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Barbers reunited
on NFC squad

YOU'VE seen the commercial. The guys are buying flowers for their mom. Tiki (or is it Ronde?) and Ronde (or is it Tiki?) step up to the cash register, flashing identical million-dollar grins.

Tiki (we think it's Tiki) pays with a check. He's asked for ID.

"How do I know this is you?" the florist asks. Beat. "Because it looks just like him."

"But it's me," Tiki says.

"OK," she says, playing it perfectly. Pause. Another back-and-forth. "But it looks like him," she says.

It was perfect. Funny. Sweet. The company had its commercial. And the Barber brothers became the most famous twins since Schwarzenegger and DeVito took the summer of 1988 by storm.

But today is their triumph. Here. Now. This year's Pro Bowl marks these brothers as twin all-stars, NFC teammates, on the same team again for the first time since they both played at Virginia eight years ago.

Teammates. Together again.

So here they are, in front of us, side by side, and suddenly we're all florists, doing the back and forth.

They've got the material down.

"All we did was smile," Tiki says of the commercials.

"They have writers for that," Ronde says.

There is a group around them now, more coming, the merriment growing as the brothers riff. Heads swivel, like we're watching a tennis match. First one face, then the next.

"Ginny, Tiki's wife, and I don't think they look identical," Ronde's wife, Claudia, would say.

So who's better looking?

"I don't know, ask our wives," Tiki says.

"That's (a subjective) thing," Ronde says.

You get the feeling this question has come up before.

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CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM Twins Ronde and Tiki Barber are on the NFC roster for Sunday's Pro Bowl at Aloha Stadium.

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THEY WERE BORN identical and they arrived early, premature, Tiki 7 minutes less so. They've always been best friends.

"They're still each other's closest and dearest friend," Claudia says.

"It's something that doesn't change over time, even after marriage and kids and everything else," Tiki says. "There's still that bond there."

They still finish each other's sentences, even though Ronde lives in Tampa and Tiki has settled near New York.

"They still talk like twins," Claudia says.

They call each other four or five times a day, mostly short stuff, just to check in. They don't need to say much, really. Just "what's up?" Brother stuff. Best friend stuff.

Twin stuff? Not necessarily, they say. It's more just that they spent their first 21 years joined at the hip.

Old married couples might know the feeling, they say.

They've written a kids book together, "By My Brother's Side." It tells the story of when they were boys and Tiki hurt himself during a bicycle accident. It was tough on both of them. They weren't sure if Tiki would be able to play football again, and the boys loved playing football.

It told the story of how they came back from this together, even though it was only one of them who was hurt.

Because they were brothers.

Because they were best friends.

Because they were twins?

"All that BS," Tiki says, flashing that twin grin. "That's a load. You can't feel your twin's pain, any of that stuff."

You can tell which of them had crashed the bike, felt the pain.

So here they are now, at the Pro Bowl, on the same team. Some 20-25 family members are with them, the guys aren't even sure. Here they are now, both NFL stars. Tiki a runner with the New York Giants. Ronde a defensive star in Tampa Bay.

Two premature twins who grew up to play in the Super Bowl, and now this. Both recognized as the best in the business.

"Luck," Tiki says. "Blessings."

"Hard work," Ronde says.

"I think we pushed each other," Tiki says, thinking back. And Ronde breaks into another big Barber smile.

"He can't be successful and me not," Ronde says.

Here they are, side by side again. They're on the same team for the first time since college.

They've been teammates since the day they were born.