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How Far Is The Glove At Oracle Park

Giant Coke bottle and giant glove.Giant Coke bottle and giant glove.

San Francisco, California

This old timer’s four-fingered baseball glove is not only huge, but it holds an amusing secret.

Inside the glove. You are not allowed here.

It’s one of three notable giants in AT&T Park (the others are the baseball team, and an 80-ft. long slide in the shape of a Coke bottle). The stadium has been home to the venerable San Francisco Giants since 2000, when they moved from Candlestick Park to this sparkly venue, with its views of city and bay.

While the Coca Cola Superslide is impressive and a kid favorite, brand sponsorships can suddenly evaporate, leaving a visual gap in the kitsch-scape. That may be less of a problem for the “Giant 1927 Old-Time Four-Fingered Baseball Glove,” mercifully spared of logos (though Coke was the original sponsor).

The mitt is 27-ft. high and 30 ft. wide. On any given game day, 40,000+ Major League baseball fans await a 500 ft. homer landing in its mighty palm behind the left field stands.

We recently chatted with Ron Holthuysen, creative director at Scientific Art Studio, the company that designed and fabricated the glove. It’s modeled after an old time mitt (rendered 36x larger). Supported by an inner steel framework, the sculpture is made of fiberglass, a soft leather look achieved with fireproof polyester resin and epoxy. Marine grade rope and brass grommets complete the veteran glove effect.

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Ten artisans worked on the sculpture, eight of them women. We’d heard a rumor years ago that the gals had surreptitiously embedded their underpants within the fingers. Ron confirmed the covert eight-panty payload, and offered to point them out to us, inside the glove.

The glove interior isn’t open to the public, and is strictly off-limits. The sculpture sits atop a support a few feet away from the railing along elevated public walkways. The interior is coated with years of dust and pigeon crap, but sure enough, far up in the darkness of the fingers, we spotted dainty pink and purple fabric attached to the walls. Ron said that they were added before shipping to the park.

“This was a special occasion,” Ron said. “The eight women who did most of the work felt it appropriate to leave their marks.”

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