JEFF HUNT Hey everybody. Partly because this season is gonna be all about places, we felt that it was time for us to acknowledge that the Bay Area and San Francisco were inhabited by humans before Europeans colonized it. To that end, you'll hear a land acknowledgement at the start of every episode. If you wanna learn more about this and why we think it's important, please check out Episode 0, which we put out last week. We acknowledge and respect the first humans of the unceded land we call San Francisco, the Ramaytush Ohlone. We condemn the genocide of these and other tribes across the Western Hemisphere. We honor their legacy and history and we support rematriation and sovereignty efforts. Hello, and welcome to Sseason 5 of the Storied San Francisco podcast. This season is gonna be a little different for us. Rather than focus on humans and their life stories, as we've done for five years, we're shining a light on some of the more interesting, magical, and unique places that also make this city special. Today, we kick things off in The Bay, naturally. Surrounded on three sides by water, the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay are huge parts of the charm of San Francisco. Nestled between China Basin Landing and Oracle Park, where the Giants play, is another, smaller body of water that holds a special significance to so many of us around here. This episode is all about McCovey Cove. The body of water we call McCovey Cove is officially known as Mission Bay or China Basin. Geeding into the basin, and thus, the cove, is Mission Creek. Longtime listeners are familiar with the creek from episodes we've done on the humans living in houseboats down there. Before Europeans colonized this area, there were two known Ramaytush villages situated along the shores of Mission Creek. Centuries later, China bBasin was heavily commercial, with warehouses set along the area where the ballpark sits today. Over the years, creeks and other waterways were filled in and developed, but McCovey Cove remains. In the late 1990s, when the Giants were in the process of relocating from Candlestick Point up to the South of Market area, proximity to water was a huge factor. Back in 2018, when we had Giants President of Business Operations Mario Alioto on this show, he talked about the cove and the early days of PacBell Park. They say that the ballpark was built for Barry Bonds and his tendency to hit home runs to right field. Mario says that right away, the cove was filled with boats and kayaks. And before humans tried to grab splash hits, thanks to Don Novello, the comedian known in the seventies for Father Guido Sarducci, the Giants had Portuguese water dogs waiting to fetch home runs hit into the bay. We're so grateful to our captain out on the water that day, Jay Broemmel. Now let's meet Jay and learn a little bit about the vessel that delivered us to McCovey Cove in July. All right. Can you tell folks who you are real fast JAY BROEMMEL My name is Jay Brommel. I've been coming out here in my boat, the Canoecycle, I don't know, 10 years, probably, I guess. JEFF That is a great launching point. What is this vessel that we're on? JAY Uh, it's called the Canoecycle. It's an old, aluminum 13-foot canoe from … I don't know … I think probably built a lot of them in the fifties.They had ramped up metal and they ramped up all this production for sheet aluminum to make, you know, bombers and fighters. And then they didn't have anything to do with it. So they're like, let's make some boats, right. JEFF Which is to the benefit of a lot of folks like yourself. Do you work in other mediums? JAY I do. I work at a meta lab shop, which is where I built this and I also make a lot of custom bicycles kind of art an bikes. You can check it out on my Instagram @slouchcycles. JEFF Can you tell us, what was the inspiration for this thing that we're in? JAY My friend Chicken John does this event called Camp Tipsy. It's like a big camp out at the lake and a couple hundred people show up. And so I kind of wanted to get, you know, a small-ish boat for that. And I always just wanted to do things the most difficult that I could. So I was like, Why don't I make it amphibious? So I did. And I came up with the idea. And then of course I looked online and somebody else had already done it. And he's outta Oregon. He calls his the autocanoe, but he makes it all outta wood. So I bought his plans to just do all of his drive train stuff and made my own outta metal cuz I’m the metal guy JEFF Nice. And you said it's amphibious. So the cycle part I get, but is it a practical vehicle or is it more like art JAY It's art. Llike most things that are made to do more than one thing, it's not very good at either. It's definitely why I'm attracted to it. It's a better boat than a bike, but I mean, it handles fine on the land, too. JEFF So this thing was not made specifically for coming to Giants games? JAY It was kind of both. So there was a dual purpose. I wanted to use it at Camp Tipsy and I wanted to bring it out here. JEFF Had you been in