Everywhere A Sign A year-old website alerts autograph hunters to the whereabouts of pen-wielding athletes

Old soldiers fade away. Old athletes sign...and sign...and sign
away. Winter is the busy season for autograph and memorabilia
shows, at which sports celebrities pick up some lucre, normally
in two-hour, hand-cramping shifts. To learn who will be
appearing where and when, log on to signingshotline.com, the
signature site for athlete signatures.

Want to meet Joe Montana? Go to the Tampa Bay Center Mall on Jan.
21. Bring a football, a Sharpie and $125. Are you into autograph
futures? Braves shortstop and National League Rookie of the Year
Rafael Furcal will be at Houston's George R. Brown Convention
Center on Jan. 21. Think it'll be a cold day in hell before Bill
Buckner shares a room with the 1986 World Series champion Mets?
You're close. They'll be appearing on Saturday at the Doubletree
in Somerset, N.J.

The site, founded last January by Howard Zarabet of New York
City, is little more than a registry of upcoming events, with
phone numbers for and/or links to websites of event promoters.
Still, it's comprehensive and extremely fascinating. Where else
might you have learned of last Saturday's grouping of 1970s
Yankees with pro wrestlers of that era (Graig Nettles, meet King
Kong Bundy) at the Ukrainian Cultural Center, also in Somerset?
Or consider the eclectic coterie, set for March 3 in Edison,
N.J., of, among others, Muhammad Ali, '67 Heisman winner Gary
Beban and Barry Sanders. How about the Feb. 4 appearance by Sixto
Lezcano--the Sixto Lezcano!--at the Best Western Midway Hotel in
Brookfield, Wis.?

See what we mean? Log on to the addictive website for just a
minute, and half an hour later we guarantee that you'll still be
on a signing tangent.

--J.W.