Hurry, Hurry, Step Right Up

By Tom Callahan

To the faintly sad piping of a calliope, a pair of new extremes have cast unusually shaped shadows across the face of sport, causing it to break out in a smile of unexpected dimensions. One is a basketball player of 7 ft. 7 in. but just 208 lbs., the other a football player of 308 lbs. but just 6 ft. 2 in. Since their sideshow duties extend to the legitimate arena, neither is an Eddie Gaedel, the baseball midget of 1951 with "a strike zone barely visible to the naked eye." But both are Primo Carneras from boxing's '30s, outsize attractions obliged to double as spectacles.

The notion of a basketball player being too tall or a football player too massive is funny in itself. But the Washington Bullets' Manute Bol and the Chicago Bears' William Perry are straining the boundaries of humor and humanity. Perry has become known wide and far as "the refrigerator," and not because whenever he opens his mouth a light goes on. "I was big when I was little," he likes to say, 13 1/2 lbs. at his birth nearly 23 years ago in Aiken, S.C. He grew to almost 400 lbs., or "350 and rising," according to Clemson University's limited scales. Against Wake Forest once, Perry blocked a punt by punting a blocker. That is, the little fellow who was supposed to obstruct him bounced in the air so high that he knocked down the ball.

Drafted No. 1 by Chicago, Perry encountered some unkindness at first. Buddy Ryan, the Bears' redoubtable defensive coordinator, pronounced the appliance overstuffed and immediately took to calling him "Fatso." However, Head Coach Mike Ditka shared the fascination of the fans, who felt a tremor whenever No. 72 so much as rolled over on the sidelines. At Ditka's insistence last week, Ryan installed Perry as a defensive starter, confirming the rookie's position as the most wellrounded man on the team. He had already contributed on offense in a fashion that delighted the industry less than the country.

After Perry steamrolled to a touchdown against Green Bay, everyone had to agree that he could move the pile. "Maybe," suggested Denver Coach Dan Reeves, "he is the pile." As always, Perry just laughed: "Everybody has something to say smart, but as long as nobody comes up and slaps me in the face, I don't feel no real grief. I've always thought that if you're different, it's up to you to make friends with the other guy. My sense of humor can carry me. I laugh along. I figure that God shapes everybody to a purpose."

Still, a divine plan is scarcely visible in Bol's excruciating thinness, which combines with a perfectly erect bearing to accentuate his height and make Bol, in the phrase of Teammate Tom McMillen, "kind of regal." On ankles like wrists, "Nute" moves with the pumping action of machinery and the caution of a man on stilts. "Kip Keino," Center Jeff Ruland calls to him from behind. "Ah-ha-ha," Bol says, "ah-ha-ha."

Even in Africa's Sudan, among the Dinka tribesmen, basketball was known as a logical career for a 91-in. man. Of confused age, though thought to be 23, Bol had a traumatic introduction to the game six years ago. Goaded by a cousin to attempt a dunk, he broke several teeth on the rim. In the spirit of his 7-ft. 10-in. grandfather, a chieftain with some 80 children, though against the wishes of his 6-ft. 8-in. father, a cattleman who died lonely for his only son, Bol inevitably made his way to a local team in Wau, a national team in Khartoum, a college team in Connecticut, a minor-league team in Rhode Island and finally this year to the Bullets. For every 7-ft. center who ever looked down on a 6-ft. 5-in. guard, Patrick Ewing of the New York Knicks murmurs, "Now I know how they feel."

Unlike Perry, Bol is a player basically in training who the Bullets hope will block a few shots as he goes. "He has had a binding effect," says Bob Ferry, the general manager who drafted Bol in the second round. "Unconsciously, and sometimes consciously, even 'team' players seldom worry about anyone else as much as themselves. But Manute has been a focal point of selflessness. They love him." So, it appears, do the fans at every station.

All celebrities are cadged for autographs, but Bol is forever beseeched just to stand up. "Can't," he demurs occasionally. "Leg broke." When he is on his feet, stares are unavoidable. "I am a good-looking guy," he agrees kindly. "What size shoes do you wear?" strangers wonder. "You want to buy me a pair?" he smiles. They are only 15 1/2s. Bol's ebony brow may appear furrowed, but those are scratches from a puberty rite that, more than the sleeping lion he once killed with a spear, confirmed his courage. He laughs easily when his spindly fingers wrap twice around an ordinary hand.

"Everywhere I go, kindness," he says. "Some cruelty, but nothing hurts my feelings because I feel comfortable. Except in Cleveland, where I catch cold. Ah-ha-ha. Because God made me this way, I'm not mad. I have fun all the time. Oh man, I just want to be a good basketball player." Bol's regimen for gaining weight is as oppressive as Perry's diet, though they are closing on each other cautiously. Perry says, "I don't want to be too thin." Bol says, "I don't want to be too fat." Their grace per pound is the amazement. In lateral-movement drills, Perry has to take care not to run over the slower men on either side of him. Humming the mellow song he used to sing to the herd, Bol practices his hook shot with a surprisingly light touch.

They grow on you.