Courtesy of my friend Sarah and the evil people at THE NEW YORK POST's "Page Six":
December
21, 2004 -- LITTLE person-loving Mets pitcher Pedro Martinez is caught in the middle of a
dissing match between two dwarves.
After Martinez bonded with 4-foot-tall
Post freelancer "Little" Tim Loomis
at his introductory press conference last week, the hurler's old mini-mascot,
28-inch tall Nelson De La Rosa,
whined to the Daily News that Martinez "broke my heart."
De La Rosa — who was Martinez's
"good-luck charm" during his World Series win with the Boston Red Sox
— is upset because Martinez laughed off the Beantown-based dwarf's role
in the victory, saying it was "just a trick." Then Martinez doubled
his diss by scooping up native New Yorker Loomis and triumphantly holding him
in the air.
De La Rosa, who once starred opposite Marlon Brando in the "Island of Dr.
Moreau," sniffed of Loomis: "That little guy just wants to be famous.
Well, I'm already famous."
But Loomis fired back yesterday, telling
PAGE SIX: "He sounds a little desperate to me. I'm more famous than he is.
I was in Woody Allen's 'Shadows
and Fog.' I've worked at Radio City's Christmas show. I've appeared on
'Saturday Night Live.' And I'm doing the hottest comedy show in the country
— Beacher's Comedy Madhouse at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas.
"I'm also a lot taller than
him," Loomis cracked.
The Post's report about Loomis' lovefest
with Martinez may have landed him another movie role: He's been asked to play a
pint-size pimp in "Vegas, Baby," written and directed by Eric Bernt, who scripted the 2000 Jet Li action flick "Romeo Must
Die."
Meanwhile, Loomis and other little people
are a wee bit upset that the News referred to him as a "midget."
Loomis fumes: "It's like calling
someone a 'k- -e' or a 'n- - - -r.' It's a very offensive term. They should be
polite and correct, and use either 'dwarf' or 'little person.' "
Dan
Okenfuss, spokesman for the Little People of America, said he
planned to contact the News about its demeaning description of Loomis.
"That term refers to a time when we were in sideshows and circuses,"
Okenfuss told us. "It was the term du jour back then, but being called a
'midget' sounds like you're subhuman. It's pretty offensive."
Tony Kornheiser expressed yesterday his desire to have the two little men battle it out in a steel cage match, which, I'm sorry, is absurd on its face because Loomis has close to two feet on De La Rosa. What needs to be determined is the extent to which De La Rosa's bad dwarf mojo contributed in Boston's historic defeat of the Yankees, and whether Beacher's Comedy Madhouse at the Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas is a hotter comedy show than Rob & Dave's Laugh Explosion at the Madison, Wisconsin Chucklehut. Only then will we be headed down the road to enlightenment in these dark days of religious fanaticism and Chicago Bulls winning streaks. And, yeah, the less said about "I was in Woody Allen's SHADOWS AND FOG", the better. Even David Ogden Stiers strikes that one from his resume.