Astros Hit 4 Homers and Lose, Spurs Almost Dead, WYD, Josh Jacobs?

Wednesday on The A-Team, Adam Clanton and Adam Wexler react to the Astros' loss to the Rangers, discuss the Spurs falling to the Thunder, examine Josh Jacobs' latest legal problems, and more!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's up, Houston.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
It is a Wednesday edition of the A Team Sports
Talk seven to ninety. Probably a wet Wednesday wherever you are.
I'm pretty sure I can safely say WEX that it's
raining on the entire city right now. I'm fine with it. It
didn't happen my Memorial Day, so I am fine with it.
Welcome into a Wednesday edition of the show. We are
taking you until six o'clock tonight, and then, as you heard,

(00:23):
Matt Thomas will be doing the Astros on Deck. He
really really wants you to know how important that is
that he is doing that and we are not, So
just want to get that out of the way. At
the top of the show, the Astros were down eight
nothing before you could blink, and then they actually made
it a competitive game because they kept hitting home runs
and they still lost. So if a no hitter in

(00:47):
twenty twenty six is the most twenty twenty six Astros
thing ever, then trailing eight nothing in the first inning
the next night and then kind of making it look
competitive in the final analysis is also probably the most
twenty twenty six Astros thing ever.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
Does that make sense? I told you I was worried
about lighter. Yeah, he wasn't very good, I know.

Speaker 4 (01:08):
I mean, he got to pitch all but three of
his outs with a big a lead, And that's because
it was nice for the one game and maybe it'll
be back for a few more games. But it's always
my concern when Jason Alexander takes the mount he's too
easy to hit, and yesterday was a good example of that.
And he also did what his pitching staff teammates have
done most of the year. He gave away runs. And

(01:29):
I don't mean because he let them hit the ball
over the fence twice, Jack Peterson and Evan Carter. I
mean because he put three runners on base in the
first inning and they all scored. He walked as sooner
you walked young. They both scored on the Burger single
and then the Carter triple, and then after you hit
their light hitting catcher with a pitch, you let Jack
Peterson bring him home with a home run. Here's strikes

(01:52):
more often than you don't. Don't hit batters more often
than you do. And maybe it's I mean, honestly, Christian Walker,
maybe makes a play on the Carter triple instead of
fielding it off to the side and the ball goes
down in the corner for a triple. There are a
bunch of reasons why they could have easily had a
disastrous first inning and been down four nothing or five
nothing or three nothing. Fortunately they were down eight nothing,

(02:14):
and that's pretty much a guarantee that you're not gonna win.
It's not like a Spurs thunder game where the Spurs
score the first fifteen points and still lose. That's happened
in this very series. The Astros scored seven times and
never got within obviously any more than a couple of runs,
because the Rangers also put more runs on the board
the rest of the game. The Astros did not only

(02:36):
hit four home runs, they hit absolute bombs all evening
two bombs from your An Alvarez, an absolute rocket off
the bat of Cam Smith, and the same for Jeremy Pania,
who now has a home run this season.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
That was his first.

Speaker 4 (02:48):
He's obviously missed a bunch of time, but that would
be extremely helpful. The most Astros thing about this season
kind of gives you a little bit of insight into
who they are this year. They scored seven runs and lost.
They've scored eight, nine and seven runs in the last
three days, and they're not three to ozho. They lost

(03:09):
one game last year, one game last year when they
scored seven or more runs, they went thirty three and one.
Yesterday was the fourth time already they've lost while scoring
seven runs. I mean that you just shouldn't lose exactly,
And unfortunately they have too many days, even during a
month where the pitching has been very good, even after
a game where the final seven innings great Jason Alexander

(03:34):
did save the team the rest of these days that
they don't have off because they don't have any days
off coming up right into their homestand that starts with Milwaukee.
He could have easily not even gotten out of the
first inning, and unfortunately AJ blue Ball was already just
about ready to come in for him. But he got
out of the first inning and then was able to
get him fifteen more outs.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
That stuff does matter.

Speaker 4 (03:52):
Doesn't take away the sting of the fact that you
essentially gave your telf no chance to win after thirty
minutes of baseball, but it does help the team moving forward.
It does mean you only needed, you know, six more
outs from your bullpen. You got all of them from
AJ Bluebaugh and you're able to go into the rest
of this series today and tomorrow night, and then the
beginning of the series against an actually good team, the

(04:13):
best team in the NL Central with probably hopefully with
Burrows and Ayraghetti going tonight and tomorrow, a pitching staff
that's in decent, if not excellent shape.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Going back to Jason Alexander, though, I just I mean,
I know we're not supposed to expect last season from
him all the time, but can we get like a
little bit closer to last season from him?

Speaker 3 (04:37):
As a starter?

Speaker 4 (04:38):
He's been awesome this year in two starts except for
the eight run inning. Man, how do you want to
say it? Like it's I'm not even blown away yet? Like,
how did that happen to Jason Alexander. I'm not gonna
say that ever. Yeah, I'm more likely to say how
did he throw six shutout innings? Which he did in
the first start.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Now, again, I'm not asked for last year. I'm just
asking for not that first inning. Well, they like last year.

Speaker 4 (05:04):
I don't know what his runs support was off the
top of my head, but I guarantee it was good
in that offense or lack thereof. He was very good.
He kept them in all those games, and some of
the games were very good. But they were winning a
lot of those games while he was pitching, and he
was just giving him six innings a start. That's helpful.
I don't think he was shutting teams out and down

(05:27):
every time.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
I'm just trying to think of, like there if there's
a comparison, he.

Speaker 4 (05:30):
Stinks, why are we wasting our time on Jason? The
second that they get a healthy starty pitcher back, which
is Hunter Brown, he's out.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (05:39):
Why don't you just like he's probably our guest next
Wednesday two thirds.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
I was about to say that's probably gonna happen, and
I'm going to play that back for him.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
Don't you think that'd be funny? Not really, not for you.

Speaker 4 (05:51):
He's thrown eighteen in the third innings for the Astros
this year. The runs allowed is higher than eighteen point one.
Not good, No, not good. You might be able to
win some of these games. They have won one of
the games he's appeared in out of the four.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
All right, let's talk about what happened in the Western
Conference Finals last night. The Spurs are almost dead, so
we can all cheer for that, except for we can't
really because the team that's putting them in the coffin
is just as less. I mean, I cannot think and
this includes the Golden State Warriors. I can't think of

(06:26):
a more universally reviled team because for whatever reason, some
people still like Steph Curry when they were having their run,
even though Draymond Green was his teammate, and they just
had a bunch of guys that were just unlikable. Who's
the most likable guy on the on the Thunder roster?

Speaker 4 (06:43):
Well, last night, I think if there were any people
hanging on to come on, man, everybody just jumping on board,
hop on the bandwagon.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
They stink to watch.

Speaker 4 (06:52):
They're no fun, they skirt the rules, they whine, they flop,
they complain, this isn't basketball. I think all the people
that were left on that wagon, myself included, they're done
with that. Last night was awful, the least watchable game
of the series, not only because the Spurs never put
a run together. They oh, hey they're only down seven,

(07:14):
now they're down thirteen again, and it really wasn't super
competitive and their best player played very poorly. I think
you give credit to the Thunder for that, but I
would give credit to the Thunder for the way that
they they are not interested in playing any kind of
They're they're taking advantage of the fact that the referees
are are unwilling to use their eyes. It wasn't even Sga,

(07:36):
wasn't even Alex Caruso. Last night. Was probably the one
that stands out the most was what McCain did to
Dylan Harper. I think everybody's seen it by now. He
elbows him in the throat as he's being defended and
taking the ball up the court. Harper flails back but
doesn't fall, so no call needs to be made, and
then he goes about trying to play defense, but he's
now in a trail position because McCain continued to dribble

(07:58):
past him after he elbow him in the throat out
of the way. So when he notices that Harper's getting
somewhat close to him, he stops and pulls back, and
before contact is even made with him, he throws his
feet out and off the ground and behind him, so
he will fall forward. Watch it again. I'm not making
this up and I'm definitely not exaggerating. You can't fall

(08:22):
that way when you get hit like that, his feet
come off the ground first, the first thing up and
thrown back, so he'll fall down and the referees fall
for it. I do blame the referees, clearly, because you
got to be better than that. But they're doing so
many things that it's a basketball game. This was out
in the open. They should have never missed that. Bunch
of the other calls that happened within traffic a little

(08:42):
bit more understandable. Goaltending is unacceptable, and this is a
league issue. It's not a thunder issue, and it is
a referee issue, but it's absolutely a league issue, and
we've talked about it all season long this year, most
specifically because it happens so often in Rockets games. The
league has to fix that rule. They're bad at it,
so you got to bail them out by rewriting the rule.

(09:03):
You cannot just say, well, they didn't call it. Everybody
that's watching, everybody in the arena, everybody that cares about
the NBA, your entire fan base, and one of the
teams that got screwed is not real happy about it.
So you got to fix that rule. That was a clear, obvious,
very easy to fix gold and that they just kind of, well,
what do you want us to do? Our three referees

(09:24):
just didn't call it, so we can't review it.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
You just mentioned two aspects of one Western Conference final
game that you could be talking about any game the
Thunder have played this postseason, just this postseason. You could
be talking about any one of the games they played
against any of their now three opponents soon to be
probably a fourth, and it would it would sound the

(09:47):
exact same way. You would come to the same conclusion,
which we always come to the same conclusion when it
comes to the NBA, especially in the postseason. Why is
this so difficult to find three guys who are comp
in it, who aren't blind, who can see what everyone
else in the arena and on television in.

Speaker 3 (10:05):
Particular can see.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
They've got the best seat in the house, and yet
they caught You said, they get.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
Fooled, they fall for it.

Speaker 4 (10:11):
Well, we obviously get to see it fifty times again
after and it's so obvious. Then it's everything that they
do is and obvious immediately. I do think it is
a big, big problem, especially since bring McCain into it.
McCain's been a part of the Thunder for five minutes
and he's already doing the stuff that they're clearly like.
They have whiteboards time, and they have film study time,

(10:32):
and they have their own personal shooting time, and they
go to practice and all that.

Speaker 3 (10:35):
And they TikTok time.

Speaker 4 (10:37):
If you're him, I know, I don't know what kind
of I'm I don't know what portion of practice they
spend on what they do, but it's not zero.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
No, you're right, and I you know, I start to
look just got there. Who's their assistance on the staff?

Speaker 5 (10:53):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (10:53):
Rice grad Mike Wilkes is one of them.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
Okay, you know Mike Wilkes personally used to be here
at Rice right and Houston.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
Okay, can you give him a phone call and say.

Speaker 4 (11:04):
What the bleeper you guys do we He's trying to
further his career and he probably will.

Speaker 3 (11:09):
He's part of a winning coaching staff, winning championships.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
Cheating like for all the people to get mad about
the Astros, like at least it was like beautiful baseball
to watch.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
This is not fun at all for anybody involved.

Speaker 4 (11:25):
Yeah, hopefully Game six is a little bit more entertaining,
and that would rely on the Spurs bringing a little
bit more forced than they did in their last game
or else their season will end, and then it'll be
thunder and Knicks and we will have a why a
White Almost a week's worth of time before that gets there.
A week from tonight they'll start the NBA Finals, and
then the NBA Finals will end and we can finally
look forward to seeing something different. I hope there will

(11:48):
be a lot of players I think this offseason changing
places and addresses and uniforms. The draft is going to
be different after this draft here at the end of June,
because they're gonna vote through the lottery Reform, which is
essentially tanking reform.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
They pass that before they passed the Save Act. It's
definitely happening. It's much easier. Don't you think, I don't know.
Eighty percent of the country wants one of the things.

Speaker 4 (12:15):
Well, eighty percent of the country is not involved in
the vote.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
Yeah they are. Are you voting for it?

Speaker 2 (12:23):
Well, they voted for the people that are voting for it. No,
by proxy, Yes I am, but you're not. Actually you're
right though, because there's only five guy in quotations refuse
to vote for it. It's also much larger number. There's
only thirty people voting on these NBA rules. Why don't
were you to get to this a little bit later
on the show. Do you even like what they're wanting
to do? Who the NBA?

Speaker 5 (12:45):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (12:45):
Well, you definitely. It's going to take a minute or
two to run through what they're trying to do. I'd
like some of it and I hate some of it.
And that's unfortunately because they are putting They're putting a
lot of rules into it, and some of them I
think are going to very very clearly miss the mark.
Others will probably do the job. Sounds like the NBA,
sounds like avags. Still just no, it's not easy. You've

(13:05):
got a goal in mind. You're trying to win basketball games.
Houston Astros losing one hundred and five games a year. Well,
the league's trying to tell teams not to do that,
and it's not necessarily the best way to build your team.
The best way to build your team when you're never
going to sign a free agent because you're in a
crap city and you've got a crap owner. If that
this league allows it is to lose. It's to lose dramatically.

(13:27):
It's to ensure we're going to be so bad that
the very worst possible pick we could get. No matter
what is five, guarantee you to get top five. Well,
they don't want that anymore because too many teams did
it this year in front of an awesome draft class,
and so they just aren't gonna sit back and say, well,
what do you want us to do about it? They're
trying to alleviate what they believe is a very large

(13:47):
people are gonna watch this product, and people are are
not going to attend this product. And they're doing all
this in advance of what is going to be an
extremely highly viewed NBA Finals. This will be extremely heavily.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
I have so much thoughts on what you're talking about, though,
and why it's just now become a problem. I know
it hasn't just now become a problem, but they're treating
it like it's just now become a problem.

Speaker 3 (14:11):
Does that make sense? They teams have been tanking forever,
and they have changed the lottery countless times. You're rid
of a lottery.

Speaker 4 (14:19):
That's changing the lottery, that's getting rid of it. They
should have brought it, It's been discussed many times.

Speaker 5 (14:23):
Do it.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
Again. I think that will solve some problems and create others.
We'll talk about both of those sides.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
But when we come back hitting home four home runs
in a loss the night after a no hitter, very
very twenty twenty six astros. Also, what are you doing,
Josh Jacobs? Seriously, what is the NFL doing? A lot
of police blotterer right before the month of June in
the NFL offseason. So all that and so much more
to get to. I'm going to really enjoy best of

(14:53):
X today. I don't know if wexill enjoyed as much,
but it's pretty funny. That's still to come here during
the two o'clock hour hour number one of a win
the edition of the program the eight. You know Trump
came up in the first segment. Might have to revisit
some audio from the Governor of New York. She's a

(15:14):
little upset that Trump said he's a lifelong Knicks fan,
and so she said she'd like to she'd like to
hear him name.

Speaker 4 (15:25):
She just left out a word they did. It's nostern conference.
She didn't make it in nineteen ninety three, ninety four?
Where were they ninety three Knicks title team? That means
ninety two ninety three, get it?

Speaker 3 (15:39):
I know she made a mistake. I get it.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
Well, if you're gonna say things like that, you can't
make those mistakes.

Speaker 3 (15:47):
She just did. Everything's gonna be fine. She's a ghoul.
You ever looked at her? Let's go on this topic
some more. Keep going, Governor of New York is a ghoul?
All right?

Speaker 2 (15:56):
Last night, when they were down eight nothing, very very early,
I e. The first inning, you did not turn the
TV off because you're a glutton for punishment, or in
this case, you saw what you hoped would be a
comeback when they got it to uh, I guess it
was what nine to six at one point? Did you

(16:18):
feel like they could do it? I never felt like
they could do it. Unfortunately, Wow, that just know what's
none whatsoever? Even when they're hitting four home runs, well,
I mean, I guess the three runs is kind of close.
I guess, yeah, ninth inning, that's when it was kind
of close. How about the fact that Cam Smith and
I believe it was Jordan's first home run?

Speaker 4 (16:40):
Just absolute nukes. All four of them were nukes in
my opinion, that all four of them.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
But anytime you're flirting with four fifty, I think that's
it goes to the next level.

Speaker 4 (16:50):
It's great and all, but the Esach Perettis unfortunately kept
ending innings, which means Jordon Alvarez isn't batting with the
bases full of Astros but one time, and it I know,
it seems silly, you know. When he came up in
the third inning with one out and two runners on,
he grounded out. He did move the runners to second
and third, which was a productive out. Well, Jordon gets

(17:12):
to bat with two runners on and dumb Jack Lighter
in an eight to nothing game, said why don't I
just throw him a cookie? Probably his worst pitch of
the night, heart of the plate, and Jordon absolutely demolished it.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
Now it's eight three.

Speaker 4 (17:25):
A couple innings later, Astros have the bases loaded, and
one of their most productive hitters, saysar Salazar, he got
hit by a pitch drove in run number four. Basses
still loaded, one out, Jordon Alvarez is three hitters away,
Payna flies out and Perettas pops out. So now you
leave the bases loaded and leave yord On Alvarez in

(17:48):
the on deck circle. Tragic stays at nine to four.
A couple innings later, h Perettis again nobody was on
base third out of the seventh inning. If he reaches
then yard on Alvarez is batting down five with a
run around base. Instead, he leads off the eighth inning
and the very first pitch that he sees he hits
over the fence, one run down, nine to five. Cam

(18:11):
Smith couple batters later again after nobody on one more run,
nine to six. Their last three homers were all solo
home runs. From the eighth inning on. You hit three
home runs in the eighth and ninth innings and nothing
comes of it because you weren't very close. He also
gave up runs immediately after you scored runs throughout the game.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
Not a great recipe for success. And again, I don't
know what I'm supposed to expect these days. I know
that reinforcements are on the way from a pitching standpoint,
both of the starting and closing variety.

Speaker 4 (18:47):
Yeah, Josh Haters gonna throw to day and tomorrow. According
to what Dana Brown told us right here on Sports
Talk seven ninety earlier Wednesday, Thursday, back to back is
first back to back of his rehab appearances. And it
all goes well there, then he's probably due to join
the Astros during this upcoming homestand Hunter Brown gets his
start this weekend for the Space Cowboys. If all goes well,

(19:10):
then he's probably in line for only needing one more
rehab start thirty five pitches in his first probably if
everything's fine somewhere in the fifties for this next one
and then the one after that, pushing him into or
very close to seventy pitches, then he would return. And
Dana keeps referring to it is middle of June, and
semantically speaking, that's a conversation for us here on the show.

(19:31):
I think he just means once you get to double
figures like the tenth or the twelfth, not necessarily the
fifteenth or seventeenth. So I think that's the timeline for
those two pitchers. And Joey low Perfido will also be
back in the lineup today after not playing yesterday because
of his little foot issue. If all goes well for him,
same thing, He probably returns at some point during this

(19:52):
homestand and obviously Taylor Tremmel has already returned. What you
can expect from this team is staying at least where
they are now. Obviously that doesn't mean they're That means
they're not gonna get anywhere. But the days of them
drifting to eleven and twelve games under five hundred, they
have to be over. I believe they're over. But if

(20:14):
they're not over, then the years over.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
You believe they're over because of some of these players
coming back, or just because they're playing better, or both.

