Double Take

I realize that it is officially football season and trust me I'm about as gun ho about it as anyone that you know, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention the extraordinary year that Jose Bautista is having for my beloved Toronto Blue Jays.

Entering tonight's game against the Baltimore Orioles Bautista is batting .262 with a major league leading 46 homeruns and he's also second in the American League with 110 runs batted in. The 29-yea-old's career year has seemingly come out of nowhere as his previous season high for home runs was 16.

After the Pittsburgh Pirates sent him down to their AAA team in August of 2008 he was traded to the Blue Jays for a player to be named later. In case the enormity of that statement passed you by, let me place the appropriate amount of emphasis on it. The worst team in Major League Baseball, the Pirates, decided that this guy wasn't good enough to be on their major league roster, so they sent him to the minors. Perhaps the the brass of the Toronto Blue Jays saw something that no one else did because when he was acquired I thought he was nothing more than a utility player. With his versatility (he can play third base and the outfield) I figured that he would just spell Scott Rolen, Alex Rios, etc. Well sure enough the 2009 season didn't go according to plan for the Blue Jays and Rolen was dealt at the deadline and Rios was claimed off of waivers by the White Sox. This opened the door for Bautista to play everyday in September and boy did he make the most of it. He hit 10 home runs in the month and built some serious momentum going into this season.

Now part of the reason why Bautista is quickly becoming my favorite player is because he looks exactly like my former housemate Pete.



The similarities don't stop there. Believe it or not Pete was a standout baseball player back in college. In fact, much like Bautista, he had a breakout year that seemingly came out of nowhere. In his sophomore season (2006) Pete hit just .238 and led the team in strikeouts. The kid couldn't lay off those sliders in the dirt. The following year he was an entirely different player. Now I can't find the final boxscore for the Stags 2007 campaign anywhere online, but as of this article written about him (by yours truly) on April 30th of 2007 he was leading the team with a .377 batting average, 16 doubles, and 5 home runs.

Pete's 2007 season earned him all sorts of accolades. He was named First Team All-MAAC, played in an All-Star Game in Fenway Park, and was named to the 2008 Brooks Wallace Watch List.

So naturally I pointed out this striking similarity to Pete back when the Blue Jays first acquired Bautista. At first I'm not sure that Pete had ever heard of Bautista, but he's an avid baseball fan so he eventually saw him play the Yankees, his favorite team, and he saw the resemblance. I have a lot of friends that like sports, but at that point in time no one else that I knew (and who knew Pete) would have known who Jose Bautista was, so I don't think I mentioned this doppelganger situation to anyone else.

So throughout the course of this season whenever I'd be at work watching a Blue Jay game and Bautista would homer I would text Pete and let him know what a great job he was doing, or that his twin brother hit another homerun, etc. Now that Bautista leads the bigs in home runs he's become something of a household name (at least to those of us who play fantasy baseball), so more and more people that know Pete have noticed the resemblance.



Another similarity between Pete and Bautista is that they are both masters of "the pimp job". I'm not sure what, if anything, the term has to do with actual pimps, but what it refers to is the arrogant extended stare after hitting a homerun, or the cocky bat flip afterwards. Jose has obviously hit and pimped a lot more homeruns than Pete, but Pete pimped lazy flyballs like there was no tomorrow.

Double Take

My twin sisters turn 22 today, so in honor of them, I present an extended version of Double Take. Noticing full fledged look-a-likes, or seeing a resemblance to someone in another is a skill that almost everyone thinks they possess. Now, yes, anyone with the sense of sight should be able to recognize a look-a-like more often than not, but as with anything some people's perceptions are much more accurate than others.

From what I can tell, there are three different ways to identify a look-a-like. The first way is to say that Person A looks like Person B. Pretty straight forward and pretty standard. The second way is to say that Person A will look like Person B in x amount of years. This one involves a bit of intuition, but when it's done accurately it can be quite impressive. The third and final way to identify a look-a-like is to say that Person A looks like a cross between Person B and Person C. This is perhaps my favorite variety of look-a-likes, but it's also the hardest to notice and to get others to see.

Now the 3 look-a-likes that follow are all of the first kind. Person A looks like Person B. All three look-a-likes feature someone from the world of sports and someone from Hollywood.

1.) St. Louis Rams Head Coach Steve Spagnuolo and Actor Edward Norton



They better hurry up and make a movie about the New York Giants 2008 Super Bowl victory over the previously ubeaten New England Patriots so Norton can play then Defensive Coordinator Spagnuolo. In all seriousness, I bet that they turn that playoff run into a movie at some point (10-20 years), but by the time they get around to making it Norton will be too old to play Spagnuolo.


2.) Actor Keanu Reeves and New York Knicks forward Danillo Galinari



I guess based on his role as former Ohio State quarterback turned Federal Agent Johnny Utah in Point Break (1991) we've always thought that Keanu had the athletic look about him. Now, all these years later we finally have someone that looks exactly like him participating in professional sports. From Point Break to Speed (1994) to The Matrix (1999) we've seen Keanu exhibit the ability to handle many guns, yet I still think Gallinari is the better shooter.


3.) Actor/Comedian Tom Green and Denver Broncos quarterback Kyle Orton



First off all, I must admit that I heard this one on the radio this morning as I was waking up. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, what do you think Tom Green is up to these days? The former MTV talk show host turned musician turned actor disappeared from our lives just about as quickly as he came into them. His run of fame was so short that I don't even think he'll get a mention on VH1's I Love the 90's/00's Part 2,3, or 4. I honestly don't think I had heard his name for a solid 4 years until this morning. Speaking of which, is there any doubt that Kyle Orton will be equally irrelevant in 10 years?

