Library Throws Curve to Visitors

You might have to be a real baseball fan to want to see the forged signature of Mother Teresa on a dozen baseballs. But you’ll have the opportunity March 1-31 at Glendale Central Library during an exhibition by Baseball Reliquary, an offbeat traveling museum.

The balls were among thousands of fake memorabilia seized by federal agents in San Diego last year. (Most of the other balls carried the forged signatures of major league stars.)

Authorities gave the Mother Teresa forgeries to the Reliquary “for exhibition purposes” as a reminder of “the large amount of inauthentic memorabilia” on sale.

The exhibit will feature several other curious items, including a potato thrown in place of a baseball during a 1987 minor league game by catcher Dave Bresnahan to trick a baserunner. The disallowed maneuver cost Bresnahan his job, but he became a minor celebrity.

“The umpire, incredible as it sounds, simply tossed the potato in a trash can,” the Reliquary says. But a teenage fan retrieved it and placed it in a preservative.

Thank goodness someone had a sense of history.

DUELING LIMITS: Who says driving in L.A. is complicated? As Jay Ranellucci points out, all you have to decide is what speed limit to follow (see photo).

STRANGE DRIVING SIGHTS: Gordon McRae Jr. of Torrance writes that “on a Sunday night in 1966 I was returning to USC on the 110. A fraternity brother, driving two friends who had flown from back east for a visit, pulled up beside me and honked. Always a gadget freak, I had spent a good portion of my summer earnings buying a revolutionary 5-inch Sony TV that you could plug into your car lighter.

“I was listening to ‘Perry Mason’ but held up the TV so they could see the picture. My fraternity brother told me that during their whole visit they could not stop talking about crazy Californians who drive at 65 miles per hour watching television.”

THIS WON’T HURT A BIT DEPARTMENT: Carol McLaughlin of Rancho Palos Verdes wonders if patients coming to see one dentist have second thoughts when they see the sign out front (see photo). He shares a marquee with a hair salon.

WATER, WATER, EVERYWHERE . . . : “I was in line for the ladies’ restroom at the Shubert and heard a flush,” writes Judy Hoffmann of Westlake Village. “A woman comes out of the stall with her cell phone to her ear and she’s saying, ‘You shouldn’t be talking on the phone in the bathtub. You could get electrocuted.’ ”

Continued Hoffmann: “Should I add we were there to see ‘Riverdance?’ ”

IT MUST BE KING-SIZED: Several readers have sent me an ad in weekly newspapers that says, “Attractive masseuse offering free massage with purchase of soft drink.”

Well, Sondra Schwartz of Culver City says her son “called for more information and was told the soft drink costs $75.”

THIS CASE SMELLED FROM THE START: “What was reported to be a fight between a husband and wife,” said the police log of the Los Alamitos News-Enterprise, “turned out to be the wife screaming about a skunk in the yard.”

miscelLAny:

Owen Simon of Sherman Oaks points out that if you rearrange the titles of the seven movies appearing in The Times’ listings for a nearby theater complex they tell a sad story:

“Miss Congeniality,” “Head Over Heels,” “The Pledge,” “The Wedding Planner,” “The Gift,” “Thirteen Days,” “Cast Away.”

*

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.