Speaker 4 (20:20):
Because they're playing so many games. I mean, the Milwaukee
series is an interesting one because it's one of the
few teams that they'll have coming up that's really good good.
And then you you've got the Pirates in there, You've
got a series with the Athletics coming up. You got
a series with the.

Speaker 3 (20:35):
Angels coming up. Astros though these days, and.

Speaker 4 (20:39):
That's why you lose a division, so they have to
show us otherwise. I mean, they're down in this division, right. Well,
so you've played ten games, eleven games against the Mariners
and A's. You're eight games under five hundred overall. Seven
of them are against those teams, right, they're nine, they're
two and nine.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
Those teams you can't.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
Have those types of losses against because you're trying to.

Speaker 3 (20:59):
It's the only reas isn't there ahead of them? Right?

Speaker 4 (21:01):
I Mean, it's not that you can't afford its actual games,
push them there by not beating them.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
Ye, stop helping them.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
So yeah, be interesting to see how they respond the
rest of this series and then come home. As you mentioned,
and I'm I'm assuming the back to back hater appearances
is by design just to give him the old.

Speaker 4 (21:19):
You're not ready to join the majors if you haven't
accomplished that. According to most teams and rehabs situations, this
is what they want to see. How did you recover
from one day to the next, and how did you recover,
you know, from the third day to the fourth day
after giving I hope he doesn't have to go deep
into either of those games and the plan is in place.
But if his outing tonight doesn't go particularly quickly, then

(21:40):
maybe they don't want to push it into a second night.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
If it goes well and he turns to the opposing
dugout and does a crotch chop, would you be okay
with that? Uh?

Speaker 3 (21:49):
No? I wouldn't okay.

Speaker 4 (21:52):
Neither would think Oklahoma City would appreciated either.

Speaker 3 (21:56):
Well, you know what, nobody likes Oklahoma City, so who cares?
Will be fine either way? All right?

Speaker 2 (22:03):
Speak of that we had a very very interesting celebration,
if you will, on the mound for a Brewer's pitcher.

Speaker 3 (22:11):
We'll get to that when we come back. In the
Best of X.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
The on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 3 (22:20):
Oh Man.

Speaker 2 (22:22):
One of the greatest wrestling theme songs in the history
of well wwe WWF, but honestly of the Attitude era,
this is right up there, and it's so appropriate for
what happened in this game between the Cardinals and the Brewers, which,
by the way, WEX Milwaukee was up six nothing, so

(22:42):
it was not going the Cardinals way. And they're in
the eighth inning and Abner your rebay is on the bump.
He gets a strikeout to end the inning and just
there's not even a doubt about it, completely turns his
entire body to the Cardinals dugout and does let's see

(23:05):
how many was it?

Speaker 3 (23:06):
One? Two, three?

Speaker 2 (23:08):
Crotch chops, just like he was triple h or Shawn
Michael's back in nineteen ninety eight.

Speaker 3 (23:17):
Okay, did you like that? I did not like that? Why?
I don't think it was probably warranted, but I don't
know if there's more to it. Well, Jonathan Lucroy didn't
like it either.

Speaker 4 (23:28):
What do he have to say former catcher concussed by
Jake Marisnik For those that don't remember him as a
member of the Angels, Yeah, he played it for a
bunch of teams. He's actually very very active, especially in
baseball conversations.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
I agree with a lot of his takes most of
the time. I don't know if I agree with this one,
but that's because I have a personal stake in it.
This is what happens when you don't have veteran leadership
in the clubhouse. Some people think it's funny. I think
it's horse bleep. If he was my teammate, he and
I would have a major issue. Kids come to these
games and emulate us. That is a responsibility we must

(24:04):
uphold to the highest standard. This isn't the WWE. So
that's pretty much how you're feeling about this. I take
it not in those words.

Speaker 4 (24:14):
I wouldn't use this that opportunity to call out every
player on one of the best teams in the National League.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
That's not how I would do it. But that's how
he did it. He called out every player on the
best team in the National League.

Speaker 4 (24:27):
They mean because they lacked patteran leadership that this would
never happen, we would have a big, big problem. I mean,
he's for those that don't know, he is definitely the
type of X Big leaguer that knows better than everybody else.
But he's I don't mind people's opinions, and he could

(24:48):
absolutely be right, But how does he know how they're
handling it? And he actually probably knows some people in
their clubhouse, so maybe he has a little bit more
insight to it. But I doubt that that's the reason
that this happened, because this is not the first time
this super emotional player has been super emotional in a

(25:09):
game situation. So in his mind, in Lucroi's mind, the
former catcher, this is probably something that either has been
addressed or should have been addressed long before. It's definitely
been addressed as of what happened yesterday.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
Let me, I'm gonna take a wild stab in the
dark and guess that Jonathan Lucroix would not have been
a fan of jose Lima's act.

Speaker 3 (25:32):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (25:33):
That's that's a good It's probably true, and I think
people who don't like that kind of stuff are I'm
not a fan of that, not a fan of that viewpoint,
So you're fine.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
In other words, you're fine with a demonstrative strikeout celebration
so long as it's not the crotch chop that dx me.

Speaker 4 (25:49):
No, this is it's not even what he did. It's
just so violently obvious what he was trying to do.
He was trying to antagonize the other team when he
did something he's supposed to do, get him out of
the inning or get a strike.

Speaker 3 (26:01):
Did his job.

Speaker 4 (26:02):
He did his job, and he also was the umpire
did his job too, because the strike three called was
challenged while he was crotch chopping, and it was an
unsuccessful challenge because the pitch was that it would have
been ridiculous. But okay, Like you're playing baseball, man, guy
hits a home run.

Speaker 3 (26:20):
What does he do?

Speaker 4 (26:21):
He bat flips, he looks towards his gug aack, he celebrates,
and he runs around the base is at whatever speed
he deems necessary. This is at the major league level
or lack of college players. They're clueless on how to celebrate,
and that's why we constantly have issues in their games
and the AAU circuit or the Perfect Game circuit and
other places like that. They probably need to get a

(26:42):
handle on some of that. But when at the highest
level you see some of these things are okay, then
you start to do that too. Pitchers, big strikeout ends
an inning, you get out of a bas's loaded jam,
a double plays turned behind you.

Speaker 3 (26:53):
Whatever it is, fist pumping, screaming violently at the top
of your lungs, you off times, it's with your helmet,
whatever you want to do, if it's not directed at
the player who hit the baseball, or the team and
their dugout.

Speaker 4 (27:08):
I really don't know what you want from these people
playing a game that have emotions.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
It's okay.

Speaker 4 (27:16):
They can't all be uninteresting on field robots like Craig
Vigio and Jeff Bagwell.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
Well, in case you're wondering what his manager had to say,
this was Pat Murphy after the game on Abner Uriba's
DX impression.

Speaker 3 (27:35):
Does that's unacceptable?

Speaker 6 (27:40):
Yeah, it's just it's unacceptable. I don't know what what
got over him. I mean, he's he's been an emotional guy,
but that kind of thing, that's just not how we
do things.

Speaker 3 (27:52):
And I was embarrassed by it. And you know, why
are we doing it?

Speaker 5 (27:58):
Six in game?

Speaker 6 (28:00):
What are we doing there? And there must be something
keeper that I don't know about. So whatever is going on,
you can't tolerate that. For his teammates and for everything else.

Speaker 5 (28:11):
It's just not.

Speaker 6 (28:14):
It's not going to be tolerated. That's always to it.
I've already talked to him about it, but we haven't.
I wouldn't be surprised if the MLB did something, you
know what I mean, Like, that's just that's just shot.
Don't do that.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
So I'm guessing if MLB did step in, it would
be a fine.

Speaker 4 (28:30):
Well, that's kind of why the question that last part
was the answer to a question out what do you
basically how do you plan on handling this? And I
think they're waiting to see if Major League Baseball at
leads to a certain degree agrees with their point of
view and says we really would prefer this not to happen.
You can celebrate, you can pump your fist. We're not
going to lay out all the celebrations that are okay

(28:52):
and that aren't. Although even if we would have done
this celebration towards his own bench, I doubt Major League
Baseball would like that either.

Speaker 3 (28:59):
This just worse because of it.

Speaker 4 (29:01):
Obviously, it brings the other team into it, so I
think that was probably why Murphy said it in that manner. Well,
let's see what the league does. So it's weird. We
talked about this the other day. I think it was
maybe about the NBA. I can't remember if it was
baseball or this, but the league takes care of a
lot of this stuff to kind of help the clubhouse out.

Speaker 3 (29:20):
So we're not happy with this.

Speaker 4 (29:21):
We can't believe he did this, and the league says,
you're punished for this amount of time, and so it
takes a little bit of the relationship issues out of
the out of their hands.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
It makes me think, and I know I'm not comparing
these two things. I'm just thinking about a league punishment
versus a team punishment, and it reminds me of what
Roger Goodell said about Dirty Diana's boyfriend and how he's
just basically going to leave it up to the Patriots
to determine whether or not he's gonna have some sort
of punishment.

Speaker 4 (29:52):
I mean, I see the correlation, except I totally disagree
with the reasoning behind it. If the league really thinks
there's something wrong with the relationship because it impacted the
integrity of their game, which I don't think it did,
as you guys have heard me talk about countless times.
If they think it did, then yes, it would fall
under their jurisdiction.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
Otherwise they got cheated on his wife.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
You don't think it affected at least a little bit
the the whole trade situation with Julio Jones. I really
do know.

Speaker 4 (30:29):
I think it's fine to have people that think both
sides of that. I'm not so strongly saying, come on,
of course, some reporter can't make these gms think things
that aren't true. I can't tell you that now. The
league actually should care. It has nothing to do with
the other teams. It has to do with you know who,
you're allowing to push people, players, coaches for awards, especially

(30:50):
if you have a vote, and then you just.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
Especially if there's financial incentive for the players involved.

Speaker 4 (30:55):
Absolutely definitely should be something that they actually should care about.
And again, the team that's benefited from all this that
might be if the league believes on all that, well,
that's why they should care. I mean, it's of course
it's the Patriots, and if they benefited from any of
the things you just mentioned, yeah, the league should care.
If the league really true, well, First of all, they

(31:15):
probably should want this to not happen, so they might
consider if we do something, maybe this will help deter
reporters and coaching staff members from dating one another, whether
they're married or not, because the marriage part of it
shouldn't matter at all to the league. The fact that
someone who is reporting on the game, some of them

(31:37):
who work for you, the NFL and ESPN, now you'd
probably prefer if they weren't dating one another.

Speaker 3 (31:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
Disappointed, I am, And I don't care if it's some
bad taste. It's a roast. Yeah, disappointed I am in
Tom Brady that he had the dais at Kevin Hart's
roast and didn't take a shot at his ex teammate
Mike Vrabel.

Speaker 3 (31:54):
Uh. It was right there, man.

Speaker 4 (31:56):
I'm sure somebody that was up there, whether it was
Chelsea Handler or Pete Davidson or Kevin himself, has probably
had some relationship public relationship issues that he could have
easily weaved into the migrade I think right.

Speaker 3 (32:11):
Or he could have.

Speaker 4 (32:12):
Just said, I don't know if I want to go
that route considering my relationship issues.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
Well, his relationship was not off limits when he got roasted. SI,
that's why I thought, maybe.

Speaker 4 (32:22):
Nothing's off limits, but he might not want to dive
through that pool if he's how he feels about his
own personal history.

Speaker 2 (32:29):
For the record, Abner apologized to everybody but the Cardinals.

Speaker 4 (32:34):
He kind of explained, why do you want to play
it now or when we get I don't want to
play it at all, not with this crappy system we have.
He did apologize to his teammates, his organization, his bosses, basically,
but he described things that had happened during the game yesterday,
things that he didn't describe them. He said things that
happened during the game, and he said there was an

(32:54):
incident during on field work before the game, But when
asked about what those things were, he said, I'm not
going to comment on. Essentially, he had alluded to the
fact that when certain brewers Christian Yeolich among them, were
coming to the plate, that certain signals not sign stealing related,
but things like what he was doing were done from inside.
The Cardinals dugout, and he just wanted to show his

(33:15):
teammates that he had their.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
Back done to him or to his teammates. His teammates, Okay, yeah,
Christian yallis just kind of.

Speaker 4 (33:23):
Try and you heard Murphy, their manager say, I don't
know if there's more to this. Yeah, according to your
rebate in his mind, yes, it would make a whole
lot more, absolutely more to this than Oh I got
an eighth inning strikeout and a sixth inning in the
in a six to nothing game. So here's the X,
all right when we come back Jordan's slump Air quotes,

(33:45):
I think it's officially over.

Speaker 7 (33:49):
This was hit a bile the right center film over
the bullpen and ten roasty. You're not Alvarez with a
three on Jack his seventeenth.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
Of the year, A new picture for the Rangers.

Speaker 8 (34:05):
It's Jalen Beaks and Jordon Pounds went down the right
field line. It's hooking and it is a fair ball
and a home run. Hooked it around the foul pole.
Second home run of the game for Jordon Albarez. He's
driven in four tonite and it is nine to five Rangers,
Jurdon going deep for the eighteenth time.

Speaker 2 (34:25):
My favorite Jordon home runs is when Robert Ford can't
even get the pitching change information out of his mouth
before the ball's gone, like the second one.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
Yeah, I gotta get get the lefty out there. To
face Jordon.

Speaker 2 (34:39):
It's a rule of thumb in Major League Baseball amongst
opposing managers of the Houston Astros is a time honor tradition.
Bring in your lefty, let him get pummeled. Just ask
Robbie Ray how that went. So, that little miniature slump
probably over. Probably safe to say that he's back, if
you will, I mean two in one game anyway.

Speaker 4 (35:01):
Yeah, he's struggling quite a bit. Only leads the league
pretty much across the board. How long was the non slump. Well,
I mean as of right now, he only leads the
I said league, and by league, I mean the major one.
He leads the major leagues in slugging and ops and
ops plus in total bases and intentional walks, all things

(35:27):
he's never led the league in before at the end
of any season.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
Well, unlike cal Rawley, he's kind of consistently been this
guy from his entire career.

Speaker 3 (35:38):
When healthy, he's been awesome.

Speaker 4 (35:41):
He is in some places, having like in most places.
Statistically speaking, they're some of the additional analytical information, some
of the advanced numbers. There's a lot of things that
are pretty similar. It was batting average with balls in
play last year for his less than two hundred played
appeances ninety nine, it was two ninety five. That was

(36:02):
his batting average when he put balls in play. This
year it's two ninety six, so it's basically the same.
Last year, his exit ve low was ninety four point
seven on average, This year it's it's ninety four point three.
Strikeout percentage last year sixteen point six, but this year
sixteen point seven. What has changed pretty significantly, which might

(36:26):
lead to his new career high in home runs because
it's hard to hit. Percentage is just like all those
other numbers I've given you. Fifty two point nine last year,
fifty two point eight this year, virtually no difference. What
has changed is his flyball percentage. He was at thirty
three percent as for his career, and last year was
a low point. It's just thirty one point nine. This

(36:49):
year's at thirty nine point four, so almost an eight
percent increase in flyball percentage. He's got eighteen home runs
already this season, to one third of the season done
basically well. Two more thirds means that's well over fifty.
He doesn't have anything close to that in his career.

(37:09):
Thirty seven, almost halfway to his career high is where
he sits today. Thirty seven is his career high, and yes,
play games played plays into that, but his home run
percentage is just to tick up from what it's been
in previous seasons. The year he played twenty twenty, the
COVID year, those nine plate appearances, Yes, his home run

(37:33):
percentage is almost nine plate appearances, was eleven point one percent. Otherwise,
he's got a career high this year at seven point five,
more than twice as high as last year.

Speaker 3 (37:44):
He's awesome.

Speaker 4 (37:45):
This is a an MVP caliber season that he's having.

Speaker 2 (37:50):
Well, hopefully the Astros can get their season back on
track a little bit more so that he can actually
get votes, because I would hate for him to not
even be in the running simply because of the team
he's on, And I know baseball can be different at
times about that, but I just don't think he's got
a shot if his team's not.

Speaker 3 (38:10):
At least Mike Trout's done at plenty.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
I know that's what I'm saying, Like there are exceptions
to the rule, but why do I feel like he'd
get edged out for some dumb reason because Aaron Judge
or something stupid like that. He's won enough MVPs. We
all know what he's gonna do get in the postseason
and choke all right. Three o'clock hour is coming up next.
Imagine simply imagine having to root for either of the

(38:33):
two teams in the Western Conference Finals, plus the superstar from.

Speaker 3 (38:38):
France for the Spurs.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
Wanted absolutely zero smoke after that loss last night?

Speaker 3 (38:44):
Did he order a code red on the thunder? All
of that up for discussion.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
Next the ad on Sports Talks.

Speaker 2 (38:53):
The Team Sports Talks seven to ninety hour, number one
over on SCCHN simulcast underway. If you want to watch us,
we are waving at you right now. Wex and ac
with you on a Wednesday edition of the program. Josh
Jordan is our producer. We're taking up until six o'clock tonight.
Astros looking to nudge ahead in their series with the
Texas Rangers. They have split the first two games so far,

(39:16):
and last night was a little bit of an adventure
seeing as how they gave up eight runs in the
first inning and then wound up losing ten to seven.
Kind of a wild affair. Four home runs hit by
your Astros in a loss, So very very twenty twenty
six of them coming off a no hitter the night before,
and we've talked a lot about that in the first hour.
Also a little bit about the NBA postseason and the

(39:38):
fact that we are one Oklahoma City Thunder game or
win away from seeing what has already been advertised by
the way wex on. Was it merchandising side of the
NBA website.

Speaker 3 (39:54):
If the post was to be believed, which probably was.
It hasn't this happened before?

Speaker 2 (40:01):
I mean, I know that there's third world countries all
over the planet that get the nineteen ninety four New
York Knicks NBA Championship t shirts, if you will, But
this is different like slipping on something like this. And
wasn't there like an advertisement that ran or something like
that in a market?

Speaker 4 (40:23):
Last ESPN ran advertisement for the a series that was
not yet set with the team that had not yet advanced.

Speaker 3 (40:31):
But that was last round or was that first last round? Okay?
So I mean, you know.

Speaker 4 (40:35):
Calves Knicks, but the Calves Pistons series wasn't still over.

Speaker 3 (40:39):
Yet, gotcha? Okay, that's the one I was trying to
think of.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
But look, look, I get it that the NBA is
ecstatic to have the Knicks in the finals. And by
the way, I am too, because they're the only hope
we have left this thing. Last night we finally cracked WEX.
Last night, he finally he acquiesced, he understands where we're
all coming.

Speaker 4 (41:00):
We also had another game where the Spurs did a
good job of making the one of the most efficient,
if not the most efficient perimeter scorer shooter in the
NBA very inefficient.

Speaker 3 (41:12):
Again.

