A Tale of Two Ken Davidoffs — How same-name strangers forged a friendship through baseball
One’s from New York City, the other Delray Beach. Their worlds happily collided last month in an informal "KD" summit.
ON A PLEASANT March morning, Ken Davidoff of New York City arrived at a Delray Beach condominium complex to visit a stranger with an all too familiar name.
Knock-knock-knock.
“Who is it?” a voice behind the door teased.
“Is this Ken?’’ asked New York City Ken.
The door opened and Ken Davidoff extended his hand to Ken Davidoff.
“And there he is, the real Ken Davidoff,’’ Delray Beach Ken said, looking up at his New York City namesake, who’s nearly a foot taller.
“No, no, au contraire, mon frère,’’ New York Ken replied with a smile. “What a pleasure.’’
And so began an informal summit of two Ken Davidoffs, same-name strangers nudged into each others’ orbits with a little help from a mutual friend.
In a country of nearly 350 million people, on a planet of 8.3 billion, the chances of two Ken Davidoffs meeting in person might seem as improbable as winning the lottery. But it wasn’t the first meeting of same-name strangers over the years.
Nearly four years ago, two women named Kimberly Pflieger met in person after connecting on social media. They became fast friends.
Before that, 164 women named Martha Stewart gathered in 2005 for an episode of her TV show, setting a record for the largest gathering of people with the same first and last name. That record was shattered in 2022 when 178 people named Hirokazu Tanaka gathered in Japan.
As for our two KDs, I had the good fortune to work with both in separate capacities in my days as a reporter for The Palm Beach Post.
Delray Ken, 77, is a rabid baseball fan and an award-winning photographer whose subjects have ranged from astronauts and presidents to athletes and music icons. A Lake Worth High School graduate (1966), he hawks his photos at memorabilia shows and his online studio.
Some of his images have been published in The Post, along with stories I wrote about him and his father, the late society photographer Bob Davidoff, known for famous photos of, among many others, President John F. Kennedy on Palm Beach.
New York Ken, 55, is an award-winning journalist who covered the New York Yankees, Mets and Major League Baseball for newspapers in New Jersey and New York. Our paths crossed often during my 15 years as Miami Marlins beat writer at ballparks and annual baseball meetings.
Ken’s a former president of the Baseball Writers Association of America. When he turned 50, he decided he’d had enough of the grinding baseball beat. An adjunct professor at Endicott College, he recently co-wrote a book, “101 Lessons from the Dugout: What Baseball and Softball Can Teach Us About the Game of Life.’’
Aside from their names and love for baseball, these two Kens share two valuable traits — they’re friendly and curious, which is how, even though they live thousands of miles from each other, they managed to discover one another.
Exactly how that happened isn’t clear.
New York Ken insists that at some point early in his sportswriting career he received a phone call from Delray Ken inquiring about some baseball story he’d written. It was so long ago, the details are fuzzy. Delray Ken said he doesn’t remember.
Their connection might have ended there. But then I entered their respective orbits. Eventually I got around to telling each Ken about the other. And I’m pretty sure I accidentally texted and tagged on social media the wrong Ken once or twice, inadvertently stoking their awareness of each other.
That mutual awareness also manifested itself in ways independent of me. New York Ken said he once received an email from a customer of Delray Ken’s inquiring about the status of recently-purchased baseball photos.
For New York Ken, it wasn’t his first brush with another Ken Davidoff.
During his baseball-writer days, he connected with former handball champion Ken Davidoff, who lives in the New York area. Handball Ken sometimes received phone calls from readers of The New York Post and Newsday looking for newspaper Ken.
New York Ken and handball Ken wound up meeting for dinner in 2001 or 2002. They learned their families are related — handball Ken was a second cousin to New York Ken’s late father; their grandfathers were brothers.
Delray Ken said he has heard of at least one other Ken Davidoff, a brain surgeon he hasn’t met. But he said he felt a special bond with New York Ken because of their shared passion for baseball.
They became Facebook friends in 2016; Delray Ken changed his profile name to “Kenneth” to avoid confusion. They stayed connected through frequently exchanged online salutes and direct messages.
“We call each other ‘cuz,’’’ New York Ken said. “That’s his doing.’’
It was “101 Lessons from the Dugout …” — co-written with Dr. Harley Rotbart — that finally brought the two Kens together in person last month.
Between appearances on what New York Ken jokingly refers to as his “Del Boca Vista book tour” of south Palm Beach County retirement communities (“Seinfeld” fans will get it), he arranged an informal meeting with Delray Ken.
As the accidental instigator, I was invited to tag along.
After New York Ken and I climbed a short flight of stairs at the Linton Boulevard complex, we encountered a curveball: On the wall next to the door of the apartment Delray Ken directed us to was a nameplate with another name — “The Koffmans.”
Ken Davidoff knocked anyway and Ken Davidoff opened the door (video above). Delray Ken later explained that he hadn’t gotten around to removing the old nameplate.
The two Kens exchanged gifts, “101 Lessons from the Dugout ...” and “The Miami Pop Festival: A Photographic Experience,’’ a collection of Delray Ken’s images from the 1968 concert featuring Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry and Frank Zappa.
As New York Ken flipped through the pages, his face lit up when he saw a reference to the original 1969 Woodstock promoter Michael Lang. “I met him at Woodstock ‘94,’’ he said, recalling an early pre-baseball assignment.
That makes Lang, who died in 2022, another person lucky enough to have met the two Ken Davidoffs.
The walls of Delray Ken’s condo are decorated with his photos of Hendrix, Johnny Cash, John Lee Hooker and others. In a back room is one of the best baseball shrines south of Cooperstown, crammed ceiling-to-floor with pennants, gloves, memorabilia and photos of young Ken with Sandy Koufax and Roy Campanella of the Brooklyn Dodgers.
New York Ken, who has interviewed more than his fair share of baseball stars, including Koufax, was impressed.
More stories were shared over eggs and pancakes at Poppie’s Restaurant and Deli, interrupted briefly when a diner at a nearby table recognized New York Ken. The stranger walked over and told him he enjoyed his book lecture the other day at Tuscany Bay in Boynton Beach.
He also offered a confession: His hearing aid wasn’t working well. “I couldn’t hear everything you were saying,’’ the diner said, “but I could tell from the way everyone was reacting that it was very interesting.’’
After breakfast, the two Kens said goodbye, promised to stay in touch and perhaps meet again one day.
“How cool was that?” Delray Ken said a few hours later.
Was it awkward meeting another Ken Davidoff?
“It was easy,’’ Delray Ken said, “because it felt like he was family.’’
The KD conclave “lived up to the hype,’’ New York Ken said via email. “I’m thrilled that I got to finally meet him.’’
A future meeting including handball Ken has not been ruled out.
“The club of KDs is pretty cool,’’ New York Ken. “Me with my career, Delray KD with his photos and memorabilia, and Handball KD with his sporting accomplishments. There are definitely worse ‘same-name’ clubs out there!’’
Check out this interview of New York Ken talking about his book on The Rich Eisen Show:
Cool story!
Now that was cool-