Astros Spring Training; Hader Update, Rockets Back to Work, KC Kicks the Can

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Fresh from the practice facility for one of us and
fresh from municipal court for the other.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
You decide I.

Speaker 3 (00:11):
Should be ready to go now, I was practicing and
I am ready to talk on the radio. Now, did
you get up some shots? No, no, I don't. I
don't get paid to do that. I get paid to
talk about people that do do that.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
You know. I was.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
I should probably not say this out loud, but you know,
story of my life here. I was kind of ready
for the All Star Break myself, mainly because of how
that game against the Clippers ended. I was just so
disgusted they, you know, because it didn't look like the
Rockets were already on All Star break as sometimes that's
applied to teams as they're just kind of playing. It
looked like a week before. Yes, it looked like Boston

(00:46):
and Charlotte. But they but then they won against the Clippers.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Right, everything I think kind of turned in their proper directions. Yeah,
and then.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
The fourth quarter happened of the back to back game
also against the.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
Clip We were just trying to get Kawhi ready for
his UH All Star appearance run at his home stadium.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
It was like a dress for what he did in
that game.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah, they were on the practice court today, so that
was where I was. I'll tell you my story and
then Clant will tell you his where he was. Uh
So it got a little run in. It's pretty rare
when we cover practice that we actually see them playing
five on five. But they did a little bit of
that before we uh talked to Kadi and Emai Udoka,
so we'll share a little bit of what they had

(01:26):
to say. Obviously, a topic of conversation with Kevin Durant
was how he thinks the team's going to do in
the final games and how long?

Speaker 1 (01:36):
What? How many questions in until somebody asked about the burner?
Zero was the first question. Okay, good, I'm proud of
you guys. You people being immediate.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
It's too I mean, yes, I appreciate the I guess
pat on the back, not that I asked the question,
but it was very obvious that's what Kevin knew as well.
So yes, we have his I'd learned this many many
years ago. And I wasn't really good last week week
or earlier this week when we were talking about Adam
Silver's press conference, huh, because he did not he was

(02:06):
asked questions normally, when you get asked questions, what comes
from your mouth afterwards answers that's not accurate. He gave responses.
Adam Silver did, and I think Kevin Durant did the
same today a couple of questions on that, so we'll
share exactly what he had to say about that, and
the team itself talked to Ima Doka as they set
up their final twenty nine games, with two games on

(02:27):
the road Charlotte tomorrow night early tip six p. So
we will get into Rockets coverage at five o'clock tomorrow night.
I'll have launch pad for you. AC and MT have
the opening game post All Star Break, and then they're
off to New York for the Garden. They got four
games coming up, all at different tip times, which has
been the story of this season. So we'll get into
bunch of those things. Where on day two, Franchise and

(02:49):
Transition tag open window, nobody's been tagged. Nobody in the
NFL has been tagged. And today was day six of
our coverage from Astros Bring training. It was the eighth
workout for pitchers and catchers. I'm not claiming that we
were on site necessarily for all eight days, but we've
been there throughout. Had another live show just proceeding ours,
the Matt Thomas Show with Ross.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Had several guests.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
A conversation with Jeremy Pania is one that we will
share with you a little bit later this afternoon the
five o'clock hour, about five point fifteen, and also a
conversation with Christian Walker. Try to get some of the
thoughts of Dana Brown, who also joined them this afternoon,
So we want to allow you to check in on that.
A couple of injury updates from Joe Espada and he
called somebody on his team a red ass, and we'll

(03:33):
tell you all about that. And if you don't know
in sports, if you're the coach and that's how you're described,
then you're probably Mick Cronin and it's not a good thing.
But if you're a player, yes, and that's how you're described,
it's almost always a good thing. And that's definitely what
Joe meant when he said such. So we'll tell you

(03:54):
about who, what picture that is, and everything else. It
takes us through our day. Today is Wednesday, so four thirty.
Our signal segment, of course is Wednesday's BS and there's
plenty of nonsense to discuss, especially if you think today
is February eighteenth, twenty sixteen, you'll enjoy that. And of course,
now with me rambling for five minutes, we're only twenty

(04:14):
five minutes away from the best of X.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
I'm looking forward to that, especially today because of the
aforemissioned Mick Kronin and his I would even call.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
It a meltdown.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
You definitely shouldn't, because when you melt down, like the
actual item, when you melt an item down, like if
you drop a T one thousand into something that melts
it down to get rid of the chip, it's gone.
You've melted down. It's over, you're finished, You're gone. How
did he give the thumbs up?

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Come on, man, He wasn't done yet, was the CPU
chip in his brain, and that was the last thing
to go under after the thumbs So once it went under,
it also hadn't completely melted into non operational yet. But
you saw the hand kind of lose a little bit
of feeling once it went under. But if Mick Cronin
actually melted down, we wouldn't have had anything from yesterday

(05:04):
because he's done it all year.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
He's actually done it.

Speaker 3 (05:06):
His whole career, yes, but this season at the University
of California at Los Angeles, he's taken it to another level.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
So what does Ryan Hollins feel about this? That's what
I'd like to know.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
I will definitely wait get his thoughts on that, maybe
even before the end of the show.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
I think that'd be a good idea. So obviously you've
got the rockets here in town.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Astro is still out in West Palm Beach.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
And I'll tell you the first thing that got my
attention when I fired up the old Twitter fear, the
old X machine, the old what do you want to
call it? I just the first thing that flew by
as my laptop refreshed itself was a tweet from like
not even five minutes prior at the time, from Brian McTaggart,

(05:49):
and it was just Josh Hater throwing.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
Nothing fancy, not even off of a mound, but just throwing.
And I like the sight of that.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
I would say, Yeah, from where we were on day
one of spring training when Chris Gordy was there, we
have video of him throwing the baseball then very short, distant,
not with much velocity, and then he did it again,
and then today, as you mentioned the McTaggart showing him
throwing from what he called about ninety feet, so still
not throwing off the mound, but you can also tell

(06:21):
there is much more force behind it, which to me
says the program that he's on the manner in which
they're trying to get him back up to speed at
least so he can begin a real truth this is
part of the ramp up, but you know, get back
to when they really have a pretty good idea barring
a setback, you know where things stand and what part
of the season will he make his debut. Will it
be for opening day on March twenty six, with it

(06:43):
is barely over a month away, or will it more
likely be a little bit after that, or are we
still wondering if there will be a reason for a setback.
Nothing suggests that there is, and that definitely is a
good sign. We'll probably have a chance to catch up
with him over the next couple of days. The other
pitchers continue throwing live VP. Yesday was a day for
the ABS system to get a little look sie. But

(07:05):
they are a team that I keep listening to more
players talk about who's in the clubhouse and getting back
with what they have and obviously taking some of what
took place the last two years. Remember, not only did
they miss the playoffs last year, there were no playoff
victories even in a game the year before that either
Joe Spott, it does not have one. Joe Spott is
entering his third season in the I hope still ongoing

(07:29):
Golden Era of Astros baseball, and he has not managed
a win in a playoff game. They played two under
Joe in his first season against Detroit, both here at
Minute May Park now Dykin Park, and didn't win either
of those, and they obviously had none last season. But
enough of these players have postseason pedigree. Obviously many of
these guys do have World Series winning pedigrees, and it's

(07:53):
awesome to hear them say what I still think is reality. Yes,
I think it is reality for them to be in
West Palm Beach, get set for their training game on Saturday,
and believe what they say when they say we're here
to win championships, We're here to play for the World Series.
I really do think that is reality. I think they
are much more like one of ten teams as opposed

(08:14):
to what they were between twenty seventeen and twenty twenty three,
when they were one of four teams or maybe one
of three teams, and they were the one and the
other two or three teams were hoping to be what
the Astros were. It's just not quite where they are now.
But I don't think there's teams that clearly would just
have I mean, there's better teams than the Astros on paper,

(08:35):
but nobody I think is unbeatable. I would be honestly
very surprised that the same.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
Team won the American League this year.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
And I think Toronto's awesome and I think they probably
got better on paper, but I would be surprised in
this sport of baseball that the same team that won
last year, with all the other changes everybody made, including Houston,
wins it again.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
Now do the NL.

Speaker 3 (08:55):
Yeah, the NL is a little bit different. I'm not
even sure who the next best team is in the
National League. It could be the Phillies. I actually think
it might be the Cubs. I think the Cubs trading
astro Kyle Tucker for astro Alex Bregman is a huge

(09:16):
win for the Chicago Cubs. I think the Cubs might
very well be the second best team in the National
League with Alex Bregman in and Kyle Tucker.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
Out, well, that to me is as much about what
he does on the field as he does in the clubhouse,
because Kyle Tucker would probably or will, I think, fall
woefully behind in both recoverment.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
If I said Kyle Tucker and I do the same
thing in the clubhouse, is that unfair or inaccurate? You
think because we're not in there every day, you would
talk more. I know he talks more with his teammates
than he does with us, but I don't think he's
the wealth of information the analytics bookworm and study ahulic
that Alex is. And it's not just because Alex posts

(10:00):
off season workout videos and Kyle doesn't. It's more about
who we know that they are. Doesn't mean the Dodgers
aren't awesome for having Kyle Tucker. They are, and the
Dodgers are the prohibitive favorite both in the National League
and to win it all. Definitely some more on the
mlb PA in the situation they are in is at
some point in time they won't really do any negotiating,

(10:22):
probably till June or July. I don't know that they've
actually set a day, but that's pretty much what everybody
thinks is when they may get into real negotiations, of course,
because it would leave them all of five months to
get it figured out before they're in a lockout stage,
which we all know is coming sometime after the CBA expires,
before we get to twenty twenty seven. But all those

(10:43):
things in front of us, looking forward to some discussion
about the holes being filled on the Houston Texans roster
as we learn more about what other teams are doing
to clean up their rosters. Quite honestly, we don't have
to learn what the Texans are going to do to
clean up their cap because they're gonna do the same
things we're starting to hear other teams.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
They just haven't started yet.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
One of them's really kicking that can down the road
again as the other thirty one teams will do themselves. Absolutely,
it's just a very much bigger fish attached to that
can in name value, I should say, so yes, a
lot to get to here on a Wednesday edition of
the program, and we will just jump right into it
next with good bullpen news perhaps coming out of West

(11:27):
Palm Beach. It is the A team Sports Talk seven
to ninety Wednesday edition of the program. We will have
the usual simulcast coming up at three o'clock, so you
can watch us over on Space City Home Network.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
That, by the way, is.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
Where you will also see the Rockets resume their schedule
tomorrow night when they take on the Charlotte Hornets. You'll
hear it right here on Sports Talk seven ninety as well,
and the post All Star break countdown towards the playoffs
and hopefully a top four seed, by the way, will
begin in earnest. But in the meantime, your astros out
in West Palm Beach mentioned it briefly in the last segment,

(12:06):
the fact that you could actually see it. You could
see the man, the myth, the legend, Josh Hater throwing
playing catch as they call it. He did not have
a catch, which that's good on Brian McTaggart in his caption,
Josh Hater is playing catch from about ninety feet.

Speaker 3 (12:23):
I mean not to sidetrack us and not to know,
not for everybody to know for the billionth time that
I'm not from up east. If you have a catch,
that basically means someone threw you something, you caught it.
And that was that you walked away. You had the catch.
That's it. I have a catch. We have a catch.
You're playing you're playing catch?

Speaker 2 (12:43):
What are you doing? I caught the ball? Then you
throw it back.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
Well I caught it too, Yeah, we're playing catch. I
just it cracks me up because you know Brian, like
we know him personally, but to see his personality bear
itself out on social media is just spectacular. Most times
he's a very unassuming, very quiet guy, but he will

(13:06):
absolutely bury you if given the opportunity, and he deems
it necessary. Now, I'm not saying that's what happened here,
but there's.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
Something happened besides him posting a video of Josh Hater
throwing the baseball.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, there's a response on a back and forth.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
Oh okay, so this isn't best of X, but it's
kind of a diet best of X. So Brian McTaggert,
Josh Hater is playing catch from about ninety feet with
the video it's a fifteen second or it's a forty
second video. I should say. Immediately some guy says he's hurt.
You can see it in the throw. He decelerates and
pushes it and McTaggart responds, Yes, he's hurt, that's why

(13:45):
he's rehabbing. If I didn't know any better, I'd say
Adam Wesler had boguarded his ex account and just decided
to start replying as Brian mctagger But I digress. The
other guy responds with McTaggart's trademark line, cry kid, the
point being it appears from this video it's more than

(14:07):
a quote little setback.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
As you reported two days ago.

Speaker 3 (14:11):
It's one hundred percent more than that. The guy's been
hurt since August. Is there some doubt here? Do we
think the astros made it up? Do they think he's
one hundred percent and they're just slowing him down? He
came to camp in the first day, said I had
a setback. I threw and it kind of pulled, and
I thought I felt something, so I took some time off.

(14:32):
Then I threw again, and I threw this pitch in
that pitch and I still felt it. So and then
Joe spot it takes over from there. Well, we immediately
got some imaging, and what was deemed arm soreness before
we looked into what exactly it was, became documented diagnosed
elbow inflammation and that's where we are today. He's working

(14:53):
past that. And yeah, his elbow hurt is bad. Okay, sorry,
I said elbow. I believe it was bicep, my mistake,
bicep inflammation which was which is different than the capsule
in the shoulder. But he also, if you, I mean again,
you can take him at his word, or you can
look at the video. You can make up your own mind.
Everybody's more than welcome to do that. He said himself,

(15:17):
he doesn't believe doctor Josh Hater, as far as I know,
does not exist. But Josh Hater does. And he said
from everything he did this offseason, from how he tried
to get past the shoulder capsule strain to where he
had his setback with his arm, he said, I don't
think it's related at all.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
I think it had nothing to do with the other.
He said.

Speaker 3 (15:35):
The everything from returning from the elbow or the capsule
strain went great. And that's why I was throwing this
off season. I was getting up to eighty seven. I
was getting up to eighty nine, whatever numbers he threw
said specifically, if I was inaccurate just now, I apologize,
but I believe that's what he said. And then this happened.
I mean, sure, we know you might compensate this because

(15:56):
of that, But what he's saying is the shoulder is
not a problem. Having a shoulder injury certainly could have
been a factor in why he has soreness and then inflammation. Yeah, definitely,
But he doesn't believe there's anything wrong with his shoulder,
and it doesn't seem like any of the doctors do either.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
And the reason that's that right there, what you just
said at the very end is part of the reason
I do think this is good news. The part of
this is that he's actually doing something physical. Is it
throwing one hundred miles an hour off of a mound? No,
but it's not not doing anything, which is what he
was doing when he finished his season last year.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:35):
I mean, I wish we were better news, and there's
no real concrete news until the Astros and or the
Astros' performance staff medical staff has something to say about it,
or there's a negative turn and we hear about it.
It's definitely a waiting game. It's waiting to see how
long it takes for him to get to a certain
point where he's ready to pitch in a game and
he might not pitch in any spring training games, which

(16:56):
likely means he's going to have to either stay in
Florida and pitch an extent to spring training or make
his way to sugar Land and get work in there.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
How you pronounce that again, sugar Land huge, sugar Land. Oh,
I mean I thought that was intentional.

Speaker 3 (17:11):
It was intentional because I couldn't decide if he was
going to come to Houston, hang out at dyk In
Park and just get work in there. He might not
have to throw in a game at all. Sometimes veteran players,
especially a closer, might not feel the need to. I
don't want to say waste it now, the wanting to
have him active or not having him active and retroactive
to this day. I mean, we're so far from that
because the season's still so far away, they don't have

(17:33):
to make any decisions like that. He's been there a week.
They started throwing on the eleventh. It's a week in
one day. He was throwing a little bit the first
time we saw him out on the field. He was
throwing a little bit more the second time a couple
of days later, an hour a couple of days later.
From that, he's definitely ramped it up a little. This
is ramp up for a picture who's clearly behind and

(17:55):
there's concern about his health.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah, listen, it's it's not This is why we can't
have nice things when people actually post video like this
in this scenario.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
Well we could also ignore it.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
Well yeah, but I just I thought it was funny
because it's very It was very McTaggart in the response
in the back and forth a little bit.

Speaker 3 (18:16):
Was this like doctor Chow or something or Jesse Morris
that was commenting on this, one of our resident national
Twitter doctors that likes to diagnose from afar because of
all their vast experience. Sometimes they're right, but sometimes it's
I don't need them, I guess I would say.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
The guy that wrote it.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
Actually I, as I responded to him, I couldn't help myself.
He follows me, I've never I don't think I've ever
seen him before, but he does say in his bio
he's a Rice University alum.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
So I just thought, by by nature, he'd be smarter
than this.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
Because a punch of the comments right after his last
comment where he told Brian mctagger cry kid, was basically,
you're not very good at this something to that effect.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
Well, I mean I can't. I would take the video.
I would take the fact that he's on the field.
It it looks like progress. It looks like a typical
next time coming from right, that's all. It doesn't mean much.
It just means from what he's done since spring training began,
because remember he stopped, he didn't throw for Joe Spot
has said ten or eleven days, but by the you know,
those days had passed. They just happened to have passed

(19:18):
by the time spring training began. It just happened to coincide. Yeah,
he's gonna throw today, and he did, and there doesn't
appear to be anything that has set him back from then.
He had a setback during the off season. If he didn't,
he would be one hundred percent, which he's not.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
Yeah, it's it's just something we're gonna have to keep
an eye on.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
Like a lot of situations that aren't necessarily health related,
it could be competition related that.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
I'm looking forward to more. Jordan Alvarez in the cage, Well,
looks like he's his hands hurt. You see how hard
he wasn't swinging. Because that'll come.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
It's fine.

Speaker 3 (19:52):
I can handle that, no problem at all, Yeah, guy,
because it's going to be everybody from last year, of.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
Course it is.

Speaker 3 (19:57):
Look at look at Jake Myers going after that baseball.
You're gonna tell me his CAF doesn't still hurt.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
He's loafing it out there.

Speaker 3 (20:03):
I mean, I like that Jeremy Panna hit that pitch
from JP France, but I think his rib is still
bothering him.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
Go ahead, I don't know either. I'm not there.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
Look at eastag Pretis hasn't been traded yet, and he's
jaking it down to first that ham.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
He's got to be in bad shape.

Speaker 3 (20:16):
He was playing baseball, real games outside of Major League
Baseball this offseason.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
Yeah, but now it's still but he got hurt, I know,
I remember that, all right. So you know, we're a little, uh,
little sarcasm thick. But that's just kind of the way
it goes in spring training. And even once they do
start playing spring training games.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
None of this is gonna go away.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
As a matter of fact, like you're saying, WEX, I
think it probably just ramps up even more, just depending
on who the subject is of whatever you're talking about.
But enough about that, let's get to the good stuff
here in the two o'clock hour Best of X Today, UCLA's.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
Wait say it how you said it in the last segment.

Speaker 3 (21:01):
I'll just say it as I wrote it. UCLA's head
basketball coach continues his run as a content creator.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
Next on Best of X X post.

