A consumer’s guide to the best and worst of sports media and merchandise. Ground rules: If it can be read, played, heard, observed, worn, viewed, dialed or downloaded, it’s in play here.

What: “Winning With Integrity”

Author: Leigh Steinberg with Michael D’Orso

Publisher: Villard

Price: $24.95

The negotiator’s art, for the common man.

That’s what Steinberg, the country’s dominant sports agent, provides here, along with accounts of his multimillion-dollar deals for athletes such as Steve Young, Bruce Smith, Thurman Thomas, Drew Bledsoe, Steve Bartkowski and Warren Moon.

But he also offers tips on:

* How to ask for a raise.

* How to bargain on the price of that new car you want.

Your company won’t give you that pay raise you have in mind?

Fine, Steinberg says, suggest instead a company car, a country club membership, an extra week of vacation. . . .

You could well wind up with an enhanced benefits package worth more than the raise you asked for, he says.

On negotiating a price on, say, a car, he offers instruction on how to “fill the gap” between the proposal you’ve tentatively accepted and the deal you actually want.

And beware, he says, of a stream of “add-ons”--mag wheels, CD player, etc. They only bring the price up to what the dealer had in mind to begin with.

A highlight is Steinberg’s hilarious account of his 1984 negotiations with Bill Oldenberg on the $42-million United States Football League deal he got for rookie quarterback Young.

When all was agreed to and Steinberg was handed the contract in Oldenberg’s office, the L.A. Express owner was shocked when Steinberg began reading every word of the contract. Twelve hours later, Steinberg was still reading, and the owner began coming apart.

The 5-foot-6 Oldenberg flew into a rage and began throwing drinking glasses against the wall. Then he began punching Young in the chest.

“You do that one more time and I’m going to deck you,” Young told him.

Screamed Oldenberg, “You guys get the . . . out of here!”

Hard to believe, but the contract was signed the following day, Steinberg reports.