People & Places: A case of mistaken identity

It seems inevitable, at various points in our lives, we will cross paths with a person who reminds us of someone else or whose name we will continually mix up with another person.

We might confuse Joe the butcher with Harry the mailman or interchange the names of Aunt Bea and Aunt Clara. Maybe their eyes, speech pattern, style of clothes are similar.

This garnered my attention again recently after several people referred to me by the name of another man — a man who left this earthly plane more than a decade ago. The thought that the two of us are still linked after all these years makes me giggle, my heart soar. Can you guess who it is?

It’s not Dustin Hoffman, the Academy Award winning actor. However, numerous times while in my 20s, people mentioned there was a resemblance to Hoffman. Fine with me, not that he had matinee-idol good looks. Neither did/do I.

Still, both of us have had memorable quotes. Hoffman spewed, “I’m walkin’ here,” plus “Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me,” and, of course, “I’m an excellent driver.”

My own lines are mostly forgotten, but they have raised coworkers’ eyebrows and rolled countless eyes from family.

After I started dating his daughter in the 1980s, my future father-in-law, Rudy, would often call me “Mark.” It’s easy to confuse Mike and Mark, but is it possible this slip of the tongue was actually on purpose? It would be just like Rudy, with a keen eye and sharp wit, to keep me off-balance and in my proper place as I pursued Patty, the apple of his eye.

In the 1990s, there were the expected wise cracks when the Austin Powers series of movies hit the big screen. Yeah, baby! There were more connections between me and the Mike Myers character than just the first name. The hair. The glasses. The suave persona. The teeth. Oh, behave.

Myers grew up in Canada, north of my childhood Montana home. Patty is convinced Myers somehow saw my graduation picture and modeled Austin after me. When going to the mailbox, we often hope for a residual check from Myers for stealing my look.

Now, the person who New Mexicans have been mixing me up with for about 35 years is Mike Roberts, the late, great play-by-play announcer for University of New Mexico athletics and the Albuquerque Dukes.

Despite our difference in age, more than 20 years, Mike and I became intertwined in the early 1990s. That’s when I started calling Lobo games on television at the same time Mike was doing them on the radio. We were casual acquaintances who became buddies.

Soon, fans would mistakenly call me Mike Roberts. Often, I would politely correct them, saying, “Mr. Roberts is THE Voice of the Lobos.” Never would I consider myself on equal footing. Mike was the legend, earning that status game after game for more than 40 years. I was content to be the “other Mike” behind the mic.

There wasn’t a rivalry, but we would give each other grief. I would love it on the rare occasion Mike was confused for me. He wasn’t thrilled when that happened.

In turn, Mike would needle me by pointing out, correctly, that some fans would watch the games on television but turn down the sound and listen to his radio broadcast instead.

We would often fly together to games, talking sports and the broadcasting business. We would share stories, with his far more interesting than mine.

On one flight, he reminisced about his short stay in Seattle, where a broadcasting job pulled him away from UNM in the late 1960s. Mike recalled being unhappy in his new position, complaining about parking in the big city. The truth was, Mike missed New Mexico.

As the story went, Mike got a call shortly after settling in Seattle from, I believe, UNM basketball coach Norm Ellenberger. Stormin’ Norman pleaded with Mike to return to Albuquerque. He didn’t have to ask twice. By then, Mike’s love for the Lobos and the Pit was already a mile high and louder than ...

Mike could be a bit cranky, which was part of his charm; part of the fun.

The night before a UNM-Wyoming football game in Laramie in October of 2001, we were hurriedly heading back to the motel following dinner at the Cattleman’s Restaurant. Mike was anxious to watch Barry Bonds, who was pursuing the all-time Major League single season home run record.

On the way, I missed the exit and had to double back. By the time we finally turned on the TV, Bonds was just crossing home plate after his record-shattering homer.

That put me briefly in the Robert’s doghouse but, 24 hours later, the Mikes were in high spirits after the Lobos 30-29 victory.

Gratefully, those memories remain. In the past month, a worker at a grocery store nodded and said, “Hello, Mr. Roberts.” A local high school coach ended our phone conversation with, “Thanks, Mr. Roberts.”

At the state powerlifting championship, a former TV colleague had a conversation with a fan who was convinced that I “had passed.” We both agreed he was probably thinking of the other Mike. Talk about being in someone’s shadow.

Meanwhile, Clara Garcia, the editor/publisher of the News-Bulletin, has assured me that when the time comes, my obituary will be on the front page. Thanks, but it can wait.

If Mike and I meet again someday, it will be a blast to laugh over old stories and complain about officials “missed” calls.

Until then, I will remember the good old days every time someone says, “Hello Mr. Roberts.”