Speaker 4 (21:09):
An ever single day and you're the best of it,
breaking the entire internet. Well, this is a good one.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
I mean, we rarely have bad ones, if ever, not
to pat ourselves on the back, but this one's just
so unique because, as WEX alluded to earlier in the show,
a subject or the person that provided the content. In
this case, it's not even the first time he's done
something like that this year. But I have to say

(21:44):
before we go any further, and I'll need the experts
to weigh in on this. The experts being the guy
sitting across from me right now, Mick Cronin, the head
basketball coach at UCLA, had a little bit of a
it's not meltdown like you said, it's a uh he
just he took an aside with a reporter. He took

(22:06):
umbradge with something that was said. Before we get into
what he said and how it sounded and all that
kind of stuff. You know what I thought of when
I was watching him. He reminds me of somebody and
you'll have This is where I need your expert opinion.
Do you are you familiar with the actor Dan Florik.

Speaker 3 (22:22):
Yeah, he was on just a couple of episodes of
a very very very long running television program, just a couple.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Huh yeah, Law and Order. He also Special Victims Unit. Correct, Well,
there's there's a different cos he was.

Speaker 3 (22:35):
An SVU or he was the boss initially now he's
Liz is the Boss?

Speaker 2 (22:41):
Live is the Boss? Yeah, Olivia Benson.

Speaker 1 (22:44):
But he also didn't he do his ziplock commercials back
in the eighties where you.

Speaker 3 (22:49):
Just make sure you don't get him confused with the
drum instructor of Miles Teller or the insurance ad pitchman JK.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
Simmons. I see, That's what I'm not sure of. Do
you know what I'm talking about?

Speaker 1 (23:03):
The zip block ads where the bees were in there
to show how sealed up this is.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
Wouldn't that him? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (23:09):
Probably was, JK? But I don't know, see I did. Again,
I don't know these things sometimes.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
Mick Cronin has been coaching college basketball for quite some time.
Last night, he was unable to earn his five hundred
and twenty first all time victory. Got a bunch at
Murray State, got a lot more at Cincinnati for better
than a decade, and just prior to this season he
got a big fat five year contract extension as he
entered year seven at UCLA. They've made the tournament on

(23:40):
the tournament, not a tournament, the tournament four times in
his first six seasons. This year, I guess has provided
more angst for him because, like I said, and like
he said, he's gotten after it on the court with
his players, with other teams, with the media pretty much
all season long, and last night against Michigan State no different.

(24:00):
So there were some things that took place in the game.
Most notably his team was getting whacked by a much
better team. It's conference game California and Michigan State. You know,
Los Angeles and Spartanville there and East Lansing. They're in
the same conference. So playing in the Big Ten probably
not quite as nice as playing in the Pac Twelve
went thirty one and six a couple of years ago.
He's seventeen to nine this season, suffering the loss in

(24:23):
last night's game, he got a player on their team
who has strong ties to Michigan State from earlier in
his career and playing there and was back here, and
you know, the fans obviously were into it partially because
of that. In this particular player happened to be involved
in a very particular play down big in the late
second half of the game, breakaway play.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
He went up for the.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
Block and got a lot of leather, but he also
knocked the player to the ground, was called for a foul.
The player didn't like it, got up in his face,
he bowed up in his nothing became it. Everybody got
pushed away, and he went over to the bench. I'll
leave that there because it doesn't have anything to do
with the comments that Mick made, but has a lot
to do with mix uh sub standard behavior in my opinion.

(25:08):
But because the fans were involved with some comments chance
words you hear on a road situation, he was asked
about it after the game.

Speaker 5 (25:18):
I could give a rat's ass about the other team
student section, I.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
Just about the overall the way.

Speaker 5 (25:23):
That I would. I would like to give you a
kudos for your worst question.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
I would have been asked, all right, did you did
you like you should take it the preparation? Do you
really think I care about the other I care about
the other.

Speaker 6 (25:40):
You are you are?

Speaker 5 (25:41):
Come on, dude, yes you were. Everybody's standing here listening
to you. Everybody this is on camera, they can hear you.
I answered the question. I could give a rat's ass
about the other team student section I coach UCLA. I
don't care about Michigan State students who.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
Cares okay, first and foremost. The first thing that came
to mind when I heard are you raising your voice
at me? Was when Randy Johnson said, don't talk back
to me to the photographer that was following him in
New York when he first arrived to sign with the Yankees,

(26:20):
don't don't talk back to me and don't what did
he say, don't disrespect me and don't talk back to
me or something along those lines.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
He was scolding him like a child. That's what this
sounded like.

Speaker 3 (26:32):
I think unfortunately reporters sometimes, and I'm sure I'm just
as guilty of it as he is, they ask questions
in such a soft tone that when they don't continue
to use that soft, almost whispering tone in a situation
like this, it sounds like they did. Rat They literally
he was being super literal the head coach, Are.

Speaker 6 (26:52):
You raising your voice at me?

Speaker 3 (26:53):
Like no, Well, in reality, yeah, you technically were, but
in theory no, he was saying something to try to
expel his point and making sure that he can hear him.
And if you've noticed from astros from Texans, for sure,
you've heard over the last several years, there are a
bunch of times where you're in a right here at
spring training, you hear the subject and we'll call him

(27:15):
Joe a spot.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
I say, what'd you say?

Speaker 3 (27:16):
Because sometimes you can't hear the question, So raising your
voice is probably something everybody should do, but then you
might come across as angry or did you raise I
left the basketball situation out because I actually think he
looked even worse in that situation. Well, that's Mick Cronin.
I'm not saying he needs to get fired. I'm not
saying it's anything like this. And it also helps to

(27:37):
show why Kansas State is not even on a shaky ground.
They're not on any ground and trying to fire Jerome
tang with cause firing him is fine. The team is
losing the team. They are losing too much over the
last three years to keep them, so they fired him.
They just want to see if they can steal his money,
and they're gonna not be able to. He's got counsel

(27:58):
and he's gonna win. But he said a bunch of
stuff in the media that they're pretending has anything to
do with for a cause, mccrona doesn't deserve to get
fired over this anything from it.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
It's okay if we criticize him for it.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
I mean, you don't have to be as he used
the word rats two words rats ass. I would add
a second word to the second word he use to
describe his behavior. And it's been constant all season. The
media is not doing anything wrong. He's ripped his team,
he's talked about it. Just he can't control himself. He's
been like this for a long time. And guess why,

(28:28):
because he wins. He wins a lot of basketball games.
So people just it's okay. And like I said, if
these aren't fireable offense, he's not hurting the program. He's
embarrassing his kids, which is actually what he did in
the game with the player that I was mentioning earlier.
But he's just giving us stuff to talk about he looks.
I think he looks like an idiot, absolute moron.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
No, he does.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
It was a real quick I know that some semblance
of this has probably happened before, but I can't recall
a coach eject his own player.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
Yeah, that's what I had mentioned.

Speaker 3 (29:02):
The player came to the sidelines after Again nothing came
of him going chest to chess with the other player,
and again he didn't back away, but he also was
the one being challenged. The other player didn't like it.
I didn't think there was anything wrong with the basketball player.
Was total typical basketball play. Maybe you just don't expect
it from a team who's getting clobbered. I have no
problem with it whatsoever. He was playing basketball. He blocked
the shot, He also fouled him. Player fell down, got

(29:24):
up and walked over to him and didn't charge at him.
They weren't far enough apart, but he got up in
his face and instead of hitting him pushing him, he
just kind of shoved his chest up in his face.
A teammate pushed him away. Nothing became of it. There
were no technicals issued. He was upgraded to a flagrant foul,
which may or may not be the right call, but
when he makes his way over to the bench, Cronin
grabs him by the jersey to help push the message

(29:48):
to him, You're not wanted here on our bench. He
wasn't ejected from the game, but he told the player
and an assistant coach get him out of here, send
him to the locker room.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
He pointed to the locker room.

Speaker 3 (29:58):
He helped walk him down the the rest of the
benchline so a coach would get with him and walk
with him off the court and into the locker room.
For absolutely no reason whatsoever. He's not sending a message
to anybody. He's being a I don't even know what
word to use that's acceptable for two forty two pm
in the after being a richard head. It's not a
safe harbor. I mean, I would never say I applaud

(30:22):
right the coach for sending that kid to the showers
for what well, for what you've seen.

Speaker 1 (30:29):
If you've seen the video and you have, you know
why this first comment is funny. I legit thought this
was a dude at a urinal. If you see the
video how it starts, and it's almost from the side,
plus the the setting he's in, which is in the
bowels of whatever arena they're in.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
There's brick everywhere.

Speaker 1 (30:45):
It kind of looks like he's in a public bathroom
to an extent, So that's funny. And then somebody else
said he's an elite rage baitter. Got to give him
that Are you raising your voice at me? Got the
reporter so flustered, and the person who posted this video,
I can't even give him rage bait. He's being serious
because he was, which, of course brings us to the
next one. Are you raising your voice at me? Yeah,

(31:09):
it's because you're such a small person. The sounds cascade
down over you. He happens to be a shorter person coach.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
Literally.

Speaker 3 (31:21):
Then he goes on it plays if you win, and
he's won a lot of basketball games. He's won a
lot of basketball games at UCLA. It doesn't matter that
they have history, it doesn't matter any of this stuff.
He's not, like I said, he's in the first year.
They just signed him. He has been complaining about everything,
their travel, the way college basketball is now. I bet
you he's more frustrated with this team and with the

(31:42):
state of athletics on the collegiate side for his basketball
program than he ever has been before. Because even a
guy who I keep telling you has done this before
and he has, it really hasn't been like this. And
I think that's another huge part of what college basketball
has become. College football is the same thing we just
watched it for the last five months. Coaches are frustrated

(32:02):
more so than they ever have been, even though they're
getting paid even better than they ever have been.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
By what they now have to do. Their job title changed.

Speaker 3 (32:09):
I don't just have to coach kids on how to
play basketball and figure out which happy Chandler booster is
gonna under the table, meet these players.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
It's all part of their job.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
Now.

Speaker 3 (32:18):
They have to raise money. They have to figure out
how to spend the money. They have to listen to people,
and they have to re recruit all their players over
and over and over again, not just once you got them.
You got them. They don't stay. They can try to stay,
they could transfer, somebody could pay them more. It's a
basically a business being run with no controls. I don't
doubt for a second. It's not crazy frustrating, and this

(32:41):
is what you get. You get coaches doing things like
this more than you ever have before, which for us
and social media is welcome.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
Final parting shot. One of the responses little Mick energy.
I think that's fair, that's strong, all right. Speaking of X,
obviously it's been a hot topic around these parts. What
was kad up to over the All Star break? And
was it on a burner? We will discuss. We catch

(33:09):
up with the Rockets as they prepare to resume their schedule,
and of course Katie specifically, you'll hear from him next.

Speaker 7 (33:16):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 8 (33:21):
Just like your car, the new and improved iHeartRadio apps pre.

Speaker 7 (33:25):
Set preset Sports Talk seven nine and.

Speaker 8 (33:27):
Get Astros and Rockets games plus the A Team, it's
Sports Talk seven ninety, So all everybody was talking about here,
And honestly, a lot of the conversation league wide during
the All Star break was not necessarily about the All
Star weekend itself, although there.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
Was chatter about that.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
But look, Kevin Durant is very active on social media,
and when Kevin Durant has opinions on something, he rarely
holds back. But then there's been times where he's admitted
he's also got burner accounts plural, So whether or not

(34:04):
he was up to his old tricks, On said burner
account or accounts was all of the rage over the
All Star weekend, especially in light of what he allegedly
said about both former and current teammates and coaches.

Speaker 3 (34:22):
Yeah, teammates that he was practicing with today and is
probably currently on a very nice charter plight with the
Rockets play. They're headed to Charlotte take on the Hornets
tomorrow evening six o'clock, one of the first games of
the second part of the season post All Star break
portion a couple of six o'clock tips, they have one
of them. So, Yeah, we got to talk to Kevin
Durant after their practice session today.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
They obviously were flying out.

Speaker 3 (34:45):
Was an extended conversation, almost three and a half four
minutes worth of conversation. The last however, many questions were
all about basketball. The first two questions were about the
topic at hand. Varun Shakur, the new Chronicle Houston Chronicle
beat writer, had the I guess the honors, but he
just opened it up with the questions about that. So
listen in and listen to what Katie had to say.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
There allegations.

Speaker 9 (35:10):
There was.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
Laying that crap.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
He was asked, have you was it your burner account?
And he actually gave the name of the burner account. Uh,
not the Dickerson one, the other one.

Speaker 10 (35:25):
I know you got to ask these questions, but I'm
not here to get in a twitter nonsense.

Speaker 6 (35:28):
I'm just here to focus on the season, keep it pushing.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
But I know I get you got to answer those questions.

Speaker 3 (35:34):
Obviously, he didn't truly answered. He just said, I understand
you have to ask those questions.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
He was similarly followed up with from varun, have you
talked to your teammates, my.

Speaker 6 (35:44):
Teammates than what it is We've been locked in the
whole season. Enjoyed R.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
Braidon had a great practice today, looking forward.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
To the road trip basketball questions followed.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
Now he did I know you say? You didn't answer it?

Speaker 1 (35:57):
And by the definition of did I give a long line?
He was asked specifically, was it yours? And so he
called it nonsense? That is his answer, in my opinion, Yes,
it was his response. It's how he chose to address it. Now,
is that an expert way to diffuse it?

Speaker 2 (36:16):
Sure? If that's what really happened.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
Bottom line is, I don't think we're ever going to
get a straight answer about this anyways.

Speaker 3 (36:22):
And I mean, the only thing that matters is the basketball.
It's the only thing that's ever mattered. If it impacts
it in some way, if we believe it, the players
believe it, if he hasn't talked to them, if it's
definitely true. Even though, as we mentioned the other day,
the basketball stuff that is in there is stuff that
people outside the locker room that definitely don't matter.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
Ourselves or fans.

Speaker 3 (36:41):
Probably have said similar things, if not the exact same things,
coming from a teammate, it is different, certainly coming from
a teammate, even if it was said to you personally.
Like anything that he posted on social media in this regard,
whether it was a DM or a group text or whatever,
it is no matter how it was in this case,
even if he had said it to the player the
same words and everything, it definitely is different. I mean,

(37:04):
it wouldn't be going behind his back per se, but
it would be different than the fact that he's now
making sure everybody outside the locker room is aware of
what he thinks about the players inside the locker room.
It's why we get the common answer from players, you know,
that's that's for us, that sense, and we're not gonna
tell you what's going on inside our locker room. And
the second question was obviously if you talk to your teammates,

(37:25):
He said, my teammates know what's up.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
Yeah, I mean you talk. It comes down to it's
about the basketball. Well, that basketball includes what his relationship
is like with the teammates you're supposedly in question here,
and I mean, I don't know how many of those
you spoke to, none if any.

Speaker 3 (37:41):
Yeah, So, yeah, it comes down to the basketball, which
we'll find out at least something about it on Thursday night,
and then on Saturday, and then over their final twenty
seven games after that, and what we're gonna find out
is nothing's changed.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
So nobody said, hey, Tracy, could you bring Jabari and
alp over here together so that we may address the
fact that one of them was labeled as something that
rhymes with regarded and the other one is a guy
who's turnovers and inability to shoot is far worse than
Katie's turnovers. According to him on his burner, Allegedly, nobody said.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
That I don't think that was going to happen. I
don't think so, I.

Speaker 3 (38:21):
Mean nobody, because that's not the scenario that was presented
on a day they're getting away and all you're doing
is making it worse. If you do that, what do
they have to do with it? They didn't post it allegedly,
but it's in question. Well now we'll ask them about
it when we do get a chance to talk to them.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
It just was not today. It would be hilarious if
one of them was.

Speaker 1 (38:40):
The postgame interview after the win over Charlotte tomorrow night,
and Matt brought it up unlikely as only Matt could do.
But yeah, I think I tend to agree with you
on that. So there you have it, Katie sort of
not really, kind of sort of addresses the elephant in
the room. We are going to address our simulcast O'bron's

(39:00):
home network that comes up next along with the latest
from West Palm Beach where your astros continue spring training action.
That is all straight ahead just talk seven to ninety.
But it's also Space City home network because it's straight
up three o'clock here in h Town. Wex over there
ac right here. We got Josh Jordan along for the ride.

(39:21):
Six o'clock is when we will step aside tonight a
lot of both astros and basketball conversation, both of the
College and pro variety. Mick Cronin got his moment in
the sun during Best of X, and then Kevin Durant
not so much because when asked about the whole burner
gate situation, he didn't really want to address it. He

(39:44):
called it nonsense, moved on, said, they had a good
practice today over at the team facility just around the
corner from where we sit here in the Galleria, and
they'll be getting on a flight if they're not on
one already. They probably are right to Charlotte for the
first of two games away from toy Yoda Center. But again,
they're going to play more games at home over these

(40:04):
last twenty nine than they will on the road. Facts,
what's going on over there now? Nothing all right, I'm
just making sure. Meanwhile, something we did not talk about
yesterday that was discussed with Joe Espada out at West
Palm Beach. Astro's spring training continues. And I think, just

(40:25):
just my opinion, the fact that all of the injuries
happen the way they did in twenty twenty five, and
some of them are seemingly dragging into twenty twenty six,
even if they're not the same injuries as the same
of the same guys are dealing with physical ailments. That
has led the charge not to mention the glut in
the infield, not to mention roster spots and all that

(40:46):
kind of you know, the usual spring training stuff. It's
overshadowed the fact that in this will again be front
and center, probably before opening day, but definitely on opening day.
The automatic balls strikes challenge system is here. It's no
longer well when it comes around next year, well, if
we had this in place, and you know, the system

(41:09):
itself being there is progress. Whether you like the current
state of affairs and whether it changes because of that
remains to be seen. But Joe spot I was asked
about that yesterday and you know, said basically the obvious.
It will let you challenge things you weren't able to

(41:30):
do in twenty twenty five and prior, you know.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
Just the distance they are from the play.

Speaker 9 (41:36):
You know, we feel like the catcher has a better
review off the pitch coming in the zone over the play,
the height of the or the bottom up the pitch,
and so we're gonna encourage the the pitchers to let
the catchers do the determent.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
If it could be challenging That's interesting because even though
the catcher is closest to the actual pitch when it
gets there, obviously, I don't know that I would necessarily
agree that he has the best view of it. And
that sounds insane on the surface because he's the closest,
But when you kind of have a macro view because
you're on the pitcher's mound, you know where you threw

(42:16):
that ball.

Speaker 2 (42:17):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
I know what you're saying. I happen to agree with Joe.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
Well, again, I think the catcher is a lot of
times one of the smartest guys on the field at
any given moment of a baseball game. So that's another
thing that goes in the favor of But you know,
I would I would tend to also agree with him,
even though what I said sounds like I don't.

Speaker 3 (42:41):
Yeah, I mean that he's he was asked, you know,
if you know how they want to play it, and
he said, more often than not, he's not going to
tell them not to.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
But he wants no pitchers. He wants the catcher to
be the one that does it.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
He wants the catcher to be the one that has
a better idea of whether or not it was an
incorrect call, and again they're going to be very, very
very judicious about it. You get two challenges and you
would hate, like, just like we're watching with the NBA,
it's almost cringe worthy to some people watching ourselves, included
on the radio side, when the Rockets are leading a

(43:11):
game thirty seven thirty two and someone picked up their
second or third foul, So what, there's sixty five more
points going to be scored, one hundred and five more
points you score, There's thirty more minutes of basketball left
to play.

