Meeting someone who shares not only your name but also your appearance is rare, yet this unusual scenario played out for two American baseball players, leading them to take a DNA test to explore a potential family connection. If you’ve followed Major League Baseball (MLB) this season, you may have heard of Brady Feigl.
On August 26, Brady Feigl made his debut with the Pittsburgh Pirates, having previously played for teams like the Long Island Ducks and Lexington Counter Clocks. Notably, this 6’4” pitcher with red hair, a red beard, and thick glasses isn’t the only Brady Feigl in professional baseball.
Amazingly, another Brady Feigl—a fellow 6’4” pitcher with similar red hair, beard, and glasses—bears a striking resemblance to him, raising curiosity about whether they might be related. Over the years, both athletes often heard about their uncanny lookalike, prompting them to take a DNA test to solve the mystery.
Surprisingly, the results showed they weren’t related. Although they shared 53 percent Germanic ancestry, the test confirmed no family connection. Despite not being siblings, they embraced their encounter, calling themselves “brothers in a way.”
A similar case of “long-lost twins” is the story of Jim Lewis and Jim Springer, famously known as the “Jim twins.” Both men, adopted by families who coincidentally named them Jim, led lives filled with remarkable parallels: each married a woman named Linda, divorced, and then remarried women named Betty. They even shared preferences for the same brand of beer and cigarettes.
Yet, there were slight differences—one Jim eventually remarried for a third time to a woman named Sandy, which the other did not. The Jim twins finally reunited at age 39 in February 1979, astonished by the remarkable similarities in their lives.