CLICK & DOUBLE CLICK: SPORTS FANS CAN STEP UP TO THE PLATE ON THE INTERNET

CYBERTIP: If you are considering adding RAM memory to you computer, start shopping early. RAM is sold like a commodity and prices fluctuate. If you watch the trends, you can buy when prices drop.

Step up to the plate for the World Series online. For sports nuts, the Internet has lots to offer and it's not just baseball.

Yahoo's sports category lists thousands of sports choices on everything from auto racing to hacky sack, snow skiing to table tennis.

As you might expect, Sports Illustrated has a comprehensive site focused this week on the World Series.

But this is the sports fan's dream time. People are playing baseball, hockey, football and previewing the NBA season.

You can get to Sports Illustrated online at

http://WWW.sportsillustrated.com

The address actually takes you to an off-the-web address via the monstrous pathfinder.com.

JONI: Sports Illustrated gives a good overview of all the sports, unlike some locations that focus on just one sport. Since we aren't fanatic sports fans, we were intrigued by two categories: Faces in the Crowd and They Said It.

PEGGY: The faces are local people nominated by friends and coaches for excelling in some aspect of sports. They Said It includes quirky quotes from famous sports personalities over the years. In 1966, new NBA Houston Rockets coach Tom Nissalke replied to a question about the pronunciation of his name: "Tom."

JONI: Sports Illustrated also has an edition for children with a Halloween theme this week. Here's Dennis Rodman's Hair-Raising Halloween. We have to go there. Dennis Rodman knocks at the door and kids decide whether to give him a trick or an treat and what that trick or treat might be.

PEGGY: In other celebrity Halloween tidbits, we learned that Barry Larkin used to dress like Batman and Troy Aikman of the Dallas Cowboys dressed like Dracula. "I put Vaseline in my hair to slick it back and I couldn't get it out for a week and a half," Aikman said.

JONI: To check a score on dozens of sports, go directly to "News, Scores & Stats." For baseball fans, another good place for a wealth of statistical information is

http://www.fastball.com

Here, you can find the 1,000 most recent baseball news stories. The scoreboard is updated every three minutes. During the World Series games, Fastball is providing real-time play-by-play. They also link you to Braves hometown coverage in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Yankee coverage from the New York Daily News. The site links you to home pages of all the major league teams and you can download AP radio sports on the hour.

PEGGY: Even if you team isn't in the World Series, the site recaps the season, including an archive of box scores from all the games. For answers to arguments, this is the place to go.

JONI: The Cardinals could have used me. I scored six runs in one inning in the Super Fastball, an interactive game on the site. You need Shockwave to play.

PEGGY: At least for the next week or so, this will be a pretty busy site. We had some trouble getting to the World Series portions of the page because it was busy. So we headed to ESPN instead

http://www.espn.com

We had the same trouble there. Sports fans take no breaks. When we finally got on, as we expected, ESPN's SportsZone has EXTENSIVE sports coverage.

JONI: ESPN offers the most recent sports transmissions from SportsTicker along with audio and video clips.

PEGGY: If you sign up for a free subscription, you get additional features, including the hit chart, which shows every baseball hit and batter vs. pitcher.

JONI: A lot of pages, SportsZone included, say they are free for now. It's not clear if they plan to charge down the road or if they are just trying to cover all the bases.

PEGGY: You can chat with ESPN personalities from time to time. On Monday you could have talked with Dave Campbell online. You can also download the ESPN SportsCenter theme song, the abbreviated or the extended version.

JONI: We dedicate this next portion to the tanned golf fanatics in the office. NBC and Golf Digest have teamed together to present golf.com (Notice no www)

http://golf.com

PEGGY: This site includes the latest news from the golf world including results from tournaments, upcoming competitions, and who televises what at what time.

JONI: The page also offers practical tips for golfers, like how to determine the swingweight of your clubs and whether the numbers really matter.

PEGGY: The sport's hottest putter, the kind Tiger Woods uses, is profiled along with discussions about Wood's most recent performances.

JONI: For more golf, try

http://www.golfweb.com

This site includes a database of more than 20,000 golf courses in seven countries and more than 7,000 reader comments on courses.

PEGGY: The site also offers Lesson Tee -- free, real-time golf instruction from a pro via e-mail. You get 15 to 30 minutes to ask questions about almost anything from golf theory to what equipment to buy. When you decide what you need, you can check out the online classified ads, more than 2,000 devoted to golf.

E-mail us with your favorite food sites at movn@ldd.net.

See you in Cyberspace.

~Joni Adams is managing editor and Peggy Scott is a graphics editor/staff writer at the Southeast Missourian.