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Charlie Hayes
For years, I've had this long standing belief that Phife Dawg and former Yankees utility man Charlie Hayes looked remarkably similar. A very random thing to believe in, yes, but a subject that has come up more than once in conversations with my Yankees obsessed friends (perhaps the only group of people who actually know who Charlie Hayes is, a man whose main claim to fame being that he caught the last out in the '96 World Series). In an effort to resolve the issue, I went onto the internet to find photos for comparison's sake. I learned two things: Hayes and Phife don't look anywhere near as similar as I thought they did, and there are virtually no good photos to be found on the internet of a 90's era Phife Dawg (to the point where I couldn't even find a decent photo of Phife to run with this post). A disappointing endeavor all around, I have to admit, so I decided to pull together some better athlete/rapper comparisons to redeem myself. This task was complicated somewhat by the fact that the last time I was interested in any sport other than basketball was right around the time Charlie Hayes was putting up any kind of meaningful stats.1
So here are the eight best rapper/NBA lookalikes that I could come up with, along with a couple of suggestions I found over at joebuddentv. Got any better suggestions? Drop 'em in the comments.
Fresh Prince / Robert Horry
Dr. Dre / Marcus Camby
The Game / Josh Smith
Donyell Marshall / Ludacris
Nene / Bonecrusher
Baron Davis / Kanye West
Anthony Johnson / Nate Dogg
Mickael Pietrus / Jay Electronica
And a few that just missed the cut, mostly due to me not being able to find photos that show a close enough resemblance: Joe Budden/Kenyon Martin/Drew Gooden, Method Man/Kenyon Martin, Prodigy/Monta Ellis, Chris Brown/Shannon Brown, Nick Cannon/Channing Frye, Bangz/Chris Bosh.
1Since this is a sports-related post, it seemed like the perfect time to go into Bill Simmons mode and drop a lengthy footnote. To be specific, I lost interest in baseball as a result of the '94 strike, when my beloved Expos were robbed of their last, and best, chance at going to the World Series. I grew up in a household that was partial to the Phillies (due to my grandfather being a onetime pitcher for the club) and the Yankees (due to geographical proximity), but after watching Ken Burns' documentary on baseball, which included a story of Expos star Tim Raines exclusively sliding head first whenever stealing a base so as not to break the vial of cocaine that he kept in his uniform's back pocket, I became fascinated with the team. They also had the best caps in baseball.
12/30/2010 1:00:00 PM posted by Fresh