the water for a Giants game before? JAY Very infrequently, probably just once or twice outta my friend's boat. So there's a guy named Doc Ellis who pitched for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was the only known pitcher to have thrown a no-hitter on LSD. So we used to have Doc Ellis Day out here on my friend's sailboat and we would all dress up in pirate gear. And we had a big banner that honored Doc Ellis. We didn't get on TV too much cuz baseball doesn't want anybody to know about the LSD no-no. They're really like, right. No, nope. That didn't happen. I don’t know what you're talking about. We burned all that film. JEFF Well, at the risk of implicating yourself, were you guys also on LSD? JAY No, I mean, I haven't done any psychedelics in a long time. But that's kind of, one of the reasons I built this boat. People are like, why do you build all these crazy bikes? And I was like, cuz I did a lot of drugs in my twenties. JEFF No, this is awesome. We've been doing this podcast for five years and I never probably thought that we'd get a Doc Ellis story, so thank you for that. So what's your background or where are you from originally? JAY I grew up in the Central Valley in a little town called Reedley. That's near Fresno. And I went to Fresno State. JEFF Highway 99? JAY Yeah. There's the world's fruit basket. I went to Fresno State and didn't finish. And then I moved to Santa Barbara for a couple years and got kind of bored. All my cool friends from Santa Barbara had moved up here. So I figured I’d go check it out. That was 1994 New Year's Day. I lived in the Haight to start cause I didn't know any better. And then I moved to the Mission and I've been there ever since. JEFF Yeah. I would say, to editorialize, back when artists could just move to The City. And so you've been here ever since. What do you do besides build things like this? JAY I used to be part of a group called the Cyclecide Bike Rodeo, and we had pedal-powered carnival rides and a band, and we had a whole shtick and we used to go on tour. We had a bus and everything. And also, about the same time, I did a thing called The Seamen. It was like a robot fire, kind of an offshoot of Survival Research Laboratories. My friend Cal was the guy who was behind that. And we did that for like 10, 12 years. We would go on tour. We went to Europe and did shows at Robo Doc and stuff. JEFF Oh, nice. So our theme this season is Sounds of The City. So it just makes sense that we're here. When you hear that, “Sounds of The Ccity,” what are some things that come to mind? JAY Oh, I don't know, the Wave Oregon or …gosh, I'd have to think for a minute. JEFF Remember the Tuesday sirens that we don't have anymore? JAY Oh yeah, yeah. That that's a great one. There used to be a band called Rube Wadell and they would play live at Leed’s. There was a fabric store on Mission Street called Leed’s Fabric and they would go out there like every Thursday and just play it for free. And it was back in the nineties Mission. Musicians and artists could live in the neighborhood and just do their art. It was awesome. JEFF Now let's hear from perhaps the most famous of the folks who spend Giants games in the cove—McCovey Cove Dave. McCOVEY COVE DAVE I'm McCovey Cove Dave. Other people know me as Dave Edlum. Very few people know that name. That's my “former” name. JEFF How long have you been out here in the cove, Dave? DAVE My first game was October 5, 2001. So more than 20 years. JEFF Wow, so the second season of the ballpark? DAVE Yes, yes, it was. JEFF What brought you out? DAVE So I am a long-term Giants fan going back to the sixties and I became a really good kayaker in one of my hobbies. Because I really loved home runs and I loved aquatic things, kayaking for home runs was perfect. And also I was trained, growing up in the sixties, to listen to Giant games on the radio. And that's what we do here. A lot of the younger fans are used to TV and everything. So just radios is kind of, you know, archaic. But for me, it's the way I was brought up. And I listen to the full game, real time, on a transistor radio, kind of like I had in the sixties. JEFF Just on the water in the 2020s? DAVE Yes. JEFF Are you from The City or were you born in the Bay Area? DAVE I was brought up in Oakland and I've lived all around the Bay Area. I currently live in the Oakland Hills. But I really know the Bay Area well, and as I said, I became an early Giants fan, because in ‘63, my mom was a Giants fan. The Oakland A’s, they weren't even here yet, right? Not till ‘68. JEFF Is it fair to say you probably have more … let's call them souvenirs … from out here than anyone else? DAVE I do. I do. There have been about 400 game balls that have made the cove, about 200 foul and 200 fair over 23 years. Now I am kind of the historian on the home runs, so I can tell you within a home run. But it's roughly 200. JEFF And how many of those are Barry bonds? DAVE So Barry … JEFF … and we're what, 15 years removed from his retirement? DAVE Yeah. Barry hit 38 home runs in the cove. He