Forget History--Marlins Simply Enjoy the Victory : Dodgers: Florida gets 10 hits against Hershiser in five innings and wins, 6-3, in its debut.

With subdued and tasteful pageantry, the Florida Marlins dedicated their season to the memory of their former president, Carl Barger, who died in December. Then they opened the season before 46,115 in Joe Robbie Stadium on Monday.

Barger’s boyhood idol, Joe DiMaggio, threw out the first ball. Then Charlie Hough threw a strike on the first pitch and ultimately earned the first victory for this expansion team, a 6-3 victory over his former team, the Dodgers.

“I’m not caught up in the history of this game yet,” Hough said. “I will read about all of it tomorrow, and then I’ll get caught up in it. But today, it was a baseball game.”

Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda, who was Hough’s first major league manager and remains a close friend, respected the historical value of the game, but his team still had lost.

“If my brother was out there pitching, I wouldn’t be happy if he beat us,” Lasorda said. “But it was nice. The Marlins did well. They made plays and used the hit and run successfully and did a good job. But we are going to be all right.”

The Marlins scored three runs in the second inning and another in the third against starter Orel Hershiser. Every Marlin starter except Hough had a hit--for a team total of 14, all of them singles except for a double by cleanup hitter Orestes Destrade and a two-run triple by shortstop Walt Weiss.

“Things didn’t go our way,” Dodger second baseman Jody Reed said. “Balls found their way through the infield, and it just wasn’t our day. They got the breaks, but teams also make their breaks. Several of their hits ticked off my glove and off of (first baseman Eric Karros’) glove by inches, and three of those were in their rallies. I mean, maybe this was destiny.”

Hershiser, who gave up five earned runs on 10 hits before being replaced by Roger McDowell in the sixth inning, said he felt strong.

“I made some bad pitches, but I made some good pitches also,” Hershiser said. “There were about four well-hit balls. But their hits were on the ground, which means I was pitching well. They weren’t gappers or home runs.

“But the dimensions of this ballpark are going to be short if the wind blows like it did today.”

The Marlins have converted a football stadium into a baseball park, but it is difficult to describe how they did it. It is 330 feet down the left-field line, 345 feet down the right-field line and 404 feet to most of center field. But its angular dimensions are unique.

“It’s like a freeway out there,” Eric Davis said. “It’s not like the dome in Minnesota or the stadium in Houston, where you can see all the way around the park. It goes straight down to the scoreboard and then angles back and then goes across and angles around in the straightaway again.

“The (left-field) wall is like playing racquetball. It’s soft in some spots and hard in others, so you have to wait for the ball to hit it and then play chase-the-cat.”

One of the angles--and center fielder Scott Pose--stopped the Dodgers from tying the score. With the Dodgers trailing, 5-3, in the seventh inning, Jose Offerman hit the ball deep to center, slightly to the left of where the wall angles out from 404 feet to 434. Pose made a spectacular back-handed catch on the run at about 426 feet, stranding pinch-hitter Cory Snyder on first base.

“That’s bad luck,” Offerman said.

In between fielding ground balls, Darryl Strawberry encouraged the right field crowd who chanted his name throughout the game. He blew kisses to the crowd and urged them to chant louder.

“It tells me that everyone in the ballpark knows my name, and it’s nice to know they love me,” Strawberry said.

The Dodgers scored all three runs against Hough, including a solo home run by Tim Wallach into the upper deck in left field in the sixth inning, Hough’s last. Bryan Harvey pitched the ninth inning for the save.

“It was a poorly thrown knuckleball, but he didn’t have to hit it that hard,” Hough said. The Dodgers scored twice in the fifth inning when Karros led off with a double to the center field wall, moved to third base on a fly to right field by Mike Piazza and scored on a line drive to left by Reed.

After Hershiser dodged a tag by Hough and beat out a bunt single, Offerman followed with a hard-hit single to right field. Reed beat a strong throw to the plate by Junior Felix.

“We have to give the Marlins credit,” said Piazza, who made his debut as the Dodgers’ starting catcher and threw out Pose trying to steal second base in the sixth inning.

The Dodgers made two errors, one each by Reed and Wallach, the players the club acquired to tighten the defense. Both were throwing errors, and neither cost the team runs.

Marlin catcher Benito Santiago led off the second inning with a line drive that Wallach missed as he tried to backhand it, but it was scored a hit. Jeff Conine followed with a single that Karros dived for and missed. Then Weiss tripled to the right field corner and scored on Pose’s single.

The inning ended when Davis caught a line drive hit by Bret Barberie and doubled Pose off first base.

With two out in the third inning, Santiago hit a sharp drive up the middle, scoring Destrade. The Marlins scored a run in the sixth and another in the seventh against Ricky Trlicek.

“This just happened to be their day,” Karros said.

Dodger Notes

Fred Claire, the Dodgers’ executive vice president, said the team is still pursuing a left-handed relief pitcher and is talking with Matt Young’s agent. Young threw for Manager Tom Lasorda twice when the team was in Los Angeles for the Freeway Series last weekend. Also, Mark Davis, a left-handed reliever with the Atlanta Braves, has been designated for assignment, which means the Braves have only 10 days to trade him or release him.

Claire said he spent most of Saturday in serious pursuit of left-hander David Wells, who was waived by Toronto and signed by the Detroit Tigers on Saturday night. “I thought he wanted to be in Southern California, but then they told me he wanted to be in Detroit, where his wife is from,” Claire said. . . . Tom Goodwin’s speed helped him edge Henry Rodriguez off the 25-man roster. Goodwin stole seven bases in 57 games with the Dodgers last season.