There are six gigantic televisions and thirty wall monitors at Sluggers. The air is dense with smoke, and you have to shout over classic rock to be heard. Gary Arnold wouldn’t find this Wrigleyville sports bar a hospitable environment even on an unremarkable Saturday, but tonight he finds it particularly hostile. Tonight, people have come to gawk at midgets.
Around 10 PM, Arnold leads us toward the back room, where the boxing ring is set up. We pass through rooms filled with sports memorabilia, neon beer signs, and photos of men in team uniforms. Arnold and Winston, by their very presence, become part of a peculiar spectacle. Their average-size torsos and disproportionately short limbs seem to be a source of great amusement to the mostly white, well-groomed twentysomethings in attendance. People grin at the sight of them. One woman reaches down and lightly touches Winston’s shoulder. Arnold hears “Photo op!” and two people snap pictures. “Right there! This way! Look down!” a woman implores her friends.
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In the back room, a man in a ribbed mock-turtleneck sweater shoves a thumbs-up at Arnold. Arnold hardly looks prepared to step into the ring–he’s wearing oval glasses and has a satchel slung over his shoulder–but the man heartily encourages him to “Kick some ass.” Someone else makes the same mistake, shouting, “Go get ’em, buddy.”
“Who wants to see a midget bleeeed tonight?” he roars. People throw fists in the air and shout, “Woooooo.”
Puppet holds a beer bong contest between a “gimp” who travels with the show and a “normal” he’s plucked from the audience. The gimp has cerebral palsy. “He’s got no muscle control!” Puppet crows. The gimp’s beer runs through a funnel and races through a long tube, which sprays him, to the audience’s delight, like an out of control garden hose.
The men seem to have an insatiable appetite for midget licking, but, according to MJ Lo’s bodyguard, this is business as usual. He says she typically rakes in between three and four hundred dollars per show. “I guess it’s that little girl thing,” he says.
“It’s based on the idea of coming to see a midget, not coming to see boxing or wrestling. Marketing this as midget boxing is no different than marketing an event as Jewish boxing. Come see a bunch of Jews beat the hell out of each other. Who wants to see a Jew bleed?” It would never happen, he said. “There are a few groups it’s still OK to openly discriminate against and to openly mock and ridicule, and I think little people are one of those groups.”
