Dodger or ocean -- Penny's color is blue

For Brad Penny, nothing rivals the thrill of pursuing deer in the forest.

"I've won a World Series and the adrenaline rush for me . . . shooting a deer with a bow is a lot more than that," the Dodgers pitcher says.

He won two games for the Florida Marlins during their 2003 World Series triumph over the New York Yankees.

But he'd rather discuss the eight real marlin he and his girlfriend released in a single day off Cabo San Lucas last February. Or Brazil's peacock bass. Or Florida's snook.

Penny is the Dodgers' preeminent outdoorsman. But the towering right-hander also has a humanitarian side, which surfaced last week on a sunny afternoon aboard the Native Sun out of Long Beach.

Joined by former Dodgers manager Tom Lasorda, and supported by the Daniel Hernandez Youth Foundation, Penny hosted 40 kids making their first deep-sea fishing excursion.

And by their scorebook, the goateed pitcher delivered a perfect game.

The children, from San Miguel Elementary School in South Gate and Our Savior Center in El Monte, beamed throughout the rollicking adventure.

They caught and held their first fish. They tossed anchovies to gulls and stuffed their faces with hot dogs. They marveled at the vastness of the blue ocean and daydreamed of things they never knew about.

"It's great because, you know, a lot of them may end up really liking it," Penny says. "And who knows, it could keep a kid out of trouble someday."

On this day, it seems, only the fish are in trouble. . . .

A frenzy erupts with the boat still at the dock. Penny and Lasorda are swarmed by children ages 7 to 14, and asked to sign T-shirts, caps and baseballs.

"Look at him over there," Lasorda says of Penny, who has pulled a team jersey over his T-shirt. "That's a guy who's one of the great pitchers in the game today and what is he doing? Being with youngsters. That's just great."

Penny deflects praise toward Hernandez and his volunteers. With support from the Blue Cross of California Foundation, they take more than 1,000 underprivileged children on these kinds of voyages each year.

Sometimes kids hide on board as the boat returns to the dock, Hernandez says, because they don't want to go home. Some of them sleep, not because they're seasick or bored, but because they feel safe so far from their troubled neighborhoods.