Speaker 4 (41:13):
He missed twelve of his nineteen shots. The MVPSGA, he
only made seven shots. Naturally, he scored thirty two points,
though he didn't even get twelve free throws, yeah, seventeen.
Those honors went to Victor Winbnyama. Well, Victor, his team
lost largely because he had a very passive and ineffective game,

(41:34):
was not a huge part of their offense early, and
then because he was ineffective, he wasn't a huge part
of their offense period. He totly took fifteen shots while
playing thirty eight minutes. He only scored twenty points, twelve
of which came at the free throw line. He made
all twelve of his free throws miraculously, but they weren't
really in the game. They weren't getting blown out, but
they weren't really in the game for most of the night.
And now they are meeting a win. They are playing

(41:56):
in a must win game in their very next game,
and if they win that game, they're playing in another
must win game. I don't believe they're playing two more games,
but I definitely don't believe they're winning two more games.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
Okay, I know you're gonna hate this, so I'm just
gonna get that out of the way. You've all been forewarned,
especially you. Is Scott Foster walking through the door in
San Antonio tomorrow night.

Speaker 3 (42:19):
He's the extender.

Speaker 4 (42:20):
I'm not sure how many times they want an official
so closely to work a game again.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
I know he's I think he worked game three. I
was gonna say four, game four.

Speaker 3 (42:33):
If it was game four, I can't imagine they bring
him back for Game six. Do officials typically work multiple games?

Speaker 4 (42:39):
And I think they have twenty four officials. I'll go
back and look. Twenty four officials assigned to work the
conference finals. Six to eight of them are crew chiefs.

Speaker 3 (42:50):
I believe like.

Speaker 2 (42:51):
He's definitely working a finals game. For sure, he's working
multiple finals games. It's not a sweep. So you're thinking
because of that, but he's just saying he just worked
one of their games. They have an entire crew that's
everybody's available. There isn't another series, and there isn't another
series even set to begin for a week.

Speaker 4 (43:11):
The guys that worked last night are out. I'm wondering
how many of the guys that work game four of
this series or game four of the last series would
also be out as they just work their way through
the officials because they clearly aren't grading them at this point.
I know they act like they are, but the same
officials get the same assignments almost every year. Once you
get out of the first round, the first round group
of officials, you'll see a lot of changes. This is

(43:32):
just a bigger group of officials that they are. This
is their first playoffs, so this is their first or
second or third. Once you get past that guys, they
get weeded out in the first round and they go
back to all the same officials we see every year
at this stage.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
Well, you mentioned it in the first hour. It's I mean,
it's top of mine. Basically every time the thunder play,
they're just they have zero shame. It's not even like
the McCain thing you mentioned where he elbows the defender
in the throat and then throws himself down in a
completely unnatural trajectory, I guess is how you described it

(44:10):
in the first hour.

Speaker 4 (44:11):
If flopping penalties were a thing where they either called
them in game or penalized players after the game at
any kind of reasonable rate to deter them from doing it,
this would be an easy call for the league office,
Absolutely easy call.

Speaker 2 (44:26):
Well, let me let me as that pertains to this.
Before we get to what Victor Wimbinyama did or in
this case didn't do last night, let's get to what
he said in a little bit. Yeah, if the NBA
actually cared about flopping specifically, because that's what it's that's
what everybody's talking about right now, particularly with one team,

(44:47):
even though every team employees multiple players that do it
on a regular basis. What's the what's the penalty amount
that it would take to get the attention of these
guys to they'll stop doing it.

Speaker 4 (45:01):
Well, in this particular case, if you're talking about McCain,
it might be if you give a nominal figure a
set amount versus a percentage, it could.

Speaker 3 (45:12):
Hit percentage is more fair, I would say.

Speaker 4 (45:14):
Of course, it's more fair because if you're saying, oh
my god, you cannot do this, we cannot have that.
This is the biggest stage. Please stop doing this. And
it's gonna cost you fifty thousand dollars shay oh, and
the Thunder just issued your your latest check on your
salary which gives you almost fifty million, So I'm sure
this is going to be.

Speaker 3 (45:32):
A huge fifty is even a game for him? Is
it silly?

Speaker 4 (45:35):
So I just don't know what they would have to
do to where players would actually care, because it would
be exceptionally high number. It would have to be time
on the court, in my opinion, because nobody's going to
reference this Oklahoma City fans after they have their second
parade and NBA fans in five years, ten years, definitely

(45:59):
in twenty years, nobody's gonna say, yeah, I know they
won the title, but no, they're just gonna say they
won the title.

Speaker 2 (46:05):
You know what's funny about you saying that, I don't
think that this was their mo last season, like the
Thunder winning the title last year. I'm not saying it
was more about what you brought up to my attention
way early on. Last year, SGA pushes off all the time,
he's he's morphed into something much worse.

Speaker 3 (46:24):
He still does that, but now he just falls down
all the time. Falls down.

Speaker 4 (46:28):
There's people that follow cover and produce really good content
for the NBA, and they're relegated to counting the times
the best player in the league falls.

Speaker 3 (46:38):
That's a pretty good indicator. You've got an issue.

Speaker 2 (46:40):
Doesn't that, by definition mean he's not the best player?
I mean, I wish it were as simple as that.
I mean, you can watch him play. I can watch
him play. He's pretty freaking good. Jokic doesn't do this.
Anthony Edwards doesn't saying is he good or not? He's
really really good.

Speaker 4 (46:54):
He makes an exceptional percentage of his shots most nights
from anywhere on the court, which makes it more maddening
that he does this well. James Harden was very, very similar.
He was arguably the most capable. He was definitely the
best scorer in the league. He was arguably the best
playmaker in the league. He was definitely a MVP of
the league. And he did these things differently. But did
these things. Victor Wiminyama, as you mentioned, had a off night.

(47:18):
I'd say, four for fifteen's an off night for one
of the league's NBA All NBA First teamers.

Speaker 3 (47:24):
He wanted no part of media after the game.

Speaker 4 (47:27):
Well, he just didn't do any media. It wasn't schedule
to go to the podium. I don't believe. He was
in the locker room with other members of his team
that were speaking with the media, and he just walked
right on out past the media and out the tunnel
and that was it.

Speaker 3 (47:40):
No media for him last night. And it is a stipulation.

Speaker 4 (47:43):
I think if requested, especially players like that, they don't
have to be told. They know, once you've reached this
stage of the playoffs and who you are, you requested
to speak after all of the games. It's why healthy players,
the best healthy player on every team talks every single game.
Lebron talked every single game ramp and healthy would have
talked to every single game, win, lose, or how you performed.
If injury is relatable or related to the situation, then

(48:07):
maybe you wouldn't, but otherwise you know you're talking, whether
it's in the locker room or at the podium. Lebron
did all of his avails essentially in his locker room,
which is totally or at his locker, totally fine. And
I think that was what the presumption was when Binyama
would do last night. But he chose not to, and
you figure the league would step in, and they did
because they've had a bunch of instances in the past

(48:27):
in the playoffs where players have decided to skirt their
media responsibilities and they have stipulations in place that say
you can't do that and punishments in place. He did
not receive a punishment. He was warned, please please please
don't do this again. Second, that is typically standard protocol
for the league. They didn't go special case, although they

(48:50):
could have said, well, I don't care that you haven't
done this before. This is the Western Conference finals. This
is a big deal to us, our media partners, and
our fans. And part of the way the fame get
to know our players, and part of what our extremely
incapable sports talk radio hosts all over the country rely
on is awful soundbites from players. So you need to
give them to them. Well, two things decided just to

(49:11):
not do anything. Two things make this completely nauseating. One
sending even the first time that he's been handled with
kick gloves over something like this in the postseason. I mean,
anybody else does what he does, they're at least fined,
if not suspended. But because he was ejected in the
first quarter, the NBA chose to do neither. So I'm
sure he learned his lesson that time.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
And this is done again. That's right, You're right, he
did learn his lesson. Congratulations Victor Whale. That's amazing. Good
for him, and he'll clearly learn his lesson after this.
You gotta talk, because it never ever occurred to him
to not talk when he wanted to say one of
his jackass statements in the past about how he should

(49:50):
be the MVP and here's my three point plan as
the why, or we're going to do this, that, and
the other when they never even won a playoff game
a year ago. The guy is cocky as I'll get out,
and has no problem holding that microphone and saying what
everybody wants him to hear as long as it's on
his terms and he's in a good mood.

Speaker 3 (50:07):
But last night not so much.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
So again, I'll just check that over in the other
column and add it to the litany of reasons I
can't get with this guy. Can't stand this guy will
never root for him, and he could be wearing any
other jersey other than a Spurs jersey, and I'd feel
the exact same way.

Speaker 4 (50:25):
Back here on the eighteen X and AC here with
you this Wednesday afternoon, Astros Baseball come in your way
as usual on the road at seven o'clock in Arlington,
last night, tonight and tomorrow night, each of those seven
o'clock first pitches, and we'll get you into the Astros
on deck show beginning at six o'clock. You might have noticed,
and I hope you have, and I know you have
if you follow myself on social media, either on the

(50:47):
X platform or on Instagram, or quite simple, you follow
the Houston Rockets. A couple of their more recent posts, Well,
they've been very suggestive and very teasy. And today they
posted something ey I would absolutely eat at if it existed,
Rudy T's Diner. And yesterday they posted a couple of
photos silhouettes pretty easy to recognize. One of them was

(51:12):
Kevin Durant in front of a sun set ish Hugh
type background and the other one was Alpera and Shingoon.
Same story today at the diner where you have a
red and yellow condiments in their red and yellow bottles,
ketchup in the red and mustard in the yellow, which
some people think is tied into something that might be,

(51:35):
as they say in the post, coming soon. The Rockets
have had all sorts of incredible uniform designs pop up
over the last couple of years, every team in the
NBA with the opportunity to create some alternate looks. The
blue unis which we saw on the back and front
of players like DeMarcus Cousins and John Wall the Dunkster.

(51:59):
Not more recently that we've seen adorn parts of the
uniform of Jalen Green, the Duncture and Not himself, Ament
Thompson and many others. Not too long ago, we did
have a version of jerseys that had red and yellow
and white on them, ketchup and mustard. Seeing the logo
pop up quite a bit with the Summit collection produced

(52:22):
on the merchandising side in the last couple of years.
So all those signs, along with other leaks around social
media to be believed or not, suggest that something, as
they say, is coming soon.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
So I don't know what to think of.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
Like there's been articles written about this and theories and
some people are like, well, they're clearly going to get
rid of the R logo, and I don't know if
that's going to be the case. I do know that
I have long wanted them to do kind of what
the Pistons did, which is just kind of modernized what
they won their championships in.

Speaker 3 (53:00):
It's funny, simple you mentioned the Pistons.

Speaker 4 (53:02):
If you again, if you follow me on social I've
seen a few posts the last couple of weeks from
at coach Scotti Brooks because his daughter is very, very
influential on social media, so she's poking fun at how
uninfluential he is by including him in posts. Yesterday, yesterday
they posted him going through his closet of NBA jerseys,

(53:25):
the ones that he wore as an NBA player. So
you saw the jersey he wore when he was teammates
with Kim Olajuan here in Houston, the beautiful Scottie Brooks
ketchup and mustard. You just brought up the Pistons, and
he kind of explained how briefly he was a member
of the Pistons. Essentially he wasn't, but it was believed

(53:46):
that he was going to be. You remember those killer
Pistons warm up tops where their first name was across
the chest. Yeah, and their last name and it was
a their warm up top was basically a short leave.
Jack did his say Scottie or Scott It said Scott okay,
and then Brooks on the back and he went he
had the I think a lot of people have been

(54:08):
looking back at the Wolves jersey that are obviously associated
with Kevin Garnett in that era, with a very sharp
lettering on wolves, very clear, sharp pointed. He had one
of those. So, yeah, I was just looking at the
ketchup and mustards yesterday.

Speaker 3 (54:23):
Isn't that. No, they traded him to Dallas the Rockets.

Speaker 4 (54:26):
He brought one of those out too, because he wore
the old school Mavericks jersey as well. Yep, with the
cowboy I actually that wasn't a terrible logo, and they
had a version of that adorn their bodies in court
the last handful of years.

Speaker 3 (54:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:41):
I say all that to say, like, I know, that
seems overly simplistic with what the Pistons have done. I mean,
their logo basically looks like the one that Isaiah Thomas
played under. That's what everybody in Houston wants. I mean,
I know, not everybody. There are idiots out there that
think that the vapor trails and blue with the grinning

(55:03):
rocket circling around and an awful logo.

Speaker 3 (55:07):
Is just, Oh, it's a killer. It's so amazing. I
mean a rocket with shark teeth.

Speaker 4 (55:10):
Yeah, that it was not that would still even though
there are people who love it, and we see it
at the arena, not a ton of it, but we
still see it. It's okay to love it. It's just
certainly not the majority. It's very definitively not the majority.
Like when I'm looking, you know me, I love gear.
I'm wearing a Rockets hoodie right now. If you're not
watching right now, I'm wearing a plain, undescript, non logoed

(55:34):
polo shirt.

Speaker 3 (55:35):
Or it's Wednesday. Yeah, that's not true.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
We're wex Is wearing a very festive Astros Hawaiian shirt yesterday.

Speaker 3 (55:42):
And the fact that I remember that, I have no
idea how well I do that. Every single time they
throw a no hitter the night before you're celebrating, celebrating.

Speaker 4 (55:51):
I made a mistake though, of putting on a I
think the last time they were playing the oh it
was over. It was probably over the weekend when they
had remember when it was, but I put on a
Lone Star series shirt circa I don't know when.

Speaker 2 (56:05):
Oh my goodness, it did not go well. Was it
a gimmick or a promo? Items a promo? Okay? I
never understood though, less saying all right, we've won two titles.
Change everything was my team, well, it was his. He
wanted to sell merch, which he did. It works pretty
much every time.

Speaker 3 (56:25):
How many times did you go to the Rocket Shop
and Memorial City Mall. I've been there quite a few
times because it would it never had ketchup and mustard. Yep.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
I mean I remember as a teenager, like one of
the first places I drove with my license was down
from Cyprus to it in the Beltway.

Speaker 3 (56:40):
It wasn't not a far drive for me. That was
my hometown mall.

Speaker 4 (56:43):
If you were gonna get off the elevator or escalator
and hooligans were wandering around in my group, there would
probably be poppets at the at the first step off.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
How about your mall is now a nicer mall in
town and my old mall is awful. There are now
curfews at Willowbrook Mall apparently. But all that is to say,
I don't want I don't know what's gonna happen. I
don't know what it's gonna look like. If Ketchup and
Mustard comes back, it's gonna be hard for me to
complain too much. I really like the Dunkster not and

(57:15):
I've said a million times if they were like, all right,
we're not doing the Ketchup and Mustard. You can't have
what you want, but we're going with the he Town jerseys.
Is our permanent look, that's our logo, that's our jersey,
that's our color scheme.

Speaker 3 (57:27):
I would love it.

Speaker 4 (57:28):
Well, remember just a couple of weeks ago, Rockets had
Game three, four and six at home, and they covered
all the seats and their T shirts. Most years, those
T shirts feature whatever this season's slogan was. You know,
this year it was all fire. Other years it's been
run as one et cetera, run it back. But this
year's T shirts didn't say all fire on it. This

(57:49):
year's playoff T shirts had a It was a red
shirt with orangish hued Dunkster not right.

Speaker 2 (57:56):
There across the chest. I might say mustard, Yes, I
might say that. Yes, yeah, I mean I hope, I
hope that's what you want. Very sharp, awesome. Yeah, listen
the dunkster not I don't know who came up with that.
I really would like to know the person was it?

Speaker 5 (58:09):
Jose?

Speaker 4 (58:09):
I want to know who did that. Jose's team is
phenomenal there.

Speaker 3 (58:14):
Listen.

Speaker 2 (58:14):
I know we work for the Rockets. We get checks
from the Rockets, bad bad bad blah blah. Nobody can
sniff them the game ops, the the video just the
videos that they produce for a regular season let alone.
You know our guy Jim Odessa who did the dream
on from with Aerosmith to the playoff hype videos. All

(58:36):
that stuff is just insane and I have no doubt
they're They're already doing it. They're like putting little Easter
eggs out there with these posts on social media. It's
the actual unveiling is going to be absolutely fantastic.

Speaker 3 (58:50):
I need it now. It will I want to wait.

Speaker 4 (58:52):
Someone on social media, when I quote posted that that
the Rockets put out, asked when when do you think
this is gonna happen? And no idea, but just looking
at the league and how they like to operate, total
guess the NBA Finals are coming up. They probably prefer teams, don't.
I don't think it's mandated that you don't do anything
to take away from that.

Speaker 3 (59:12):
That's when the season's over look Like.

Speaker 4 (59:13):
Coaches hirings and things like that, there's only so much
the league can do to say we don't want that.
I mean, if you've found your coach, you're gonna hire
him and you're gonna make the announcement. But they do
like to keep some of the focus there. But that's
gonna end, you know, right before the draft of negotiating
window for free agency begins, before we get to July.
So within the next thirty days. It's when they say

(59:35):
coming soon. It's gonna happen within the next thirty days.
If something's happened, it's May twenty seventh. We should have
these in a month. We should have these in less
than a month.

Speaker 2 (59:44):
And by the way, since you mentioned it, remember how
we kind of I mean, we knew what the logo was,
the new one, the one that they've been using since
they moved into Toyota Center. Jeff Van Gundy introduced as
the newest head coach of the Rockets. He's the guy
replacing Rudy Tom Johnovitch and what's he wearing a hard hat.

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
With an R on it?

Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
Sweet because Toyota Center still wasn't technically even done being
built yet. Gosh, it seems like yesterday and it's been
twenty plus years. But yeah, I'm looking forward to this.
I know the Rockets brass looking forward to this. I
just don't want to wait that much longer. That's where
I'm at, you know me. I'm not a very pad

(01:00:25):
I'm the less patient member of the A team here
on Sports Talk seven ninety so looking for that sooner
rather than later. And yes, I'm all in on bringing
back the ketchup and mustard if indeed that's the way
they go.

Speaker 3 (01:00:37):
Just no blue, We don't want any blue.

Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
We did that in the mid to late nineties and
that time has passed, all right, Dana Brown stopping by
the station. It would be interesting to hear his thoughts
specifically on the offense, especially in light of seven runs
last night in the game that you lost. But it
has been a little bit better of late. He'll touch

(01:00:59):
on that in a number of other things when we
come back here on the eighteen.

Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
Ninety sc h N.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
Dana Brown's probably had quite the swing of emotions. Had
a no hitter two nights ago, and then four home
runs and a loss last night. That's been quite the series.
If you were just to take this section of the
road trip in Arlington, just a wacky series.

