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— by Larry Carroll
To paraphrase the wise, old sage Ralphie Parker from "A Christmas Story," there are three types of people in this world: bullies, toadies, and their nameless rabble of victims.
As the age of pop culture has made idols out of glorified geeks from Bill Gates to Woody Allen to Clay Aiken, however, a fourth group has emerged over the past few decades. In honor of these revenge-minded millionaires and their unsuccessful brethren who continue to be victims of random wedgies, three unathletic sports heroes are stepping up to the plate.
"When I was in school, I was tiny, like micro-sized," David Spade said while discussing "The Benchwarmers," his new sports comedy. "They put you in by height in the class picture. I looked at everyone in the fifth grade, and it was me ... girl, girl, girl, girl, girl ... first guy, etc. I was smaller than the little girls, and they [called me] 'Smurfy.' The only reason why I got girls then was because I was like a baby doll, like a Cabbage Patch [doll]."
"I had manorexia," Spade's co-star Jon Heder said.
"If I had some bulk on me," co-star Rob Schneider said, "I'd kick some ass and not apologize."
Now after dozens of movies between them, the three stars have a chance to throw their own brush-back pitch with "The Benchwarmers." Directed by Dennis Dugan ("Happy Gilmore," "Big Daddy"), the flick tells the story of three losers who witness the ballpark attack of a young boy and decide to take up his cause by challenging the 'tweener jocks to a series of softball games. Sponsored by a Gates-like geek (Jon Lovitz), the tour is dubbed "Mel's Tournament of Little Baseballers and Three Older Guys."
The stars realize that it was real-life bullying that forced them to develop the quick wit that eventually made them famous. But even Spade, who earned his reputation cutting down Chris Farley in "Tommy Boy," isn't so sure he can look back fondly on those days.
"I would get asked for my lunch money, and then it would suck because not only was I humiliated, but then I couldn't eat lunch. And I couldn't tell my mom," lamented the star. "I would run into the bathroom and just stay there until the end of recess so they wouldn't beat me up."
You might wonder how three guys who seem like so much fun could have been seen as losers. The bullies had their reasons.
"Don't tell anyone, but I wet my pants," Spade grinned.
"I still played with toys and made, like, creatures out of toys up until I was a freshman in high school," Heder added.
"I remember when I was 13, my Uncle Fred gave me G.I. Joes," Schneider said. "I'm a teenager. G.I. Joe — what am I going to do with that?"
"G.I. Joes were lame," Heder said, bragging that he was more of a Construx man.
The stars weren't toying around when they set out to make "Benchwarmers," with the intention of not only making people laugh, but also inspiring pipsqueaks everywhere to emerge from the darkness of their own school bathrooms and realize they are not alone.
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Moviemakers have always been happy to use (and abuse) baseball for their own purposes. Here are a few winners:
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When asked for the advice they'd offer the current generation of nameless rabble, Schneider could only wince. "Stay home," he said. "Don't go to school."
"Get homeschooled," Heder agreed, before offering a self-defense tutorial. "Go for their eyes. Don't file your nails. Scratch their eyes out."
"What I would seriously do? Learn boxing, little guys," the "Deuce Bigalow" funnyman urged. "Most dumb guys don't know how, and they've never been hit in the face before. So everybody swings like [a round hook], but if you swing [with a jab], you're in."
For those without Mike Tyson skills, however, the school experience is often a matter of grin-and-bear-it perseverance. But don't worry, said Spade, because all those years of finding humor in unpleasant situations might just end up getting you on "Saturday Night Live."
"We all got a little bit of funny growing up, and that really saved us," the sharp-tongued star said. "They'll like you, just to [have you] hang around and tell jokes."
Then when you're older, you can act like a real-life Benchwarmer. "Now what I do is, I go back to where I went to in third grade and just beat up random kids," Spade said. "I go, 'You probably would have picked on me.' "
Schneider looked over at a "Benchwarmers" poster and revealed his preferred method for getting back at bullies. "Become a movie star," he advised. "Then they'll want tickets to your premiere."
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