They said it

•Sam Rutigliano, Cleveland Browns coach, who grew up in the same Brooklyn neighborhood as Oakland Raider Managing Partner Al Davis: "He's Mr. Intrigue. He knows the serial number of the Unknown Soldier."

•Bill Walton, former UCLA and NBA center, now a student at Stanford University Law School, as he was about to undergo another foot operation: "I learned a long time ago that minor surgery is when they do the operation on someone else, not you."

•Ed (Moose) Krause, retiring as Notre Dame's longtime athletic director, about a largely honorary new title conferred upon him: "I just found out what 'emeritus' means. It means working without pay."

•Ernie Banks, Mr. Cub: "My ultimate dream is to have my own bank, maybe in Paris. I'd call it Banks's Bank on the Left Bank."

•Mike Schmidt, Phillies third baseman and National League MVP the last two seasons: "Philadelphia is the only city in the world where you can experience the thrill of victory and the agony of reading about it the next day."

•Tom Landry, commenting on the fact that he's the only coach the Dallas Cowboys have ever had: "That's one way to look at it. The other is that I haven't had a promotion in 21 years."

•Donald Davidson, Houston Astro executive, extolling Pitcher Joe Niekro's ability to relax: "It takes him an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes."

•Willie Nelson, country singer, asked what par is on a golf course he had recently bought near Austin, Texas: "Anything I want it to be. For instance, this hole right here is a par-47—and yesterday I birdied the sucker."

•Jack Buck, St. Louis Cardinal broadcaster, after catching a glimpse of Yankee owner George Steinbrenner's yacht on Tampa Bay: "It was a beautiful thing to behold, with all 36 oars working in unison."

•Jim Palmer, Baltimore pitcher, after Manager Earl weaver was ejected from an exhibition game and replaced by Coach Cal Ripken: "Ripken will finish more games this year than Goose Gossage."

•Stan Jonathan, Boston Bruins left wing and a full-blooded Tuscarora Indian, speaking at a celebrity roast for teammate Wayne Cashman: "It has been quite a while since anybody from my tribe roasted a white man."

•Dick Vermeil, the Philadelphia Eagles' workaholic coach, asked at training camp if he was going to watch the royal wedding the next day on television: "The what?"

•Norm Van Brocklin, former NFL quarterback and coach and now a pecan farmer in Social Circle, Ga., describing the brain surgery he underwent two years ago: "it was a brain transplant. I got a sportswriter's brain so I could be sure I had one that hadn't been used."

•Hank Stram, dapper ex-NFL coach and current TV and radio color announcer, denying reports that he has 400 suits: "I'm lucky if I own 200."

•Kenny King, Oakland Raider running back, on the effect of the NFL's new ban on the use of stickum by pass receivers: "You'll still see great catches. They just won't be made with the elbows."

•Beano Cook, a publicist for CBS Sports and an ardent football fan, after Bowie Kuhn gave the 52 former Iran hostages lifetime major league baseball passes: "Haven't they suffered enough?"

•Cheryl Kratzert, Wife Of golfer Bill Kratzert, on why they married, divorced and then remarried: "We took a mulligan."

•Paul Harvey, ABC news commentator, after Jack Nicklaus shot an 83 in the first round of the British Open: "All my life I've wanted to play golf like Jack Nicklaus, and now I do."

•David Larner, a spokesman for Lloyd's of London, which underwrote most of the $50 million strike insurance purchased by the major league owners: "Baseball? Rather like rounders, isn't it? Never saw the game myself. But I suppose the underwriters never actually saw the Titanic, either."

•Joe Dimaggio, reflecting on what his salary might have been in baseball's current free-agent market: "If I were sitting down with George Steinbrenner and based on what Dave Winfield got for his statistics, I'd have to say, 'George, you and I are about to become partners.' "

•Pete Rose, answering criticism that he's un-American because he endorses Japanese products: "If there was ever a war, I'd fight for the United States."

•Elliott Gould, actor and basketball fan, asked the difference between working with the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman and the American director Robert Altman: "Bergman doesn't know who Dave DeBusschere is."

•Gene Michael, who was fired in September as the Yankee manager (and rehired in December to manage the Yankees in 1983), asked if owner George Steinbrenner could become a major league manager: "I don't know, but if he does, I want to be the owner."

•Dorothy Shula, on the career dedication of her husband, the coach of the Miami Dolphins: "I'm fairly confident that if I died tomorrow, Don would find a way to preserve me until the season was over and he had time for a nice funeral."

•Tom Lasorda, Dodger manager, after the firing of Laker Coach Paul West—Head: "I got nervous the other day when a friend said he saw Fernando Valenzuela in a restaurant with Magic Johnson."