Speaker 4 (01:01:22):
So far, you'd like to keep the other team from
scoring eight runs in the first inning. It's really the
only thing to say, like you're gonna win the other game,
even if you give up five to eight hits. They
did playing offensively. You didn't have to have a no
hitter to win it. It was awesome that they did.
Essentially these series, this was the first game of their
five where both teams were scoring. We've had three other

(01:01:47):
shutouts and a no hitter, a game where one team
scored once and there wasn't a whole lot of offense. Ironically,
most of the recent history between these two teams has
been exactly the opposite. But the Rangers pitching has been
pretty good. The Astros are obviously not hitting the ball
very well this month, but that has changed, and that
was where this conversation begins. Especially recently the last three

(01:02:08):
games for the Astros eight runs, nine runs, and seven runs,
and Dana Brown addressed that initially in this portion of
the conversation from his visit earlier this morning on the
morning drive with Dan and Cole about what he thinks
has positively gotten into the offense lately.

Speaker 5 (01:02:25):
Yeah, I think mainly we're slugging the ball now right now,
Look at the end of the day, these guys are
starting to put some quality at bats together. We're driving
the baseball, you know, We're taking more walks, and so
it seems to be that these guys are turning the
corner and it's good to see that they're heating up

(01:02:46):
because I think, you know, the end of this month
and the month of June are going to be really
big for us.

Speaker 9 (01:02:50):
Dana, you are one of the most positive people when
it comes to the current stats of the organization, and
you always believe that there is the best to add.

Speaker 3 (01:02:57):
But even you, I've got to be a little.

Speaker 9 (01:03:00):
Bit shocked with the most improbable way of getting the
no hit bid with Totsmi. You know, a rookie making
his debut and giving you two quality innings. When did
it kind of kick in for you watching it, saying
that this is actually a possibility we may be able
to have the first no hit bid in baseball in
over a year.

Speaker 5 (01:03:18):
Yeah, this means a lot, you know, I meant a
lot to the club, you know, of because we had
been going through some tough times. The game started off
very slow, with multiple walks, and I think what happened
is he might lock down. He locked in, and you know,
the pitch count got up. That's why he was only
able to go six, you know, and we bridged it

(01:03:38):
to the back end, you know, with you know, the
young kid. It's just really coming in and Santa doing
a good job, you know. So Okard handed him the
ball basically and he took off with it. So it
was really exciting to see San to come in and
make those very impressive sweeps. The way that ball was moving,

(01:04:00):
you know, the break the ball and so all around,
you know, you know, on not the way you usually
draw up a no hitter. But let's face it, this
is the best baseball in the world, and whenever you can,
you know, throw a no hitter, it's very impressive. It's
very impressive. You're talking about major league hitters that can
swing the bat.

Speaker 9 (01:04:18):
Of course, you want to see Santa be in a
situation where he was going to be able to be
pretty comfortable. But you know, when you're making your major
league debut and they're asking you, hey, get six outs
to go ahead and help us have the first no
hitter in over a year. What did you make of
his debut and what do you think of his role
moving forward with the club.

Speaker 10 (01:04:36):
Yeah, Look, it was an important time to get him
some innings and to break them in and kind of.

Speaker 3 (01:04:41):
Break the dice.

Speaker 10 (01:04:42):
And you know, fortunately it.

Speaker 5 (01:04:43):
Was in the middle of a no hitter and we got.

Speaker 10 (01:04:46):
A chance to see him keep his heart rate.

Speaker 5 (01:04:49):
Down, We got a chance to see him compete his
role going forward. Look, we're going to try to continue
to build situations for him to up and ultimately he's
got the stuff, the weapons to pitch in high pressure
innings and so we saw a little glimpse of coming
attractions and so you know, that's why we gave this

(01:05:11):
kid an opportunity. He was throwing the ball very well
in triple A and just to see him come in
and throw it up to ninety six with a big sweeper,
I mean, the sweeper was really nasty. So we think
he can give people the hitters fits with that, and so, yeah,
we're excited.

Speaker 11 (01:05:29):
About Astros Genteral manager Dana Brown joins us every single
Wednesday here on the morning Drive with Dan and Cole
Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (01:05:37):
How about Todd seeing him I the other night.

Speaker 11 (01:05:39):
How encouraging was that to see him from inning two
all the way to six.

Speaker 10 (01:05:44):
Yeah, very encouraging.

Speaker 5 (01:05:46):
Still has to cut back down on the walks, we
know that, but you know, for him to go out
and compete and show us, you know, what he's capable
of doing. We know that, you know, this guy's got
some upside. We know that this guy can be a
nice pillar in the rotation. It's good to see some
of those clips of coming to attractions and so yeah,

(01:06:06):
we're excited. We want to build on this. We want
to get the walks down, of course, and you know, well,
if it's it's one start at a time, go out, compete,
throw strikes, trust the stuff and good things will happen.

Speaker 9 (01:06:20):
Cam Smith, there have been some questions about his plate
approach when it comes to the ABS system, but over
this road trip he's been more timely at the plate.
Had that moon shot last night. What have you seen
from him and his approach to the plate and how
are you able to continue to have those conversations of yeah,
there are some rocky times, but we know that the
talent is still bottled up inside and can easily be

(01:06:43):
out in any single moment.

Speaker 5 (01:06:44):
Yeah, Cam is going to burst on the scenes at
some point. Here you're seeing parts of you.

Speaker 10 (01:06:50):
Know, what this guy could do, and I think that he's.

Speaker 5 (01:06:55):
Probably locking in on maybe a few things and maybe
not trying to do too much and just getting a
good pitch and driving it.

Speaker 10 (01:07:05):
And so you know, we saw the home run, we.

Speaker 5 (01:07:08):
Saw the walk, we saw the line drive.

Speaker 10 (01:07:10):
The center field last night. I mean, this guy's got
a chance.

Speaker 5 (01:07:13):
Of being a really good major league player, and so
we know that he has high upside, big potential, has
a chance to really put some balls in the seats,
and so if he can heat up right now, this
will be a real good time for this club. And
it got a chance to carry us for a little
while too.

Speaker 4 (01:07:32):
So he's definitely having a good road trip. I don't
think there's any doubt about that, especially from where he was.
But it's those swings like last night's the home run
that Cole mentioned. It's hard to do that at any
point in going well in a slump, young kid, veteran
player to connect with the baseball like that, and some
of his swings look fine, some of his mechanics look fine,

(01:07:54):
but pitch selection and recognition of the strike zone definitely
seems off. I don't know if you guys heard what
your spot I had to say about it yesterday when
the question was more about the pitch challenging the ABS usage,
and he's had is shooed fifteen challenges, winning six nearly,
you know, so often it feels like it felt like
the way Joe was describing it, he probably just needs

(01:08:15):
we need to get back in kind of the lab
with him and reassess his idea of where the strike
zone is, where he's looking, maybe where he's positioned his
feel for the zone. He does swing it pitches out
of the zone quite a bit, especially those sliders along
a way, but he's also now challenging pitches on both
edges of the zone that are incorrect, and so maybe
a recalibration of what he needs to learn about where

(01:08:39):
the strike zone is is more to what they would
want to do to correct. What is a problem getting
it wrong nine times and having it wrong in the
first inning of a zero zero count or one count.
It's probably not what they want to do. But he
said pretty specifically, we're not going to tell him to
stop challenging pitches. That's not this is a learning situation.

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
I did think it was interesting that when all the
talk was who's going to be the designated challenger guy?

Speaker 3 (01:09:06):
Uh before the season started.

Speaker 2 (01:09:07):
And how that kind of has organically unfolded for who
whatever team.

Speaker 4 (01:09:13):
I mean, the Astros do what almost every team should do,
the catcher and the hitter. I like, that's I don't
know what what else there is to it. It's a
pretty simple process.

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
Yeah, but in this case, if if the hitter keeps
screwing things up but he's still the like, who's the well,
who else could be the designated challenger guy?

Speaker 3 (01:09:33):
Maybe I'm misunderstanding. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:09:35):
We'll have to talk about next segment because we're out
of time or react to what Dana had to say.
And oh, by the way, the Major League Baseball Players
Association has made its first proposal to MLB. They're expected
to counter tomorrow. I can't wait until this is all
we talk about next summer.

Speaker 3 (01:09:50):
The h N.

Speaker 2 (01:09:50):
As we wind down the three o'clock hour on a
rainy Wednesday afternoon, WEX and AC with you. Good news
wex the Major League Baseball Players Association has made its
first proposal.

Speaker 4 (01:10:03):
And we should see a proposal counter proposal from the
owner shortly as well. I'll tell you what one thing
that jumped jump jumped, jumped out at me from the
proposal suggested that was sent by the players is what
they're asking for the minimum salary to become. And I
haven't quite been able to figure all the calculations. There's

(01:10:27):
ten to fifteen players on the Astros. Maybe I think
I'm correct in that I'm kind of assuming it's a
roughly similar number on every other team that are minimum
salary players seven hundred and eighty thousand dollars players or
very close to it when you're a year into your career.
The players are suggesting, asking for proposing that that minimum

(01:10:50):
salary becomes one point five million, one point five million
for ten players to double their salary, basically one hundred
and fifty k times ten times twelve times fifteen and
then that number times thirty. That's a pretty significant increase

(01:11:11):
in what your bottom line payroll is going to be
because of how many players are going to fit there.
But that does fall in line with some of the
other parts of what they're requesting is if the other
side is talking about penalties for teams that don't spend
any money, well they don't have to go crazy in
free agency to get there. Now necessarily, all of a sudden,

(01:11:32):
their typical payroll of a bunch of twenty three year
old partial prospects, well they just doubled it.

Speaker 5 (01:11:39):
Now.

Speaker 4 (01:11:39):
It's not at the highest level, it's at the lowest level.
But if it's seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars increase
in salary for ten players on your forty man roster,
that's a pretty significant chunk of salary outlay.

Speaker 2 (01:11:53):
In addition to suggesting that there is a competitive integrity
tax for any team that does not spend it lots
east one hundred and fifty million on its payroll.

Speaker 4 (01:12:01):
It's basically saying you are spending one hundred and fifty
million dollars, point blank period, end of story. You can
spend it however you want. You can spend it on players,
or you can spend it partially on players, and the
rest of it to get you to one hundred and
fifty million is given to the other teams. You can
spend it on the guys that are playing for you.
If you want, that's up to you. You can have

(01:12:22):
a payroll of one hundred and hundred and five million
dollars if that's what you choose to do. Well, your
salary is still one hundred and fifty. We just get
the forty five. We're going to take it from you,
and that's your penalty, that's your tax, and we get
to split it among the teams or give it to charity,
whatever they decide to do. But they're telling you that
that's the bottom of it, and that's my interpretation. I

(01:12:43):
could be totally wrong. Maybe there is not that option,
but that's what it sounds like.

Speaker 2 (01:12:47):
This Jeff pass and he says changes to the revenue
sharing system that would distribute more money from local television
revenue but decrease the amount distributed from in stadium revenue
to incentivize teams that win and draw larger crowds. Also,
free agency for players who are thirty at five plus
years of service one of their responses.

Speaker 3 (01:13:09):
And this is roughly going to sound like me.

Speaker 2 (01:13:13):
All of this seems pointless until the deferred salary issue
is resolved. The fact that MLB has allowed la and
Otani specifically to do this, freeing up money to add
many other all star caliber players has made the commissioner
and MLB a joke. The owners should shut down the

(01:13:34):
future seasons if this is not fixed.

Speaker 3 (01:13:38):
Again, it's disagreeable.

Speaker 4 (01:13:39):
It's not exclusively the Dodgers, but they do it so
much more than any other team does. It's very easy
to categorize it that way, and I don't even dispute it.

Speaker 3 (01:13:47):
And have television revenue to help do so, which.

Speaker 4 (01:13:50):
Was only slightly addressed in the other comment that you
shared from pass and it would address it to a
smaller degree, because I'm sure it's not a great degree,
but it would somewhat address but it might not mean anything,
say to the Dodgers, Okay, so we quote unquote just
brought in less local television revenue. So what, We're still

(01:14:10):
going to keep doing this, And that's why it's not
a big enough deal to take that away from them
and give it to the rest of the teams.

Speaker 3 (01:14:16):
Even though I mean, I do recognize the fairness of it.

Speaker 4 (01:14:19):
We're I mean, yeah, I guess you think we're lucky
just because we live in LA and this is where
our baseball team plays. But yeah, we're generating all this
local TV revenue, and there are a bunch of teams
in the league now that are literally generating zero dollars
in local TV revenue because of what's happened to a
bunch of the rsns, and you just want us to
give it to you. Well, yes, you're in Major League Baseball.
We are working together to try to create a competitive

(01:14:43):
and successful league, not just successful for this outfit or
for that ownership group, but for everybody. So yeah, we're
going to take the money that you think you so
worked so hard for and earned all on your own
while being in LA and getting that TV deal that
other teams just simply cannot get. So I think that's
very fair, and I hope that is some part of it.

(01:15:03):
But I do agree as you just said, I really
think there has to be something done about how you
allow the owners to I mean, the salary cap in
the NFL is they've got a bunch of stuff now
that I wish they didn't have, void years and junk
like that. It's not really related to how much money
the owner has, but it's related to That's not what

(01:15:24):
the salary cap is in place to prevent stuff like that.
Spending deferred money is going against what you're trying. And
I know there's no cap, but if you're gonna especially
if what they're fighting for and we know it is
a cap, you can't also still allow this to that degree.

Speaker 3 (01:15:40):
Correct.

Speaker 2 (01:15:41):
And what's crazy is you know you have a cap
in the NBA. It's pretty hard. You have nothing in
Major League Baseball, and then you have, as you put it,
very I mean, you kind of glossed over what you have.
If you were to describe the cap system alone in

(01:16:02):
the National Football League's you need teams higher literally higher
capologists to understand this crap because it's like Mandarin Chinese.

Speaker 4 (01:16:12):
Yeah, and baseball's gotten a little closer to that with
some of the deferred money and some of the contract structure,
because when you look at what teams are spending, there's
different categories. This is what their payroll is, This is
what their payroll is when it's calculated for CBT, this
is what their payroll is according to the labor relation payroll.

Speaker 3 (01:16:35):
Well, how come we have so many different numbers?

Speaker 2 (01:16:36):
CBT is competitive balance tax In case you're wondering, the
MLB spokesperson on their side has come out with a statement,
Glenn Kaplan, we appreciate the union making a set of proposals,
and we look forward to continuing the bargaining process and
working towards solving the competitive balance problem our fans are
telling us needs to be addressed.

Speaker 3 (01:16:58):
Good touch right there.

Speaker 2 (01:17:00):
We understand their proposals are designed to benefit players. Unfortunately,
they do not address and in fact exacerbate the competitive
balance problem. Our fans are telling us we must address
two statements, two mentions of the fans wanting us to
change this. So far, I know they're as dirty as
the other side. I love that the mlbpa's proposal would

(01:17:22):
reduce the amount transferred to low revenue clubs, weaken the
competitive balance tax, and lead to even more payroll disparity
than exists today. For example, under the union's proposal, the
Dodgers would pay less in luxury tax payments, giving them
an additional seventy million to spend on payroll. Glenn Kaplan

(01:17:42):
knows exactly what he's doing. The Dodgers are bad, and
you guys want to make them better. That's what he's saying.

Speaker 4 (01:17:49):
A couple ways to interpret that. There's still two more
hours in the show to do just that. As we
continue here on the A team the eight.

Speaker 2 (01:17:58):
On Forced Talks seven ninety eight c HN Straight up
four o'clock, WEX and AC with you alongside Josh Jordan
as we take you Intel six and Astros Rangers. Yet again,
we were talking a little bit about the proposal that
the Players Association just made and then Glenn Kaplan came
out and was like, that's nice, but you're gonna make

(01:18:18):
the Dodgers richer.

Speaker 3 (01:18:20):
I mean, I'm paraphrasing, but that's basically what he said.

Speaker 4 (01:18:22):
Well, if seventy million dollars more money to spend, meaning
they were gifting seventy million dollars in payments to other entities,
the other teams, and now they don't have to, it
doesn't mean they're gonna spend it in that way. And
I still think, and I was smiling as you were
kind of running through this stuff like these, it says
taking money away from lower revenue teams or ability to

(01:18:45):
spend for lower Yes, there are teams in this league
that will constantly produce less money.

Speaker 3 (01:18:52):
There's no way around that.

Speaker 4 (01:18:53):
They plan a smaller market, they play in a smaller stadium,
they have lower smaller fan but whatever the case, is
that is a fact. They will be at the lower
end of it pretty much forever. But they also might
have the most wealthy owner. Some team has the least
wealthy owner, and that person could spend the same amount

(01:19:14):
of money as the Dodgers. But do you think that
is well, I'm sure we have left for Kansas City.
Well you're you're guessing teams that don't spend money doesn't
necessarily mean the owner isn't a billion billion billionaire. It
means he doesn't want to spend that money. It's it's
pretty unlikely that he doesn't have it. It's just that's
not what he's committing to put into this franchise. But rather,

(01:19:37):
there's a reason why. This is how much money I
want to put in. This is how much money I'm
getting out as we operate, and then this is how
much more money I'm gonna get out when and if
we sell, and you can operate at any way you want.
Probably has other business interests that are generating income, and
that he's doing different things with his money. So that continues.

Speaker 3 (01:19:53):
So I get it.

Speaker 4 (01:19:53):
Not everybody's going to spend the same but the idea
that they can't that almost always gets pushed, well, the
players say what I'm saying, Come on, man, lower market
revenue team.

Speaker 3 (01:20:07):
Do you see who owns us? Do you see who
owns them? Do you see who? Come on, man, you'll
prove their ownership.

Speaker 4 (01:20:13):
Why because they have so much money they can run
a baseball team, Not because they have enough money that
if the revenues come in then maybe, just maybe they
can run a baseball team.

Speaker 3 (01:20:27):
You rushed it. It doesn't work like that.

Speaker 4 (01:20:29):
So it's just a matter of kind of diving and
sifting through the semantics of it all. And I do
think this is a reasonable thing to hope that over
the next one hundred and eighty eight days, the millionaires
and the billionaires will realize it's you. The sport is
going to be fine. In my mind, it always has

(01:20:49):
been something. It always works out, But at the at
the expense of missing all these games. It always works
out for them. TV money's gonna come in, Fans are
going to go back to the stadiums, people will buy
the gear. You'll be billionaire still, and you'll be millionaire still.
Everybody else gets affected by it. For the month of
games missed, the five months of games miss the entire season, missed,

(01:21:12):
and your fans will be ticked off until the games
come back, and then they will return.

Speaker 3 (01:21:15):
They always have and they always will.

Speaker 4 (01:21:17):
Now I know that's not gonna fly for everybody, because
at some point, there is a breaking point for all
of these things, not just in sports. We keep saying, well,
when is it ever going to end? And we just
have never seen the answer because none of this has
ever ended. But I wish they would recognize the actual
damage and emotional damage, like we're in a courtroom here,

(01:21:38):
that they really are doing to the people that fund
the sport. I know the networks are a big part
of it, not the fans, But go to a baseball game,
go down to Dyke and Park, go travel to one
of the other MLB cities and sit with the other
thirty five thousand people. That's your sport. That's who's making
it all happen. That's who will be back. But that's

(01:21:59):
who's you're hurt. And you're mainly hurting the thirty five
thousand people that are getting treated to all the services
they have inside those ballparks. Those people are losing their jobs, yep.

