know the
refs are bad in college basketball. Let me tell you
the game. They're making a lot of money. The least
they can do is learn how to throw the ball
up straight. You said they're making a GA game. Yeah,
throw the ball up Yeah. At least let's go lea. Hey,
I got an idea. Let's get some off season practice
in see if I can throw the ball up. I
like the I like the I like the energy here
for this eliminitting the jump ball, I love it. Or
adding the jump ball, Yeah, possessionnaire sucks. Let's go to
John on seven honey, Hi, John.
Speaker 3: Hey, how you doing.
Speaker 14: I think that they had to create some kind of
spiff that somebody would win if they got all the
practice right, because I don't know how many more quintillion
it's going to add to the odds of getting all
the bracts correct in the tournament, because nobody's really come
close so far, and that's going to really make it impossible,
I think, but I think there ought to be some
incentive for that.
Speaker 13: I don't know what you think.
Speaker 2: About a perfect bracket. It yeah, no, there will never
be a perfect bracket.
Speaker 14: Severalillions for that correct going to add more, and so
they ought to have some kind of incentive for you know,
if somebody should win something, if they get it all right,
which I don't think will ever happen.
Speaker 2: But it's not gonna happen, never gonna happen, not even
a thank you John for the phone, not even a
conversation piece. No one will ever have a perfect, perfect
bracket now never, never, ever, ever, ever, ever ever. That's
why when I find out, when I find out companies
are like fill out a break and you get everyone right,
I will give you a million dollars. I want to
go to their competitor and buy their products. So let
me tell you something, McDonald's. You offer me a lifetime
and make ribs for a perfect bracket, I'm gonna go
to Rory Ring and send and get a Wapper Junior.
That's how. That's how strong I'm a stand I have
on this. Do not insult the intelligence of people. There
will never be a perfect bracket. Ever, ever, ever, even
if there's a fire, a fire. Sorry, there's a movie
reference for you. I went Dan Matthews on you alongside
Dan Matthews. I'm Matt. This is the Matt Thomas Show
with Ross featuring Dan up next Believe It or Not,
All Things Robert Duval. We're playing for some nice prizes.
You don't really care what the arcause your prize horse
seven one three two one two five seven nintie for
Believe It or Not? Yes, the game is back seven
one three two one two five seven Natti all right,
Uh tomorrow on the show, I'll be in New York.
Ross may have another sports radio hosts those three shows
in three different cities in three days. None, see, that's
why you And it's surviving cancer at this point, terminal
cancer a great job. Yeah, Uh, we'll have I'm sorry
is to get to and we have an Ald timer
for tomorrow. Would you agree? No, I'm not gonna do it. Okay,
that's fine, I don't care. And then, uh, tomorrow, we'll
also have a Kelvin Sampson on the show, and we
were trying for a couple other things as well. So
looking forward to hanging out with you for four hours
and anything goes Friday. That'll be tomorrow at ten o'clock
until two from New York City and from Houston five minutes.
Let it go on the show. What should we do?
We should play America's fastest growing sports radio game show.
We simply called it be Leaving or Not. And here's
how it works. Should call seven one three two one
two five seven ninety seven one three two one two
five seven ninety Today's edition and Believe or Not. It
is brought to you by absolutely no one category today
is all things about Robert Duvall. I'll read you a
question about Robert d. Ball's statements, completely utterly acheory. You'll
say this, believe it, yea, at the same as he
ronni As full of bon comme up. You'll say this
not to believe it or not in a row when
you either when you a seven Hounty t shirt or
a pair of tickets to see Dave Matthews Band May
the eighth of the Woolands Pavilion tickets go on sale
this's Friday at ten o'clock, or you can see a
Perry tickets to see Triumph on their Rock and Roll
Machine Reloaded tour. May twenty second at Smart Financial Center.
Those tickets are available at smart financialcenter dot com. Let's
play Believe It or Not. We'll start with line number two,
Bill on seven ninety Bill, what was your what is
your favorite Dave Matthews song?
Speaker 13: Hote it damn ball up straight?
Speaker 2: Robert Duval's father, Robert Duval's senior, was also a Hollywood actor.
Believe It or not?
Speaker 7: Not?
Speaker 2: All right, here we go statement number two for the
way and Robert Duval served four years in the Army,
where he achieved the rank of staff sergeant. Believe it
or not?
Speaker 3: Not not?
Speaker 2: There is no way Bill's going to see the Dave
Matthews band. Been a while. Chances huh, it's been a
while he's been striking out. I know he's like, I
should just go to a competence to go. Andrew on
seven ninty Andrew, you ready to play Believe it or not?
Speaker 3: Believe it?
Speaker 2: Robert Duvall was considered for the role of Obi Wan
Kenobi in Star Wars, but struggled with an English accent
and the role went to Alec Guinness. Believe It or not?
Speaker 3: Believe it not?
Speaker 2: Nos, excellent work on your part. My favorite A Frank
on seven ninety, Frank, your favorite part of today's ten
to two radio show, Howdy Man, Just listening to Er.
Robert Davall was personally trained by famed method acting coach
Lee Strasburg. Believe It or not?
Speaker 3: Believe it?
Speaker 2: No, we do, enjoyed Vicker Radio seven ninety. Let's go
to a gym in the heights. Jim on seven ninety Jim,
You're ready to play Believe it or not?
Speaker 3: Believe It.
Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty four, Robert Deavall won a Tony Award
for Best Actor in a Play for his betrayal of
William Lowman in a Depth of a Salesman. Believe It
or Not?
Speaker 3: Believe it?
Speaker 2: No, I'm sending it. I'm sending a trend here. Do
you want bickering? By the way, stay tuned. Oh you,
We're gonna give you a bicker fast coming up. Ken
on seven NINTI, Ken, you're ready to play Believe it.
Speaker 3: Or not Believe it?
Speaker 2: Ken combined. Robert Duvall was nominated for the Best Lead
or Supporting Actor Oscar nine Times, which trails only Marlon
Brando and Jack Nicholson. Believe It or Not?
Speaker 3: I don't believe it not.
Speaker 2: No, you shouldn't. Just seven times. Thanks for playing. Let's
go to uh, Greg in Livingston, Greg on seven Nintie,
What was your favorite part of today's ten to two
radio show The gas Station Store. While establishing an acting
career in New York, Robert Devall was roommates with Federals
struggling actors Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman. Believe it or not,
Yeah yet, Bill statement number two for the win. Although
they were close friends, Robert Devall and Gene Hackman were
known to be ill tempered and had several bar fights
between them. Believe it or not, not, All they did fight.
They fit through hands quite a bit.
Speaker 1: Duh.
Speaker 2: So Bill, only when we got Bill and he's not
gonna go to either one of those concerts. Bill, this
is your most impressive win. Man. Have to do one
for a winner tomorrow? Yeah, well tomorrow is a one
answer win Friday. Get rid of these prizes, all right?
Uh pick the show today, Ross tend to. I don't know,
we didn't. I didn't feel it. Honestly, as far as
these shows go, I don't feel like we bickered that. Yeah,
we're the least bickering. We're the least angry of the
group of the unbickerers. That's what we call the show,
the full of bickering. Clinton and Wex are up next.
They're the team. I'll talk you for rockets at six
here on seven ninety eight