A Field Guide to McCovey Cove Splash Hits at Oracle Park

What actually counts as a splash hit

A splash hit is a home run by a Giants player that clears the right-field wall and lands in McCovey Cove on the fly. That last part matters. A ball that skips off the wall, the brick, or the public waterfront promenade first does not count, and neither does a foul ball. The Giants keep the tally on an electronic counter on the right-field wall, according to Wikipedia's McCovey Cove entry.

Visiting hitters reach the water too. They just do not get the Giants' number. MLB.com counted 66 visiting-player splashes through the end of 2025, with Max Muncy, Carlos Delgado and Adam LaRoche tied at three apiece. Nobody puts those on the wall. Fair enough.

Why the water belongs to a man who never hit into it

Willie McCovey retired in 1980, twenty years before the ballpark opened. He spent his Giants career at Candlestick Park, where right field faced wind rather than water. The Baseball Hall of Fame credits him with 521 home runs, the 1969 National League MVP and a Rookie of the Year award in 1959 won in just 52 games. In 1963 he hit 44 homers while wearing No. 44, which is the kind of tidiness most careers never get.

The name came from two sportswriters. According to MLB.com's history of the cove, Mark Purdy and Leonard Koppett thought McCovey would have launched dozens of balls into the bay had he played there. Purdy's first ideas, per Wikipedia's summary of his May 1999 column, were McCovey Channel, McCovey Stream and McCovey Run. Koppett offered the more lyrical version. It stuck, even though the name has never been made official.

There is an older echo, too. Before Candlestick's upper deck was extended, kids gathered behind the right-field fence when McCovey came up, hoping for a ball. The kayaks are the same idea with a paddle.

The people in the boats

In a 2024 CBS San Francisco report, kayaker Mark "The Shark" Gerek described paddling out for home games and usually coming back empty-handed. He caught the 100th splash hit. Dave Edlund, known as McCovey Cove Dave, had retrieved 53 splash hits by then, more than any other kayaker, and a KPIX report in March 2026 said he has been a regular in the cove since 2005.

For years the kayakers listened to radio broadcasts and noted when a left-handed batter came up, since CBS described lefties as the only hitters who could realistically reach the cove. In 2024 the Giants mounted a 12-foot video screen above the portwalk so the fleet could see the game. CBS reported the cost at about $100,000. Edlund's reaction is my favorite line in the whole file:

Gerek told the same reporter that the cove had helped him with anxiety and depression, because whatever worries he brought disappeared for the three or four hours he was on the water. I think that belongs in any honest explanation of why people do this. The ball is the excuse.

How 2026 went, one splash at a time

This was a thin year for the counter. The Giants reached their final day, a home game against the Dodgers on Sunday, September 27, 2026, at 65-96, according to Dodgers Digest's game preview. And the cove waited more than three months for its first Giants splash.

It came on July 9, when rookie Bryce Eldridge tied a game against the Rockies in the fourth inning. McCovey Chronicles called it No. 109 and the first by any Giant in 2026, adding that on "the Bondsian Scale" it rated roughly a routine fly. Rafael Devers then added No. 110 on August 16 and No. 111 on August 26 against Cincinnati's Nick Lodolo.

Odd corners of the record book

• Bonds' 500th career home run, on April 17, 2001, was a splash hit. He is also the only Giant to splash twice in one game, and he did it twice.
• Tyler Colvin's first hit as a Giant, on May 12, 2014, landed in the cove in his first at-bat at the park.
• When Oracle Park hosted the 2007 Home Run Derby, McCovey himself handed each hitter a special bat. Not one of the eight sluggers reached the water in fair territory.
• Joc Pederson and Ryan Klesko are the only players with splashes for the Giants and for visiting clubs.
• Three splash hits have come in the postseason, by Bonds in 2002, Rick Ankiel in 2010 and Bryce Harper in 2014, per MLB.com.

One small disagreement is worth flagging. MLB.com's January 2026 explainer lists four walk-off splash hits. Wikipedia's table lists five, adding a Yastrzemski shot on June 19, 2023. We could not settle the difference from the sources we opened, so I am reporting both rather than picking a winner.

How to read the cove while you watch

Watch who is batting. A left-handed hitter pulling a fly ball to right is the classic setup, and the kayakers have tracked exactly that for years. A right-hander has done it exactly once, which is why the Ramos homer in 2024, pushed the other way on a 100.2 mph fastball, got its own line in the Giants' history.

Then look for the net. If a ball lands, somebody paddles hard, somebody reaches, and a stranger on the water becomes, in Gerek's phrase, a number. That's the whole ritual. Twenty-seven seasons in, the odds have not improved, and the boats keep coming back anyway.