Speaker 2 (01:22:11):
And nobody on either side really honestly cares about that.

Speaker 4 (01:22:14):
Yeah, when we came back and we got it all
settled and it's great to be back here. On April fifth,
twenty twenty seven, absolutely, we said all the players got
together and they set aside a fund for the workers
here at you know, insert stadium name, and you know what.

Speaker 3 (01:22:27):
We felt like it was the least we could do. Yeah,
it is the least.

Speaker 1 (01:22:31):
The least.

Speaker 2 (01:22:31):
It's very little. By the way, again, some of the
comments to like this is Bob Nightingales. He kind of
put a list together. One of the responses was just amazing.
This is a person who clearly thinks that the players
have lost their minds. I just walked into my boss's
office and asked for triple my salary, and I won't

(01:22:53):
bleep on his desk. Let's see what he says. That's
how this guy feels the initial proposal. And that's just.

Speaker 4 (01:23:00):
You, one individual at one corporation asking to triple your salary,
not a third of your roster, saying double my salary
from under eight hundred thousand to one point five million.
You know again that I just ran through those rude
numbers earlier. Or you could just spend twenty five million
on a player instead of five. It's the same increase

(01:23:24):
the spend the amount, the ability to spend money is
going to be there. I do think that I think
it's less dire than everybody else does, but I do
think games are going to be missed. I'm still still
holding out hope that there is enough time to play
a reasonable season, because once you've gotten to a certain point,
a sixty game season, which they'll do, They've done it

(01:23:47):
before before, is kind of silly.

Speaker 3 (01:23:50):
It is, and it's not going to make for a legit.

Speaker 4 (01:23:53):
Champion does give sixty people the opportunity to go earn
a living at the ballpark, so I'm not totally against it.
But you know, the CBT threshold change and increase the
minimum salary, the competitive integ integrity, a tax, we talked
about all those things. And you know, when you start
to look at the numbers and each day that goes by,
I gave you one hundred and eighty eight days, because
that's December first, that's when this current CBA expires. We'll

(01:24:16):
start to give you more of those numbers. And I
don't want to bury you under this barrage of labor
negotiatings that next year.

Speaker 2 (01:24:24):
Yet, by the way, so Jeff Passing kind of did
like a multi tweet thing, whereas Bob Nightingale did like
a graphic for his main tweet on the MLBPA labor proposal.

Speaker 3 (01:24:35):
Thanks United States of America today? Did you see what
he kind of snuck under the radar? At the very end,
I have no Bob Nightingale posts pulled up currently.

Speaker 2 (01:24:44):
Expanded draft lottery to further disincentivized tanking.

Speaker 4 (01:24:49):
Has that sound familiar, Yes, but I think the mission
was accomplished already. Like we've spent three minutes total talking
about the Major League Baseball draft lottery. Do our listeners
know that there is one? And it's this time when
they do it here this coming month. It's not the
first time, it's not even the second time. It's been
in place for a couple of seasons now, and it

(01:25:09):
is significantly impacted where teams draft, which is now slightly
disassociated directly to how they finished. That's when a lottery does.

Speaker 2 (01:25:19):
What was the lowest payroll the Astros had when they
were clearly intentionally tanking under Jeff Luno's first few seasons.

Speaker 4 (01:25:26):
I don't know, but it was at the bottom of
the league. Was it below one hundred million at any time.
I feel pretty certain that it was, but I don't
know that for a fact. I mean, you realize this
is a decade plus ago information.

Speaker 3 (01:25:39):
I don't. But I'm trying to remember, well, they made
the most money on the team, Matt Dominguez.

Speaker 2 (01:25:45):
Gosh, I'm trying to think of who the quote unquote
best player was back then.

Speaker 4 (01:25:50):
The era where they were losing. This is thirteen to fifteen,
probably twelve to fourteen, because they had a one hundred
million dollar payroll as an organization one time prior to
twenty seventeen. So every year they were under one hundred
those years, according to the numbers, in twenty thirteen, twenty

(01:26:13):
six million, one hundred and five thousand was the payroll.

Speaker 3 (01:26:17):
No way, which.

Speaker 4 (01:26:19):
Was an enormous They weren't under fifty in any other year.

Speaker 2 (01:26:24):
I mean adjust for inflation on the fly, please, because
you have a degree in this.

Speaker 4 (01:26:29):
The answer to the question was Bud Norris. Of course
it was with his weird shaped body. I mean, he
did make three million dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:26:38):
No, I'm not saying it wasn't Bud Norris, who was
the first baseman Wallace.

Speaker 4 (01:26:42):
That's why you got to do Brett Wallace like that
because he had a weird shaped body. He made the
major league minimum about four hundred and ninety five K.
That's about two hundred k per Tree Trunk aka leg.

Speaker 5 (01:26:55):
A.

Speaker 4 (01:26:56):
Jose Altuve he made a little over five hundred K,
five oh five.

Speaker 3 (01:27:01):
He's come a long way. He had a few arbitration
years in front of him.

Speaker 2 (01:27:04):
Yeah, which is again something expansion of salary arbitration eligibility
and expanded pre ARB performance bonus program distributing more dollars
to more players.

Speaker 4 (01:27:16):
And you how many more players in the last handful
of years have gotten together with their teams their agents
during their arbitration portion of their major league lives and
agreed on extensions a lot Kyle Tucker, No, not Kyle Tucker,
but a lot of players have gone that route a
little bit earlier, kind of buying out the ARB years.

(01:27:36):
And it's almost always team friendly. But the players not
mad about it. That or else they wouldn't do it. Yeah,
they're not guaranteed much of anything for the arbitration years. Okay,
Jeremy Panna and Hunter Brown have gotten to six and
a nine million, Well, they could have signed a five
year one hundred and five million dollar deal, maybe five

(01:27:57):
year eighty five million dollar deal years ago, and they
would have all that money guaranteed each year they play.
They're only able to guarantee another six to nine to ten,
and next year it'll be eight figures for both of them.

Speaker 3 (01:28:10):
That's it.

Speaker 4 (01:28:10):
Or they could just take it all up front and
instead of getting to when they're making more money sooner,
they would already have a lot more money. They're just
giving some back later in the contract.

Speaker 2 (01:28:21):
What do you think about Ken Rosenthal saying the owner's
argument for competitive balance is sort of being quashed.

Speaker 3 (01:28:27):
If you look at the standings right now.

Speaker 4 (01:28:29):
It is unfortunate what's happening, because timing the Mariners, if
they beat the Athletics today, which it looks like they're
going to do, are going to overtake them for first place.

Speaker 2 (01:28:39):
Four teams leading divisions that are revenue sharing recipients.

Speaker 4 (01:28:44):
The Rays are incredible, best team in the ALE, The
Athletics and the Guardians are the American League representatives, and
all three are on that list.

Speaker 9 (01:28:51):
I love.

Speaker 2 (01:28:52):
I know what they did was dirty to Oakland. I
don't care because Oakland is an absolute bleephole, So I
don't care.

Speaker 3 (01:28:57):
I really don't what they did to them by allowing
their team to move.

Speaker 2 (01:29:01):
Well, what I'm saying is I don't. I don't feel
sorry for people in Oakland.

Speaker 3 (01:29:04):
I feel I do feel sorry for the fans. That's
just an this is what their owner did.

Speaker 2 (01:29:08):
Right, I'm not gonna Bay is like the most beautiful
ballpark in Major League Baseball. So I don't feel bad
for you. Well, they like baseball. They're going to Vegas.
It's not their fault. They like the game, they go
to the games. They they can drive to Vegas and
watch the role team.

Speaker 3 (01:29:20):
Have they supported the team? Yes, not in Sacramento. That's
that's not where they live. Maybe they should drive and
fan harder. They fan very hard for them, that's not
their fan harder. That's what they need to do.

Speaker 2 (01:29:32):
All right, let's get into Josh Jacobs. Doesn't look great
for the Packers running back based on his arrest slash charges. Oh,
by the way, he's been released from jail. The A
team on Sports Talks, they actually have a game on
here in the studio on the monitor live from He's

(01:29:53):
still active. Ballpark in the Bay Area, the good one.
What is it called Peco No, that's since San Diego,
San Diego. Why can't I think of where the giants play?

Speaker 4 (01:30:04):
Well, this is one of ours, one of our very
very few gimmicks on the show that you.

Speaker 2 (01:30:09):
Sit there knowing the answer while I struggle. That's the one.
I hate that gimmick. I know you hate it.

Speaker 3 (01:30:15):
I'm just gonna move on. I should go the next topic.

Speaker 2 (01:30:19):
Oh look, Josh Jacobs got arrested for strangling someone allegedly.

Speaker 4 (01:30:24):
Did he He did get arrested, well, he also has
been released and not had any charges filed against.

Speaker 3 (01:30:32):
Him because they're investigating, well, because they didn't have enough
information to charge him with anything.

Speaker 2 (01:30:38):
He was booked on several domestic violence charges according to
the Holbert lawrence. That's in Wisconsin Police Department charges of battery,
domestic abuse, criminal damage to property, domestic abuse, disorderly conduct,
also domestic abuse, strangulation and suffocation, and in intimidation of

(01:31:00):
a victim.

Speaker 4 (01:31:01):
That's all after reviewing the available evidence in this case,
the Brown County District Attorney's Office is not yet prepared
to make a formal charging decision, so our office is
requested additional investigation. Reason to believe that additional evidence may
exist that would impact whether criminal charges are appropriate and
what charges will be issued. Mister Jacobs will be released

(01:31:22):
from custody at this time. A final charging decision will
be made by our office at a later date. The
attorneys for Josh Jacobs expressed their gratitude. We're extremely pleased
that Jos's been released from custody and no criminal charges
have been filed against him. As we previously stated, we
encourage everyone to keep an open mind when while the
matter is fully reviewed. We remain confident that once all

(01:31:45):
of the evidence is gathered and evaluated, it will confirm
that no charges should be brought against Josh in the future.
Dave rich Clarence attorneys for Josh.

Speaker 3 (01:31:57):
Dave rich In Clarence.

Speaker 2 (01:32:00):
It'sznov Richard, Seanfeld and Clarence Douche.

Speaker 3 (01:32:06):
Yeah, I don't know. I did his last name right,
so it is you know.

Speaker 4 (01:32:10):
Could there be a lack of cooperation from somebody who
obviously is very close to the situation, Yes, there could be.
It's not I this could still with no charges being filed.
If that's ultimately what ends up happening, you could still
have this fall under the personal conduct policy violation.

Speaker 2 (01:32:32):
The team went full victor wimbin Yama and canceled media
availability with the players that had.

Speaker 3 (01:32:38):
Been planned for after practice.

Speaker 2 (01:32:41):
I mean, just tell them not to tell them to
say no comment when it comes to that question. Don't
not let them talk about all other things football because
this guy got arrested.

Speaker 3 (01:32:53):
Is Josh Jacobs still on the team? No comment. I'm
just trying to get to get fined. It's probably there
might have been another way to address that's a little strong.
I think.

Speaker 4 (01:33:06):
Nearly every team in the NFL has both been on
the field for OTAs and have had some media availabilities
surrounding it. Not the Texans yet, they'll do that early
next week. In a lot of on what they have.
But this is you'd like. I'd love to believe that
this none of it happened. I highly doubt nothing happened.

(01:33:27):
May not have risen to the level of charges be
needing to be filed. Sure, but it's very, very unlikely
that nothing happened. But if chargers aren't filed now and
don't get filed in the future, that's just the way
it is.

Speaker 2 (01:33:40):
This isn't just I mean, this is one of the
best running backs in the NFL.

Speaker 3 (01:33:44):
I don't know where you would slot him.

Speaker 4 (01:33:46):
Well, the easiest way for the purposes of our show,
and say, I would slot him ahead of David Montgomery.

Speaker 2 (01:33:51):
Another gimmick in which you just hate on guys that
are Houston legends.

Speaker 4 (01:33:57):
I think it's a red like, let's take this opportunity
to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:34:03):
Who has more yards next year? Josh Jacobs, Are you sure?
I mean, I don't just got arrest.

Speaker 4 (01:34:10):
I don't want to mock this arrest for which he's
already been released and no charges have been filed, and say, well,
I'm not sure how many games he's gonna miss with
this off the field issue, so maybe it is date.

Speaker 3 (01:34:23):
It's it'll be Josh, He's gonna play football.

Speaker 2 (01:34:27):
Texans are real in love with running the football now.

Speaker 3 (01:34:31):
That's what they say.

Speaker 4 (01:34:32):
They're gonna fall out of love with if it is unsuccessful.

Speaker 2 (01:34:36):
And the Packers were probably gonna pass a whole lot
more with their quarterback than the Texans are with theirs,
at least from what we've seen.

Speaker 4 (01:34:42):
Same quarterback they had last year, same duo. Nothing's changed,
Josh Jacobs, except they don't have Dontavian Wicks.

Speaker 3 (01:34:49):
That's true.

Speaker 2 (01:34:50):
Huge entering his third season with the Packers, after signing
with the team in free agency in twenty four.

Speaker 3 (01:34:58):
I feel like he's been there much longer than that.

Speaker 4 (01:35:01):
He was very He wasn't all that great last year,
I think is a fair way to put it.

Speaker 2 (01:35:07):
Fourteen total touchdowns, thirteen of them rushing. That's kind of mid. No,
that's pretty good.

Speaker 3 (01:35:13):
Thirteen rushing touchdowns. How many guys players you think had
more than that? I'll tell you right now. Three.

Speaker 4 (01:35:20):
How many of those three have I take it back,
two running backs had more. Josh Allen was one of
the three that had more, but he doesn't play running back.

Speaker 3 (01:35:27):
He didn't even have to be a running back.

Speaker 4 (01:35:29):
Jonathan Taylor and Derek Henry were the only running backs
in the NFL that had more than thirteen touchdowns. But
to me, he doesn't run that effectively. It's not his fault,
their lyne or whatever they're doing in front of him.
But four yards of carry is awful.

Speaker 2 (01:35:42):
And that's yards thirteen rushing touchdowns in fifteen games.

Speaker 4 (01:35:48):
Just to point out the awfulness of four point zero
yards per carry. That's point one yards per carry less
than Nick Chubb. Also point one yards less than Saquon Barkley.

Speaker 2 (01:36:02):
Yeah, but he had a ring all season he could
show off. That's the difference.

Speaker 4 (01:36:05):
I mean it little, you know this year in that year,
if you if you want me to drive home that
point badly some more. Christian McCaffrey three point nine yards
per carry?

Speaker 3 (01:36:15):
What's his excuse? It hurt again?

Speaker 4 (01:36:17):
They just gave him the ball over and over and
over and over again. Even in still his numbers, it
did to a certain degree.

Speaker 2 (01:36:23):
I wouldn't have guessed that, and I would have guessed
that he'd be one of the guys that would have
more than thirteen rushing times.

Speaker 3 (01:36:27):
I'm without looking, I'm gonna guess that's his career low. Yeah,
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:36:33):
I just thought thirteen sounded low for a stud running back.

Speaker 4 (01:36:37):
Well less as I was saying, James Cook, Derrick Henry,
Jonathan Taylor, By, Jean Robinson, Devon, Ah Chaine, Jamiir Gibbs, McCaffrey, Saquon.
That's one group that was eight players. They're all better
than Josh Jacobs, right, mm hmm, that's probably fair. So
Kiren Williams Etchen DeAndre Swift. Are we getting Bryce bres Hall,

(01:37:03):
Kenneth Walker, Josh Jacobs?

Speaker 3 (01:37:06):
Is this the group he fits in?

Speaker 2 (01:37:07):
I don't know if Breese Hall is different because he
plays with a Jets like I feel like if he
was on a good team, I don't even.

Speaker 4 (01:37:14):
He also had four point yard four yards of pop
one thousand and sixty five yards, was healthy throughout sixteen guys.

Speaker 3 (01:37:21):
I love to see him on the Texans. I wanted him.
I wanted the Texans to go get him, and they
could have this.

Speaker 4 (01:37:27):
They could have He's he's not top tier, and he's
somewhere at the probably the back end of second tier
if it's six to seven running backs each and David
Montgomery's quite a ways back from there.

Speaker 3 (01:37:39):
I did.

Speaker 2 (01:37:40):
But every time I hear that, well, no charges, all
of these charges were brought and then there's not enough
sufficient evidence. Okay, well there was at some point in
the investigation or when you picked him up, the call
was made. All this kind of stuff, And I get it.
Women have lied in the past about things like this,

(01:38:01):
have also.

Speaker 4 (01:38:01):
Told the truth initially and then have chosen otherwise to
not pursue yeap.

Speaker 2 (01:38:10):
What I've learned about this particular subject with the NFL
is that and this is terrible, but it's the truth.

Speaker 4 (01:38:17):
If it's not on video, it's a toss up, or
if it is on video, you can just put it
in your desk and destroy it and say.

Speaker 3 (01:38:24):
Oops, well they didn't do that for ray Rice. They
sure tried to. Oh yeah, but they didn't work. Oh no, Now.

Speaker 4 (01:38:32):
Everybody's seen it. I wonder if they're gonna find out
that we had it all along. Yeah, they're gonna cover
up and the story. Did you here get to see
what Harbaugh had to say today? It was about Madison Beer.

Speaker 3 (01:38:48):
What did he say about Madison Beer and his favorite quarterback? Right?

Speaker 4 (01:38:54):
So, like I said, most teams have done their start
of their off season work on the field or been
around the facility. But in their case, he'd missed about
the first two weeks of activities because he was touring
with Madison. He was, you know, supporting her like she
would support him. Would you support her? I whatever and

(01:39:14):
support she needs. I would be there with both hands
to support her.

Speaker 2 (01:39:22):
Every once in a while, WEX will just surprise me
and I won't be expected he's performing.

Speaker 4 (01:39:26):
How else would you support her? You're in the crowding,
it's hard to clap with one hand. Chief Jimmy's comments,
I was happy he went to support Madison on her
music tour supports him at football games. He wasn't gonna
be here for two weeks. My first reaction was, do
you need a ride to the airport? He loves Justin.
He loves Justin m that's one of us. He doesn't

(01:39:52):
play for you, all right, We'll leave it at that.
It would be a very interesting situation to keep.

Speaker 2 (01:39:58):
An eye on, though, because cause I don't think we've
heard the end of this. We need to get back
to the NBA Draft lottery that you mentioned earlier and
whether or not we even understand it. Plus Wednesday BS
coming up next. I don't care what anybody says, anybody
thinks this event coming up at the White House for

(01:40:19):
the two hundred and fiftieth birthday of the United States
is going to be absolutely spectacular.

Speaker 3 (01:40:24):
I cannot wait to talk about it next.

Speaker 2 (01:40:28):
Well, I want to first start by giving a shout
out to someone we both know very well, and I
think I can speak for both of us, want to
say we are insanely proud of Hunter Sagest, a former
employee with the Houston Rockets, took a job with the
UFC too, don't I mean? I don't want to like

(01:40:51):
not I don't want to sell him short by leaving
off some of the roles that he serves with marketing
for them, And I mean it's just that's sounds too
simplistic marketing for them.