Speaker 2 (43:27):
If you lose the challenge, you're done.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
You'd like to have one available to you if it's needed,
and you could better believe the idea that an official
is going to miss a call late in a close game.
It's going to happen. It happens in almost every game
that is closed that you might want to challenge. I
would like to keep those there. Same thing for like
the pitchers that are going to get I think a
lot more practice with it, just in practical experience. Are

(43:51):
the pictures that throw more innings the starting pitchers, and
they're the ones who are going to use it the least.
The starting pictures for the Astros may not have a
single challenge for months because of when they're pitching.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
In the game.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
Here's my thing, and this kind of this isn't exactly
what Matt is always talking about. You know, he has
his theory on how they should improve the situation in
the NBA. But I'll just address both sports and how
I think it should go. And this is going to
sound way over the top, and I don't care because
I think, you know, if you're gonna do this, you
need to do it right. And I understand that you're

(44:25):
worried about bogging down the game on and on and on. Well,
first of all, you've already addressed that with the ridiculous
pitch clock.

Speaker 2 (44:32):
That's absolutely hurting guys.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
They're just not gonna admit it until they have more
years under their belts and then we'll be like, oh, yeah,
I was hurting guys. I guarantee you that's happening. But
they're never gonna admit to it because that's what baseball does.
They're always the last ones to the table to figure
it out. But NBA, you should get one challenge per quarter,
and you keep it for that quarter and then it

(44:55):
turns over at the next quarter because of what you're
talking about.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
But it doesn't carry over, right, Okay.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
So you get one and you get to keep it
for the duration of the quarter, and then if you
blow it, well there you go. You can try again
next quarter. That's not too much time to bog down
the game in my opinion. Now, where you could argue
that it would is if I said you get one
per inning per team, because now you've got nine challenges potentially.

Speaker 3 (45:20):
Yeah, well, well you could have. According to the system
that they have in place, the team loses its challenge
if the umpire's call is confirmed, you don't lose your challenge.
If the umpire's call is overturned, you can't. You have
unlimited challenges provided you keep getting them right.

Speaker 1 (45:38):
Which is the advantage this system has over the current NBA.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:42):
I think your suggestion is one I haven't heard before,
and I think it's a very good one. I probably
would still lean on unlimited if you get it right. Well, yeah,
you should keep trying to grace both parties here, But
I do think the NBA is afraid of that because
they don't want games where email Udoka makes five challenges
and he's right five times. And his counterpart, ty Lou

(46:04):
makes four challenges and he's right all four times. You know,
all of a sudden, you just had a game where
we're not only relying on the last two minutes report,
where you add fifty calls that were obvious that say
CC next to them because they were a correct call
in a big list of twenty five calls. We only
care about the three calls that weren't easy. Granted, that's
it picking and difficult, but they don't want a game

(46:24):
where we now have to look at the entire game
we have nine calls that slowed the game down in
order to correct an officials mistake.

Speaker 1 (46:32):
There better officials.

Speaker 3 (46:34):
Again, it's easier said than done. All sports have the
same issue. We act like it's so easy to find
better officials. Every time they promote officials from the G
League or promote officials from college football, we say, man,
this official stink.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
But again, okay, then the onus is on you to
make it to where it's not them affecting the game
so egregiously. If indeed that's their argument, which I think
it would be, we go to imaginary officiating court and
I'm arguing against them, and there's a defense, you know,
and I say, all right, well, why did you hire

(47:08):
such sucky officials? What's their answer gonna be versus? Okay,
we can't do anything about human error and all that
kind of stuff in the NBA, like the letter of
the law charge or a block that kind of thing.
But what we can do is give you this ability
over here, even if it makes us look bad. Since
we're unwilling to do anything about the officials themselves, there's

(47:31):
no reason you couldn't do this. Yeah, you just you
said it out loud, you said the recent they can't
do it.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
We can't. It's gonna make them look bad. It's absolutely
gonna make them look bad.

Speaker 3 (47:38):
No nobody in the league, and nobody in the referees
Union wants to see that happen. You know, the league
does consist of the teams, the players, the coaches also,
So I'm saying the league, I mean on the league side,
the coaches and players I'm sure would prefer more correct
calls as opposed to fewer and a Major League Baseball
of the opportunity to get there. It has just gotten

(47:59):
bigger once they allowed challenges and reviews, whether it's crew
chief reviews or that's I mean, I really appreciate baseball.
It's kind of what the NFL has done with replay assist.
It's not only on the coaches anymore. It's not only
on the head coaches. It's not only on the managers
to still have the ability to go out there and
ask for a challenge. Sometimes they'll just realize we need

(48:22):
to challenges and even if the team's out of it,
they can ask the crew chief to review it, which
is exactly the same thing as still having a challenge,
which is great. But look how many calls are missed
on the bases now after a challenge, Very very few,
an incredibly small number of safe out calls on the
base paths, very very few. I think they were already
pretty good at it, but they make the occasional mistake

(48:43):
at first base that you can then correct fewer of them.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
Now that Angel Helenandez is not out there. He was
the king of that and behind home plate, but also
at first base, and then the calls at home plate,
which I think are kind of a different animal because
of the blocking the plate and the review of that,
but you clearly those are important, you want those correct.
Baseball I think has actually made the most clear progress
because we're it was easier and give them that it

(49:08):
was an easier game to fix. We see far fewer
missed calls. Now they're trying to fix strike balls because
we obviously have an enormous amount of those.

Speaker 3 (49:19):
I don't know how many challenges. This is going to
be the record this year because it can. It can
be by the way you know it should be, and
you know.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
It should be. It will.

Speaker 3 (49:27):
We'll keep track of how good they are, how good
Yiner is, how good Sally is, and Sally has says
our salads are has way more experience doing it because
he's been a minor league catcher for the last several years.
As they had already had it instituted. But as you
just heard from Joe Aspata that their initial thought is,
and I think the pitchers from hearing from a few
of them the last couple of days as they've tried
to get some working, they're they're kind of on board

(49:48):
with it in that I trust Jiner, I you know
they're there. They're the ones who could fool me like
they're fooling the ump with framing it. Well, they're not
trying to fool themselves. They know where the ball was.
If they can frame it and get the call from
the ump. They probably still will and they obviously have been,
but they're gonna know whether or not I framed it. Man,

(50:10):
I better not ask for a challenge. I know where
I set up, I know where my glove is, I
know where the pitch is.

Speaker 2 (50:14):
That's an interesting aspect.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
There is one more thing Joe said that I want
to get to in the next segment, as far as
the emotions that are always at the surface, it seems
like in Major League Baseball, especially once you get to
the postseason, where I think this is really going to
be juicy, either in a good way or a bad way.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
Probably a little bit of both if we're honest, But
we'll get to that.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
Plus is a free agent running back really a Texans target?
We'll talk about that. Plus something the Chiefs did yet again,
all of that straight ahead.

Speaker 7 (50:49):
The at.

Speaker 1 (50:53):
It is the A team Sports Talk seven ninety real quick.
A little leftovers from last segment on the.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
Abs in Major League Baseball.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
Joe'spota did bring up something yesterday or did address something
yesterday that is definitely going to be a factor in
all this. When a call is bad in baseball. How
did the how did the participants that are typically the
victim of that bad call react not very well? Like
they're very even keeled, non emotional, don't swear a lot,

(51:26):
don't gesticulate with their hands and arms, and they're always
you know, it's always like that right, uniform right always
or the exact opposite.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
And that's what Joe A. Spota addressed yesterday.

Speaker 1 (51:36):
You cannot take the emotions out of these situations, even
if you have the ability to challenge. And that's something
that we'll see bear itself out with this new system
implementation going on here in twenty twenty six.

Speaker 9 (51:51):
It's impossible to remove your emotions out of this. And
that's why I will never tell them not to do
something because in the heat of the moment, you won
that pitch, you think that pitch might over the plate.
Hoppes with me, I'm gonna be arguing some most strike
even though they're encouraging not to do it because we
do have the APS system. But he said, heat on
the moment, you know it's They're going to be some

(52:12):
calls made on the field that I probably won't agree
with it, but that's just part of the game.

Speaker 6 (52:18):
And it's that's what makes his game fun.

Speaker 1 (52:22):
Now, that part right there is what's going to be
interesting if indeed Joe A'spota, And again, every team's gonna
handle this differently the way they want to. If Joe
Aspota wants his catcher to be the judge, jury, and
executioner where the buck stops, whatever you want to call it.
On challenges, it's gonna be pretty hard for a pitcher
that feels like he just got jobbed to not go, hey,

(52:46):
let's go, let's do this.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
What are you waiting on here?

Speaker 1 (52:48):
Although I think the guys will probably be on the
same page because they are, after all, in the same battery.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
Well, they've never done it before.

Speaker 3 (52:54):
If you've been a major league pitcher for a long time,
and pretty much everybody on the Astros staff it looks
like will have been the major leagues last year. Mike
Burrows technically was a rookie last year, so you didn't
have a ton of time in Major league baseball. And
obviously tatsu Emi has no time in Major League baseball,
but like other major league pitchers professional overseas, he wasn't

(53:15):
challenging ball strikes, so they don't have to get used
to not challenging, but they haven't been challenging.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
But Justin Verlander did last season in a game in Sugarland,
a rehab start where or not yet last season the
season before where you know, I was observing this in
person at a game and I was like, this is awesome,
and it was definitely him. It wasn't the catcher. You
saw him do this challenge. It was overturned because Justin

(53:42):
was right and we moved on. It took like a minute.

Speaker 3 (53:45):
Yeah, and maybe you'll see some guys doing it in
spring training a little bit more often, just kind of
get a feel for it, even though clearly they would
not really want to in the second inning of a
game where you threw the second strike of a bat
and it doesn't matter. They're just trying to get used
to everything. I actually, I think it's a it's a
good idea to go the way that they're going. We'll
see what kind of impact it has. Hopefully it will,
you know, make for a better game. It will Instead

(54:05):
of saying, I cannot believe you're asking that hitter to
go back to the dugout. That three to two pitch
was not a strike. This inning should not be over
he should have forced a run home.

Speaker 2 (54:14):
I don't want my.

Speaker 3 (54:15):
Batters if they're you know, if you're on that team,
I don't want the batters swinging at balls on the
three to two pitch with the bases loaded in two
outs unless you know you're gonna shoot it through the gap.
Just take your base, just go ahead and send another
run home. We'll see if it changes things. I do
think it will, and I think we'll see a mild
impact this year, but I think the magnitude of some

(54:35):
of the calls will be huge. I don't think we're
just gonna see a ton of challenges, but I do
think we're gonna see a lot of them late in
games to fix missus and I'm all for it.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
Yeah, No, I it's whatever makes it more accurate than
it has been. I'm all for that, even if it
takes a little bit of extra whatever you want to
call it, to get there.

Speaker 3 (54:56):
I've said this forever the time aspect, I speak for myself.
I'm will happy to try to take it from somebody
else's opinion. I could not have less of a concern
about the length of game time based on the number
of challenges that are now involved baseball already. I'm locked in.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
Man.

Speaker 3 (55:15):
I know how long a baseball game is supposed to take,
and with the pitch clock, it's supposed to take between
two hours and twenty five minutes and two hours and
fifty five minutes. There's gonna be a handful of three
hour games, not that many, and there's gonna be a
few games under two twenty anywhere in between. I can
take all the challenges necessary to get the calls right.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
We'll see what happens.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
I'm I'm looking forward to basically opening day for that
very reason because I think that I don't think it's
going to take long, Let's put it that way, for
somebody to disagree with something and say I would like
to challenge that. I also don't think it's going to
take very long for us to figure out whether or
not the Texans are going to go after a running back,

(55:56):
specifically in free agency. Before we even getting further down
the road with this, your gut feeling tells you they
probably won't correct.

Speaker 2 (56:04):
That is not correct.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
Do you think they're gonna spend that little sliver they
have of cap space relatively speaking?

Speaker 3 (56:12):
They will bring a running back in That's at least
and this is easy for me to say.

Speaker 2 (56:16):
I'm not making much of a bold statement.

Speaker 3 (56:17):
This better than Nick Chubb because they can't go I
don't think they think it's a good idea to go
into next year with Juwar, Jordan, Woody Marx and some
draft pick because I don't think they're going to be
taking a running back early in the draft. They could,
It's just my personal thought. They neither one of the
two backs that are definitely coming back or high draft picks.
What He's not a high draft pick, Jawar's not a
high draft pick. Each of them produced a one hundred

(56:40):
yard game in their most recent healthy game.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
Before the Patriots game. But they need to do something.

Speaker 3 (56:48):
This aspect of the run game in the playoffs and
how it affected the offense, we clearly talked about quite
a bit Pittsburgh. Obviously, you ran the ball very well,
and look what happened. Great, You overcame all your offensive mistakes.
Your defense was awesome, no problem, you won by twenty
four points, and then the Patriots game reminded you of
what the regular season was like. You didn't run the
ball well. They were a bad running football team. It's

(57:09):
not on Woody Marks alone. It's not on any individual alone,
it's as a whole, as a team, as a blocking unit,
as a play caller. They were a bad team running
the football. When they ran the football, think good things
did not happen, and it put more pressure on the
passing game, put more pressure on the receivers, put more
pressure on the line obviously, put more pressure on CJ.
Stroud when you look around the league at successful run

(57:30):
games and their relationship to successful offenses and successful quarterbacks.
As much as it does still sound weird in this
era of before this year, everybody's throwing the football, because
if you were paying attention this year, nobody was.

Speaker 1 (57:44):
Throwing the football this year. The yardage totals were so
far down this year. The adage of run first, run
to set up the past, it's not an adage. It
is actively desired by NFL football coaches in the current
NFL and probably nowhere more so than here.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
Yeah, it makes it even worse.

Speaker 1 (58:07):
It's exactly what they want to do, but they haven't
put it together the pieces that allow them to do that.
He wants to run the ball. He wants to run
the ball thirty times a game. If he can't, when
you do that you win. Remember the sideline miked up
pre Steelers, I believe, and I think it was before
the game. Obviously we saw Demiko and Mike Tomlin exchange

(58:28):
pleasantries and then Demikotis said by Yeah, he was like,
beat it you and Aaron Rodgers.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
Maybe Aaron comes back, but not you.

Speaker 1 (58:34):
I'm gonna send you into quitting, yeah, retiring. But remember
what he said on the sideline, that other clip where
he was miked up defense and running the football. Love it,
like I'm paraphrasing, but again, yes, of course, And again
a defensive minded head coach is obviously gonna love something
like that. They don't have to. And then, but it

(58:55):
seems like that's traditionally how it goes. It is, and
at some point they get smarter than that. Like, it's
not a bad idea, but it can be a bad
idea if you're so laser focused on it and you
don't realize, well, it'd be okay if we had more turnovers,
but we scored eight more points per game. It'd be
okay if we were a twenty eight point per game
team with a few more turnovers like Seattle was all

(59:16):
season long, and then they went to the Super Bowl
four team. Yeah, And I'm gonna tell you this is
what breaks my heart the most about their head coach,
Mike MacDonald's the defensive head coach, correct, and any young
one like the Miko. What kills me more so than
the defense being wasted, more so than well, maybe not
more so than that. That might be the number one thing,

(59:37):
because it just was such a great defense and so
fun to watch. How many times, even when they were
losing games. Eventually that day did we see, Oh Texans
got the ball first, and they chewed ten minutes up
off the clock of the first quarter with this one drive.
Maybe it wasn't quite ten minutes, but a lot of

(59:58):
times it was seven, eight, nine minutes would go off
the clock. And it wasn't necessarily because they were gashing
the other team for these big runs, but they were
doing just enough to move the chains, and a lot
of times it was because the run game was effective
at any given point in that game. To do that,
that is definitely what Demiko likes. Maybe it's playing not

(01:00:18):
to lose if you want to look at it that way,
but that was just the name of the game. If
you were not a fan of close competitive football games,
this season, where the ending was very much in doubt,
the result was very much in doubt to the final seconds.
I wouldn't suggest going back and watching tape of the
twenty twenty five Texans because it's going to raise your
blood pressure.

Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
And not to say Demiko would always want what he
clearly wanted with last year's roster, last year's offense, last
year's production, but it is probably the best suited for
who they had. They had a first year play caller,
they had a less than average offensive line, they had
less than average talent in the backfield. They were running
through tight ends weekly that could even stay on the field,

(01:00:59):
and they were getting new wide receivers into the mix
everybody but Nico Collins. So playing it that way with
last year's team probably still was the smarter play.

Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
That's where the comparison between.

Speaker 3 (01:01:08):
What Mike McDonald did with a different setup completely and
what he did as why each coach went about it
in that particular manner didn't address anything specific by name
or not.

Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
By running back. There's several running backs out there.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
Breese Holly is at the top of the list, yes,
higher than Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker, but we do
have another question to ask cheater thief, which is worse
and how much more is there for an MLBPA outgoing
executive director Tony Clark. Next, I know I mentioned something

(01:01:44):
about the Major League Baseball situation and what's worse category,
and there's lots of ways to go with that. However,
I think there's some other more upressing information just to
run through it. Don't talk a lot of college basketball here,
but yesterday Texas techs J T.

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
Toton.

Speaker 3 (01:02:03):
He hurt his knee and nobody knew how here it
was until it was reported today. Towards ACL it's probably
the best player in the conference and he definitely plays
for one of the best teams in the country, Texas Tech.

Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
Obviously, his season is over. His future lies in the NBA.

Speaker 3 (01:02:15):
It's a pretty significant injury to the outlook on the
college basketball floor. Cougars have Arizona this weekend. They already
played two phenomenally entertaining games against Texas Tech. We'll see
what they can be without him, but that's a pretty
significant college basketball injury and very unfortunate that that took place.

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
They're lost last night to Arizona State.

Speaker 3 (01:02:37):
On the NBA side, it's far less surprising and far
less shocking. It's troublesome for the team's individual players, but
it's actually exactly what the teams want. We now have
since yesterday's show, three different high magnitude players that aren't
gonna play any more basketball this year. Two that aren't

(01:02:57):
gonna play anymore and I wouldn't write Kyrie Irving is
going to miss the rest of the season. He didn't
play this season, He hadn't play it at all, and
he and the Mavericks put out a statement yesterday the
best thoughts for his future and this is the best
for him, and what you know, maybe we're not going
to figure out if he's ready or not. Kyrie Irving,

(01:03:18):
after a and ACL injury a torn ACL during the
regular season last year, is now going to not play
it all this year. If that tells you a about
the Mavericks' intentions to have a terrible record, you already
knew it, but they're making sure you know. And B
coming back from an ACL injury is a long term

(01:03:42):
rehabit process, and Fred van Vliet is attempting to do
that many many many months after Kyrie Irving did it.
Both are older players that factors into it. A little
and the fact that Dallas is definitely not hoping for
him to come back. They never were once the season
was going in the direction it was, and it was
very early that it was clear that, you know, Anthony

(01:04:04):
Davis and Daniel Gafford and PJ. Washington and Cooper Flag,
they just weren't going to be very good this year.

Speaker 2 (01:04:09):
And they weren't.

Speaker 3 (01:04:10):
They had a short stretch of time where they played
some pretty good basketball. They did have a bunch of
other injuries to every player I mentioned. Cooper Flag is
in a walking boot as of a couple of days ago,
as his past weekend during All Star weekend. So scrapping
the idea of winning basketball.

Speaker 1 (01:04:25):
Games the rest of the way for a team who
has nineteen wins, which is the seventh fewest in the NBA,
and is riding a nine game losing streak is the
obvious play.

