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.

“We use fishing as a tool to build self-esteem and self-confidence within the kids,” Hernandez says. “You’ll see that early on they won’t touch the bait and won’t want to touch the fish. But by the end of the day they’re doing it all by themselves.”

It helps, of course, to receive a pep talk from one of the world’s great motivators. “You’ve got to believe,” Lasorda tells the youngsters. “You’ve got to believe in yourselves and believe in your families. And you’ve got to believe you’re going to catch fish and have a good time.”

Moments later, as the vessel rounds the breakwater, Lasorda is fast asleep in a galley chair, with his arm around a young girl who doesn’t dare move.

Other kids explore and probe the bait tank for live anchovies intended as chum. Franco Mayoral, 8, places one between his lips, tail first, drawing strange looks from classmates.

Penny leans against the stern rail and chats with Hernandez about his passion for deer hunting and the 2,200-acre ranch he recently bought in his home state of Oklahoma.

Two large ponds on the property will be stocked with largemouth bass, he says. White-tail deer and turkeys abound and the only type of hunting allowed will be with bow and arrow.

“With a gun it’s easy,” Penny says. “But with a bow it’s tough. You’ve got to get up close and personal with them, and really do your research to see where they’re moving and at what time.”

Finally, the Native Sun glides to a stop and baited hooks race the anchor to the bottom. A deckhand atop the bait tank uses a net and his hands to fling anchovies overboard. Scales and small fish flutter onto clothing and into hair and the kids love it.

Soon rods lurch and dip. Michelle Larios, 9, knows what this means. She reels a mackerel to the very tip of her pole, then proclaims to anyone listening: “It was my first fish!”

Penny smiles and also reels in a mackerel. Not quite marlin, he acknowledges, but it’s a day off during a long season and he’s in a good place.

“It’s nature and it’s what I love to do and grew up doing,” the pitcher says.

Nature then sends forth a large sea lion, which darts from beneath the boat into view of kids lining the port rail.

“Shark!” cries a girl, who is not one easily corrected. “I know a shark when I see one,” she says. “There it is again!”

More rod tips jitter and sculpin begin coming over the rail, and the kids are aghast. While prized for their tender white flesh, they’re hideous, rust-colored denizens laden with long, poisonous spines.

Aseel Hussein, 10, stands rigid as she poses three feet away -- not one inch closer -- from the sculpin she reeled in, questioning the sanity of a volunteer handling her prize.

Jazmin Gavidia, 7, is slightly braver, posing close to her sculpin while standing next to Penny and Lasorda.

“It’s nice to see them get an opportunity to do something they don’t ordinarily do in their everyday lives,” says Penny, explaining that he had planned on making this voyage since spring training.

These kids are appreciative. Stephanie Montoya, 10, says she received signatures from Penny and Lasorda on two of her shirts, and that she’ll give one to her teacher, Pete Keuper.

Many of the shirts are now splotched with scales, blood and slime, however, and all of these markings seem equally prized. In fact, an impromptu poll conducted at the end of the trip reveals that meeting a Dodger and getting his signature is not what the kids liked most.

“I liked the catching fish part the most,” says Duilio Belmontes, 8, echoing the sentiments of others.

And that’s as it should be, says the pitcher.

A free fishing event for children 5 to 15 is being held Saturday morning at Lincoln Park Lake near downtown Los Angeles. The event is co-sponsored by the Daniel Hernandez Youth Foundation and Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks. Details: (213) 847-1726.

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pete.thomas@latimes.com