Speaker 3 (01:41:02):
He makes them look good.

Speaker 4 (01:41:03):
You mean, like assisting in the process of having Dana
White on the cover of Time magazine.

Speaker 2 (01:41:09):
Which is what I said to him a couple days ago.
I'm like, man, you are just on a generational role
right now.

Speaker 4 (01:41:14):
Yeah, he was probably pretty bored last night enjoying the
Vegas Nights getting back to the Cup Final again, third
time in nine seasons since moving to Vegas, and they
were super stinky during the regular season. This was extremely
unexpected and the best team in the league was their

(01:41:37):
foe in the conference finals and they swept them.

Speaker 3 (01:41:40):
This is why you should get the NHL.

Speaker 4 (01:41:43):
Tillman, I'm just saying the other conference final going on tonight,
Canadians and Canes.

Speaker 3 (01:41:48):
I'm sure we'll take that in.

Speaker 4 (01:41:50):
But you were talking about the UFC, and Hunter's a
great role in advancing their the eyeballs that see them.

Speaker 2 (01:41:58):
Well, look this, I mean, he was Dana's on the
cover of Time magazine. He's been featured in Rolling Stone
and one other prominent magazine that doesn't escapes my memory
at this point, it's been That's why I say a
generational role that Hunter's been on lately helping him make
that happen. But in that interview with Rolling Stone, he's

(01:42:21):
talking about how the White House event came about.

Speaker 3 (01:42:26):
They've begun construction. This is three weeks before the event.

Speaker 4 (01:42:31):
I thought there was already construction going on at the
White House in the ballroom, and it's being paid for
by me, So calm down.

Speaker 2 (01:42:38):
June fourteenth, the south lawn of the White House is
going to hold a historic event with usc But in
that Rolling Stone interview, Dana White says, we're at a fight,
and he looks at me in the middle of the
fight talking about Trump and says, you know what, we
should do a fight at the White House. And I'm like, yes,

(01:43:00):
you should do a fight at the White House. Like,
what are you going to say to the President? When
he says that, he goes, I don't know if you'll
ever meet anybody more proud of the White House than
he is. He absolutely loves that place, feels like it's
America's house, and we should do things where more people
can come to the White House and be able to
experience it.

Speaker 3 (01:43:18):
According to him.

Speaker 2 (01:43:20):
UFC is spending thirty million of its own money to
put on the White House event and they just started
the construction.

Speaker 3 (01:43:28):
The rendering is kind of what shows you what it's
gonna look like.

Speaker 2 (01:43:31):
There's I mean, how would you describe the It's like
an arch kind of thing that's got stars and stripes
on it. I still can't believe, Like the security for
this thing has to be insane.

Speaker 4 (01:43:43):
Yeah, we gave you a few of the details on
the exorbitant prices for significant not probably for run of
the mill fans, even though run of the mill fans
have plenty of money. That the packages they were putting
together were more for sponsors. But a package of the
thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to

(01:44:04):
sit here being part of this meet and greet, have
sponsorship availability at this event and on this carpet and
in this like it, it's going to generate a ton
of interest, clearly, and a ton of money.

Speaker 3 (01:44:16):
Yeah, I'm not and.

Speaker 4 (01:44:17):
It is souper like he's well, he's done some of
those events on the Islands, the events at Sphere, which
was a huge financial undertaking as well. And these are
unique pretty much once in a lifetime events that they've created. Well,
I don't know that the UFC is going to be back.
They do visit venues more than once. They've come to

(01:44:39):
Houston many times, they're in Vegas plenty.

Speaker 3 (01:44:41):
I don't think. Well, so this is a is this
a numbered event on June fourteenth? Well, that's the thing
I thought, I had this right in front of me.
Where is it if.

Speaker 2 (01:44:51):
It's called UFC Freedom to fifty because it's but it's
not technically UFC two There were now but I don't
I don't know what they're gonna be back like, if
not now, not on the White House lawn, and probably
not during his term because once they're out of his term.

Speaker 3 (01:45:09):
Is the next president going to do this? I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:45:11):
Is the next president buddies with with with Dana White?

Speaker 3 (01:45:15):
Not like Trump.

Speaker 4 (01:45:19):
And regardless of all that this is, like it or
dislike it, against it or for it, it is a
unique event, extremely unique.

Speaker 2 (01:45:28):
It's it has to be because of you know, because
of the two hundred and fifty, the anniversary and all.
It will never happen again, at least not under these circumstances,
maybe for maybe UFC Freedom three hundred, Well, uh will
be the event in fifty years from now, when we're
all we're definitely gonna be dead and gone by then.

Speaker 3 (01:45:47):
I mean, if I'm still around.

Speaker 4 (01:45:48):
Then can the card match the uniqueness of the event?
And you never know how the matches will turn out,
But I still always feel like, not every time, but
a bigger majority of these events and UFC matches versus
a you know, a fight card, a boxing fight card,
the likelihood that you're gonna see excellence entertainment on a

(01:46:08):
UFC card versus a boxing card is much much higher.

Speaker 3 (01:46:11):
Oh, absolutely, I mean they're having now.

Speaker 2 (01:46:15):
Funny you said that the next Vegas event is going
to have Connor McGregor, and by all accounts, he looks like,
well as you would say, stinky getting ready to find nice. Yeah,
that might not be good, but it doesn't matter because
I mean, if I know you've been to an event before,
I've been to one before, I've been to several.

Speaker 3 (01:46:31):
Actually that yere's.

Speaker 2 (01:46:33):
Always some event on the card that just blows your mind.
There's just nothing like it. It's not And it's I
say that because I think that in boxing get lumped
together still, and they really shouldn't. They could not be
further from each other from an entertainment value. And if
you want to debate, you know, the seediness of the

(01:46:53):
business side of things. Fine, but boxing can't touch UFC.

Speaker 4 (01:47:00):
Yeah, based on some of my comments from last segment,
obviously the event I went to was UFC sixty nine.
It was here in Houston, the final match, the main
card event. The main event on the card was the
Saint Pierre fight, which he lost, which was a huge
story and a massive upset. Best fight of the night
was probably the where to fight. A couple fights before

(01:47:21):
that lightweight fight went distance, was great, super entertaining, high activity.
Like the night in and of itself. Kashchek was on
the card that night. It's a great night of events. Yeah,
I can't wait to see.

Speaker 2 (01:47:33):
I mean, just the spectacle itself is going to like say,
for example, it is a terrible card from start to
finish these fights, which I don't think will be the case,
by the way, but even if it was worst case
scenario from the actual quality of the content, You're still
gonna watch because you've never seen this. It's on the
White House Lawn that's just insane. And again, you know

(01:47:57):
what I watched last night, The Jackal. Have you ever
seen that movie with Bruce Willis. He plays an assassin
who keeps he's a chameleon. He keeps changing his looks.
He's going across the you know, Canadian line. He is
on a mission to take out the first Lady of
the United States in this movie fictional obviously, but she's

(01:48:18):
at a speaking event around the corner from the White House.

Speaker 3 (01:48:20):
And what he uses and all that just maybe a.

Speaker 2 (01:48:23):
Nightmare being in charge of security for something like this,
but that.

Speaker 3 (01:48:28):
Geez.

Speaker 5 (01:48:31):
All right.

Speaker 2 (01:48:32):
So the Knicks are in the NBA Finals. They're waiting
on the Thunder to get there, and then we'll have
a draft this summer. That will be the end of
time for the draft as we know it, because they're
going to vote for this convoluted.

Speaker 3 (01:48:55):
I don't even know what to call it.

Speaker 2 (01:48:56):
It's it's draft lottery reform, is what they're referring to
it as. But I don't know if it's going to
honestly help or hurt more.

Speaker 4 (01:49:04):
Well, you can lose games all you want in the future,
but it will do far far less to guarantee you
those top picks. In fact, when teams you'll repeat as
top drafters, they will be ineligible to be repeat top drafters.
Meaning if you draft at the top of the draft
and this season, well you can't do it in that season.

Speaker 3 (01:49:24):
You can't do it in this consecutive season.

Speaker 4 (01:49:25):
And there are some stipulations on that which would have
changed the course of history for teams that we know.
It was being discussed just this week for good reason.
You know, the team that Oklahoma City is about about
to eliminate from the playoffs. Three consecutive seasons of drafting
players in the top five in their case even higher
the top four, well that would not be It's not

(01:49:46):
possible in the future under these new reforms out via trade,
you could always acquire a player that was drafted, they're sure,
but you cannot hold the draft rights heading into the
draft of those spots you'd be ineligible to receive, you know,
those spots in the d for those three consecutive seasons.
The Oklahoma City thunder same thing, three consecutive seasons. There

(01:50:06):
the Houston Rockets, same thing. Three consecutive seasons of drafting
inside that top five is outlawed, and they believe that
will these teams that are going to be there anyway.
That's kind of the hard part about for me when
they say this, this is it. Well, I know what
it's intended to do, but you look at some of
these teams, you know they're not necessarily going to employ

(01:50:31):
some of the tactics they did this year, where you're
three quarters are the way through a game and you're
competitive and competing, are competitive and winning potentially and you say, okay,
well that's enough of that. You guys are too good
at basketball. You're not playing anymore tonight and skirting some
of the rules with your player injury reports, things like that.
But they're going to be there anyway. They're bad, they

(01:50:52):
have bad players. I think they want to prevent some
of the in game shenanigans which we saw this year
and the rest, and they want the players out there.
But if we're talking about fake rest and doing a
disservice to the fans, well, your team doesn't have any
of those players on it.

Speaker 3 (01:51:08):
Usually. Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 4 (01:51:10):
And like two different teams basically gave up the season,
gave up needing to even show up for games, Washington
with thirty games to go.

Speaker 3 (01:51:19):
Washington was one of them.

Speaker 4 (01:51:20):
They lost every single game in their last twenty eight
except for one and Memphis last thirty three games they
won five times. Injuries were a part of it, but
then they also, okay, well we might win if we
still have Jaron Jackson junior. Well let's get rid of
him and take all the savings out of needing to
pay him for the future. We saw them. They came
through Houston late in the year. The roster of players

(01:51:41):
they had at some point. This is who is on
their team. This is what their general managers put together,
and they want draft picks. Maybe they won't be able
to land in the top five, but it's not going
to turn them into well, we can't get in the
top five three straight years, so we might as well
spend money on this free agent and be a little
bit better. And we're gonna try to win twenty nine

(01:52:01):
games this year, and we're gonna put everything we have
into being a thirty two win team.

Speaker 3 (01:52:06):
That's not going to happen.

Speaker 4 (01:52:08):
What is going to happen is teams that don't belong
at the top of the lottery aren't going to be
at the top of the lottery until they execute the
lottery and the team with the twentieth best record instead
of the thirtieth best record, which is the worst record,
lands the number one pick, and the team with the
seventeenth best record is drafting third. YEP, it's going to happen.

(01:52:29):
Then again, this one.

Speaker 2 (01:52:31):
There's a list of the pros and cons from this
reform reform. This is the one that gets to me
pick restrictions for repeat winners. So they write, given this
proposal heavily slants towards random luck, it's odd to include
restrictions that would reduce that a team cannot win back

(01:52:52):
to back lotteries or pick inside the top five for
three consecutive drafts. This is a pretty clear push from
the league to prevent situations such as the one that
occurred for the Spurs in twenty three, twenty four, and
twenty five. They got the first, fourth, and second picks respectively,
and they took Wimbin Yama, Castle, and Harper. And they

(01:53:18):
say that amount of good fortune will be celebrated in
San Antonio as it has potentially laid the foundation for
what could easily become the next NBA dynasty.

Speaker 3 (01:53:26):
The league would prefer to spread.

Speaker 2 (01:53:27):
Around talent more if possible, and they go on to
say the problem, and this is where the rockets come in.

Speaker 3 (01:53:34):
Not all drafts are created equal. You know, for every Victor.

Speaker 2 (01:53:37):
Wim Minyama, Lebron James, or even this past year's draft,
or I should say this year's draft, there are Andrea Bargnani,
remember him, Anthony Bennett, greg Odin. These are number one
overall picks who never lived up to their billing right.

Speaker 4 (01:53:56):
And teams would not have been falling all over themselves
to land the number one pick in those drafts because
they were bad people. Teams did fall all over themselves,
quite literally, to land at the top of this year's draft. Yep,
it doesn't happen to be. It's not gonna happen every
single year, and the cards might fall in a certain

(01:54:18):
way where you become one of those teams somewhat unexpectedly.
And I hope people listened closely to both of us
mentioning the San Antonio Spurs in this scenario, the Spurs
dipped to a twenty two win team after they won
thirty four the year prior twenty one to one twenty two,
and they've stayed a twenty two win team with a

(01:54:39):
pretty decent player on it. Victor Wembinyama and they got
to a thirty four win team with Victor wembin Yama
on it. Like, it's what I always mock the Bears
and definitely the Jaguars for well, just send them out
there to play.

Speaker 3 (01:54:55):
Let's draft Trevor Lawrence with the number one overall pick.
You know what, the best thing that can happen is
he can play sixteen or seventeen games and we can
still get the number one pick the next year.

Speaker 4 (01:55:05):
The Spurs did that, Like, Victor wasn't the third prize
that they got in a row. He was the first one.
They played a season with him and landed the number
four pick. Then they played a second season with him
and landed the number two pick. They weren't necessarily tanking
what they're saying, but he didn't play a ton and
they weren't good yet, Like that's why they were able

(01:55:25):
to go from thirty four to sixty two wins this year.

Speaker 2 (01:55:28):
Well, but he also missed like a huge chunk of
last season. I doted that it shouldn't be seen as
a disappointment for a team or its fans to land
the first pick in a week draft and then have
no chance at doing so the next year in a
better draft, right.

Speaker 4 (01:55:44):
But kind of my point is they have Victor on
the team, so we want restrictions in place that even
if he can't impact winning yet and we all know
he will soon, we don't want them to load up
on talent because we'll have what we have.

Speaker 2 (01:56:01):
Well, maybe if the Rockets hadn't drafted Reed Shepherd, they
wouldn't have that talent.

Speaker 4 (01:56:06):
This is also there's a billion arguments for the sorrow
and the con of all of the reforms that have
already been shot down that are not getting voted on,
and the plan that's in place that not only is
it getting voted on, it's going to pass. This is
what we're going to have moving forward. There may be
some smaller tweaks, but they won't be noticeable enough to
us have to oh, well, they fixed this, or they're.

Speaker 3 (01:56:27):
Going at a different round.

Speaker 4 (01:56:28):
We haven't even gotten into the odds and the number
of teams that are going to be in the lottery,
both of whom I think are dramatically going to impact
the league in a dramatically negative way.

Speaker 2 (01:56:39):
And if I sound bitter that the Rockets took some
guy who's not going to be a superstar ever. And
the very next pick, the Spurs took a guy who
absolutely will twice Kawhi Leonard the very next pick. It's
because I am bitter about that, as I should be
and you should be. Two Rockets fans didn't work out
very well. This will happen, So we'll Football at five

(01:57:02):
next the a team on sports team Football at five
is here on a Wednesday edition of the program, and
I think we've gone at least an entire week. I
won't even count the holiday without mentioning Mike Vrabel until today.
Like he got mentioned earlier in the show, that's because
I forced it in there. But this time we have

(01:57:25):
genuinely new news, as in he spoke to the media
for the first time since that weird press conference the
night of the draft.

Speaker 4 (01:57:35):
So they are one of the teams that has begun
media availability during their on field off season training program.
Texans will do so early next week and for the
next couple of weeks. Nick in a mandatory mini camp
there and then break for the rest of the summer
for about five weeks or so before training game gets started.
Every team has a little bit different timeline they work
on the teams that hired new coaches usually start their

(01:57:58):
off season program a little bit sooner, mix in a
rookie mini camp not long after the draft. Texans have
done that, and then you slot in a couple of
non mandatory OTAs. We mentioned last segments or last hour
that Justin Herbert had not been available for all of
those because he was a concert going. We talked about
Aaron Rodgers missing a little bit of the Steelers' off

(01:58:20):
season program because he obviously wanted to get will Howard
Moore reps so he could be his number one backup
this year. Watching him kill it, and for many different reasons.
Some players are there, some aren't. Texans will have very
good attendance. The Patriots are one of the teams that
have now been on the field with media availability, so
they're head coach who was last heard telling his top
draft pick what a great time he was having. How

(01:58:41):
are you doing, coach, I'm doing great. I'm doing great.
I will read you the headline from two different posts
because he held his media availability in their typical media room,
so it's full of reporters.

Speaker 3 (01:58:56):
I asked the question.

Speaker 4 (01:58:57):
We'll leave the question in there for you, but someone
that audio and posted it and said. Mike Rabel was
asked about his work life balance and went on to
talk about football this spring. That's one headline that's from
someone who covers sports. I'll read you the New York
Post headline of the exact same audio and then story
they wrote about it. Mike Vrabel gushes over wife Jen

(01:59:19):
and kids after Diana Rossini scandal at Patriots press conference.

Speaker 3 (01:59:23):
Who wrote that headline the New York Post.

Speaker 4 (01:59:26):
Let's hear what Mike Rabel had to say when asked
about his work life balance.

Speaker 3 (01:59:32):
Asked, you were talking about the balance of family and football.
Just how would you describe how that process has been going?

Speaker 5 (01:59:39):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (01:59:40):
Really good?

Speaker 11 (01:59:40):
I think that that's uh again, I appreciate my family
is great.

Speaker 2 (01:59:44):
I love Jen, I love the boys, I love you know,
my personal friends.

Speaker 3 (01:59:48):
And then you know, this spring is focused on coaching.

Speaker 4 (01:59:52):
Story The rest of what he said more minutes of
his answer football only.

Speaker 3 (01:59:57):
Why didn't he name the kids?

Speaker 4 (01:59:59):
Maybe he's didn't want anyone to think that he has
a kid named Mike or something. That's all that has
the kid big storyline here. I love Jen, I love
the boys. That's perfectly fine.

Speaker 2 (02:00:09):
He and he did say that things are going really good.
I don't know about that. Uh, look can be going really?
Do you hear that again?

Speaker 4 (02:00:18):
Just to make sure all those exact words were said
in that way. It's question being in there is fine.

Speaker 3 (02:00:24):
You were talking about the balance of family and football.

Speaker 4 (02:00:28):
Just how would you describe how that process has been going?

Speaker 3 (02:00:31):
Oh, really good? I think that that's really good.

Speaker 2 (02:00:33):
Again.

Speaker 3 (02:00:33):
I appreciate my family is great. I love Jen, I love.

Speaker 4 (02:00:36):
I can't understand how they're kind of stuck here this
question for coach? What is it exactly? I want him
to give this answer and maybe I'm going to soften
question one with.

Speaker 3 (02:00:48):
A different way to say it.