Speaker 3 (01:04:35):
What's the second longest losing streak in the NBA? Who
has the first longest losing streak in the NBA? Oh,
Sacramento and Sean Sherania has been very busy today making
sure everybody knows they have players who are not going
to play basketball the rest of this season, not one
but two players set for season ending surgery. I shouldn't

(01:04:55):
say set for Sabonis had his season ending surgery today
to repair the left knee that had him sidelined for
much of this year. When it was initially thought to
be four to six weeks, six to eight weeks. Maybe
it's just gotten longer and longer and longer, and now
he's not going to play at all. He tried to
play through the injury. He's had surgery now, and he
quote posted his own post to say, meanwhile, guard Zach

(01:05:19):
Levine currently undergoing season ending surgery to repair a tendon
injury in his hand. So two of their three best players,
if you want to call DeMar DeRozan number one, that's fine.
They're all relatively the same. None of them can help
you win, but they're out. Sacramento already has the worst
record in the NBA. This should cement it. They'll play hard,

(01:05:40):
they have been playing hard on one end, but they're
also two wins clear of Washington, three wins clear of
New Orleans and Indiana, and are on a fourteen game
losing streak. The Sacramento Kings will have a fifty two
point one percent chance of landing in the top four,
they will have a fourteen percent chance of landing the
number one pick. I feel common and it's saying that

(01:06:01):
even though they have twenty six more games to.

Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
Go, Tankathon is on.

Speaker 3 (01:06:04):
It's been on for them for Like I said, this
is not new. They were twelve and thirty, they're now
twelve and forty four. They're not trying to win. They
shouldn't try to win. They don't have tirely can help
you win team they're fielding a team like this is
probably worse than what we have for you in Best
of X like man if it or excuse me, in

(01:06:26):
Wednesday's BS coming up at four thirty. If it were
twenty sixteen, would the Kings be favored to win the West?

Speaker 2 (01:06:35):
They might be.

Speaker 3 (01:06:36):
I don't know if those players would play defense, But
Russ and DeRozan and a young, very young Sabonis and
a young.

Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
Zach Levine it was a different time.

Speaker 3 (01:06:44):
My gosh, they might actually have a chance to win
some basketball games. I think their coaches off ten years
is a long time, so I don't know if that
would help. But the Kings are on the Rockets schedule
right out of the All Star break. They got the
two games on the road in Charlotte, New York, and
then they have two games at home immediately after that.
They play every other day for the first seven days.

(01:07:05):
Then they have a back to back on the other
side of those home games, Utah first on Monday, and
then Sacramento on Wednesday. Again it's part of a back
to back. They'll fly from Houston to Orlando to take
on the Magic who won't be getting Franz Wagner back
Franz's This is the time where you know there's only
there's two months left of basketball. Today is the eighteenth,

(01:07:27):
the weekend of the I think it's the sixteenth and
seventeenth in April is the opening weekend of the postseason?
Are the eighteenth April eighteenth? Two months from today should
be playoff games number one. Season ends just you know,
a handful of days before that, and these teams are
well on their way to saying, hey, if you're on
our schedule, it's on you. If you can't beat us,

(01:07:51):
and you think you're going to the playoffs with a
chance to win it all, come on now. Nice to
get a little one of the losses you should have
never had off your off your mind, but I think
they would have beaten Sacramento regardless. We're going to see
more of these stories, I think, on a pretty regular
basis the next tendful of days, obviously all throughout the
rest of the season. I think teams aren't even messing

(01:08:11):
around at this point. They're not going to give their
coaches a chance, and they're going to do this to
I don't think appease gamblers, but it's gonna help. I
don't have to wonder on a day to day basis,
like these players are done out. We're playing our reserves
who weren't any good to begin with.

Speaker 1 (01:08:29):
It will be interesting to see how many of these
teams end up factoring into where the Western Conference pecking
order is. They might factor into it a little. I
don't think any one team is so overrun with easy,
easier games. I mean, the Rockets obviously have probably eleven
or twelve remaining. I think there's a few other teams
that have had nine or ten remaining, with Sacramento, New Orleans, Utah,

(01:08:54):
Dallas who I think we can all confirm these are
all teams with frewer than twenty wins.

Speaker 3 (01:08:57):
They're absolutely not putting their best product on the court
and any injury that they can have an excuse for,
we don't want to play you anymore. They will do that,
and again I'm not even frowning on it, but it
will impact your ability to go out there. All you have,
all you should have to do if you're Denver, Houston,
San Antonio, Oka, see maybe the Lakers, maybe Minnesota, just
play hard. You're probably going to win. That's that's literally

(01:09:20):
all it should take. Care about the game, bring the
right energy to the game. Miss all the shots you want,
you're probably gonna get the rebound. These teams aren't good
and they're players. They're young, inexperienced, under talented players. They'll
play hard because this is their opportunity when they might
not ever have one again.

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
All you have to do is match that. I miss
Steven Adams, though I do want to put that out there.

Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
Well, that's not a tanking injury. That's an unfortunate injury.

Speaker 11 (01:09:45):
I know.

Speaker 1 (01:09:46):
But when you said they're gonna get the rebounds, if
you miss shots at maybe Beckets, they're still a good
rebounding team. They're just not a dominant rebounding team. They're
good elite, they're better than most teams. They used to
be better than every team by a lot. Right, that
has changed.

Speaker 2 (01:09:59):
Yeah, that's unfortunate.

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
Having Steven and Fred back next season is going to
be making a world of difference.

Speaker 2 (01:10:06):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
Still haven't talked about Patrick Mahomes. Still haven't talked about
Tony Clark's ouster, and we still have five questions about
the Rockets as we begin the proverbial second half. We'll
try to jam as much of that in as we
can next segment, and we got Rossi coming into talk
spring training at the top of the hour, So jam
Pack Show remaining here on a Wednesday edition of the program,

(01:10:30):
winding down at three o'clock hour, Wednesday edition of the
show Sports Talk seven ninety Space City Home Network. Did
you have a chance to read into some of the
details of Tony Clark's ouster?

Speaker 3 (01:10:44):
Even if I did, I bet our listeners didn't. Well,
I just think that.

Speaker 1 (01:10:50):
There's the surface news and then you do like the
whole Why is it that when Ken Rosenthal and Evan
Drelich are involved in I guess Andy McCall in this case,
I just I don't feel like things are going to
go well for you if they're writing an article about you.

Speaker 2 (01:11:07):
Did you do it?

Speaker 1 (01:11:09):
Well, I yes, assuming there I mean, did the astros yes?
Did Tony yes?

Speaker 2 (01:11:17):
Again? Fine? Then he resigned yes.

Speaker 1 (01:11:21):
Yeah, but remember when he resigned initially it was because.

Speaker 3 (01:11:25):
When he resigned initially we didn't know the reason, even
though people guessed it was because of the investigation because
it made sense and it still does. But apparently that
wasn't really the reason.

Speaker 2 (01:11:36):
Investigation. What was different yesterday?

Speaker 3 (01:11:38):
What was different yesterday is an internal investigation found something
else out.

Speaker 1 (01:11:42):
Yeah, the ALSTRO was the product of said investigation, triggered
by the federal probe. So it was actually cause an
effect on two infractions for mister Tony. Here, this is
the proverbial. All of the dirty laundry is gonna come
out if you get into a legal situation, even if

(01:12:05):
it's not the intended dirty laundry.

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
In this case, I think.

Speaker 3 (01:12:09):
I would imagine he didn't do the things he did
both of them, when I do think he was involved
in both of them, thinking well, I shouldn't have done
that because people are gonna find out. If you thought that,
you probably wouldn't do it. You do it because you
don't think people are gonna find out martially.

Speaker 1 (01:12:29):
Do you think he wrote a letter of recommendation for
his sister in law to get hired to said Roll.

Speaker 3 (01:12:35):
I mean I believe he was heavily involved in why
she was hired, don't you. He didn't wrote a letter
to who himself. He's the executive director.

Speaker 1 (01:12:43):
It's not all he was heavily involved in when it
came to her.

Speaker 2 (01:12:48):
Come on, man, nothing, Well who is she his sister
in law?

Speaker 1 (01:12:52):
Which one? Well, that's the thing I kept seeing that
last night. Who is it? Is it his brother's wife?

Speaker 2 (01:13:02):
Is it? You know? Like what side of the family
is it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:04):
A brother's wife or his wife's sister?

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:13:09):
Just messy, just very I mean that's what national want
wires for media who obviously we didn't ask it yesterday.

Speaker 3 (01:13:15):
We're only following their lead a day later. This messy
situation for him, I'll say it again. From how it
impacts whether or not baseball is played in twenty twenty
seven or beyond, I don't think it has any I
honestly think this has zero negative impact. I think the
idea that having a baseball player and one that's been
heavily involved in negotiations for years, it sounds like a

(01:13:36):
good thing. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. But
I don't think they're going backwards. If Bruce Meyer is
running negotiation. I don't think they're in a hole. If
Bruce Meyer is their lead negotiator, since he already was,
he was this before, he was this yesterday, he is
this moving forward almost assuredly. The only statement the MLBPA
put out was just acknowledging that this has happened twenty

(01:13:58):
Clark resigned.

Speaker 2 (01:13:59):
Did it talk about vote that they.

Speaker 3 (01:14:00):
Had, even though they have not done so yet, they will,
and I think based on what Brent Suter said, who's
one of the members of the Executive sub Committee, it
sounds like they're just going to move forward with who
they have, rather than try to put together some hastily
planned list of guys who could lead this charge and
then we'll get everybody to vote on them, even though
they don't even know who these people are. Necessarily to

(01:14:22):
the point that you'd make an educated vote. They know
who Bruce is, and maybe even if they don't like
what he's done in the past, I think they're probably
making the smarter play to try to protect themselves and
get a better deal than they've previously gotten.

Speaker 2 (01:14:36):
They're going to lose.

Speaker 3 (01:14:38):
It's inevitable all of the I think we always regard
the players losing all of the negotiations every time every sport.
It's just by how much and how close can you
get to what you're after and how much less work
do you have in the future. Meaning if this deal
is horrific, then you're really hosed because you can't.

Speaker 2 (01:14:59):
It's hard to cover from that.

Speaker 3 (01:15:01):
You're not gonna get what you want, You're not gonna
have it go your way, You're not gonna lead the
chargewards major League Baseball's ownership group, and saying, you know what,
I think, you're right.

Speaker 2 (01:15:09):
I think for the health of the sport, this is
the way to go.

Speaker 3 (01:15:11):
It's never gonna work out like that, but they have
to fight for everything they can get so the loss
isn't as bad.

Speaker 2 (01:15:18):
That's honestly how I see it.

Speaker 1 (01:15:20):
My favorite part of this article was when they went
to Executive sub Committee member Marcus Simeon, former Ranger and
current met and he said, quote, there's been an investigation
going on. We still need to discuss with players. Why
you definitely don't want things to be a distraction going
into December.

Speaker 2 (01:15:40):
If I'm not mistaken.

Speaker 3 (01:15:42):
This entire interview took place prior to the revelation that
he was potentially resigning because of what came up in
the internal investigation. Based on the investigation that Marcus was
referring to, as he said, it wasn't surprising to learn
of Tony Clark's resignation because we have an internal investigation

(01:16:02):
or we have an investigation on going from the Eastern
District of New York into financial improprieties that Tony Clark
is embroiled in, and you're telling me he resigned, Yeah,
that kind of makes sense. Well, the interview took place
yesterday morning before the later news came out.

Speaker 2 (01:16:17):
Yeah, that would be bad enough.

Speaker 1 (01:16:19):
You have impropriety investigation going on into you and how
you handle things in this role, and then because of that,
and because of who you decided to do this with
and their role in the same entity, then that comes
out like one of these would be bad enough.

Speaker 2 (01:16:39):
One of these would be catastrophic.

Speaker 3 (01:16:40):
The financial side of it is is not necessarily what
happened with the NFLPA with funds being used by the
leader their executive director on things you just shouldn't have
been spending the union's money on This is more about
getting involved with a company that's co owned by the
MLBPA and the manner in which those dealings went down,
and it's there's too many conflicts there apparently for an

(01:17:03):
investigation not to have been brought upon, And that's what
that was about. But a family issue is one thing.
She's an employee of the MLBPA, as hired by while
Clark was the executive director.

Speaker 1 (01:17:15):
Yeah, that's actually, if you if you want to get
technical about it, this is really three strikes.

Speaker 3 (01:17:20):
Well they're not I don't think they're saying Tony Clark,
we really think it'd be in your best interest to resign,
or he thought it was in best interest to resign
because he and his family are embroiled in a family issue,
because he was with somebody in his family who's married
to somebody else in his family.

Speaker 2 (01:17:39):
It's because she worked for the MLBPA.

Speaker 1 (01:17:40):
Well, that's the thing. You have the impropriety. You have
the fact that he's carrying on like this with someone
who's also you know, in the same entity, works for
the same entity, and solely because you worked there first, yes,
and brought her in, and Dan the family aspect comes

(01:18:01):
into play. I'm not necessarily going on the hierarchy or
order of things as it pertains to their family in
all likelihood. But it's just it's crazy. It's just like
the most soap opera thing ever. Yes, except it's not
a television program. It's Clark's family's children, wife, brothers, sister,
whomever's life.

Speaker 2 (01:18:21):
It's real life. All right.

Speaker 1 (01:18:22):
We're gonna get to real life conversation with Ross on
the astros ongoing spring training activities to start the four
o'clock hour that's.

Speaker 3 (01:18:29):
Next, a team back half of the program, and an
opportunity to make another visit to our resident, current and
longtime ASTROS expert out there with the Astros all week
this week on Ross Vilery Out. You heard them each
and every weekday or midday here on Sports Talk seven
ninety ten to two on the Matt Thomas Show with

(01:18:50):
Ross wrapped up a third consecutive live broadcast from out
on site at their West Palm Beach spring training location.
I'll tell you what our topic I think today was
the silliness of watching Josh Hater throw a baseball with
a little bit more force than he has earlier in
spring training. Curious if you have thoughts on that before
we get into the meat of the conversation this afternoon.

(01:19:13):
But I doubt you'll be able to answer because you're
not there anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:19:16):
I don't know if we're having the phone issues again
or if that was just he knows to call back.

Speaker 2 (01:19:19):
Oh, of course he does. He's a professional, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:19:24):
Just comparing this week to last week full squad workouts
obviously is the number one thing that sticks out.

Speaker 2 (01:19:30):
But I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:19:32):
I just think that this hater situation, I'm not saying
it casts a pall.

Speaker 2 (01:19:36):
Over the hole.

Speaker 3 (01:19:37):
Let's ask Ross what about the hater situation? Thanks for
joining us.

Speaker 11 (01:19:42):
Oh hey, I don't know what's happening. But sometimes when
you guys punch me on it goes dead. I can
hear you off air, but when I get on air,
it goes away. But anyways, Hi, I'm here. The hater
situation is that he is throwing a catch, as I
heard you guys talking earlier, as we were driving myself
and Matt Thomas to the Fort Lauderdale Airport where I
am in a qui owner right now.

Speaker 2 (01:20:00):
Try not to be too loud.

Speaker 11 (01:20:03):
Yeah, he's catching I don't know exactly where it's going
to go.

Speaker 2 (01:20:06):
From there.

Speaker 11 (01:20:07):
I mean, we've been through pitching injuries a million times
here in Houston. Of course, eventually he'll start throwing off
a harder off a flat ground and off of a mound.
Then we're going to get some probably bullpen sessions and
live batters, maybe a rehab stint, who knows.

Speaker 7 (01:20:22):
So it feels like.

Speaker 11 (01:20:23):
An opening day is going to be a little bit
too far away from Josh for Josh hater, But my
expectation is it's not going to be an extended period
of miss time.

Speaker 3 (01:20:31):
Each time an opportunity is presented to ask Joe or
Dana about it, it appears the same. It's just this
just part of where he is now. The setback took place,
we've moved on from it, and each day he's had
the baseball here in camp, it's only been eight days.
Everything's been fine to where he is. Is that accurate?

Speaker 11 (01:20:48):
Yeah, I mean he is walking around in the clubhouse
chatting with the guy. Seemed like everything was pretty normal.
His arms not in a sling or anything like that,
wasn't wrapped up or you know, he just looks like
he's going about his business and re having as best
as he can and trying to get ready and back
with the Astros as soon as possible, as far as
just I mean being the guy that he was signed
here to be that that lockdown hopefully thirty five to

(01:21:11):
forty saved type of closer.

Speaker 1 (01:21:13):
We were talking about this earlier at length because we
didn't we didn't really visit it yesterday when Joe's spot
had talked about it, but the automated balls and strike
system and specifically the fact that Joe Aspata, which I
don't know if a lot of teams will handle it
this way. He went out of his way to say, look,
I think the catcher is going to be the guy
that you know, puts forth a challenge in any given

(01:21:34):
situation where they think that something needs to be challenged.
What do you think about that particular aspect of it?
And I told WEX this, I feel like this is
getting buried because there's all these other subplots for the
Astro season, specifically coming into spring training.

Speaker 11 (01:21:51):
Yeah, I mean, it's certainly something was talked about, especially
at length and Joe Aspota's availability yesterday. Talked a little
bit about it today as well. They're testing it out
with the hitters, saying who's good and who's not kind
of like who is going to have more leeway than
maybe some others. He also said he understands guys are
going to be emotional, guys are going to be competitive,
and you know, sometimes in the heat of the moment,

(01:22:13):
we all have our biases, we all think calls should
have went a certain way when they didn't. But he's
going to try to tell the guys not to be
so emotional, and I think it'll be rare, honestly, if
ever that we see the occasion where a picture is
allowed to be the guy who is going to make
a challenge. I mean, maybe Hunter Brown will get the
green light, but outside of that, it feels like, just

(01:22:35):
the way that Joe Spot has talked about it, that
the pictures don't want to be a part of that.
He doesn't want the pictures to be the challengers because
they are so far away, because they can be so biased.
And Spencer Arraghetti, who we had on Monday, even told
us like, I think everything is strike so and he's
also somebody, of course, who has a lot of movement
and can have late movement on his stuff, So he's

(01:22:56):
certainly a picture who can have his bias.

Speaker 2 (01:23:00):
So I think it's going to be mostly a.

Speaker 11 (01:23:01):
Situation where it's going to be Giner Diez or Saysar
Salazar who's going to be making those challenges. And Joe
even talked about says Ar Salazar having a pretty good
challenge hit rate or success rate, I should say, in TRIPLEA.
So they've been picking his brain trying to figure out
the best practices to try to get everybody on the
same page and then try to win these challenges and

(01:23:22):
find the right moments for them.

Speaker 3 (01:23:23):
He caught up quite a few people over the course
of the week, even today, Jeremy Pan among them. We're
going to have our listeners catch a portion of that
interview coming up at round five fifteen. Christian Walker, also
a player. You caught up with what from the conversation
with him, and everybody can catch that in its entirety
at sportstock seven ninety dot com or certainly very easily
via the iHeartRadio app.

Speaker 2 (01:23:43):
Easy to have.

Speaker 3 (01:23:45):
That free app, and of course you want to subscribe
to all of our podcasts to get that what from
the conversation with Christian Walker. If anything was noteworthy in
something that fans would be interested to go back and
catch a listen.

