The Slanch Report

I’m on record as saying I’m LOVING the new MLB Network; sure some of the co-hosts aren’t stellar, and there’s still some kinks to work out, but I can turn on the TV and there is ALWAYS something baseball on. And it is clear that MLB Tonight is by far the best baseball show on TV right now, solely thanks to the exclusive look-ins that they provide. After watching the network a lot, here are a couple doppelgangers I’ve noticed along the way.

As ever please VOTE in the polls below so that these doppelgangers can move onto the PERMANENT DOPPELGANGER page.

Reader Mattraw sent this one along, and I couldn’t agree more. Billy Ripken is most famous for being Cal’s younger, less-talented brother and for his infamous baseball card, otherwise, his baseball career was less than memorable. Since retiring/being forced out of baseball, Billy hasn’t been seen too much until he served as hitting coach for this year’s USA entrant in the WBC tournament. Now, on MLB Network, he is generally among the worst analysts they’ve got. Once a proud and respected Jedi Knight, Annakin Skywalker bangs Natalie Portman and then becomes obsessed with not losing her, so he embraces the Dark Side, gets tragically burned by his best friend and is forced to spend the remainder of his days in a protective suit that keeps him alive. After rejecting the Dark Side at the end of his days, he asks his son to remove the mask so that Annakin may look upon Luke with his real eyes. He does, and then dies.

Nicknamed “The Wild Thing,” when Mitch Williams was on the mound neither he, nor the batter ever truly knew where the ball would go. Always outlandish and outspoken, Williams has taken his brashness off the field and into the lovely MLB studios in sunny Secaucus. He’s another one of the analysts who rarely says anything useful and important. Working for Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, the Weasels were low-down thugs, willing to do anything so long as it was for the bad guys. It’s hard to find similarly good non-animated henchman.