Recognize the shirt? Recognize the beard?

When the picture above scrolled across my Twitter feed the other day, I immediately jumped to the obvious conclusion: Archie Bradley was wearing our Archie Bradley shirt! But... Hang on a moment... For on closer examination, it turns out to be a convincing facsimile, rather than the genuine article [I mean Bradley - the shirt is 100% genuine!] Step forward long-time Diamondbacks’ fan, Jonathan Danielson, who was the man with the T-shirt, the beard and the necessary guts to pull off the re-creation! We touched bases with Jonathan regarding the simulation - here’s the full pic:

Where did the idea come from?

The idea pretty much came from me just looking in the mirror. I’ve had a beard for a few years now, and never thought much of it, but after Archie grew his I kept getting “Do you know you look just like Archie Bradley?” followed by high-fives from random strangers every time I went to Chase Field this season. It was either that, or I look just like the “Third-Baseman-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named” on that “Team-Which-Will-Not-Be-Named” from Los Angeles. Either way, when my brother-in-law saw the Breaking T shirt, it was really just a given and he got it for me for my birthday.

What was the most difficult part of staging it?

Probably just the years devoted to not shaving. Other than that, I put on my hat and the Breaking-T shirt, pinned up my Arizona flag, and snapped a selfie.

That is a pretty majestic beard you have yourself. Feels like it should have its onw Twitter account! What's its history?

When I started teaching college courses a few years ago, my department chair said I looked like I was twelve years old and I should try to grow a beard to make myself seem older than my students. So I grew one, and then kept growing it.

Any other iconic moments you plan to recreate?

I think it would be funny to print up a shirt with the picture of me wearing Archie’s shirt on it, and then see if Archie would take a picture of him wearing it next to me wearing his shirt. He seems like he’s got a pretty good sense of humor from the interviews I’ve seen, so hopefully he would do it. If not, I did see him at the Turnpike Troubadours concert a few years back. So, at least I know that he’s got good taste in music!

Thanks to Jonathan for the answers, and his inspiration Maybe this can become the first in a series of iconic recreations? I feel we should get the SnakePit authors together one day, find a local baseball field, and re-create the ninth inning of Game Seven in 2001...