Speaker 4 (02:00:50):
Or do you just go guns blazing knowing that you're
going to be there the next year, three years, five
years with coach and you want to continue to you know,
I'm not saying get access lose access over this. It's
really more about how do you get the question out?

Speaker 3 (02:01:04):
The band aid off to try to get the answer,
because unfortunately, this wasn't it.

Speaker 2 (02:01:09):
She tried to dance around it, she tried to soften
it up, she tried to and it doesn't.

Speaker 3 (02:01:14):
I am not there.

Speaker 4 (02:01:15):
I wouldn't be shocked at all if the extremely unfortunate
thing happened before this availability, and it happens all the time.
Please don't ask him about this. You're now put in
a terrible position, and the media team is doing their job.

Speaker 3 (02:01:31):
Yeah. But here's the thing, though, I think that's overreaching
to a certain degree. Can't do that.

Speaker 2 (02:01:36):
You can't then don't have the media in to ask
questions ever, exactly because if you don't, you can't you
can you can get what you want, which is to
never have him speak publicly again.

Speaker 4 (02:01:47):
But this is also why I really don't think the
idea that what happened is a distraction and he's not
getting fired, He's not going to be there. There's how
far away are we how many more availabilities are we
from him getting asked nothing about this?

Speaker 2 (02:02:05):
They're slow playing next one because they're hoping that's gonna
be what happens.

Speaker 3 (02:02:08):
It is exactly.

Speaker 4 (02:02:09):
It like literally, the next time he talks, he's not
gonna be asked about it at all.

Speaker 3 (02:02:13):
It's not a distraction at all.

Speaker 4 (02:02:14):
It's totally gonna be completely gone from it until they
actually play games in another stadium and other media members
are there and the fans are there with their signs
because they think they're so funny.

Speaker 2 (02:02:24):
Well, I wish it is a gold mine of comedy. Unfortunately,
I wish they came here this year because we've got
some doozies in the crowd at Reliant Stadium.

Speaker 4 (02:02:34):
And just in case you were wondering, that was what
it sounds like when you gush over your wife and kids.

Speaker 2 (02:02:40):
He didn't gush over anybody. Ask me about my family? Hey, wex,
how's the family doing?

Speaker 4 (02:02:48):
Really good? I appreciate my family. I love Robin, I
love the boy and girl, and I love my personal friends.
But I love I love the kids, I love Jen.

Speaker 3 (02:03:00):
Has anything changed since the unfortunate incident? We'll see.

Speaker 4 (02:03:04):
Now you're asking me a hypothetical question, because there is
no unfortunate incident.

Speaker 2 (02:03:07):
I'm just doing what they should have been doing in
that room, not h how's a guying?

Speaker 4 (02:03:12):
How about how is your wife doing? How's your how's
your family handling this?

Speaker 3 (02:03:17):
And you know what that on the surface seems like
it's an inappropriate question, only sounds in appropriate.

Speaker 2 (02:03:21):
It's exactly what they should be asking because he's the
one that brought them into this. So if he's gonna say, uh,
that's none of your business. I would like you to
stay out of my personal life. Why you made it
our business when you did that? Now a legitimate question.

Speaker 4 (02:03:35):
Why it's I know the answer, because we do believe
there may be something punishable by the league or by
the team because of this particular relationship. I can understand
a ton of leeway in this line of questioning, Like
I'm the judge at a court proceeding and I'm gonna
give the I'm gonna give counsel some leeway here with
their questions. But most times, whatever's happening in your literal

(02:03:58):
personal life, not an off field legal related incident, when
you've gotten in trouble, that set's fair game. This is different,
it really is. Does it really matter? Is what is
it that? What's the story you're writing about? What do
you need to know about this?

Speaker 3 (02:04:14):
Now? You don't?

Speaker 4 (02:04:16):
It doesn't It really doesn't have anything to do with
is Drake May's shoulder?

Speaker 3 (02:04:20):
Okay? You know, have you set up joint practices? Are
you going to be here this year?

Speaker 7 (02:04:25):
Well?

Speaker 3 (02:04:25):
Yeah, I am this what all what.

Speaker 2 (02:04:28):
I'm saying is, you know, this being the first time
he's talked about it, getting a softball question, and if
your theory holds true, not basically being asked about this again,
at least not in the New England area. This is
lending itself to what I would say is a collective
effort to steer him away from what Albert Breer was reporting,

(02:04:52):
which is that he's lost his swagger. He's not going
to be able to be the same guy. It's really
affected him.

Speaker 4 (02:04:58):
All questions that you would be wanting to get answers
to from coach Arrabel What is his perspective on this?
You don't ask him that way. You say, have you
lost any of your in the locker room? Have you
approached this season the same way? Have the players been
receptive to you in the same He can lie to you,
or he can tell you the truth, or he can
act like that's a ridiculous question. I'm the same guy

(02:05:19):
whatever he wants to do. But that's more football related.

Speaker 3 (02:05:22):
That's more.

Speaker 4 (02:05:23):
This is much more important to it all because you
don't even have to pretend that it didn't happen anymore.
You don't have to ask him to confirm that it happened.
We all know that it happened based on how everyone
has treated it, and I mean how the people involved
have treated it.

Speaker 3 (02:05:37):
Mike himself.

Speaker 2 (02:05:39):
I think they're going to go into the toilet this year,
and I think people are going to enjoy it, probably
even more than they should.

Speaker 3 (02:05:46):
Yeah, that probably is true if it goes that route.

Speaker 2 (02:05:49):
Like I mean again, they're in a division with I mean,
Miami's going to be probably.

Speaker 3 (02:05:53):
One of the worst teams in the NFL this year.

Speaker 4 (02:05:55):
It's going to be pretty hard for Geno Smith's Jets
and Malik Willis Dolphins.

Speaker 2 (02:06:01):
To not be below Drake May's Patriots exactly.

Speaker 3 (02:06:07):
I just hope they're not even a wild card. It
would be great.

Speaker 2 (02:06:11):
If one will mean, that's possible, by the way we
keep running through the AFSOL wins that division.

Speaker 3 (02:06:14):
It's very much possibility.

Speaker 4 (02:06:16):
You have a team outside the playoffs from twenty twenty
five saying yeah, we're gonna go out and have a
good season and win the Super Bowl. Okay, so let's
add Cincinnati to the AFC playoff pool. Patriots and Bills,
Ravens and Bengals, Chiefs, Chargers and Broncos. We're already at
six and we haven't mentioned the Chiefs or the AFC

(02:06:38):
South at.

Speaker 3 (02:06:38):
All, Right, and the Texans are definitely going.

Speaker 4 (02:06:41):
So Jaguars and Texans makes it eight, Chiefs makes it nine.
We didn't mention Aaron Rodgers Steelers who were in the
playoffs last year and they won't be this year.

Speaker 3 (02:06:50):
Probably not, but.

Speaker 4 (02:06:51):
That's we also want to tell me the Patriots aren't
aren't in the mix this year. The road to the
playoffs and winning in the playoffs where you lost in
the playoffs, it's got easier.

Speaker 2 (02:07:00):
And we also haven't mentioned the fact that they're not
going to have that cupcake schedule this year that they
did last year. It has changed for but don't worry.
They're going to trade for AJ Brown. That's going to
fix everything.

Speaker 3 (02:07:12):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (02:07:13):
I hope. I hope Roseman fleeces them. I doubt that why.

Speaker 4 (02:07:20):
I mean, once again he's going to get a higher pick,
second round pick, third round pick.

Speaker 3 (02:07:24):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (02:07:25):
I just want him to make it hurt. That's what
I'm looking for here. And again they're not with Belichick.
How much of the personnel decisions was he a part
of because this is like a lot, That's.

Speaker 3 (02:07:38):
What I'm saying. This is not the same.

Speaker 4 (02:07:40):
Like I think when Nick became the Texans GM, the
common belief and what he went on interviews elsewhere, not
that many, but a few others it was I'm not
really in charge there.

Speaker 3 (02:07:52):
I'm not making the final call.

Speaker 4 (02:07:54):
I will be now if you hire me, and I
can't wait to show you what I've learned the last
twenty years with the Patriots. But that's my belief in
how things were done there. That's why Belichick caught so
much grief for how badly the team performed and how
much less talent was on the team once he was
completely in charge.

Speaker 2 (02:08:15):
Yeah, but remember, no matter who was actually in charge,
so many times they were shipping guys out ahead of
schedule and bringing guys in versus signing a bunch of
big contracts. And oh, by the way, their most important
player was constantly taking less money, making that all possible.

Speaker 4 (02:08:32):
Yeah, the roster here in Houston is about as good
as you could hope for. But the quarterback's not Tom Brady.
They had Tom Brady. Well, the roster was good. There's
plenty of Hall of famers there, but it also didn't
have to be the best thing ever to walk the
planet Earth elsewhere because he was on the team and
Drake Mays no Tom Brady, that's correct, a couple of
elks to pass along we just have not done already.

(02:08:53):
We're regarding your Houston Astros kind of an expected move
after last night. Jason Alexander has options left, so the
Astros utilize that fact. He's been sent back down to
Triple A. They've been using a six man rotation. His
next turn in the rotation would have been as they
open up their series against the Pirates.

Speaker 3 (02:09:12):
That's June's second.

Speaker 4 (02:09:14):
It comes immediately after an off day, meaning everybody can
stay on regular rotation. If they skip the Jason Alexander start,
that's what they're doing. He probably won't be back, barring injury,
until after that. At that point, you're also now looking
at what is the final Hunter Brown rehab start. Maybe
there's a different way to go, but Alexander sent down

(02:09:35):
Logan van Wye puts them back at a typical use bullpen.
They've got eight players out there in the bullpen available
to them and only aj Bluebaugh through yesterday. Because Alexander
was at least able to give them another fifteen out
to get him through six innings despite giving up eight
runs in the first inning, So that definitely brought it
up earlier. That helps the team a tremendous amount and

(02:09:55):
you know how they want to handle each of the
other starters. Probably all going to be some concern the
further of the season goes with Arraghetti if he's pitching
this well, and let's keep things as they are, Let's
try not to go crazy with how many innings he throws.
Peter Lambert's probably in a very similar boat. Kaiwai tang
is somebody that'll have to watch. These are all things
that go into these bigger picture decisions, but a pretty

(02:10:16):
easy one. Give us a give Joe a spot, a
full available bullpen when the opportunity presents, and it absolutely
absolutely does. Because of how their schedule lays out. Lineup
tonight will not include Esach Perettis that he is on
the bench for tonight's game. Braden Shoemake will be at
third base. Bryce Matthews is at second, so one, two, three,

(02:10:38):
Peyna Alvarez Walker so Wilvarez back into the two hole.
Taylor Trammel has clean up hit her duties. Bats in
front of Cam Smith, Shoemake, Jake Myers, Bryce Matthews, and Vasquez.

Speaker 3 (02:10:49):
We'll catch for Mike Burrows.

Speaker 4 (02:10:52):
I don't think the answer is tonight, but at some
point they're going to have to do something with Mike Burrows.
Mike Burrows keeps putting them in a position where they're
not likely to win that night when he pitches, what
do you suggest, Well, you don't just give the ball
to a pitcher all season long? Who sports any ra
close to six? That's where he is right now, five

(02:11:13):
seventy five ERA heading into tonight's game. Every time it
looks like something might have clicked and corner has been
turned or luck has gone his way, he produces a start.
Much on the opposite end of that. They're twenty four
and thirty two, so sure they could say, what difference
does it make?

Speaker 3 (02:11:30):
We're not in it.

Speaker 4 (02:11:31):
They're definitely not showing signs of saying that anytime soon.
So if you're not saying we're out of it, then
you have to consider what you can do. Unfortunately he's
in that position. The team is in a different position.
What do you want us to do?

Speaker 3 (02:11:47):
Hey, Wex, thanks for the suggestion, signed Astro's management. Ps.
Who is it you'd like to have started in his place? Yeah,
that's the problem. And Hunter Brown comes back.

Speaker 2 (02:11:59):
Okay, now what because you have Burrows mccullor's is hurt
and when he gets back, I still don't know what
to think of him.

Speaker 4 (02:12:08):
Yeah, mccullur's is not a consideration probably until July, and
my best guests, they haven't told us that specifically that
they did tell the media today that Christian Xavier is
throwing a live BP, which is something he has obviously
not yet done in his path back from his injury situ.

Speaker 2 (02:12:25):
He's the same guy as mccullor's until further notice. I
don't know what you're getting right, but he would also
be an answer to the question who you want us
to pitch. Well, if Favier is healthy around the time
you need to make a decision on what to do
with Burrows, and I don't think sending him down. I
believe he has options left, but you might consider, well,
let's give Javier this start. Let's give you know, Mike
Burrows a little bit different look and pitch him out
of the bullpender, make it a piggyback, or whatever the

(02:12:46):
case may be. We brought it up earlier since Dana
mentioned it to us here on Sports Talk seven ninety
this morning, and Joe now mentioned it to the media
there in Arlington as well. It's tonight and tomorrow night
the expected plan for Josh Hater his first set back
to back games via his rehab assignment. Obviously, they're back
home in Constellation Field and sugar Land are the Space Cowboys,

(02:13:06):
so that is where he will pitch tonight tomorrow. If
all goes well, Joey low Prafiedo be in tonight's lineup
for the Space Cowboys. Also probably a weekend's worth Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
Maybe he's in for three of those five games, and
if all goes well, I would think they could consider
activating him when they are into the rest of their

(02:13:27):
home stand after the Milwaukee Series.

Speaker 3 (02:13:29):
When's the Milwaukee Series again? This is the next series?

Speaker 4 (02:13:32):
Okay, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, day off on Monday,
and then the Livy Dunn's.

Speaker 3 (02:13:38):
Come to Town.

Speaker 4 (02:13:39):
You saw that video right, the Springer Homer, No, I haven't.
It was from Paul's last start and George Springer homeward
off of him.

Speaker 3 (02:13:48):
I'm sure.

Speaker 4 (02:13:48):
Let's say you have thirteen cameras that your director has
to call for during your game production. If Paul Skens
is pitching and you've got a notification that Livy is
at the game.

Speaker 2 (02:13:58):
One of your cameras is dedicated. It's the Livy camera
who you have tonight. What a horrible assignment for that game.

Speaker 4 (02:14:04):
So the camera obviously had all of her reactions to
what took place, cheering for ball, let's go, let's go,
and then when contact was made by George Springer's bat
on a ball that would eventually land over the fence,
she yelled the F word and then leaned back in
her chair and yelled it again before opening up whatever

(02:14:24):
app she was using.

Speaker 3 (02:14:25):
It was very very very very easy to see.

Speaker 4 (02:14:28):
It was met with very good watching it because she
was just like Justin Herbert was doing for Madison Beer.

Speaker 3 (02:14:34):
She was supporting her partner she hates right now. Yes
it was.

Speaker 4 (02:14:40):
It was excellent, but Skenes is scheduled to pitch. I'm
not sure what Livy's plans are, but should be a
fun night.

Speaker 3 (02:14:47):
Over at Dyke and Park.

Speaker 2 (02:14:48):
I love I don't love the closed captioning. We don't
need it very easy, it's so she's not saying anything else.
Ah man, when ad they gonna trade him?

Speaker 4 (02:15:01):
Uh, let's see if maybe they have a different viewpoint,
because look at where They are right now, very good
division in the National League Central. They're competing their competitive team,
Connor Griffin being possibly a star if they figure out
what to do with O'Neil Cruz because he's such a
dynamic talent, but he's probably not really a center fielder

(02:15:23):
and he really hasn't quite reached stardom like Ellie Day
La Cruz has. They really do have some talent. By
the way, Low Perffito is and left tonight batting second
behind the obvious leadoff hitter Bigio former Blue Jay Lo Braffito,
former Blue Jay Cavin Bigio.

Speaker 2 (02:15:38):
Yeah, by the way, looking at that home run by
George Springer, like I know Jordan and some of the
great monster mashers have the same.

Speaker 3 (02:15:49):
There's never a doubt when he's hit one. Are you
aware how infrequent that has been this season?

Speaker 4 (02:15:56):
How many is he got four? He's having an awful season.
Last year was a really nice bounce back season for him.
That was home run number five. Now hitting two eleven,
got a six fifty seven ops. He's missed about two
weeks worth of games, and.

Speaker 2 (02:16:10):
The Astros would take him in a heartbeat to play
center field. You can have Jake Myers.

Speaker 4 (02:16:15):
There's really not much difference between six fifty seven ops
and a six twenty five ops or a six.

Speaker 2 (02:16:20):
Fifteen she's making, except for how much he's making is
a big difference.

Speaker 3 (02:16:24):
That is a humongous difference.

Speaker 2 (02:16:26):
To the hare to say it because it's not all
performance based.

Speaker 3 (02:16:31):
They made the right decision on George Springer. Yeah, I don't.

Speaker 4 (02:16:34):
I hate it though long had no need to debate
that fact. It's just that they also were in a
position where they knew what else was gonna happen after
he left.

Speaker 3 (02:16:42):
They were going to keep winning. Yeah, Yeah, it made
a lot. You remember, like he was.

Speaker 4 (02:16:47):
The first one Gregman departure where nobody's left. It's a
Springer was offensively on the front side of the departures,
very the first departure.

Speaker 3 (02:16:56):
Yes, like do you think Carlos care?

Speaker 2 (02:16:58):
Do you think the day after he signed that contract
in Toronto, Jim Crane walked in the office and was like,
kick rocks, George, We're gonna keep winning. They liked George
final I didn't like how they handled him before arbitration
and all that. Yeah, but after that he was the
star that was actually the World Series MVP.

Speaker 4 (02:17:19):
Jeff Luno is probably public in I me number one
in the Springer House. Yeah, two other things not locally
baseball related. But we haven't brought him up all year
and we're two months in. Vladimir Guerrero has three homers
this year. Ooh, he was essentially you couldn't get him
out in the postseason.

Speaker 3 (02:17:34):
No, he had a he had a generational run.

Speaker 4 (02:17:37):
And in San Diego everyone is going berserk about Fernando
tatis He still has not homer yet.

Speaker 2 (02:17:44):
Well, he should start doing peds again and he will
two hundred bats.

Speaker 4 (02:17:49):
I bring it up because he's hitting two sixty with
a six thirty nine ops, with no homers, so he's
in everybody's crosshairs. Manny Machado has nine homers. He's hitting
one seventy this year with a six ZHO six ops.
Fernando Tatiss has been more successful than Manny Machado, but

(02:18:09):
he hasn't hit any homer. So everyone is basically said,
this is the guy we're gonna get on, not Manny.
Like this team would be leading the Dodgers by five
or six.

Speaker 2 (02:18:18):
They're only three and a half back of the Big
Bad Dodgers if their offense doing nothing.

Speaker 3 (02:18:23):
Anything, But they had the best closer in baseball.

Speaker 4 (02:18:26):
And they could see the fifth home run from Nick
Nick Castillanos at any moment, So we always have that.

Speaker 2 (02:18:31):
Well and when that happens, somebody is going to apologize,
sure they will.

