Sporting Sponsors Sought by Conner

Now it can be told. In his new book, “Comeback--My Race for the America’s Cup,” Dennis Conner tells of trying to get George Steinbrenner and Donald Trump to back his Sail America syndicate.

“My offer was to paint the transom of the boat in Yankee pinstripes and call her Yankee,” Conner writes. “I had a drawing showing the boat and I was ready to give the baseball man my pitch. But Steinbrenner never saw me.

“Then I thought to go to Trump, and if he gave us $2 million, we’d call the boat Trump Card. If I had scored with Trump, I would have gone to the other Atlantic City casino operators and had them kick in another $9 million.”

Said Scotland’s Sandy Lyle when asked the difference between the British Open, which he won in 1985, and the Tournament Players Championship, which he won Sunday: “About 120 years.”

They call themselves America’s Team, but the Atlanta Braves are something else to Bill James, author of the “Baseball Abstract.”

Writes James: “If you watch the Braves for about two weeks, you will understand why Ted Turner would think that “Casablanca” would be a better movie in pastels.

“The man loves mediocrity. He worships mediocrity. He sends his announcers to mediocrity school, where they listen to tapes of Jay Randolph and Curt Gowdy 16 hours a day.

“He collects mediocre players and mediocre pitchers and hires mediocre managers to direct them. Colorless mediocre players.

“I mean, it’s no wonder their attendance is terrible, and no relection on the fine people of Atlanta, who are merely exercising a modicum of good taste in not taking this team to their hearts.”

Add Braves: From Newsday: “Unattributed quote from the Braves’ camp: ‘We have reborns, Mormons, Mennonites--and Nettles.’ ”

Trivia Time: If he were acquired by the Dodgers, he would become the first player to play for all five major league teams in California. Who is he? (Answer below.)

Said Larry Doby, the first black to play in the American League, when asked about harassment: “One time I slid into second base and the other team’s shortstop spit tobacco juice on me. Some guys in the other dugouts would yell ‘nigger’ at me, but when I heard some guys in our dugout call Joe DiMaggio a ‘dago’ after he hit a home run, I figured if they can call the best player in the league that, I wasn’t going to worry about what I was called.”

From senior golfer Gary Player, recalling his early days on the regular tour: “I would travel with a wife, five kids, a nurse, 33 suitcases, reserve three hotel rooms and take three taxis. I had to win the tournament just to break even.”

In the wake of the Darryl Strawberry incident and other clubhouse flaps, the New York tabloids are calling Mets Manager Davey Johnson “The Great Non-Communicator.”

Marty Noble of Newsday quotes Johnson as saying: “I communicate better than a lot of those managers who chatter all the time and say nothing.”

Noble: “Oops, now Tom Lasorda’s mad.”

From Alan Greenberg of the Hartford Courant, capsulizing Bobby Knight: “The man who could make Switzerland take sides.”

Trivia Answer: Dave Kingman.

Quotebook

Bobby Bonilla of the Pittsburgh Pirates: “I think I can hit 20 home runs or more in a season. But, hey, I’ll be happy with 10 because that will be seven more than I hit all last year.”