Speaker 11 (01:23:57):
Yeah, I think he's fine, a little bit under the radar.
I mean, paradist thing has been talked about, but Josel
tuva AT's second has been talked about as well. I
think Christian Walker is somebody who maybe even in my mind,
has been written off a little bit too much by
Astros fans because he talked about it that oblique injury. Now,
even though he said multiple times he did not want

(01:24:17):
to make an excuse, but it's the reality of it
is that hampered him. He wasn't be able to get
the swings that he wanted to in the spring. And
as you guys know following baseball for a long time,
any little thing that gets off for a hitter that
can just ruin their entire swing, and it could ruin
it for a long time. So if you look at
the second half numbers where there was a lot of
power in an eight hundred ops, that was the guy

(01:24:39):
that the Astros thought they were getting when they signed
him from Arizona. So I'm buying some Christian Walker stock.
Look at spring training and you want to buy stock
at everyone in spring training. You're always going to be
excited and optimistic. But I truly feel it with Christian
Walker because he just talked about how he learned so
much from last year and he got so much incura,

(01:25:00):
a lot of encouragement by the way that he improved
as the year got along. He's got a full offseason,
he's healthy, he's a new papa. We know, we know
Dad's strength has infused some power into astros in the
year's past. So I'm buying some Christian Walker a stock.
I do think that oblique injury was a big part
of his first half that it just wasn't good at all.

Speaker 3 (01:25:19):
To try to tie that into some of your other
visits with players. I don't know if you're buying Christian
Walker stock with Joey Loperfdo's Toronto money, because I know
you got into the exchange rate with him, very interesting
conversation you had. But among Joey Loperfido, Cam Smith, Zach Cole,
Jake Myers, you talk to all of them over the
last couple of days. Unless other moves are made, they're

(01:25:42):
basically fighting for two spots. There's four of them, and
they're all guys with, you know, major league talent. We
think in major league experience to varying degrees, how how
would you handicap that at this point in time and
any early impressions just on the on the dues that
they are obviously talking to Zach Cole at length is
something that not many of us the chance to do.

Speaker 2 (01:26:00):
Yet.

Speaker 11 (01:26:02):
Yeah, Zach Cole was, I mean just felt mature beyond
his years, the way that he was talking about his
perspective and just kind of going and doing whatever he
can the best way that he can and figuring out
things from last year. I would be I'm okay, I'm
not as bullish on Christian as I am on Christian
Walker's talk, because there's just is so much more of

(01:26:23):
an element of the unknown. Walker, of course a much
more established major leaguer, But Zach Cole was a late
bloomer in high school, he was a late bloomer in college,
and now it seems like he could just be a
late bloomer in the major leagues. And Christian Walker is
a guy who can be an example of that. Who
he wasn't really an established major leaguer until he was
like twenty seven to twenty eight years old, So it

(01:26:43):
is possible. It can't happen. I'll tell you, he looks
strong mentally, he looks very prepared and well prepared and
like he's he's in the.

Speaker 2 (01:26:51):
Right headspace on all those things.

Speaker 11 (01:26:52):
So I'm feeling pretty good about Zach Cole, Jake Myers.
I mean, we kind of know what he is and
who he can be. Got to keep up what he
did from last year. We'll see if he's able to
do that, and even if he's not, he's still going
to be an asset in center field. And then far
as Cam Smith, I just get it just feels like
a question mark because of the flashes we saw. We
know the pedigrees there. I mean, being in front of

(01:27:14):
the dude, he is just like six foot four built
from granted, he's certainly one hundred percent looks the part.
Also seems like he's got a good head on his shoulders.
So I'm hopeful on all of them. I'd like to
buy stock in all of them and win, but I don't.
I don't think that's necessarily going to be the reality.
But I feel like we can kind of just look

(01:27:34):
through whatever lens we want where we can make this
like all three are going to work out. That's probably
not likely, but it's also not likely that all three.

Speaker 2 (01:27:40):
Are going to be failures.

Speaker 1 (01:27:42):
Ross Viial chatting a little Astro's spring training with us
here on the eighteen Sports Talk seven ninety Space City
Home Network.

Speaker 11 (01:27:49):
Okay, so of all those guys asking me if I
can take his bags?

Speaker 2 (01:27:53):
Oh really? Did I say yes? No? Is that okay?
I don't think you're supposed to do that?

Speaker 7 (01:27:57):
Is that to know?

Speaker 2 (01:27:58):
Yeah, that's a that's a that's a full and we're sorry. Yeah,
oh never mind? Did he go away? Yeah, he's gone
all right, So you're not going viral.

Speaker 7 (01:28:07):
We've got a bald head and glasses.

Speaker 2 (01:28:10):
Never trust a guy with a bald head.

Speaker 1 (01:28:11):
Hi, matt Hey, real quick of the of the starting
pitchers and again emphasis on starting pitching that are either
coming back from an injury or they came back from
one last year and maybe they didn't, you know, look themselves.
Which are you most bullish on?

Speaker 2 (01:28:30):
And why is it? Christian Xavier.

Speaker 11 (01:28:33):
O Favier is interesting?

Speaker 7 (01:28:36):
L Repteel.

Speaker 11 (01:28:37):
I mean look both Dana Brown, I mean, okay, Joe
Spawn and Dana Brown are I'm gonna They're gonna be
optimist no matter what. Both both of them were giving
high praise to Christian Javier and talking about getting him
where he needs to be. I kind of like that
as a pick as somebody who can maybe just get
back to that l reptule form that we know he
can be.

Speaker 2 (01:28:57):
Uh.

Speaker 11 (01:28:57):
I think we're all kind of collectively sleeping on Spencerti.
And again I will say that use the head on
the shoulders thing. I mean, he's just so smart and
he's just so measured, and if he's healthy and he
can go out there and show a little bit more control,
I just feel really good about him as far as
he's got great stuff and then he's gaining more experience

(01:29:18):
and then he's just I mean, it's such a mental
game as well being a pitcher. So I would key
in on those two guys if you're gonna ask me.

Speaker 2 (01:29:25):
Sounds awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:29:26):
And not to mention the fact that you might actually
get double dad strength from Spencer Araghedtty as he goes
through eight days of spring training. He is kidless, but
most of this season will be spent with two little
boys at home as his wife is about to give
birth to twins.

Speaker 1 (01:29:43):
So that's double Dad's strength. That's a smart play by you.

Speaker 3 (01:29:45):
Ross Appreciate your coverage all week, Appreciate you joining us today.
And very much look forward to you being in studio tomorrow.

Speaker 7 (01:29:53):
Yes, I will see you guys tomorrow. Go Astros.

Speaker 11 (01:29:56):
Sure?

Speaker 2 (01:29:56):
Why not? What a fan? You can almost see him
saying it.

Speaker 3 (01:30:00):
Absolutely, you'll hear him quite a bit all across the season,
not just on the Mat tom Show with Ross but
handling a lot of Astros pre and post coverage as
he does with the Houston Rockets, which we'll start again
tomorrow night. We will have pregame coverage for you, and
then we'll get into the basketball game itself six o'clock
against the Charlotte Hornets. Our Astros coverage continues here as
your home for the Astros as we continue on a
Wednesday edition.

Speaker 2 (01:30:21):
Of The A Team.

Speaker 3 (01:30:22):
Guess what happens when you pull NBA players about their peers? Well,
you're gonna find out.

Speaker 7 (01:30:26):
Next the eighth.

Speaker 1 (01:30:31):
Thanks againing Rossie, we're stopping by one last visit from
Florida about the Astros spring training festivities. I agree with
what he said about Spencer Araghetty. I'm always I've always
been bullish on him. I do think Christian Javier is
gonna unlock the better version of Christian Javier that we

(01:30:52):
haven't seen in a couple of seasons now because of injury,
but I'm hoping that, you know, are Getty is set
back free and gets back to what he was the
majority of his prior for the most part, full season
pitching for the Astros, and that rotation is all the
more dominant when you consider that it also will start

(01:31:12):
with Hunter Brown and Emi making his debut in an
Astros uniform as well, So good things could be on
the horizon for the Astros and I'm cautiously optimistic. That's
my feeling going in to twenty twenty six. Now, when
you put a bunch of microphones in front of a
bunch of all stars in the form of a poll,

(01:31:35):
you can get all sorts of answers on any number
of things. And I think one of the most surprising
things was who had the best podcast. That's just not
a question that would have even been asked. We had
the best player podcast? Right player podcast? I mean several
active players and inactive if you want to count Fred

(01:31:56):
van Vliet, you know when he was on the broadcast
in that game, he's active player. Well, no, he's not
playing this year. Active in that sense only means have
you retired. Yeah, but it's from the standpoint of he
said it on the broadcast of the night. If I
were playing this season, I wouldn't be doing this. Other
guys Draymond Green don't care. They'll go out there and

(01:32:17):
do their podcast. And it's absolutely in the middle of
the season. But yeah, different players were asked different things,
and for example, just to start right at the top
of the list, who's the NBA's best player right now now?
This was more than thirty NBA players sampled about a

(01:32:38):
variety of issues and the best player in the league.
Five said it was Joker, Nikola Jokic, three said Shay Gildess, Alexander,
Luca got to Donovan Mitchell got too, and six other
players got one.

Speaker 3 (01:32:55):
So eighteen players answered that question or asked that question.
I suppose, because there are no half votes that I'm
aware of, So eighteen answers from players, and four NBA
players got more than one vote. Donovan, Mitchell and Luca
each got a pair. Obviously, NBA players are looking at
the scoring leaders only because Luca is an awful NBA player.

(01:33:16):
If you consider both sides, Shay got three and Nicola Jokic,
who is putting up arguably his best statistical season got
five votes.

Speaker 2 (01:33:26):
Now he's This is where the NBA.

Speaker 3 (01:33:28):
I'm actually shocked they didn't make this change in the offseason.
Nikola Jokic essentially can't miss any more games or else
he can't be eligible to even win the MVP Award
in a season where otherwise he would run a very
good chance of winning the award, not get some consideration,
not finished near the top, He's gonna finish first or

(01:33:48):
second pretty much as a given, which has been the
case for these two players, he and Shay the last
several years.

Speaker 2 (01:33:53):
But he's right on the edge.

Speaker 3 (01:33:56):
He obviously was hurt and missed a bunch of time,
and like I said, I'm surprised the NBA kept that
sixty five game minimum in place in order just to
be eligible for all NBA teams or these awards. Lebron's
already under that threshold. He will not be an all
NBA player no matter what he does the rest of
the season, because he's not eligible for it, and now
potentially the MVP of your league in most people's eyes,

(01:34:19):
and at least according to five of eighteen players who
answered the question, could potentially be not to be eligible
unless he essentially plays all but I think all but
one game the rest of the way, and Lucas not
far behind either in terms of missed games.

Speaker 1 (01:34:33):
Let's get to the good stuff. What's the biggest problem
facing the league today?

Speaker 3 (01:34:38):
My favorite answer given uh huh, no biggest problem. Two
players said that.

Speaker 2 (01:34:44):
More than one person agrees with that sentiment.

Speaker 1 (01:34:48):
Player injury slash participation was the leader in the clubhouse
with four players.

Speaker 3 (01:34:53):
But and you said, this is a sample of thirty players.
I don't know how many players they actually asked this
question too, because they think they asked thirty and they
only got ten answers.

Speaker 2 (01:35:04):
That's pretty surprising.

Speaker 3 (01:35:05):
But there's only five different answers and only ten total
answers here. So player injury participation was the leader with
four of ten who gave the n answer, Tanking got two.
Like I said earlier, no biggest problem. Our league is
awesome got two, Tied with tanking. Length of games got
a vote. I'm not I don't think the games are

(01:35:25):
just too long. How do you know that's what he meant?

Speaker 2 (01:35:27):
These games are just too short? Maybe he meant that.
I don't think so.

Speaker 3 (01:35:31):
I think we need to be playing more basketball per night,
No way, and too much alcoholic games. It doesn't say parentheses,
not for the player. What's that is so random? It's
probably a good answer, though I think other they didn't
present a card saying check the one you like. It
was an open ended question what do you think it is?
And maybe they asked for suggestions. But this is probably

(01:35:51):
a player who brought this to the polers. The athletic
did this pole attention, and I think it's a very
good answer. And I think a lot of the things
that are happening in a that are getting players to
go to the officials to say can you take this
person out of here? A lot of it, not all
of it, but I would suggest a lot of it
is probably due to being enjoying alcohol too much. I'm

(01:36:14):
not saying you're necessarily overserved, but certainly I think people
might act a little bit differently with fewer cocktails.

Speaker 1 (01:36:21):
How about gambling didn't show up? Even though a coach
is not coaching their team this year who thought he
was going to be because of this topic, And another
player is not playing this year because of this topic.

Speaker 2 (01:36:32):
These are all all stars yep.

Speaker 3 (01:36:34):
Probably presumably not involved in anything that got Jauncey billups
or potentially got Terry Rogier and others.

Speaker 1 (01:36:42):
Well, they're All Star Weekend participants. Because the aforementioned who's
the NBA Best Player? There was one vote for Kevin Durant.
It came from re Shepherd. Okay, not an All Star.

Speaker 3 (01:36:53):
But he was obviously participating this weekends. That's a good
point to make. There are some players that obviously are
not on the high end of a superstar or maybe ever.
But I don't think that's what comes to mind for
players immediately. I'm not surprised that was the end. That's
all of us. We're we're on the outside looking in.
The owners are are cognizant of it because it's how much,
you know, we're getting all this money from them. It's

(01:37:14):
a big topic at all their meetings. Are we accepting
you know, DraftKings money or accepting prize picks money or
except we're in bed with them, or they are?

Speaker 1 (01:37:22):
How about too much alcoholic games fueling the people who
are mad about insert gambling aspect of that night's festivities.

Speaker 3 (01:37:31):
And you know, I'm maybe you would hear at the games.
I doubt you hear that kind of anger, but they
definitely hear it via social media. So may be a
little surprised, and that was not also an answer given
by the few players who answered the question.

Speaker 2 (01:37:44):
Who has the best player podcast?

Speaker 3 (01:37:47):
Yo, knowing I don't know every player that has a podcast,
I'm not surprised by two things. One Gilbert Arenas and
his podcast got zero votes because it sucks.

Speaker 2 (01:37:57):
Not surprised by that at all.

Speaker 3 (01:37:59):
And former end player Jeff Tigue as long as he's
not talking desire Franklin who hates him and called him
out on it during their podcast, and it was awesome
and he was right. People like Jeff Teak's podcast. He
tells stories that are he's a great story teller. It's
good to have good material and he clearly does. But man,
the way he tells the story is just it's awesome.

(01:38:19):
And he has a very entertaining podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:38:22):
He has a couple of.

Speaker 1 (01:38:22):
Other clothes refer to it as that. Well, it is more.

Speaker 3 (01:38:26):
It has more longevity than the other four podcasts that
got votes. Paul George's podcast, which we've tapped into a
few times. Jalen Green was a guest last year. You
mentioned Draymond Green's podcast. Uh to former players both Rockets,
Rudy Gay and Carmelo Anthony. You don't like that Rockets
have the eighth pick in the draft. The Houston Rockets

(01:38:48):
select Rudy.

Speaker 1 (01:38:49):
Gay and trade him immediately to Memphis. Oh, Shane Batti,
the Rockets are bringing Carmelo Anthony in town. He's gonna
wear number seven for just a couple of days. And
the other podcast that got one vote also was current
Knicks Buddies teammates and noted I don't know Tom Foolery makers. Yes,
Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart, Yeah they are, I think

(01:39:13):
Now I don't actually feel this way about Josh Hart,
but I think Jalen Brunson is one of the most
likable stars in the NBA currently playing.

Speaker 3 (01:39:20):
I think Josh Hart, continue maybe not in New York anymore,
like one of the most underrated players and dudes to
have on your team. He is a phenomenal player to
have in your locker room, to have on your team,
to go to battle with every night, and he helps
you win games with his basketball, which I think has
been dramatically overlooked for most of his career.

Speaker 2 (01:39:41):
He's a machine.

Speaker 3 (01:39:43):
He's a little six foot five, six foot six player
who can absolutely impact the game every which way.

Speaker 2 (01:39:49):
You want.

Speaker 1 (01:39:50):
One night he's gonna get you fifteen points and eleven boards.
Another night he's gonna get you fifteen boards and eight assists.
He plays hard, he's awesome, he's a I think he's
a fantastic player, and he's of the reason. Brunson's the
biggest reason, and the next biggest reason is cat Why
people sit here today out of the All Star break
and think the Knicks are gonna win the East and
the Knicks are the best team in the Eastern Conference,

(01:40:11):
It does seem wide open. Detroit's not getting a lot
of respect, by the way, for having the best record
in the league percentage points wise, not the Thunder. They
have two fewer wins but one fewer loss, I believe
is how it works out. So it's like seven seventy
five to seven fifty five or something like that.

Speaker 3 (01:40:28):
They also have a couple of games to play without
a couple of players, and their lead in the East
is also larger than the Thunders lead in the West.
They're five and a half games up on the Knicks,
I mean on the Celtics.

Speaker 2 (01:40:39):
Excuse me, all.

Speaker 1 (01:40:40):
Right, there's an amazing fight on tap. If we were
in the year twenty sixteen. Awesome, So is anybody gonna aik.

Speaker 2 (01:40:46):
Eaters at Caesar's? Take two?

Speaker 1 (01:40:48):
There you go, although it's not gonna be at Caesar's,
but we'll tell you about it next.

Speaker 7 (01:40:54):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 8 (01:40:57):
Ninety A little help over the hump with some Wednesday BS,
two Adams.

Speaker 2 (01:41:05):
And a whole lot of bit stealing.

Speaker 8 (01:41:06):
Bit stealing with the Bit Steelers better known as the eighteen.

Speaker 3 (01:41:13):
A little hard to believe this is real. The news
came down yesterday that it, in fact is Wednesday's BS,
our signature segment. Obviously it's on Wednesdays, so we're not
bit stealing anything. Even though we appreciate all the great
work done by Doug Pike, Josh Jordan, Dan and Cole,
Matt and Ross, we're just not in the mood to

(01:41:35):
steal any of their bits today.

Speaker 2 (01:41:36):
We're in the mood to talk about the BS.

Speaker 5 (01:41:38):
That is.

Speaker 3 (01:41:39):
I have not seen a name attached to this combative
event that is now on our calendar for later this year,
and we teased it earlier that if this were twenty sixteen,
it would be something. I'm not sure what it's going
to be other than this is something here in twenty
twenty six. But we've got about set imma action between

(01:42:01):
the star of the Mandalorian and the star of Entourage
the movie is the star of Entourage the movie Turtle's
love interest and a Star Wars character.

Speaker 1 (01:42:12):
The fact that they put her with Turtle was just obvious.
I would have liked her to be with Johnny Drama.

Speaker 3 (01:42:20):
I mean, I know we're supposed to talk about the
Gina Carano Ronda Rousey event.

Speaker 2 (01:42:25):
Yeh, talk about the Entourage movie now.

Speaker 1 (01:42:27):
Well, it's amazing who these four individuals got linked up
with over the course of time on the television program
on HBO and the movies that then followed. E is
a pizza boy. The main character, what was his name,
Vincent Vinnie Chase. He was a movie star, he had
a mutant brother according to their co agent, and you

(01:42:50):
also have Turtle at the beginning of the program was
larger than he was at the end of the program. Yes,
so his hit list and basically includes just three pieces.
Roster includes the girl who was a Vince fan that
was a total stalker that he invited out when Vince

(01:43:12):
was trying to get with Leyton Mester who didn't get
with anybody, and He's like, get this girl out of here,
total stalker. And then the other two were Meadow soprano
and Ronda Rousey. Okay, t polar opposite personalities.

