‘Refrigerator’ Was Even Big as Ice Bucket

Chicago Bears rookie William (The Refrigerator) Perry of Clemson weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 330 pounds. He weighed 13 pounds at birth. “I was big even when I was little,” he says.

According to Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post, the legends, like the man, continue to grow.

One is that in grade school he landed a lead role in the ballet, “Swan Lake.” He played the lake. Another is that in high school, they plastered his photo over every Howard Johnson’s in South Carolina, warning the employees not to seat him on “All You Can Eat” nights.

Buddy Ryan, Bear defensive coordinator, was questioned on a Chicago radio sports show, and he called The Fridge “a wasted draft pick and a waste of money. He’s not in any shape and can’t do anything. He’ll always be a fat guy.”

Wrote Kornheiser: “Fortunately for Ryan, The Fridge has a good sense of humor. ‘I don’t mind at all when people talk about how much I eat,’ he has said. ‘I really get a kick out of it and laugh along with everybody else.’ If he didn’t, one strategic fall and Ryan is history.”

Kids-are-expensive dept.: Chicago Cubs catcher Jody Davis was fined $400 for arriving late at a game Thursday night in St. Louis after his wife had given birth to the couple’s third son the previous day.

“My boy was only one day old, and already he cost me $400,” Davis said.

Pete Rose, talking about his father: “He never drank, swore and got into a fight with my mom. Well, he did once. He went out shopping and was supposed to buy my mom a pair of shoes. He came back with boxing gloves for me. She wasn’t too happy about that.”

Former Chicago Bear Gale Sayers, on the subject of sports agents, told the Orlando Sentinel: “I think the agents have total control over the athletes. They say salaries are down 40% or 30% over last year. OK, it’s down. So, instead of giving me $300,000, they’re going to give me $200,000.

“I mean, no degree, coming out of college, how can you turn that down? I don’t understand it. But the agent is in control of the athlete. He (the athlete) is not going to turn that down on his own. He probably never had any money in his life. Now, all of a sudden, he’s turning down $200,000. It’s crazy to me.”

Add Sayers: “I was the third person picked in the draft in 1965 and I signed a $25,000 contract. Today you’ve got 10th-round draft choices making $100,000 a year.”

Opinion polls conducted by two Miami newspapers indicated that nearly two-thirds of the public didn’t think Dolphin quarterback Dan Marino should be holding out.

Most readers objected to the fact that he has two years left on a four-year contract worth $2 million.

Paul Gerber, 10, wrote: “He’s wrong for walking out. He better be back. He better, or lots of his fans are going to walk away from him.”

Add Marino: So how is Dolphin Coach Don Shula’s mood these days? “Aside from all the injured players, the unsigned veteran players not in camp, and the quarterback not in camp, everything’s just fine,” he said with a kind of smile.

Quotebook

Pete Rose, on why he likes playing first base: “It’s a short walk to the dugout. When you’re 44, you have to think about things like that.”