hit 35 that just hit the water. Those are full splash hits, and he hit three that bounced in or touched the flag pole. And anything that hits water on the fly we call a McCovey Cove home run. But only the ones that hit nothing but water are on the meter. JEFF Wow. So you said about 200 foul, 200 fair, 400-ish total? DAVE Yes. JEFF That you have? DAVE Oh, no. So of the 400, I have 107. So I have roughly 25 percent of all the souvenirs. I have 46 home runs, which is roughly a quarter of the home runs, too. I actually missed the go-go years because really I didn't become a regular ‘til 2005. The first five years were the PED years of the park and balls were coming out here at a much higher rate. One year, Barry hit nine. So I missed out. I came to a couple token games, but I really couldn't focus until the fall of 2005 when I got my first splash hit. There had been about 35 full splash hits and a bunch of bounce-ins, from just the Giants alone. So I've got about 40 percent of all Giant splash hits since I've been here in 2005. JEFF How do you preserve them or display them at home? DAVE I meet with all the players and they sign the balls. Occasionally I will give 'em to 'em if it's a milestone home run, but generally they're happy to sign the ball. At my home, I actually have 8” x 10”s with me and the players, maybe them shaking hands with me. And actually the pitchers are just as important as the players. I've had lunch with a number of the Giants players and having met them and spent a little time having a lunch makes it special. And some of us follow each other on Instagram, like Hunter Pence, we follow each other and Pablo Sandoval. JEFF Did Pablo ever hit any out here? He was a switch hitter, right? DAVE Yes, he did. I actually got most of 'em. I’ve got eight Pablo Sandoval home runs. I got his first one and I also got his last one. JEFF Do the players ever ask for, you said “milestones”? DAVE Occasionally. JEFF We recorded this episode during a Giant's game. And so Dave let us know he'd have to take breaks when Giants lefthanded hitters were up to bat. Let's hear him a little more from Dave. DAVE I really wanted balls for my display cabinet and stuff like that. But over time … this year, Charlie Blackman of the Rockies hit his 200th career home run. And it's probably the last milestone he'll hit. And I gave him his 200th home run back. I also caught the 300th home run by Carlos Beltran in 2011. I gave that back to him. So if it's like a milestone, I'll give it to them. Like if I get a first home run from a player today, I will give it back to him. Actually, the interfacing with the players and stuff, talking to them, and then having maybe a friend of mine video it, those are the memories that I really want. Hey, this is jock Peterson. I have to go. JEFF Here's Dave talking a little more about so-called milestone baseballs he's collected from the waters of the cove. DAVE I do have certain milestones at home. Like I have the 1000th Giant home run hit at this park. It was a splash hit. And I'm really fanatical on planning. The motto of my family is “never unprepared” and I kind of live up to that. So almost a year before, I knew that Giants had 950 home runs, per my records. And I verified with the Giants. So I counted them down. And when it got to 999, I knew the next Giants home run was 1,000. About 9 percent of all home runs reach the cove here. And historically, I generally get about 65 or 70 percent of the home runs [in the water]. So that percentage of nine is about 6 percent. So I have a 1/20 chance of any home run getting into my hands. JEFF When you hear 999, do you get into the mode of ‘OK, every game until I get that?’ DAVE Yes. Yes. And the Giants are going to next year reach the 100th splash hit. So when we get to 99 … JEFF We're not gonna get it this year? DAVE I don't think so. We're at 94 now. I got 93, 94, but 95 hasn't happened. It'll be next year. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. Oh, Brandon Belts is up, so I gotta … JEFF Pay special attention to that number—94. It'll come up again in Part 2 of this episode That's it for Part 1 of this episode on McCovey Cove. Check back next week for Part 2. We'll hear from some of the folks we met on the water back in July, and there'll be a surprise, especially for you Giants fans out there. Part 2 drops next Tuesday. Music for Storied: San Francisco was produced, performed, and curated by Otis McDonald. Michelle Kilfeather does original photography for us. Erin Lim of Bitch Talk Podcast is our contributing producer. And the show is produced and hosted by me, Jeff Hunt. Now in our fifth season, we have more than 190 episodes available on our website, storiedsf.com, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you're able to, please rate and review the show. And drop us a line at storiedSF@gmail.com. Thanks for listening. Stay strong, weird, and healthy, and we'll see you next time on Storied: San Francisco. This podcast is a proud member of the BFF.fm Podcast Network. Learn more at podcasts.bff.fm.