Mohegan - The cover of the Connecticut Sports Foundation's Annual Celebrity Dinner and Memorabilia Auction program Friday night featured the attendees of the original dinner, 25 years ago.

Mickey Mantle. Whitey Ford. Billy Martin. All with the organization's founder, John Ellis, New London native, Old Saybrook resident, former major league catcher and cancer survivor.

"Launching the foundation with them, that was setting a standard. It linked us to greatness," said Ellis of the three former New York Yankees stars. "... I really think we're going to be the greatest foundation that ever existed in Connecticut."

Ellis was speaking Friday night in the midst of more greatness.

Attending the press conference prior to Friday's 25th anniversary dinner at Mohegan Sun's convention center were new Boston Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine, Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland, Baseball Hall of Famers Gaylord Perry, Andre Dawson and Yogi Berra, all-star third baseman Evan Longoria of the Tampa Bay Rays, New York Yankees catcher Francisco Cervelli and former New York Mets Mookie Wilson and Rusty Staub, among others.

Last year's dinner raised more than $700,000, with the foundation's proceeds used to financially assist cancer patients and their families and to fund cancer research.

Don Zimmer, the former Red Sox manager and Yankees bench coach, is now a senior advisor for the Rays.

Since he was with the Yankees, he has charged himself with making sure the foundation has an all-star lineup at its celebrity dinner each year, sending Yankees such as Mariano Rivera and Roger Clemens the way of the dinner and now influencing Longoria to attend, as well.

Zimmer said he talks to Ellis and his wife Jane each year following the end of baseball season and they formulate a plan for the next year's dinner.

"I've asked some great people to come here and they've showed up," Zimmer said. "It means a lot to me they would take their time to come here, that you know them well enough they hate to say no to you.

"I called Yogi. I said, 'We got to go to Connecticut.' He said, 'If my health is good enough, I will.' ... There's some big hitters up at this table."

Yankees manager Joe Girardi was to be in attendance at the dinner later in the evening, too, giving a spark to the talk of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry as spring training approaches.

"I haven't experienced it yet," Valentine said, asked of the rivalry's intensity. "It sounds it. ... The houses that are divided are divided by Yankees and Red Sox, for sure."

Gossage, a former Yankees reliever, said he's glad he no longer has to sit in the bullpen at Fenway, where he had many a beer heaved his way during his career. Gossage spoke of pitching in the one-game playoff in 1978, won by the Yankees.

"It felt like the playoffs and the World Series were exhibition games compared to that," Gossage said.

Leyland, whose Tigers signed free agent first baseman Prince Fielder to a nine-year, $214 million contract in the offseason, said you can never tell what's going to happen during a baseball season.

Said Leyland: "All this stuff reads real good in the winter time. I want it to read good in the fall."

Ellis, who lost a sister, brother and sister-in-law to cancer and is a survivor of Hodgkin's disease, founded the Connecticut Sports Foundation in 1987. He played for the Yankees, Indians and Rangers over 13 seasons.

His wife Jane serves as the president and executive director of the CSF board, while Berra, Ford, Perry, Zimmer and former Dallas Cowboys head coach Dave Campo are on the foundation's Emeritus Board.

v.fulkerson@theday.com