Speaker 3 (01:43:29):
By the way, Vinny got with everybody, actual movie stars
and other people that obviously were just in the show.
I don't know if we're supposed to know whether or
not he ever got with Alba. He obviously got with
Mandy and many many others along the road. He's a
movie star. That's what a movie stars do. E. While
these weren't necessarily super celebs. His wow, unreal just heat?

Speaker 2 (01:43:53):
Did you tell now?

Speaker 3 (01:43:56):
He did apparently get sloppy seconds after Seth Green, at
least to Seth and Jack. And then there's Johnny Drama.

Speaker 2 (01:44:07):
Well, he didn't get with Brooks Shields, I'll tell you
that much.

Speaker 1 (01:44:09):
He that's one of the all timers, one of the
all times. That scene did you like have to rewind
it to say?

Speaker 2 (01:44:18):
Did she say what? I think she just said?

Speaker 3 (01:44:21):
Like Norm McDonald is funny because his delivery goes with
what he's created for the joke, but the delivery is
so awesome. Some comedians are just funny because they're funny
what they say. The stories they tell Nate Bargatsky. Nate
Bargatzy very big on the delivery. The delivery is why
it's so funny. Shane gillis the same way as he
hugs his microphone like it is his long lost child.

Speaker 2 (01:44:42):
But the delivery from.

Speaker 1 (01:44:43):
Brooks Shields on that line and she has to speak
to the director about Johnny's state is just legendary.

Speaker 2 (01:44:51):
It's really good.

Speaker 1 (01:44:52):
Johnny's roster is embarrassingly bad.

Speaker 2 (01:44:55):
Yeah, well he's Johnny Drama. He's not Vinnie Check.

Speaker 3 (01:44:58):
He got with Harry Hamlin's why Lisa Rena, Yes, I
forgot that accident And no, he actually tried to get
with her, but then she and her also older friend swapped,
so he ended up with the other woman. No, No,
that's when of their swords crossed and the girl was

(01:45:19):
just a girl. No offense to the girl, an actress
in her own it's just a it's.

Speaker 2 (01:45:23):
Not a who's who of anybody.

Speaker 3 (01:45:25):
They put this whole show together and they had to
create this idea that this guy is the loser that
we're telling you he is, and it showed with who
he was with. How about when he they were all
at the house and his body builder girl at the
time rolled out.

Speaker 1 (01:45:39):
Well, yes, but that shouldn't really surprise you when you
consider how much time and effort he used to concentrate
on calves.

Speaker 2 (01:45:47):
Oh oh my god.

Speaker 1 (01:45:48):
All right, so Gina and up til Lamar owed him
at a bar man it was such great, Gaves.

Speaker 3 (01:45:54):
I think I think it was in a suite at
a Lakers game, or maybe it was the Jimmy Kimmel
after party.

Speaker 1 (01:45:59):
Well, yeah, I think he was at a party. I
thought when he confronted Lamar, great, keVs.

Speaker 3 (01:46:06):
Is this of interest? And Ronda actually made a little
bit of the rounds on Sports Center interview wise and
she talked about the reasons behind it. Kind of feeling
for Gina, thought she maybe needed this at this stage
of her life and something that she could relate to,
but been out of the game for as long as
she has been, basically ten years since she was fighting.
And similarly with Gina, I know what they clearly can

(01:46:30):
sell with these two headliners, and they're definitely going to
try to sell that.

Speaker 2 (01:46:35):
But is the fight.

Speaker 1 (01:46:38):
Well given where they both are in their lives, not
just their careers.

Speaker 3 (01:46:43):
Mother of two, Ronda Rousey will be forty when this
event takes place.

Speaker 1 (01:46:49):
This is very nine Aight and T Stadium against Logan Paul.
How about is Tyson fighting Floyd Mayweather?

Speaker 2 (01:46:57):
Well he wants to.

Speaker 1 (01:46:59):
But by the way, I will never forget where I
was when Ronda Rousey dropped her belt to Holly Holm.
You know why No, because I was in MAUI well,
I mean that was I remember that fight. I think
definitely more than any of her other fights for many
same reason as others do. But I had not seen
many of any of the best women fighters really at

(01:47:21):
that time of my involvement with view, you know, watching
the sport and following the sport.

Speaker 3 (01:47:26):
And it wasn't that she lost. She got destroyed right,
It was out on her feet like moments into it.
Holly just crushed her with which she usually did to others. Absolutely,
So obviously these are two of the biggest names. Now
what do you think about how much they did for
the sport. I think Ronda is right there at the
top of the list. Like without here, I.

Speaker 1 (01:47:45):
Don't know where Women's MMA is and UFC and anything
else that goes with it.

Speaker 2 (01:47:48):
Gina's different.

Speaker 1 (01:47:50):
She was a trailblazer two. As it says in the
Athletic article. That's a good description. She helped put women
specifically on the map in MMA, but kind of, you know,
did it in a different roundabout way.

Speaker 2 (01:48:08):
She was more though.

Speaker 1 (01:48:09):
I mean, we talk about Ronda Rowsey having her cameo
in Entourage. Krano is a movie star until they didn't
like her political beliefs and decided a blacklister.

Speaker 3 (01:48:19):
So Rowsey versus Krano should be. It's in La It's
on May sixteenth, so we've got four months of pre fight,
three months of pre fight information. I mentioned Geezers at
Caesar's previously with Larry Holmes name and Jerry Cooney. They
really fought each other at that age of their careers.
I just watched that scene yesterday. No, he was wearing

(01:48:42):
a satchel. You probably get this a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:48:44):
Indiana Jones has one. What would you do? You have
to title this fight?

Speaker 3 (01:48:49):
You have to come up with a creative get people interested,
have people talking about it.

Speaker 2 (01:48:55):
Title for Ronda Rousey.

Speaker 1 (01:48:57):
Gina Carano twenty twenty six, Battling in La Live on
Jake Paul's production envelope Netflix and Kill and.

Speaker 2 (01:49:07):
You're giving some love to the to the outfit. I mean,
that's where it's at.

Speaker 1 (01:49:12):
And by the way, keep an eye on that because
if it's successful.

Speaker 2 (01:49:15):
They're gonna fight again.

Speaker 1 (01:49:17):
Well, but UFC is in bed with Paramount Plus and
they want you know, I'll give I'll leave you in
town this weekend, but I leave you.

Speaker 2 (01:49:24):
Guys with this.

Speaker 3 (01:49:25):
Someone there's post about this fight, and someone responded to
it with a picture of two NBA players battling against
each other. It's a picture of Patrick Ewing against a
chem Olaju one. Ewing's in his magic uniform and Dream
is a raptor. Yeah, that about tells you all you
need to know about this upcoming fight. I think we'll
find out as we continue here on the A Team.

Speaker 7 (01:49:48):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (01:49:53):
Eighteen.

Speaker 1 (01:49:54):
Rolling along here on a Wednesday edition of the show
almost five o'clock. Will it's a football at five as
we normally do, it's a little bit different today. I
know WEX is aware of this. I just did not
see this coming. I did not see this topic being
a thing at all, let alone the NFL being like whoo, yeah,

(01:50:17):
we're gung ho about it. But there's your teas. There's
your very very deep teas for next segment. If you
want to stick around and hear about that. In the meantime,
this could very easily have been Best of X material,
But we'll just do it right here instead. When I
say LaMelo Ball, and again this is a very loaded question,

(01:50:38):
what's the first thing that comes to mind, Chucker?

Speaker 3 (01:50:40):
Even though it's not quite as accurate this year, but
he still does things he shouldn't do a basketball well,
I was taken shots that are dumb for a team
that's not awful anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:50:49):
Like the Ball family in and of itself. That answer
could have been different any given year over the last
several years, Like I don't even remember when they first
came on the scene. First it was the Dad and
then the Suns, and they were I.

Speaker 3 (01:51:05):
Mean he came on to the scene because of Lonzo,
right and now that as most people actually thought at
the time, because he was enough into his teens and
had shown what he might become, most people thought LaMelo
was gonna be the most talented one, and I think
it's played out that way. It's a little unfair to
Lonzo because of the insane amount of injuries that he
has had in his NBA career, still trying to continue,

(01:51:27):
but available now to anybody but yeah, that's more. Really,
the Ball story now is Singer soon to be retired,
Lonzo possibly and maybe LaMelo Ball finally has a basketball team,
and part of it is his doing. He has better
talent around him. Clearly, Luckily, the Rockets probably won't see

(01:51:49):
three rotation players for the Hornets tomorrow night. Kobe White,
who they added via the deadline, he is being watched
closely and he is out with injury, and I've usually
the two players that are starters Diabata and Bridges are
out because the league suspended him for fighting. None of
those three players are playing tomorrow night, so Brandon Miller
and Khanka Nipple and LaMelo Ball will be in charge

(01:52:12):
provided their feet digits can handle the workload.

Speaker 1 (01:52:16):
Moosaw Diabat, Yes, I'm making sure I'm pronouncing it right, Musa,
not Moosaw. Don't believe you emphasized the last vowel but
rather the first one.

Speaker 2 (01:52:28):
Well that's why I said first, and you were like, yes,
that's correct.

Speaker 3 (01:52:31):
Oh, I didn't know you were placing so much emphasis
on it either way.

Speaker 2 (01:52:35):
The wrong emphasis on the wrong salable.

Speaker 3 (01:52:38):
You don't have to worry about it, even though you're
working the game he's not. I mean, Matt will probably
get that out of the way.

Speaker 2 (01:52:43):
He's unavailable.

Speaker 1 (01:52:44):
You can go over your injury list in pregame and
say he's unavailable. Then you're all set.

Speaker 2 (01:52:48):
No more.

Speaker 1 (01:52:48):
Well he's not injured, he no more, he's not available.
That's usually I mentioned who's not available during the injury report.

Speaker 2 (01:52:56):
Casey Kaseon wouldn't have messed it up. I'll tell you
that much.

Speaker 1 (01:53:00):
But yeah, going back to the ball family and specifically LaMelo. Now,
to the best of my knowledge, and I've known you
a very long time, you don't have any tattoos. No
tats I'm likely to change never. Yeah, I was about
saying you've never really wanted any. No, I totally get
why the meeting behind them. For a lot of people

(01:53:20):
who either have one or lots of them visualized by
other people are not I get it.

Speaker 3 (01:53:26):
I'd understand why it means something to them. I don't
have anything that I need to tat up with or
remembrance of anything. Okay, we're just for fun, and people
get where I starting to hangover whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:53:38):
People get them as you're mentioning for all different types
of reasons, and they get all different types of things. Look,
I've never seen something like this in my life, and
I'm sure that's not I mean, that's just because I
just hadn't seen it. There's no way that this hasn't
been this hasn't happened before. Namely, you remember Bam Bam

(01:53:59):
Big famously had may he rest had flames tattooed on
his bald skull. So, I mean, people get eccentric things
in prominent locations. But LaMelo Ball looks like he got
hot Cheetos tattooed on his foot.

Speaker 3 (01:54:21):
He's got five toes. They are orange, and the flames
are going into his foot. He flamed up tat wise
his toes and they do look like hot cheetos. They
will be, I'm sure a real hit at the beaches
and in the locker room of his basketball team, or
his feet are on display I'm TEBA games, they'll be
covered up.

Speaker 2 (01:54:40):
WEX.

Speaker 1 (01:54:41):
I've had several tattoos done, okay, I have been under
the needle, so to speak, and some of them have
been relatively painless, relatively some of them have been really uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 (01:54:55):
But I just can't.

Speaker 1 (01:54:56):
I mean, if you're looking at a picture of this,
you said orange, it's actually red.

Speaker 3 (01:55:02):
They look he looks like he's suffered from very severe burns.

Speaker 2 (01:55:07):
Of the ink variety.

Speaker 1 (01:55:09):
I mean, if your skin is red, it looks like
you got burned, like to kind of since we don't
have this on the camera, if this was his toe,
this part is red, comes up to orange flames.

Speaker 2 (01:55:22):
And then it's blue. But meaning this little part right here.

Speaker 1 (01:55:26):
Maybe it's not for real. Maybe it's such a nail bed.
I hope it's a joke, because I'm telling you right now,
Dad has got to be the most uncar I don't
know how he was able to stay still for the
needle to do what it needed to do, to put
the ink right around his toe bed. That is a
very sensitive spot, and to do all five and I

(01:55:48):
don't even know what's worse. The pinky are the big toe,
the ones in the middle, those are just.

Speaker 2 (01:55:53):
What they are. They're in a it's a joke. It's
not real, I hope so.

Speaker 1 (01:55:58):
But it's it's clearly some but he's real foot with
paint on it and some marker.

Speaker 2 (01:56:04):
You think that's what it is.

Speaker 1 (01:56:05):
It could who knows. This is the age we live in.
It does look real. I mean, if it's AI or whatever,
it looks what do you think if let's let's now
flip the page too. Okay, it's definitely real and it
definitely means something to him.

Speaker 2 (01:56:19):
It doesn't mean what is it representative of? Why? Why
did he get fast?

Speaker 6 (01:56:24):
Like?

Speaker 1 (01:56:24):
There's no meaning behind this. This is like a Roadrunner
type of cartoon.

Speaker 2 (01:56:29):
It's just so.

Speaker 1 (01:56:31):
Ridiculous, like social media, don't believe it.

Speaker 2 (01:56:37):
It looks like he has hot cheetos all over his feet.

Speaker 1 (01:56:40):
Well, we will see his sock covered, shoe covered feet
tomorrow night. Like, don't you if you're Kevin Durant, don't
you want to make him take a shoe off and
show it to you tomorrow night, just to see whether
or not it's real.

Speaker 2 (01:56:52):
If nothing else, maybe if.

Speaker 1 (01:56:53):
He's asking for your new eighteens, maybe see the green
ones he wore. Did Steph must have liked him. He
wanted to get an up close look. I thought they
don't like each other, says who the Burner account def
was mentioned.

Speaker 2 (01:57:08):
I think they're fine. Draymond and him don't and I did.

Speaker 3 (01:57:11):
Not need a Burner account to clue me in on
or Draymond's podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:57:16):
Yeah, nobody likes any of that, but he's probably gonna
get a prominent TV role as soon as he retires,
which might be sooner rather than later. All Right, here's
the deal, kind of teases at the beginning of the segment.
Flag football is apparently football at five. Well really, that's again,

(01:57:38):
that's what we're doing, that could be what we're talking about,
football at five every day here on the eighth on it.
Of course, they are oh my gosh, and I just
the way this could possibly go, the the road that
people might go down with this, and how big this
could potentially become. I can't even believe to begin with.

(01:57:59):
But but apparently it is absolutely one a thing and
could get even bigger. We will discuss when we come
back for football, or as wex called it, flag football
at five straight ahead.

Speaker 7 (01:58:14):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (01:58:18):
A r flag football at five here on the A
Team Sports Talk seven ninety And we bring that up
because yes, it's a dare I say, burgeoning market first
and foremost spent entirely too much time with New York
Times affiliated articles for today's show.

Speaker 2 (01:58:37):
It's just where I landed today. You never know where
the job's going to take you, but only athletic for
those that don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:58:43):
But that's the problem just too, you know, And I
love I love our boy Chandler a lot, especially when
he gets into it on social media, but it's a lot.
It's a lot today, however, flag football was everywhere at
the Super Bowl. Why the NFL is all in? And
what happens next? That is a legit article headline in

(01:59:07):
The Athletic here on February eighteenth, twenty twenty six.

Speaker 3 (01:59:11):
Without reading it, I think the obvious answer to the
first question is, as I said, that's obvious. Why would
they be in bed with anybody like all the casinos
or any other entity, because there's money to be made,
major money to be made, and they think getting involved
with it really being the driving force behind it. Quite honestly,

(01:59:31):
both on the men's and women's side. They're right, there
is a lot of money to be made.

Speaker 1 (01:59:38):
The inaugural team at the twenty twenty eight Olympics now
has approved NFL players.

Speaker 3 (01:59:46):
Yeah, we actually had a chance to ask Demiko and
a few other players over the course of time when
this went down during I don't remember which month, but
prior to the season starting. I mean, we were in
the bubble talking to some players about this, so I
think it was during that Porsche and of their preparation
for the season.

Speaker 2 (02:00:02):
I still to this day.

Speaker 1 (02:00:03):
Can't It might be fun, it might sound cool, and
they might really want to enjoy it, And like the WBC,
I'm sure you could get insured, but why would you
want to participate in this while you're an active NFL
player and run the risk of injury. Well, let me
just forcefully attack something you just said. And it's nothing
personal against you. You said it what sounded cool?

Speaker 3 (02:00:26):
Yeah, I mean you play football and it's a big
event and you get to represent your country. I think
that you heard that from players. Even it's different because
like we're watching the Winter Olympics and pretty much pretty
much every single athlete, man or woman, because of the
sport that they're participating in, has dreamed about this their

(02:00:46):
whole life.

Speaker 2 (02:00:47):
It is a big, big deal.

Speaker 3 (02:00:48):
It's for some of them, the hockey maybe less so,
especially on the men's side. They all play in the NHL.
USA and Sweden are getting ready to play. One hundred
percent of those players or NHL players, they dreamed of
playing in the NHL and maybe the Olympics too. You're
a figure skater, you're in one of the awesome new
ski events that we have with everything that's the half pipe,

(02:01:09):
the full all this stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:01:11):
You really, what else is there? The X Games?

Speaker 1 (02:01:13):
This is what you're doing it for. You said football
players aren't like that cool.

Speaker 3 (02:01:17):
No football player grew up hoping to represent America or
Japan or Italy in the Olympics as a football player
because it didn't exist.

Speaker 1 (02:01:26):
They're calling themselves flag athletes. And to take it a
step further, listen to this sentence. Since you think it
sounds cool at all, well, I'm taking it from what
the player said. Some of them said it would they
would do it flag athletes wearing their USA Football kits,

(02:01:47):
frequented sets along radio row. So now we're taking soccer
vernacular and applying it to flag football.

Speaker 2 (02:01:54):
They have kits.

Speaker 3 (02:01:55):
Now, I mean again, you call shorts, socks and a
jersey to shirt with sleeves.

Speaker 1 (02:02:03):
If it's if you're playing soccer, you have just described
a kit. Yeah, you're not playing soccer. You're playing a
kids game version of football, not football, presumably safer version
of it.

Speaker 3 (02:02:15):
There's no tackling, doesn't mean you can't get hurt. And
the thing is like Team USA flag football, it already exists,
and there aren't any NFL players on it. There are
plenty of professional flag football players.

Speaker 2 (02:02:28):
I'm going to get left.

Speaker 1 (02:02:29):
They're not NFL players. I'm absolutely gonna get so they're
going to take away their jobs left behind. Here's why
listen to this paragraph. The NFL is all in on
flag football football. It's pushed to integrate the rapidly growing
sport into signature events such as the Pro Bowl. Is
just one of many initiatives over the last year that
underscores investment, which reached a new high point during the

(02:02:51):
events around the Super Bowl. The league has brought a
board key partners such as YouTube and Toyota, and has
turned high profile players, Pro football Hall of famers, and
personalities into flag football ambassadors. Now, the one thing I
would say, Okay, I get where this is coming from.

(02:03:13):
If it's it is if this is an event in
the summer Olympics and it's in LA, obviously this would
be like a glory, like a glorified flag football game
where you get to see NFL players. But again, the
only reason I would think people would watch that is
because they know these players from real football. If this

(02:03:36):
is just flag football being played, by Joe Schmoe athlete
who is athletic but doesn't have any prior, you know,
foothold in the culture because of the actual NFL and
real football games. I just I mean, unless the NFL

(02:03:57):
is all about funneling its players into this, which is
what it sound like.

