Love and Baseball in the Valley

A World Series in the San Fernando Valley? It could happen--at least in the movies.

Betty Thomas wants to produce and direct “The Dreyfus Affair,” by Peter Lefcourt, a novel about a black second baseman and white shortstop who fall in love on the L.A. Valley Vikings, a major league expansion team.

The Vikings play in a 125,000-seat stadium in the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area.

Alas, all heck breaks loose when the two infielders are videotaped by a security camera in a department store while in a secret embrace. The Valley Vikings are pressured by homophobic and racist elements in the league to suspend the pair. Meanwhile, the team is making a run for the pennant.

Like I always say, there’s never a dull moment in the Valley.

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SUCH A DEAL: Loren Schultz of L.A. saw an apple juice ad that proved you can get nothing for something (see accompanying).

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HERCULES IS THE ASSISTANT MANAGER: A colleague of mine visited a grocery store where your credit better be good or the Warrior Princess cashier may leap over the counter after you (see accompanying).

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FLOOR, PLEASE, AND KINDLY TURN OFF YOUR ENGINE: Dick Wonser of Glendale had his doubts about the parking arrangements in one real estate ad (see accompanying).

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WHERE DO THEY COME UP WITH THESE IDEAS? Don’t know if you’ve heard about the new TV sitcom “Ed,” about an attorney who opens a law practice inside a bowling alley.

Several years ago, an attorney named Thomas White had an office inside the Valencia Car Wash. It was not a drive-through; it was open to foot traffic only.

“Someone called it the Law Wash,” White said.

I never found out whether business went dry, but White eventually shut down the office.

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GAS PAINS: I’m still hearing about mix-ups at the gas pump.

“I was with a friend when he stopped at a gas station to fill up,” said Barbara Joan Grubman of Woodland Hills. “I sat in the car as he went in to pay the attendant. When he came out, I heard him talking and laughing with two young women at the adjoining pump. It seems that they pulled up after he paid for the gas, and started to fill their tank on his money!”

How could the women make such a mistake?

“They were from a state where you could actually pump BEFORE paying,” Grubman said.

I can almost remember when California was such a state.

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HANG UP: I was driving in my neighborhood Friday when the car in front came to a stop in the middle of the block. The driver seemed to be staring down. After several seconds, I honked. The driver’s head jerked up and, as though to excuse her actions, she waved her cell phone at me.

miscelLAny:

Actress Carmen Electra was “so terrified of spiders that the sight of one had catapulted her out of a store dressing room in her underwear,” reports San Diego Union Tribune columnist Diane Bell. But Electra was cured of the fear by San Diego psychologists George Pratt and Peter Lambrou when they appeared on Donny and Marie Osmond’s TV show.

Good to see her shedding her problems: first ex-husband Dennis Rodman, now spiders.

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A., 90012 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.