When two 'identical' baseball players with the same name, hair and even glasses took a DNA test

It is fascinating how a complex network of cells, genes, and characteristics come together to give a person their unique form and features. And when two people have exactly the same features, the idea becomes somewhat more intriguing. A journalist at BBC once said that according to folk wisdom, everyone has a doppelganger, somewhere out there, a perfect duplicate, even if the duo may be unrelated. Two such doppelgangers found each other after a series of identity crises. They agreed to take a DNA test to find out if they were lost siblings, but the results unfolded another story, reported Inside Edition.

The doppelgangers, both named Brady Feigl, are 6-foot and 4-inch minor league players. Both Bradys have red hair, clumps of red beards, and thick glasses. The only way people recognized them, one of them was a pitcher for the Texas Rangers’ Double-A club, while the other was a pitcher for the Oakland Athletics. Yet, the two believed that they were not related at all.

But even stranger than fiction, both of them underwent Tommy John surgery and that too from the same doctor in 2015. This led to their first identity clash. “I was probably six or seven months out of surgery and their office called our trainer and said, ‘Hey, when’s Brady reporting for surgery? Is he getting down here tomorrow?’” the younger Feigl told The Clarion-Ledger at the time. “He was like, ‘He had it six months ago. What are you talking about?’” Brady explained. “That’s how I found out there were two of us.” When they came to know about each other, they were stunned by their lookalikes.

A few years later, in 2017, the duo fell into another identity crisis, after the University of Mississippi’s baseball team tagged the wrong Brady on X in a birthday tribute, where the other Brady was signed at the time, according to the New York Post. “Wrong Brady Feigl,” he said, “Might be looking for @bfeigl39…”

However, in 2019, Inside Edition profiled the pair and got both of them to undergo a DNA test. They agreed. Strangely enough, science revealed that they were not related in any way, except for one thing. Both of them had Germanic heritage. "It says I'm 53 percent Germanic Europe," said one Brady Feigl. Even though they’re unrelated, they think they’re like real brothers. "We're still brothers in a way I guess," said one Brady.  "And we're always going to be Brady Feigl," said the other.

A study published in the journal Cell Reports, reported by Smithsonian Magazine, found that two doppelgangers may look alike, and have the same DNA or genetic characteristics but may still be unrelated. Researchers found that nine of the 16 very similar-looking pairs shared many common genetic variations known as “single nucleotide polymorphisms.” Talking about these doppelgangers, Manel Esteller, a geneticist who leads Spain’s Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute, to Gizmodo’s Ed Cara said, “These pairs are therefore like virtual twins.”