Speaker 3 (02:04:01):
It's not about the Olympics at all. It's about the
money that can be made with leagues and growing the
sport and having their involvement in it.

Speaker 2 (02:04:07):
And then those people are now NFL fans football game.

Speaker 1 (02:04:09):
Would you pay admission to go to an actual facility
and watch flag football?

Speaker 3 (02:04:14):
That's what professional leagues are expecting. Maybe I wouldn't, Like.

Speaker 1 (02:04:18):
We can't even get people to sell out arena football games,
and those you at least have the chance of seeing
somebody die when they hit the side.

Speaker 2 (02:04:25):
Well the wall.

Speaker 3 (02:04:26):
Again, it's probably also less about necessarily the actual dollars
you can make from the event to the game versus
how many more NFL fans you're getting.

Speaker 2 (02:04:37):
A hold of. Were you a Thunderbears fan?

Speaker 3 (02:04:39):
I mean it was a terror. If you weren't, I
guess is that good Texas terror? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (02:04:45):
I never went to one of those games. I did
think that somebody was gonna die. Seriously, but I wouldn't
you say it's fair to call the it successful. Lasted
for almost three decades. Well, from that stand puts you
also using fringe NFL talent. Do you think the XFL
was successful.

Speaker 3 (02:05:06):
Uh, that's a different I think it's tough to call
it successful because going off what I said, it doesn't exist.
I mean the XFL now the UFL, now they're together.
Now they're playing in their home cities. Now they're not
playing in their home cities. Now they've added this team
and taken away this team. I mean, you've seen gamblers
are playing football this year in Houston. Coach Sumblin is

(02:05:27):
their head coach. They just released their jerseys, which you're sweet,
within the last week, and I still don't think that
will see much attendance here in Houston. This is actually
what it could be and has been in the past,
one of the better markets.

Speaker 1 (02:05:39):
I bring that up because even if it's on a
smaller scale, or in this case, maybe it's a bigger scale,
I put them all in the same category, fair or unfair,
They're just not the NFL.

Speaker 2 (02:05:49):
Right then, all.

Speaker 3 (02:05:50):
Those leagues, I do think are actually trying to they're
trying to make money. They're trying to be successful financially,
which of course is foolish. It's not gonna happen. I
don't think they're trying to push the NFL. I don't
think it's trying to push flag football as an entity
on its own to make them money. But rather, we're
just going to get more people interested in football, and

(02:06:11):
especially on the women's side, the women's flag football side
of it. And there's no doubt everybody here in Houston
knows the push behind that from the Houston Texans, specifically
Hannah McNair. This is a big, big deal to them
and Houston I think is going to be extremely well
represented moving forward in flag football. They just happened to
have a lot of players here. They have a lot
more schools involved. The Textans have been behind a bunch

(02:06:32):
of initiatives. They're one of the most I don't know recognizable.
I don't know how many people recognize a female flag
football player, but she's from Houston. Ashley klam is one
of the more. She might be the most recognized flag
football player. I think Victoria Flores is the other because
she's been in with the league. I think she was
in the Remember they put together that commercial a couple

(02:06:53):
of years ago, Like they had all those players that
the reception and the football was flying around and they
were jumping over tables and and Peyton and I think
they involved a lot of other NFL type people and
she was one of them, their lead female flag football
ambassador and player. The league is definitely behind that as
much as anything else. And you'll see it here in

(02:07:14):
Houston quite a bit. Like I guess, like it's just
to me, it's just stunning. Like the NCAA said as
many as sixty schools could sponsor programs this year.

Speaker 2 (02:07:25):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (02:07:26):
Well, high schools is where it usually needs to start
if you're going to be participating it beyond the club
level at college. And that's what again, the McNair's specifically
and the Texans specifically are a huge push behind that.
They had the Football Senior Showcase where they have all
the high school football players that are looking for additional opportunities.
A lot of the smaller colleges will come to Houston

(02:07:48):
in several other places where they have the event. This
year it included flag football and women's flag football, girls
flag football.

Speaker 1 (02:07:56):
Well, that's the thing the girls side of it is
what's really blowing up. But Steve Young another big time
ambassador for flag football. He's also a coach of his
daughter's team. He said, do you want to go get
a gold medal in twenty twenty eight? If you do,
this is where you show it. The NFL players need

(02:08:17):
to demand by their play that they want to go
get a gold And they talked about it. All the
guys in the locker room are saying, I'm in. I'm
in for a gold medal. Why don't you just play
real football in the.

Speaker 3 (02:08:26):
Olympics, because there's well, if you're playing real football, then
there's no way NFL players are playing unless the insurance
sets them up for life.

Speaker 2 (02:08:36):
There's also no way they're losing. Probably not.

Speaker 3 (02:08:39):
I mean, I have a lot of respect for the
guys that are doing it that are gonna not be
on the team when they let NFL players play. Probably,
And it's just a matter of you're gonna have really
good athletes doing it, and then you're gonna bring in.

Speaker 1 (02:08:51):
Someone who's just a little bit better athlete. It's just
crazy to me. I guess I just didn't say. Look,
maybe I'll get left in the dust.

Speaker 2 (02:08:58):
And it's a off thing.

Speaker 3 (02:09:00):
I mean, it might take off, but it's not going
to get to the level that we're talking about it
the way you suggest.

Speaker 1 (02:09:05):
Just let me know when training camp starts in July.
That's where I'm at with football. I just like my
football there, But I get it. It is an alternative
and probably a lot safer, although he can still get
heart doing this too, I promise you all.

Speaker 2 (02:09:18):
Right when we come back.

Speaker 1 (02:09:21):
Thoughts from Jeremy Pania from earlier today on the Matt
Thomas Show featuring Ross, he stopped by, and you're probably
gonna want to hear some of what the Astros starting
shortstop had to say in anticipation of twenty twenty six.
That's next, that Jeremy Pania had his best in his
brief career in an Astros uniform. Love to see the

(02:09:43):
person arguing against that. Well, you know, his rookie year,
he won the World Series MVP, so it is hard
to argue against that. But from a statistical inconsistency standpoint,
I would say that twenty twenty five was one for
the books for him.

Speaker 3 (02:09:59):
In my opinion, you can't even argue that he was
a good offensive player in any of his seasons before
last year. Yeah, can't even make the argument he was
a good offensive player. He was a below average offensive
player in year one, two, and three. Last year he
was awesome.

Speaker 2 (02:10:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:10:12):
It was crazy because I don't I mean, were you
expecting that necessarily.

Speaker 3 (02:10:16):
Every year when he was talking about making this tweak
and that tweak and we watched him, we expected the
progress we knew about his minor league exploits and the
level of prospect that he was. Yeah, I expected it
every year, but three years into the league now I
was wondering, what is it going to happen?

Speaker 2 (02:10:31):
Now?

Speaker 3 (02:10:31):
His teammates Hunter Brown specifically, I kind of talked about
that with him at FanFest and he kind of shut
it down a little bit, like this is who he's been.

Speaker 2 (02:10:42):
It's just a matter of you know, and now you
see it.

Speaker 3 (02:10:44):
He was one of the best leadoff hitters in baseball
last year, was one of the best overall players. He's
been an All Star, he's been a Gold Glover, he's
been a postseason MVP twice, over winning the MVP in
two of those postseason series. And there are already plenty
of Jeremy Payna moments Seattle and extras certainly is one
of them, and they're gonna be a lot more. He

(02:11:04):
and the rest of us team are ready to get
back to where they were two years without it, and
now hopefully back to more of it. Matt Thomas in
the Astros Clubhouse earlier today with Jeremy Pania and as
heard earlier today on The Matt Thomas Show with Ross
can catch it in its entirety right there at Sports
Talk seven ninety dot com. We'll wanted to share some
of it with you, beginning with the conversation. It will

(02:11:27):
include stuff about him participating in the WBC, his thoughts
obviously on the upcoming season, the relationship getting back to
where it already was with Carlos Correa, was Correa coming
back to be with the Astros, and just the overall
outlook on the season.

Speaker 2 (02:11:41):
Here's Jeremy Panya.

Speaker 10 (02:11:44):
I mean, I feel like our goal is always to
get into the postseason and make a run in the postseason. Yeah,
we didn't achieve that last year, which was tough for
us as a whole as an organization.

Speaker 6 (02:11:56):
But at the same time, you know it's time to
turn the page.

Speaker 10 (02:11:59):
You know we're gonna spring training and you know we
have a new season upon us, and it's time.

Speaker 6 (02:12:05):
To bounce back.

Speaker 10 (02:12:06):
You know, it's time to get back into the playoffs
and make a run.

Speaker 12 (02:12:10):
How was it to It looked like to me watching
you guys that your relationship with Carlos at their base
or was amazing.

Speaker 2 (02:12:16):
I mean, it took no time for you guys to
transition together right right.

Speaker 10 (02:12:20):
You know, Carlos has been great to me since the
first day I got to the organization, you know, spring
training twenty nineteen, and I got to hang out with
the team quite a bit. You know, Joe A Spota,
I took it upon himself to get me playing time
with the mob games in spring training, so I would
come from the minor league side and hang out with
the big leaguers, and you know, it.

Speaker 6 (02:12:41):
Was pretty cool. Pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (02:12:42):
Does that happen a lot?

Speaker 12 (02:12:43):
I mean, that's a pretty special situation for you to
be able to be with those guys for early in
your career.

Speaker 10 (02:12:47):
I mean, guys usually get the opportunity to come up
and play back up some games, but I feel like
Joe was make me back up almost every single game.
You know, I feel like I was barely in minor
league spring training, and I feel like I was over
and I didn't play much. You know, I would come
into the eighth inning, get one that bat. I was
coming to ninth in just play defense. But just being
around those guys, man, it was special because you get

(02:13:09):
to pick their brains, you know how the big leggers think,
you know, and it's exciting for me.

Speaker 12 (02:13:15):
So do you look back at that and go, man,
I made some mistakes when I was younger, or I
just kind of just soaked everything in.

Speaker 10 (02:13:21):
I mean I try to soak everything in. Yeah, you know,
if you look back at the team we had twenty nineteen,
like it was unbelievable.

Speaker 5 (02:13:28):
You know.

Speaker 10 (02:13:28):
I had guys like Michael brand Lee around me. You know,
I had guys like Josel Tuve around me. It was
it was special, special for Shure.

Speaker 12 (02:13:35):
Do you find younger guys coming to you asking those
same kind of questions that you were asking four or
five years ago.

Speaker 6 (02:13:41):
I feel like they asked better questions than I did.

Speaker 2 (02:13:43):
I was just fie.

Speaker 9 (02:13:43):
You know.

Speaker 10 (02:13:45):
I feel like these guys are very confident, you know,
they know what their game is.

Speaker 6 (02:13:50):
You know, they love picking people's brains.

Speaker 10 (02:13:51):
But I was more shy, you know, I was kind
of just they're looking trying to learn by scene. You know,
I was never want to just approach someone and ask
him a question, you know, but if they open that
door for me, then I felt the confidence, you know.

Speaker 12 (02:14:06):
Keep talking about it, got more questions here with Jeremy Penia,
Jose's back at second base primarily, and look, I think
what he did last year in volunteering himself in the
left field, everybody's going to do that, and maybe.

Speaker 6 (02:14:17):
Ten years down the road, they may ask you to
go to third base something like that.

Speaker 12 (02:14:19):
What is that like watching a guy like that go
to a new position, pick for the good of the team,
But you know, in his heart, hearts, he wants to
be a second base I.

Speaker 10 (02:14:27):
Mean, it says a lot about the type of person
he is and the type of player he is. You know,
he's a player that's always going to do what's you know,
best for the team.

Speaker 6 (02:14:37):
He wants to see the team do good. You know,
he wants to see the team win.

Speaker 10 (02:14:40):
You know, he's been here through the ups and the
downs off this team, you know, from when he first
got to the big leagues to winning the world multiple
World series. You know, so I feel like a tuva
is very is very inclined to help in this team
win you two Way is a player that you know.

(02:15:02):
He tries to make everyone better and if that meant
last year trying to move to left field and makes
a team better than you know. He's a guy who
just put in the lineup and he's going to find
a way to help the team.

Speaker 2 (02:15:13):
What do you want to get accomplished here?

Speaker 12 (02:15:15):
I know that Joe mentioned a few weeks ago that
maybe some of the older guys won't have to play
as much as spring training. Have you kind of mapped
up a schedule what you'd like to see done for
yourself in nubers of playing time.

Speaker 6 (02:15:25):
I mean, I'm going to have to play quite a bit.

Speaker 10 (02:15:27):
I'll be playing pretty early spring training because of the
World Baseball Classes, so you know, I'm preparing a little
earlier than I usually do. But yeah, I'll be playing
right away, join my Dominican Republic team and go from there.

Speaker 2 (02:15:42):
How amped for you for that?

Speaker 12 (02:15:44):
Because here's the thing we argue about this on my
radio show, about the importance of it. I can't be
in your skin because some man of your guys like
yourself in other countries have said this is such an
important event So to wrap this up, what makes this WBC,
even though it's every three years, so important for guys
like yourself.

Speaker 6 (02:15:59):
Specially, it's special.

Speaker 10 (02:16:01):
I feel like you grow up admiring these guys that
represent our country.

Speaker 9 (02:16:04):
You know.

Speaker 10 (02:16:04):
You admire the Arrapoo Holes, you know, the Miguel Tahadas,
you know, and they never had a problem with putting
on that uniform and represent our country, you know. And
you know what they did in two thousand and thirteen,
I believe when we won the WB money. Yeah, two
thy thirteen, when we were in the WBC, the whole country,

(02:16:25):
it was like a big celebration, you know. And I
remember I was in I was in high school, and
that's memory, vivid moment for me, you know, court memory,
you know, Robinson Cano, like, I admired all those guys,
you know, and they brought the trophy home and it
was special for us. And I hope to you know,
kind of give the country that same glory. You know,

(02:16:48):
we have a great team to do it, and they
were going to go enjoy ourselves and compete.

Speaker 3 (02:16:52):
A couple of things to note what he last discussed
was likely his infield in the dominic propblic for this
tournament World Baseball Classic. He'll be at shortstop, Katel Marte
will be at second, Manny Machado will be at third,
and Vladimir Guerrero will be over at first, with junior
Cameron Aro and Heraldo Perdomo awaiting their turns to get

(02:17:16):
into a game.

Speaker 1 (02:17:17):
And that's just their infield. I said it before. I
think they're gonna win.

Speaker 3 (02:17:21):
I think if they get any kind of pitching, and
they have plenty of pitchers on the staff that are
extremely recognizable, successful Major league pissars, pitchers Sandy al Kantara,
Christopher Sanchez probably near the top of that list.

Speaker 1 (02:17:34):
We'll see and it should be a whole lot of fun.

Speaker 3 (02:17:35):
And everybody wants the same thing that sits in these
chairs and in all the other twenty nine Major League cities.
Go play, Go have fun, represent your country, and deliver
some fantastic moments, and return to spring training as healthy
as you were when you got there. The other thing
I brought it up just before his conversation began and
got into it a little bit last year is a
leadoff hitter, and I presume that's the same place that

(02:17:58):
he will be this year. There were twenty five players
with two hundred and eighty five at bats as a
leadoff hitter last year. There were three that had an
high higher OPS than Pania one in the American League.
He was awesome last year. He was elite. He was
a table setting everything you want out of your leadoff hitter.

Speaker 1 (02:18:21):
And probably in this day and age in Major League
Baseball and then some would love to see more power
from him, And I do think that's something at some point,
maybe we'll see maybe if that's something that he works on.
I don't think it's mandatory, but I do think last year,
if his final three months were healthy, missed all of
July and then still missed more time with the additional
injury later on in the season. I think his power

(02:18:43):
numbers because his slug was excellent, it was over five
hundred last year, a big step forward for him. The
actual counting numbers was probably a twenty homer season that
he missed out on. I would think maybe a thirty
five forty double season that he missed out on. I
think what I'm you know, you're talking about him being
the leadoff guy. He was never really given that opportunity

(02:19:05):
before him because of the players on the roster namely.
I mean, so al Tuvey was leading off for a
long time, Bregman was always second, right, he never was
really a leadoff guy.

Speaker 3 (02:19:15):
Well one the year that Dusty put Jeremy Paine yet
second in the lineup, they basically won every game. I
think they went like forty nine and seven during the
regular season.

Speaker 1 (02:19:25):
It's almost like not a happy accident necessarily because he
was intentionally put there.

Speaker 2 (02:19:29):
Yeah, it was very smart.

Speaker 1 (02:19:31):
We just didn't know. We didn't I guess, anticipate that
would be the case. And unlocking that version of him,
like you're talking about absolutely put him back there. I mean,
you assume that he's going to be the leadoff guy
because that's exactly where he should be.

Speaker 3 (02:19:45):
And then you do also have to look at his teammates.
Is there somebody else that you want betting leadoff? Yeah,
unless you're going show Hey Jordan bat him lead off,
because Showey is a leadoff hitter for the Dodgers, but
they're not. They're's not batting lead off.

Speaker 2 (02:19:58):
No, nor should he.

Speaker 1 (02:20:00):
So interesting stuff there and probably the most introspective conversation
eve Her because most of the time he's a short
answer guy.

Speaker 2 (02:20:06):
Not in spring training affair.

Speaker 3 (02:20:08):
And he did have to get that very important information
from a teammate in Espanol about what year they won, and.

Speaker 2 (02:20:13):
Matt knew what he said.

Speaker 1 (02:20:14):
As it is, we'll get into our tickets we have
to give away, and of course in case you missed
it here at five thirty comes.

Speaker 2 (02:20:23):
Next no surprises. We get to five.

Speaker 3 (02:20:26):
Thirty in the final hour of the show, it's of
course time for in case you missed it, no surprises.
We have about load of things to discuss here, some
items we need to revisit or items we have not
yet discussed.

Speaker 2 (02:20:36):
Also, note about the tickets.

Speaker 1 (02:20:37):
We have to give away, a couple of pairs of
tickets to go see Dave matthews Man, a couple of
pairs of tickets to go to Rodeo Houston the night
Rascal Flats are performing. That's March fourth.

Speaker 2 (02:20:48):
Give you details on that.

Speaker 3 (02:20:49):
Encourage you to keep listening because you just might need
to know something about what we just discussed when we
ask you a question about it coming up in the
final segment of the show when we give away those tickets.

Speaker 2 (02:20:59):
Josh, what do we have today on in case you
missed it? Yeah, I thought this was kind of interesting.

Speaker 13 (02:21:03):
Hunter Brown joined Chan the roam on the Crush City
Territory podcast and talked about haven't really heard anything about
an extension now. I know he's still got three more
years of club control he signed with Scott Boris, But
aren't the Astros just cool, just kind of letting everybody walk?
Would you at least maybe kind of give him a

(02:21:24):
framework of an offer to let him know you're interested?

Speaker 2 (02:21:26):
What do you guys think?

Speaker 3 (02:21:28):
Yeah, Actually, a really good lengthy interview with Hunter. I
watched it last night and one of the questions, the
last question or so, was about that specific thing, and
on Hunter seemed to indicate it's not really something that
he's aware that the Astros and Scott have even brought up. Basically,
not anything since he first got to the team. He's

(02:21:48):
only been with the team for a short period of time,
as we all know, twenty twenty two, being a part
of the World Series run and win, and none of
the three seasons has since last year established himself as
one of the best pictures in baseball. Only two pitchers
got more recognition via the Cy Young voting, And like
you said, his time here in Houston is certainly set.

