Customer service takes a hit

Erik Morales had to take care of a little pre-fight business before he took care of Guty Espadas in a super-featherweight fight on Saturday's pay-per-view card in Los Angeles.

Two days before the fight, Morales got a call from his wife in Tijuana, asking him to re-establish their satellite-TV service so she could watch the fight. So he dutifully phoned the satellite company.

"A salesman took down Morales' name and credit-card number," reported the Los Angeles Times' Larry Stewart. "But he must not have been paying close attention, because he then asked Morales whether he wanted to buy the Morales fight."

Morales' reply: "I'm going to be a little busy that night, but my wife would like to see it."

Boss Bluto

George Steinbrenner, overly worked up when his Yankees closed out the Twins in their playoff series, pulled out a little Douglas MacArthur.

"For us, winning isn't the only thing. It's second to breathing," Steinbrenner blustered. "As MacArthur said, 'Victory is essential.'"

Just one problem: The late general actually said, "In war there is no substitute for victory."

But -- just like the Deltas when Bluto referred to the Germans bombing Pearl Harbor in "Animal House" -- the Yankees know better than to stop The Boss when he's on a roll.

Caught on Scotch tape

Kansas City's Dante Hall, riding an NFL-record four straight games with TD kick returns, got totally immersed in the experience when he played for NFL Europe's Scottish Claymores in 2001.

"I went out with a couple of fans who showed me how to play golf," Hall told HBO's "Inside the NFL." "They even slapped a little kilt on me and made me go commando. I ate some kind of food over there -- the inside lining of a pig or something, they told me."

They said it

Steve Rosenbloom of the Chicago Tribune, on reports that boxer Mike Tyson, supposedly $30 million in debt, still spends about $18,000 a month on clothes: "So that's what he did with the cash that he saved on finishing school."

Tom FitzGerald of the San Francisco Chronicle, after the A's Tim Hudson got into a scuffle in a nightclub where the band Blockhead was playing: "I thought a pitcher tries to stay out of jams."

Bombers slotback Milt Stegall, to the Winnipeg Free Press, on his CFL team's mercurial 9-6 season: "We'd better be flicking on the switch now. Some guys may have flipped the switch on already, but I don't know if their bulb is out."

Preja vu

Some critics of President Bush's policy on Iraq say they knew as far back as 1989 that George W. had trouble recognizing a weapon of mass destruction.

That was the year his Texas Rangers traded away Sammy Sosa.

-- Dwight Perry, The Seattle Times