Double Take (from an unlikely muse)

So I'm sitting at work last night watching the Lakers host the Utah Jazz in their regular season finale and I was struck by a whole host of blog ideas.....by the Jazz. Here are a few. 1.) Jerry Sloan might not be the most underrated coach in sports, but he's certainly in the conversation. 2.) Carlos Boozer is the only former Duke player that is an NBA star. The only other options are Dunleavy, who is a nice player, but not a star, and Brand, who has become Mr. Glass (and not for his rebounding). 3.) The Jazz have a proven model for success in the NBA. Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer are obviously supposed to be Stockton and Malone version 2.0. 4.) I defy anyone to find a nickname in sports that is better than Andrei Kirilenko's AK47. He's Russian, his initials are AK, and he wears jersey #47. Throw them together and you have AK47, one of the most famous guns (a Russian gun mind you) of all time.

5.) I know it's been pointed out numerous times, but Jazz Forward Kyle Korver looks a lot like Ashton Kutcher. I'm sure I could find a picture where they look even more similar, but someone already put this one together and I pride myself on being as lazy as possible.



First we have Korver (he's on the left if you couldn't tell), the sharp shooting NBA forward. Korver first came onto the national scene in 2002 when his Creighton Blue Jays, a 12 seed, knocked off Arizona in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Although he played his college ball at Creighton, a mid major, Korver's length (he's 6'9) and long range shooting ability made him an NBA prospect. He was drafted in the second round (51st overall) of the 2003 NBA draft. He has bounced around the league quite a bit since then, but he may have found a home in Utah. Although he is a one dimensional player (all he does is shoot 3's), he's become a fan favorite of many developing caucasian players across the country. In fact, I play basketball with a living legend (he is the assistant basketball coach at my high school) who goes simply by the moniker "Q" that says Korver after made jump shots much in the same way that kids growing up would say Jordan when they scored. Also, I don't think Korver's dad Kevin likes black people. He named his sons Kyle, Klayton, Kaleb, and Kirk. Also, I know Roger Clemens named all of his kids something with the first letter K, which is the symbol for a strikeout in baseball, but I don't think Mr. Korver was a pitcher.

Korver's long lost twin is actor and former model Ashton Kutcher. Kutcher got his big break by playing the air head Michael Kelso on the Fox sitcom That '70's Show. This early success snowballed into the largely popular MTV prank show Punk'd. Kutcher, who is quietly a producer on a number of television shows, has also had a nice little movie career. The highlights of that movie career include Dude Where's My Car (2000), Just Married (2003), The Butterfly Effect (2004), The Guardian (2006), and What Happens in Vegas (2008), which is one of the best movies I've seen in a while. Kutcher married actress Demi Moore (who is 15 years his senior) in September of 2005.

To be honest, I've never really been much of a fan of either Korver or Kutcher. Korver is a one trick pony who can't play a lick of defense and Kutcher is a goofball who should stop accepting serious roles. He was outstanding in What Happens in Vegas (2008) (although not nearly as good as Rob Corddry) and completely changed my opinion of him. In fact, Kutcher definitely wins out because Korver's wikipedia page mentions the resemblance, but Kutcher's doesn't. This means that Kutcher is much more famous, although wikipedia is a joke because I could add the fact that they look a like to Kutcher's page right now.

Double Take

My twin sisters turn 21 today and in honor of them I present to you the very first installment of Double Take, in which we examine the striking resemblances in the world of popular culture.

Our inaugural Double Take features Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen and Sum 41 lead singer Deryck Whibley.





First we have Clausen, the Prince of the yah dudes,who was born into a football factory of a family in Thousand Oaks, California. His two older brothers, Casey and Rick, each started at quarterback for the University of Tennessee, but neither was nearly as touted as Jimmy. Clausen, who was featured on a Sportscenter special as a Sophomore, was perhaps the most hyped high school football player of all time (Although it can be argued that the #1 player each year surpasses the previous years #1 in hype. Ex- Terrelle Pryor). Clausen was expected to return the Fighting Irish to national prominence and before he even stepped onto campus, he was being heralded as their savior. The golden domers were quick to point out his initials JC as evidence of his pending immortality, at least in Irish folk lore.

Since his arrival in South Bend, the Irish have floundered through a year and a half of mediocre football. It appears that Clausen spends more time at the beach ripping shredders on his surf board, participating in drinking competitions, and gelling his hair than he does in the film room, in the weight room, and on the practice field.

Clausen's long lost twin Whibley is perhaps most known for marrying fellow Canadian rocker Avril Lavigne (apparently their first song as bride and groom was Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls- why that's relevant I don't know), but he also had a brief pop career of his own as the lead guitarist/vocalist of the band Sum 41. Sum 41's most popular song was titled Fat Lip off of their 2001 album All Killer No Filler.

That song particularly resonates with me because it was featured in the EA Sports video game NHL 2002. That game and that game alone is the basis of all of my limited hockey knowledge (Most of you know that I'm not exactly the best ice skater out there). The best part of the game was the breakaway cam. Whenever you had a long one on one with the goalie, your controller started vibrating, a heart beat noise began pumping out of the speakers, and the screen blacked out almost everything but you and your path to the goalie. Needless to say that I nearly pissed myself every time that camera feature came on and shot the puck about 80 rows up in the stands.



Now I am a Notre Dame football fan, but I find it a little troubling that I can absolutely picture Clausen doing exactly what Whibley does in that video. All I'm saying is don't be surprised to see Jimmy whip out his surf board the next time the Notre Dame faithful start doing the wave.



Thanks to RJ in Liverpool, NY for making the observation.