Speaker 2 (02:22:09):
Through the twenty eight season.

Speaker 3 (02:22:11):
It's gonna be paid a little bit less than six
million this year arbitration two, next year arbitration three. Final
year of club control as it currently stands is twenty
twenty eight. After that, he would become a free agent
for the twenty twenty nine season.

Speaker 1 (02:22:26):
Now, the element of the likely lockout may have something
to do with it. I don't think it has anything
to do with it personally, but I can't say that
for sure. Every time it comes up Jeremy Pania, all
the players who have left Hunter Brown, Jordan Alvarez, Christian Javier,
who have extensions a different time in their respective careers don't.

(02:22:48):
I don't know why this isn't something he would want
more of.

Speaker 3 (02:22:51):
It's clear the owner doesn't because he doesn't hand out
those contracts. The next one he hands out will be
the first one he hands out. Five years, one hundred
and twenty five million for an extension for an established
major league player. Jose al Tuve got that, you know,
Josh Hater got that. Five years still at the very
top end of it. You know, the early deals for Bregman, Alvarez,

(02:23:14):
Javier one hundred million or so or less over six
years if the player's willing to go for it. Those
are super team friendly in my opinion, And I still
think that even as Jordon finally gets to big money
this year, six years, one hundred and fifteen million, he
signed for the same amount of time as Hunter Brown,
and he's capped out at what he makes this year
makes about twenty six point eight and he'll make the

(02:23:35):
same for the next two years.

Speaker 1 (02:23:37):
And these are the first three years, because that's the.

Speaker 3 (02:23:40):
Tune of almost eighty million of his one to fifteenth
This is the first time he's making huge money. I
don't think Hunter Brown would even consider that, never really
was approached about that at any earlier point in his career.
He also wasn't established. Remember Jordon was established on day one.
He came up to the big leagues and actually tore
the cover off the baseball from the jump, So really
he wasn't much doubt of what he was going to become.

(02:24:01):
I don't think there should have been out with Hunter.
We got to respect the results. There was just because
the way he pitched and some of his unbelievable to
figure out starts that he had where he couldn't get
out of the early portion of the game. Always at
some point it has to end or your run of
winning is going to end. And what I mean is
they can't all walk and you're down to the bottom

(02:24:23):
of the barrel.

Speaker 2 (02:24:23):
Now, I don't mean from talent stampoint.

Speaker 3 (02:24:25):
They won't do that because I think he wants to win,
and if he doesn't, if he doesn't keep somebody, you're
not gonna win. They're not gonna win with the talent
that they have in their system, and they don't have
the ability to trade for more of it. And I
don't think he's going to let these guys walk so
he can then spend money differently on shorter term contracts
with these players that he I guess are so good.

(02:24:45):
Like I'm what they did this offseason specific to one
player fromber Valdez. What's fromber getting from the Tigers?

Speaker 1 (02:24:54):
How many million? A lot more than the Astros were
willing to offer.

Speaker 2 (02:24:59):
I thought it was one twenty f I don't remember,
or you're right it is more than that. It's forty
two million.

Speaker 3 (02:25:03):
Okay, so they signed a pitcher to replace him at
half that rate, but big money and free agency.

Speaker 2 (02:25:08):
But it's just one year.

Speaker 3 (02:25:10):
They're gonna pay twenty one million dollars this year to
Emi to basically take that spot and then what like,
you can sign all the short term deals that you want.
But if Bregman, Tucker and everybody else that fits in
that group is playing somewhere else, and so is Jeremy
Pania and so is Hunter Brown, You're not gonna You're

(02:25:30):
not gonna win.

Speaker 2 (02:25:32):
It's somebody.

Speaker 3 (02:25:33):
We always said it when they were letting everybody else
go at the beginning of it, when George Springer was
the first to go, and you know, Kikeel to a
certain extent, obviously, Garrett Cole and then keeps going and
Justin Verlin are on down the list with the expectation
for sure. Okay, well they're gonna sign Breg Bregmant's the
guy they'll want to keep, and they did want to
keep him, and they did make an offer, but multiple

(02:25:54):
teams gave him better offers.

Speaker 2 (02:25:56):
Well, he's gonna leave if you do that. Well, I
feel like the Scott Boris like element.

Speaker 1 (02:26:05):
When's the last time a Scott Boris client not named
Jose Altuve?

Speaker 2 (02:26:10):
And don't tell me LANCEM. Collers Junior, because.

Speaker 3 (02:26:11):
Yeah, these guys aren't comps like Jose al Tuove is
not a comp to the Hunter Brown or Jeremy Paige.

Speaker 2 (02:26:17):
Didn't leave here.

Speaker 3 (02:26:19):
Yeah, the thing is maybe some of the future contract
clients like Paying or Brown will look at a few
other guys who have followed Boris's lead and it has
not led to anything good. They're not many of them.
Jordan Montgomery's one, obviously. I would guess that Zach Gallon
is another. He's still going to get his twenty two million,
but he didn't have a long term deal, and Alex
got a bunch of money deferred at Scott Boris's suggestion.

(02:26:40):
Most of the other deals have worked out great. Alex
Bregman's deal has worked out phenomenally well, I would think,
personally for him and financially. Similarly, Matt Chapman's short term
deal worked out great, like Snow's short term deal worked
out great. I can I absolutely can see something I
never thought would it be the case every awesome player
that was drafted or developed or was an astro like

(02:27:03):
these are our guys. Most fans would think they're gonna
be gone if I told you Jeremy Panie and Hunter
Brown were putting on somebody else's uniform in twenty twenty nine,
for Hunter if they don't trade him first like they
did with Kyle Tucker. And similarly with Jeremy Paania, who
has a single year after this year. He's making a
little bit less than nine and a half this year.
He's our last arbitration years next year, so his earliest

(02:27:25):
twenty twenty eight will be playing somewhere else. He's kind
of telling us, Yeah, that's what's gonna happen.

Speaker 1 (02:27:31):
Yeah, I mean, I've expected that for a long long time.
I just look up the dates and I'm like, Okay, I.

Speaker 3 (02:27:35):
Didn't expect it because I thought Bregman would be be
the first of maybe several they would keep.

Speaker 2 (02:27:41):
But once he was not, and.

Speaker 1 (02:27:43):
Once you heard what he was expecting, you knew it
wasn't realistic, well realistic for this owner to agree to
That's what I mean. He asked for a realistic number.
Multiple other teams offered it to him. Yeah, I just
but I was hearing before we even got to that state,
like this is what he thinks he should beginning, and
I knew that it for Jim Crane is way too

(02:28:04):
rich blood for that.

Speaker 3 (02:28:04):
Blood Hunter Brown did also say what people like to
hear even though they know what it probably means, which
is nothing.

Speaker 2 (02:28:11):
I want to be an Astro for life.

Speaker 3 (02:28:12):
He said. I don't have thoughts of being in another uniform.
I love the Astros. I love what they've done. I
love being here.

Speaker 2 (02:28:18):
Because they don't until they do well.

Speaker 3 (02:28:20):
They're not every situation that these other players have gone to,
there's a reason, and gar Cole went to the Yankees
because he loves the Yankees. George Berrier didn't go to
Toronto to win baseball games, even though he knew he
probably could.

Speaker 2 (02:28:32):
He went there for the money.

Speaker 3 (02:28:33):
Alex Bregman went to an organization that a person like
Bregman probably had big desire. I can be a Red Sox,
I can be a Cub I love baseball. This is awesome,
but it's always about the money. He got a better
deal at the last hour from the Red Sox, so
he signed with them. Nobody has left and won, by
the way, uh and Carlos is back. I don't know

(02:28:56):
how you right view that one, but I'm saying nobody
has left. It was of these core players we're talking about.
Nobody has left and won anything of consequence, least of
all Garrick Cole.

Speaker 7 (02:29:09):
The eight.

Speaker 3 (02:29:12):
Getting you ready for what comes next next Tomorrow at
this time will be just a few minutes away from
Rockets basketball. The rest of the NBA nearly we'll all
get into action tomorrow night. Anybody who doesn't play Tomorrow night,
we'll get their post All Star Break portion of the
season underway on Friday night.

Speaker 2 (02:29:28):
Rockets have a two game road trip.

Speaker 3 (02:29:30):
They will be in Charlotte for the game tomorrow night,
and they'll be in New York for their game only
game against the Knicks on the road at the Knicks
until the NBA Finals coming up.

Speaker 2 (02:29:38):
On Saturday evening. We mentioned we have tickets to give away.

Speaker 3 (02:29:40):
Before Adam tells you what that is, I will tell
you what you are going to win when you get
the right answer. We got a couple of pairs of
tickets to go see the Dave Matthews Band. They're gonna
perform live with the Woodlands Pavilion that comes on May eighth.
Tickets go on sale in a couple of days ten
am Friday morning over ticketmaster dot com, but you can
obviously win them here first. We also have a pair

(02:30:01):
of tickets to see Rascal Flats. They're performing at Rodeo
Houston on Armed Forces Appreciation Day. On March fourth, three
days into Rodeo Houston. Full entertainment lineup available at rodeohuston
dot com, same place you can buy your tickets to
that event or other events throughout the three week spectacle
that is one of our city's most fun time of year.

Speaker 1 (02:30:23):
Rodeo Houston and all their events talk about a lot
of different things.

Speaker 3 (02:30:26):
This hour in the previous three at seven one three
two one two five seven ninety about to ask you
something about what we discussed. If you know the answer,
that's what you call in with your opportunity to win.

Speaker 2 (02:30:37):
What do we have today?

Speaker 1 (02:30:37):
Well, we were listening to Jeremy Paney a couple segments ago, uh,
talk about you know what he looks forward to, not
just the World Baseball Classic, but obviously as an Astro
here in twenty twenty six, and you had mentioned that
it wasn't even close. And if you look at the statistics,
you're right shocking numbers. Guy over there talking about how

(02:30:59):
much of a fantastic offensive player he was in twenty
twenty five for the Astros, and this particular statistic it
does stand out if you look at his brief tenure
as a major leaguer he's four seasons in his OPS
was a career high and then some last year.

Speaker 2 (02:31:21):
What was his OPS in twenty twenty five?

Speaker 1 (02:31:24):
Wow, Minuitia, it's finest. I just figured you're a statistics guy,
you would like this. Yeah, as a leadoff hitter was
actually even better. We were talking about that very specifically
Byron Buxton, shohe O'tani and Corbyn Carroll the only leadoff
hitters in baseball last year with a higher OPS as
a leadoff hitter. But we're asking you about what his

(02:31:46):
overall OPS was for last season. Came into the season
off of seasons at seven fifteen, seven oh five, and
seven oh one. It was significantly higher last year seven one,
three ninety's with an eight yeah, seven one, seven ninety.
All you got to do is give Josh Jordan the
twenty twenty five OPS for one.

Speaker 3 (02:32:07):
Jeremy Panna definitely definitely appreciate you listening to the show
to get that information.

Speaker 2 (02:32:13):
Can't look it up. It's not hard, it's not easy
to do, especially on your phone.

Speaker 3 (02:32:18):
Very few people have sites that produce that kind of information.
You really have to dig, You really have to dig
deep to figure it out. Hey, Siri, what was I'm sorry.
You don't even have to take your hands off the
wheel to do that in most cars.

Speaker 1 (02:32:30):
Hey, sirih what was Jeremy Payne is ops in twenty
twenty five? Go? My phone is operational, but it did
not understand what I have.

Speaker 2 (02:32:40):
Siri turned off. I can't deal with that.

Speaker 1 (02:32:42):
It's just more steps than I need to take. How
often during the week? How do you do a voice
to text memo that you are ready for?

Speaker 2 (02:32:50):
Believe it or not? Yes, believe it or not.

Speaker 3 (02:32:53):
I typed something into chat GPT. That's correct for the
first time ever, for the first time ever this week?
Really ever, what did you ask it to do? Which
phone case is the best for an iPhone seventeen pro?

Speaker 2 (02:33:09):
Did you ever get it? It's in hand, So that's
that's it right there. I haven't opened the.

Speaker 1 (02:33:14):
Box or set it up or got my case for it.

Speaker 2 (02:33:17):
It's so easy. Just got it yesterday.

Speaker 1 (02:33:20):
You just sit it there and it transfers over. It
takes a while, but you just have to deal with that.
It for like an hour.

Speaker 2 (02:33:25):
I ish I was busy, very busy.

Speaker 1 (02:33:28):
See, that's the thing. I could see you not getting
this done for weeks on it.

Speaker 3 (02:33:32):
Oh no, no, By Monday of next week at the
absolute latest when I roll in here at two o'clock,
because I only get here five seconds before the show starts,
I'll have it ready to.

Speaker 1 (02:33:40):
Get Your problem is with your pictures situation. Man, it's
gonna take a while.

Speaker 3 (02:33:45):
So ask my son, I go, is this latest update
that I don't have installed yet? Is it really that important?
Because obviously I want to transfer all this stuff. He goes,
if you have an update that you haven't installed, you
have to do it. And my immediate reaction was, well,
that ain't happening with the limited amount of space I have.
But I knew there was ways that I could get
the necessary storage opened up pretty easy.

Speaker 2 (02:34:06):
Apparently locked that out last night.

Speaker 1 (02:34:08):
So this last Apple update was more dire than pre
previous ones because of like spyware hacker situations. I think
should be just fine. Yeah, looking forward to the new
toy this time. What's the first thing you're gonna do
on the new phone? Same things you did on the

(02:34:29):
old phone.

Speaker 3 (02:34:29):
So it's Monday, Today's eighteen, that's twenty third. Yeah, I
think I've got the Do I have the Utah game
Monday night? Because then one of the first things I'll
do is probably shoot video of the rockets warming up.

Speaker 2 (02:34:43):
You do have the Utah game on Monday.

Speaker 3 (02:34:44):
Night, so I will get a much better handle on
how much better the zoom is from our seats.

Speaker 2 (02:34:50):
It is it? Look, I got the seventeen pro.

Speaker 1 (02:34:52):
It is a very good camera, and the next one
will be better than that, and so on and so forth.

Speaker 2 (02:34:57):
But what were you coming out of an eleven?

Speaker 9 (02:35:00):
No?

Speaker 2 (02:35:01):
Seven?

Speaker 1 (02:35:02):
This is the thirteen? Oh okay, you're not as bad
as I thought. Last time you replace your phone, it
was like it was much insane. Yeah, it was pretty
old like it was. It was definitely a single digit it.
I believe that I went from a one. I went
from seven to thirteen.

Speaker 2 (02:35:16):
You went from the original iPhone to the thirteen?

Speaker 3 (02:35:19):
No, no, I I mean I can go look at
all the boxes we have stacked up.

Speaker 1 (02:35:24):
You never traded him in or you just have the
box of boxes? You keep the boxes or they're not Jordan's.
Have you seen some tiktoks about that?

Speaker 9 (02:35:31):
Right?

Speaker 2 (02:35:31):
Uh huh?

Speaker 1 (02:35:31):
Like it's a really i'd have to be a joke
about how are real same thing?

Speaker 2 (02:35:35):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (02:35:36):
About how that's a thing that some people just think
they're they just keep them.

Speaker 1 (02:35:41):
Well, there's nothing in it. There's certain no accessories still
in it. You don't need the directions anymore. Like for example,
when my ever turned three, i want to say might
have been four, he got Castle Gray Skull, which was
really more about me living nostalgia through him. But I
kept the box and it's been a thorn in the

(02:36:02):
side of Teresa ever since. There's all this, just all
this storage space where that box sits in his closet.

Speaker 2 (02:36:07):
I'm like, all right, I'll move it. Calm down. Yeah,
a big house, you got a place for it. It's fine,
It's not that big, big.

Speaker 1 (02:36:15):
Enough to store a Gray Skull box. I don't live
at Wayne Manor.

Speaker 3 (02:36:20):
Like neither does he. For half the time he's often
who knows where? Learning from Liam Neeson the Shadow Skills.

Speaker 1 (02:36:29):
Yes, by the way, again, just like Top Gun, Maverick,
that was one casting decision away from being a perfect movie,
The Dark Knight. If Katie Holmes isn't available, you don't
put the lesser Jillen Hall sibling in there as the
female lead.

Speaker 2 (02:36:46):
She is a mag after all. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:36:48):
I knocked out both of those this weekend as well.
You did back to back Top Gun. In Top Gun Maverick.
I've seen them all both many many times. What they
happened to be on? So and I was sitting around,
did you see all three of the Dark Knight trilogy?
You'd have to tell me what they are? I have
no idea Batman begins, which one was that?

Speaker 1 (02:37:06):
Which one? Batman one with Liam and Christian Bale? Yeah,
I don't care who else is in the movie. I
want to know who Batman and Katie Holmes is in
that one. I've seen it than The Dark Knight, which
was perfect except for stupid Maggie and who was Batman?
At least she dies in the movie spoiler alert? Who
was Batman?

Speaker 2 (02:37:22):
Christian Bale? Okay?

Speaker 1 (02:37:23):
And then the next one, The Dark Knight Rises, also
starring Christian Bale as Batan.

Speaker 3 (02:37:27):
That's the information I need. I have not seen the
Maggie one. I've seen the other two.

Speaker 2 (02:37:32):
You haven't seen The Dark Knight.

Speaker 3 (02:37:34):
I don't think I remember her being in any of
the movies that i've one. Uh uh, maybe I have
because that meant that sounds better. Okay, Yeah, that's how
forgettable she was.

Speaker 1 (02:37:45):
Role.

Speaker 2 (02:37:45):
Did he play the Joker? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (02:37:50):
Unfortunately for him, he didn't make it in real life.

Speaker 2 (02:37:53):
Maggie was just in.

Speaker 1 (02:37:54):
The present day. Do people like him more? Or Ja Kings. Oh,
Walkie in Phoenix is his own category. Although I gotta
tell you the scene with Robert de Niro, you know
the one in bat Man in Joker the name Joker. Okay, yeah,

(02:38:15):
I don't know the one because I haven't seen it.
You should probably watch that movie Very Dark. So Robert
DeNiro was in a movie that wasn't like Casino and
Goodfellas or a comedy. I don't want to tell you
too much because you haven't seen it and it doesn't
sound like you know what happens. I'm not gonna see it.
Why I don't know?

Speaker 3 (02:38:34):
It's so good too busy calculating Pat mahomes restructure.

Speaker 1 (02:38:38):
They're they're genius and they're gonna have with every team
in the en plus million in cap space.

Speaker 3 (02:38:43):
We're all like, oh my god, the Textans only have
four million minus four million in cap space.

Speaker 2 (02:38:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:38:48):
Wait till they restructure everything, everything will be fine.

Speaker 2 (02:38:50):
When's that happening.

Speaker 1 (02:38:52):
They might not announce it, but it's gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (02:38:54):
Running back or offensive lineman.

Speaker 1 (02:38:56):
They spend the most on They're gonna spend and.

Speaker 3 (02:39:01):
They're adding a free agent at both positions, undoubtedly in
my opinion.

Speaker 2 (02:39:05):
Hopefully it's a great one, not just a good one.

Speaker 1 (02:39:08):
All right, back at it again tomorrow, in anticipation of
Rockets basketball resuming. We'll do all of that beginning at
two o'clock. Well, you got the nightcap with Josh Jordan.

Speaker 2 (02:39:18):
It's coming up next.

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