Peter Lefcourt: talk about getting to second base.

"What do you think would happen if people read in their morning papers that Steve Sax had announced he was in love with, say, Mike Sharperson?" asks Lefcourt, whose wickedly funny novel, The Dreyfus Affair: A Love Story--due out this month--about a future Hall of Fame shortstop who finds himself increasingly attracted to his second baseman (who happens to be black), throws a high, hard one at major-league baseball and its pretensions.

The Emmy-winning (Cagney and Lacey) writer and producer, whose first novel was last year's The Deal, a send-up of Hollywood scam artistry that captured critical raves for its inside-the-loop loopiness, got the idea for his second at bat from the "first" Dreyfus. "I've always been fascinated by the real Dreyfus affair," says Lefcourt, referring to the infamous anti-Semitism scandal that rocked France in the 1890s. "So I asked myself, What would be the equivalent in 1990s America? The answer was homophobia."

Not surprisingly, some folks balk at the whole business. Lefcourt, who's not gay, has taken a few beanballs from "the more humorless militant wing of the gay experience," though overall, he says, the gay press has been supportive "because Randy and D.J.'s love isn't treated as an aberration."

So, is Dreyfus going to take Lefcourt back to Hollywood? Well, though he had a film offer, "several Academy Award-nominated producers showed it to the studios, and in each case they turned it down because it wasn't 'politically correct' or they had no idea how to cast it." And who would be his choice for the quintessential buddy leads? "Patrick Swayze and Denzel Washington--but my second draft would be Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes."