Line Is Crossed for New Dodgers : Baseball: There is some warm applause, but no picketing in first replacement game against Yankees.

They sat in the cramped visitors’ clubhouse Thursday, exchanging nervous glances, wondering if the other guys were just as frightened.

Most of them are little more than kids, and now they were about to step across the symbolic picket line, 28 of them at Ft. Lauderdale Stadium, dressed in genuine Dodger uniforms.

“It was pretty quiet in there,” infielder Mike Busch said. “Nobody really knew what to say. You could see it in their eyes, especially the young kids. They were scared.

“Everybody wondered if there’d be protesters, and people yelling and screaming at us, and just what would happen.”

But there was no turmoil and the Dodgers, employing a replacement team for the first time, defeated the New York Yankees, 11-3, in a game that looked surprisingly like a normal spring training exhibition.

“I don’t think fans could tell the difference today,” said Dodger second baseman Edwin Alicea, the younger brother of striking Red Sox infielder Luis Alicea. “The only difference is that we didn’t know each other’s names.”

The Dodgers, who had a police officer on each of their two buses and radioed authorities every 30 minutes on their two-hour trip, encountered no protesters. The only hoopla turned out to be the 80 reporters and cameramen who besieged the stadium in search of strife.

“I’ve been going to spring training for 22 years and I’ve never seen so much media,” said Chicago management consultant Larry Roth. “This story is bigger than O.J.”

But there were no picket lines and the 700 or so fans in attendance warmly greeted the teams when they took the field and clapped politely through the game.

“It’s definitely a different feeling,” said Rudy Gisolfi, 41, a fan from Norwalk, Conn. “But it’s baseball, and I haven’t seen baseball in a long time.

“It’s kind of like a time warp because you’re seeing the stadium and the pinstripes, but all these faces without names. It’s weird, but you root for them. Americans root for the underdog, and these guys have got a chance of a lifetime.”

How else could you be a 5-foot-5 substitute teacher in Dumont, N.J., play for the Moonachie Braves in the semipro Metropolitan Baseball League during the summer, get an autographed baseball from Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda in the morning, and become the Yankees’ starting center fielder that afternoon?

“You know something?” said Doug DiGirolamo, that center fielder. “I felt like a Yankee since the day I walked into camp. Why shouldn’t I?”

DiGirolamo is one of 34 Yankee replacement players who did not play for a major league affiliate last year. In contrast, the Dodgers have 23 players on their 30-man roster who were in their organization last season, and only two who have major league experience.

The Dodger staff made the rounds, congratulating potential strikebreakers as if they had just made the varsity basketball team.

Said Lasorda to infielder Ervan Wingate: “Your parents should be proud of you today. You’re a Dodger.”

And who knows, with major league executives watching, and scouts in the stands, someone may be discovered. Certainly, some people know more about Dodger first baseman Jay Kirkpatrick today than they did before he hit two homers, going four for six against the Yankees.

“Every kid’s dream is to make the major leagues, whether it’s through the strike or not,” Kirkpatrick said. “If I step off the curb tomorrow and get hit by a car, I can say I played in a major league game.”

Said Fred Claire, the Dodgers’ executive vice president: “Sitting around and waiting for the latest in the negotiations hasn’t been a whole lot of fun. Today, we finally had baseball.

“This was a day that we’ll all remember.”