Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [170]
It wasn’t that Payton disliked his new teammate. Even for Ryan, who vehemently opposed the Bears selecting him (on his second practice with the team, Ryan called the Fridge “a wasted draft choice and a waste of money”), Perry was a big, loveable lug. No, what irked Payton was what the rookie symbolized.
Chicago won its first five games of the 1985 season, and the Bears were again legitimate Monsters of the Midway. Yet while triumphs over the divisionrival Vikings (during which McMahon, suffering from a leg infection and fresh off of two days in traction for back problems, came off the bench in the third quarter to throw three remarkable touchdown passes—one made possible by a vicious block by Payton on a blitzing linebacker) and Buccaneers were satisfying, Ditka used a bright red Sharpie to mark October 13 on his calendar—the day the Bears were to face the 49ers at Candlestick Park.
Before the previous season’s play-off loss, Ditka had never given much thought to San Francisco. It was a top-flight organization with one of the best coaches (Bill Walsh) and quarterbacks (Joe Montana) in the game, but the 49ers were hardly a heated rival. With that 23–0 slaughter, however, everything changed. Ditka didn’t merely want to beat Walsh. He wanted to destroy and embarrass him.
Led by Payton’s two touchdowns and 132 rushing yards, as well as a defense that sacked Montana seven times, the coach’s wish came true. The Bears routed San Francisco, 26–10. “Unfortunately, when the 49ers beat us last year they didn’t show much courtesy or dignity,” Payton said. “They said negative things about our offense after shutting us out. We thought about that all during the off-season and the preseason.”
Armed with a bad temper and a long memory, Ditka wasn’t settling merely for a win. Here was a coach who, two years earlier, ordered his special team players to “get” Detroit kicker Eddie Murray, whom Ditka thought to be showboating. Here was a coach who once broke a bone in his hand by punching a steel locker after a loss. Now, in the waning minutes of the fourth quarter, with the game out of reach and the image of Guy McIntyre at fullback dancing through his cerebrum, Ditka made a lineup change. He inserted Perry, thus far only a defensive player, into the backfield, handing him the ball on the game’s final two plays (Perry ran for four yards—one more than the 49ers’ entire second-half total).
“Gives you a little food for thought on the goal line, doesn’t he?” Ditka said afterward. “I mean, it’s really something you’ve got to think about realistically. There’s a chance that could happen.”
In the following week’s 23–7 whitewashing of Green Bay, Perry ran for a one-yard touchdown and was Payton’s lead blocker on two more scores (Chris Cobbs of the Los Angeles Times described Perry’s block of Packer linebacker George Cumby “as if [Cumby] were 225 pounds of prime rib”).
With that, a pop culture phenomenon was born.
In the ensuing days Perry became the talk of a sports-obsessed nation. He was invited to be a guest on Late Night with David Letterman and, before long, also appeared on TV with Johnny Carson and Bob Hope. Perry signed a six-figure endorsement deal with McDonald’s (Asked the Los Angeles Times: “Can McPerry be far behind?”), as well as smaller spokesperson agreements for companies that peddled bacon, thermal underwear, macaroni-and-cheese dinners, and paper towels. One Chicago TV station ran a Perry-related story every night for three straight weeks.
“The Fridge became an overnight rock star,” said Greg Gershuny, the Bears’ director of information services. “He could walk up to any restaurant and be ushered right into the place.”
When asked, Payton said all the right things about Perry. But inside, he hurt. The kid had been with Chicago for half a year, and he was already earning pitchman deals Payton could only dream of. The same went for McMahon, a teammate Payton enjoyed and