Speaker 4 (02:18:36):
Wow that is that create some wild offensive seasons on
both ends of the spectrum happening in twenty twenty six.

Speaker 2 (02:18:43):
I mean, the Astros, if they were still in the
National League would be absolutely cooked.

Speaker 4 (02:18:47):
And by the way, when the Astros take the field
tonight in Arlington at twenty four and thirty two, they
will trail the Mariners, the first place team in the
AL West, by three and a half games when play begins.
They crushed the Athletic who are now awful at two
games under five hundred. Division leader, it's one game under
five hundred. It's the Mariners now. Finally, in case you

(02:19:08):
missed it, as.

Speaker 2 (02:19:08):
Next the a team on Sports Team, case you missed it,
things we haven't gotten to.

Speaker 3 (02:19:16):
Things we maybe did a little bit but didn't talk
about enough. I don't know. It's up to Josh Jordan,
He's in charge.

Speaker 4 (02:19:21):
We also have tickets to give away in the final
segment of the show. You want to go see the
fixed July twenty third House of Blues. I have a
couple pairs of tickets to give away to that show
coming up. With the final segment of the show. You
know you'd win tickets from the A team. You listen
to the show, you get rewarded something we have discussed
recently here on the program, maybe even in this upcoming segment.
We'll ask you about in the final segment and then

(02:19:42):
to give you a chance to call in and win
those tickets.

Speaker 12 (02:19:45):
What do we have for in case you missed it? Josh, Yeah,
I wanted to comment on you. You've read the Astros
lineup coming up tonight, no peretis. I thought it was interesting.
I looked it up over the last two years. Oh
for ten against deGrom. I know, we got hit by
that pitch last night. Probably maybe a good day to
give him the nine.

Speaker 3 (02:20:00):
Off, probably timing wise as well.

Speaker 4 (02:20:03):
I mean, it's nice that they have this surplus so
when a player has gone down, in this case, two
of them are down, both Korea and Altuve, he is
still here and he does provide a service to Jordan
Alvarez when he bats in front of him. If you
want to see a lot of pitches before you hit,
I'm your guy. Esak Peretis is not having a good

(02:20:23):
offensive season this year for the Astros.

Speaker 2 (02:20:25):
Come on, man, he was so good last year when
he was not having a miserable can't play him offensive season.

Speaker 3 (02:20:32):
But he's not having a good season.

Speaker 12 (02:20:34):
No, But when you look at their batting word tonight
without him in it, with Walker hitting third, after that,
everything else is.

Speaker 3 (02:20:40):
Just kind of woof.

Speaker 12 (02:20:41):
So anyway, Chandler Rome put out an idea here in
one of his little mail bags about when Hunter Brown returns,
maybe they stick with the starting rotation Hunter Tang, Burrows, Lambert,
Arraghatty and Emi.

Speaker 3 (02:20:53):
What do you guys think? That's exactly what we talked about.

Speaker 4 (02:20:56):
I think when wet, Yeah, the Alexander demotion lines up
exactly for this we don't really have I didn't think
it was much of a question because I think we
talked about it yesterday before Alexander even made a second
start of the year last night. When Hunter Brown is healthy,
that is clearly the first person you're going to bump
from a rotation if you keep it at six, and
they've got a lot of reasons to keep it at six.

(02:21:18):
If everybody stays healthy and I brought up a few
of those. You probably want to monitor the innings of
a young pitcher or Spencerraghetty probably have to monitor the
innings of both Kaiwai Tang, who's never been a full
long portion of the season starter, and Peter Lambert same thing,
not at the major league level. These are all reasons
why you would want a six man rotation, and Emai's
certainly at the top of that list because that's all

(02:21:40):
he's ever known, is a six man rotation, basically meaning
five days in between starts, which is what he can
still get with the day off on June first, what
I think he can still get because of the day
off that comes after that without them needing to be
in a six man rotation.

Speaker 3 (02:21:56):
And it also gives you.

Speaker 4 (02:21:57):
The ability if Hunter Brown, it's gonna be awesome the
moment he comes back. Yeah, you'd want him pitching more often,
but I think there's some time to give him to
to get to that point where the six min rotation
affords you that.

Speaker 2 (02:22:10):
And then as additional bodies get healthy in the rotation,
is Kiwa Tang the first to go back to the
bullpen or do you keep him where he is well?

Speaker 4 (02:22:21):
You know he can so, yes, probably, But that's why
I brought up the Burrows situation that it make just
think about this, all right, one guy's pitching to a
two thirty RA as a starter, and the other one's
pitching to a five seventy five. Which one should I
move out of the rotation? Like it should be that simple.
It probably will be if it continued.

Speaker 3 (02:22:39):
You would put Burrows in the bullpen.

Speaker 4 (02:22:41):
Yeah, I don't hate that unless there's some other option,
like he has a Like if Kywa Tang gets shelled
his next two outings, then maybe you think, Yeah, that's
why you don't have to make I think he would.
I wouldn't exactly. He's pitching very well. If Christian Xavier
is a month away throwing a live VP throwing another one,
then maybe he's rehabbing.

Speaker 3 (02:23:00):
You're not quite there yet.

Speaker 4 (02:23:01):
We're probably two months away from actually considering a return
of either Renel Blanco or Hayden Wiznsky, probably about due
for an update on where things are with their extended
rehabs from their surgeries last season.

Speaker 2 (02:23:16):
Gosh, I just don't want to allow myself to get
excited about Renel Blanco.

Speaker 3 (02:23:20):
I get it, he's been a closer before. He's great
and then he got hurt. Like everybody else on this team,
What else do we have? Yeah, I just thought it
was interesting.

Speaker 12 (02:23:30):
As spot has said, when they talked about Tang, would
he be moved back?

Speaker 3 (02:23:33):
He wouldn't.

Speaker 12 (02:23:33):
He was noncommittal on it, but he pointed out, I
like to keep him around eighty eighty five pitches. When
the depth of his pitches kind of start to change,
you can get in real trouble there. So I thought
that was an interesting quote from a spot on paraphrasing.
Of course, guys, I think this aj Brown thing is
happening with Vrabel they asked him about adding a receiver.
We want to continue to improve the roster every opportunity

(02:23:54):
we get, and when those opportunities.

Speaker 3 (02:23:56):
Arise, I don't know.

Speaker 12 (02:23:58):
So again, we're going to look to strength the roster
wherever we can. Get Ready, this is going down.

Speaker 4 (02:24:06):
There's no reason to push back on this idea.

Speaker 2 (02:24:09):
No, it is gonna You're If you're the Patriots and
you're already headed for the proverbial swoon after losing in
the Super Bowl, you need all the help you can get,
especially on the side of the ball where your quarterback
looked shakier as the season went on, and by season
I mean the playoffs. It's battling a shoulder injury, so
give him a break. CJ was battling an offensive line

(02:24:33):
that sucked.

Speaker 4 (02:24:34):
Their offensive line kind of was awful in the playoffs too.

Speaker 2 (02:24:38):
Well, anybody's offensive line is bown and it faces the Texans.

Speaker 3 (02:24:41):
It was Seahawks back to back. They weren't any much
better the first game that they played before the Texans. Actually,
I shouldn't say back to back.

Speaker 2 (02:24:49):
They faced the Texans and the Broncos and then the Seahawks.

Speaker 4 (02:24:53):
It just player for player, and maybe it works out
a little bit better for them in New England. Player
for player, if you great out there wide receiver room
versus the other thirty one teams, it would rate very poorly.
You know, Stefan Diggs, for as much as he's still
looking for work, he was super productive last year. It
was a plus level, very very very good receiver for them.
Caught a touchdown pass against the Texans, as did to

(02:25:15):
Mario Douglas. Douglas Dobbs, are you're one in two Maybe
in reverse order. Dobbs hasn't caught a pass from Drake
May yet after they acquired End this offseason.

Speaker 3 (02:25:25):
Mac Hollins bhute. It's pretty nondescript.

Speaker 4 (02:25:31):
It's pretty not It's probably one of the ten worst
wide receiver rooms in the league, or close to it.
So adding aj Brown is not just a this might help.
It changes things dramatically.

Speaker 3 (02:25:44):
That's a.

Speaker 2 (02:25:45):
That's the second time during this show you have used
the term nondescript. That's impressive. I don't know what I
used it for the first time. I remember either, but
I remember it. I just remember supporting people. Do you
have any other items here?

Speaker 12 (02:25:56):
With both hands, yeah, quickly, just they did a who
could dethrone the Seahawks Top eight teams? I thought it
was interesting that the Texans were not listed, but they
had the Ravens. Second, you guys see the Ravens in
the Rams are at first you think the Ravens are
are really the top two teams.

Speaker 3 (02:26:14):
Though, take the Seahawks out.

Speaker 4 (02:26:15):
I don't either, no off season media darlings. I've got
a new coach, healthy Lamar. Let's run that out there.

Speaker 2 (02:26:22):
I'm telling you right now, the Ravens and the Patriots
are going to have a lot in common next year.
A lot of people are thinking they're going to do
big things. A lot of people are going to be
very disappointed when they don't. Well, let me explain my
Lamar position. The Ravens are going to win the division.
The Ravens are the best team in that division. If
they don't win it, it will be the Bengals. But
I think they're both probably going to the playoffs. But

(02:26:45):
you said to thrown the Seahawks Lamar Jackson out all
those years with all those great rosters and John Harbaugh,
and they never even got to the super Bowl. Now
that coach Minter's there and the rosters probably worse. Now
they're going to get through the Now, Lamar Jackson's gonna
all of a sudden put together three great AFC playoff
performances so they can win three times. Extremely unlikely, they

(02:27:09):
might make the playoffs, And I'm okay with people saying
they're gonna have a good season regular season. I would
not pick them as one of the top eight teams
to just thrown in the Seahawks. I'd pick the Texans
before them. I'll tell you that right now. I have
no problem with the Rams being number one. Ravens did
number two ahead of the Bills. Eh I mean, if
you want to hate on Josh Allen, I get that.

Speaker 3 (02:27:29):
How are they gonna win without Sean McDermott. That's a
good point, all right. Final segment of the show.

Speaker 2 (02:27:35):
Can I interest you in some cookies in lemonade or
a film based on a highly successful television series starring
Chris Hanson.

Speaker 3 (02:27:45):
There's your hint.

Speaker 1 (02:27:48):
The a seed on Sports Talk seven ninety he.

Speaker 3 (02:27:54):
Still here. Tell the good folks what kind of tickets
they'll be winning real quick.

Speaker 4 (02:27:59):
You've been listening to the show. You'll have a very
good chance of winning these tickets. All you have to
do is call in and give us the answer to
this question so you can go see The Fix July
twenty third, House of Blues that live performance. Got a
couple pairs to give away here, and we'll do so
again tomorrow. Tickets are on sale now via ticketmaster dot com,
so if you don't win them here, you can purchase
them there. Of The Fix July twenty third, House of

(02:28:21):
Blues seven one, three two, seven ninety with the answer
to this question.

Speaker 2 (02:28:26):
Well, we were just uh enthralled in the in case
you missed it segment, and Josh brought up an article
of the eight teams that are most likely to dethrone
the reigning, defending undisputed Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks, and
they were in order with odds and all that kind

(02:28:47):
of stuff.

Speaker 3 (02:28:48):
Who is at the top of that list? We mentioned it.

Speaker 2 (02:28:52):
I even said I had no disagreement with them being
the first option. If you will, what team is the
most likely according to the list that Josh brought up
on the show to knock off the Seattle Seahawks.

Speaker 4 (02:29:05):
I will give you one hint, oh boy, not the
team that had the last chance to knock them off.

Speaker 2 (02:29:11):
That's a good hint. I like what you did there.
Don't say anything else. You'll screw up your perfect hint.
I hate it when you do that.

Speaker 3 (02:29:18):
I won't.

Speaker 2 (02:29:18):
Were you a fan of the series To Catch a Predator.

Speaker 3 (02:29:22):
You'll hate what I when I say, I barely ever watch.

Speaker 2 (02:29:26):
Come on, man, look what's more satisfying than watching disgusting
freaks like those guys be.

Speaker 3 (02:29:36):
Be caught and humiliated. I love that. You just don't
mess with kids. Okay it would have yes, I should
have locked in.

Speaker 2 (02:29:44):
I was today years old when I learned that there
is a trailer for a new movie called Prime Time
starring Robert Pattinson as Chris Hansen. The film follows him
as he runs how to Catch a Predator, where he
confronts adult men who think they are meeting with and

(02:30:05):
you know how that goes. I'm sorry, I know it's
a dark topic. I am all about this because I
think Chris Hansen is an American hero for doing this.

Speaker 3 (02:30:17):
And I was actually upset when.

Speaker 2 (02:30:20):
I think, and again I'm not for sure on the
details or if I'm even getting this right, but for
the most part, the gist of it was, they took
that show off the air because one of these guys
off himself basically, and they blamed the public humiliation of
I'm like, really public.

Speaker 4 (02:30:41):
Humiliation in this era unlike that era of lack of
social media. Yes, very present currently, Yeah, this or anything.

Speaker 3 (02:30:50):
This is a feature length to be released in theaters
movie in theaters later this year. I mean, what would
movie trailer guy?

Speaker 4 (02:31:00):
I can't both complain about the movie houses being so uncreate,
non creative and just cranking out sequel after sequel after
sequel or remakes. No lie, just yesterday I think I
said to the missus, there's a toy story five.

Speaker 3 (02:31:16):
Yeah, I saw that too.

Speaker 4 (02:31:18):
And so this is a I mean, it's based off
a TV show, but it has it is different. I'm
not really thinking I'm gonna send a text to anybody
other than you and say the following, Hey man, let's
go catch the to catch a Predator movie Primetime? What
do you say? Let's just go out and have a

(02:31:38):
good time. I don't think too many people are saying
I know we just met, but I wondered if maybe
you wanted to catch dinner, maybe you go see a movie.
I heard Primetime is in theaters.

Speaker 2 (02:31:52):
All right, since you brought that up, I'm gonna salvage
this by making it super entertaining. Since you are not
down with this, I'll give you a billion dollars if
you can guess the first movie me and Teresa watched
together when we were dating.

Speaker 3 (02:32:04):
It was not in the theater. I didn't rent it.

Speaker 4 (02:32:07):
It became a reasonable hint because this is way too
wide of a question, and afflecks in it.

Speaker 3 (02:32:12):
So it's definitely not Jennifer So we started dating correct
twenty fifteen, it's not gee okay twenty fifteen. When we
started is it a relationship movie rom com?

Speaker 2 (02:32:23):
I wouldn't call it a rom com I would definitely
call it a relationship movie.

Speaker 4 (02:32:29):
That's a pretty big hints, an awesome hint, but I
just don't know the answer. Reindeer Games Freaking Gone Girl.

Speaker 3 (02:32:35):
Have you ever seen that movie?

Speaker 2 (02:32:36):
Wex have?

Speaker 3 (02:32:38):
You don't even know what it's about.

Speaker 2 (02:32:40):
Well, I can tell you every woman in your life
knows what it's about because they read the freaking book.

Speaker 3 (02:32:45):
And then I watched this.

Speaker 2 (02:32:46):
Like the Doogie Howser MD spoiler alert gets slashed to
death in the middle of it because this lady is
an absolute psychopath, only only to be eclipsed in her
psychotg psychosis.

Speaker 3 (02:32:59):
That's good.

Speaker 2 (02:32:59):
But Affleck's character himself just two awful people that are
married to each other. And oh, but honestly, you need
to watch it. You should watch this movie. I love
all Tyler Perry movies. Tyler Perry is the most least believable.
I think he's a lawyer or like a television personality

(02:33:20):
in that movie. What does it say the character's name is,
I don't know, you're already off the IMDb page.

Speaker 3 (02:33:26):
He was an attorney. I knew it.

Speaker 2 (02:33:28):
Tanner Bolt, Tanner Bolt attorney. It's a messed up movie.
She goes missing or does she?

Speaker 4 (02:33:39):
So Nick had a wife and she's Rosamund Pike, famous
children's book author. Also had a mistress. Yeah, and that
was Emily Radikowski. Yeah, a scoundrel this guy. Yeah, man,
I'll put it on the list.

Speaker 3 (02:33:57):
That was when Emily peaked by the way, I think,
well she was.

Speaker 4 (02:34:02):
She created quite the storyline with Haley Joel Osmont in Entourage.

Speaker 3 (02:34:08):
Oh that's true, she did.

Speaker 2 (02:34:10):
She also can She also created quite the storyline when
she was in that video with that one guy who's
the son of the other guy, the game show host.
Have some details. What was his name that video with
the guy? What was his what was the guy's what
was the guy's dad's name? He was a game show host?

Speaker 3 (02:34:30):
Right? Is this real? Alan Thick was his dad? Actor?

Speaker 4 (02:34:35):
I thought he was a game show host. He's a
he's a psychiatrist. His kid was Kirk Cameron, Tracy Gold,
Ben Miller.

Speaker 2 (02:34:41):
Gosh, yeah, well apparently he like was rough on the
set or something like that.

Speaker 3 (02:34:49):
All right, you should see Gone Girl.

Speaker 4 (02:34:51):
Like I said, I will add it to the extremely
long list of movies.

Speaker 3 (02:34:55):
Do you think you'll watch?

Speaker 2 (02:34:56):
You know I need to see. Do you think you'll
watch Gone? Girl or the Jackal.

Speaker 3 (02:35:00):
First, the Jackals Willison a thriller. It's good. Yeah, that's
way much. And Richard Gear he's got an interesting movie
agraphy filmography. I called that.

Speaker 2 (02:35:15):
His character's name is Declan. We have a winner or
winners that knew Rams were the first choice, and if
we don't, you can call him now because the Rams
were the first. Gave the answer, yes, exactly, And that
makes perfect sense. When you've got a sixty million dollar quarterback,
you should be at the top of the list. I mean, right,
what should we do with our first pick? Why don't
we draft a quarterback and then let's extend our quarterback

(02:35:37):
for two more seasons.

Speaker 3 (02:35:39):
Well, he's just getting that Jordan Love treatment. He's Ty Simpson.
I didn't say I liked it. And it was even
higher in the draft.

Speaker 2 (02:35:49):
If I had drafted ty Simpson, I would keep playing
Matthew Stafford until he was dead too. But then again,
I wouldn't have drafted ty Simpson and I wouldn't have
drafted a quarterback in this draft.

Speaker 4 (02:36:00):
Fernando Astros series with the Rangers continues. All you've seen
so far in this particular series is a game where
the Rangers didn't get any hits and obviously did not score,
followed by a game in which they got all the
hits in the first inning and scored eight times. They
have a four game series. This is not the rubber game,
but the Astros and Rangers are next. Here on Sports

(02:36:20):
Talk seven ninety we got the Astros on Deck show
Come on your way next, and then of course the
Tenth Inning Show to follow. We'll be back with you tomorrow,
as we are each and every weekday afternoon at two o'clock.

Speaker 1 (02:36:33):
The eighteen