What's Up With That Big-Ass Glove? #SFGiants ATT Park

Have you ever watched a San Francisco Giants game at AT&T Park? The pitch is thrown, the batter swings and the ball sails out to left center field towards the biggest damn baseball glove you’ve ever seen? Well, if you haven’t seen it; you should. And if you’re wondering, it actually IS the biggest baseball glove in the WORLD!

You might be tempted to dismiss it out of hand, as a modern day monstrosity of shtick and commercialism. But not so quick. Baseball, from its inception, is a game that has always prompted men towards superstitious behaviors: growing moustaches, kissing their bats; pushing their physical strength to the outer limits and accepting outlandish dares; i.e.: catching baseballs thrown from the top of the Washington Monument or shot from cannons. Baseball is a game that celebrates ‘bigger is better’; the biggest hits, the biggest runs, the biggest steals. To that end, that big assed glove serves one purpose: to dare the games biggest hitters to smack its fake fiberglass hide.

The 26,000 pound glove, sits 501 feet from home plate, although some batters have suggested it is a bit further. It is an exact replica of the 1927, four fingered model, owned by the ‘Father of the Giants’, Jack Bair; only it’s 36 times bigger. Jack Bair has been the SFGiants chief legal counsel for over twenty years, and to his credit, he helped secure the space for the new AT&T Park which opened in 2000, including negotiating the real estate deal, navigating the myriad government and legal issues of such an undertaking and designing the park itself.

When the glove was first erected, the Giants offered a $1 million prize to a randomly selected fan, if ANY player could hit the glove during a game. It soon became apparent that wasn’t going to happen, so they dropped the prize money and the $40,000 insurance premium.

If the 26’ high, 32’ wide glove can be hit, it hasn’t been done yet, but in 2011, Mike Stanton of the Florida Marlins, came pretty damn close during batting practice, when his ball landed between the Giant glove and the Giant Coke Bottle; which is another story.

Today, that 12 foot deep pocket is not filled with baseballs, but instead laced with ladies lingerie and who knows what other sorts of mementos that visitors hope to leave behind, along with their hearts in our City by the Bay?

#sanfrancisco