It's almost game time. The 107-win Giants and 106-win Dodgers are gearing up for battle in a best-of-five National League Division Series, starting tonight in the City by the Bay.

It's among the fiercest rivalries in professional sports, and tonight is technically the first time the two teams have faced off in the NLDS (although they did play two tiebreaking division series in 1951 and 1962, from both of which the Giants emerged victorious).

It's a momentous matchup in a decades-old, and often bitter, clash between two of the best teams in baseball. But for Dave Edlund, it's just another night bobbing on the bay in McCovey Cove outside San Francisco's Oracle Park.

McCovey Cove Dave, as he's widely known, will most certainly be in attendance on Friday — as he is for most home games — cutting through the chop atop his kayak, eagerly awaiting the next "splash hit" — when a home run sails outside the park and into the water.

(Edlund also plucks the occasional, history-adjacent flailing foul balls — he's not that picky.)

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"This is the fastest kayak at McCovey Cove, even though I'm probably the oldest guy. It's very narrow and it gives me a little bit of an advantage," Edlund, who is "65-plus," said last weekend, paddle in hand.

A man in an orange shirt and hat and wearing headphones holds his oar above his head triumphantly while sitting atop a white kayak in San Francisco Bay, surrounded by other boaters. — Edlund posing in his kayak at a recent Giants home game. (Brian Watt/KQED)

Clad in an orange shirt bearing his name, Edlund is as iconic a sight as Lou Seal the mascot or the swarms of post-game gulls (there's even a McCovey Cove Dave bobblehead available). He started catching splash hits as far back as 2001, he says, but has been a steady presence in the waters here since the Giants World Series win in 2010.

And just how many stitched cowhides has he claimed? Edlund proudly rattles off the numbers: 43 splash hits and more than 60 foul balls over nearly 600 games, totaling more than 100 game balls — so far.

"Been a fan of the Giants for over 50 years, but I'm a pretty good kayaker and I love the home run, and the tickets are free. You can come to McCovey Cove and get a home run ball without paying a dime," he says. "And I've done it for a long time."

To get them, Edlund uses nearly as much strategy as a major league pitcher.

He starts by hitting the stats, analyzing past homers that players have belted out of the park and identifying where exactly those balls hit the water — to determine where best to position himself.

"I hope the ball's going to come where they've hit historically," Edlund says. But, he adds, "you have to pay attention."

He's got that part covered, or rather his ears are covered — with headphones — as he listens to the play-by-play, waiting eagerly for that signature crack of the bat.

A hand holds a baseball with writing on it that says: "Hit by LaMonte Wade into McCovey Cove." Blurry city landscape with water beyond it. — One of the many home run balls caught by Dave Edlund, known as McCovey Cove Dave. (Brian Watt/KQED)

"I'm listening to every play, but you do a bunch of things: You shift, you are alert," he says.

Edlund only really gets to rest when right-handed batters are up, as the left-handers tend to hit the majority of the homers, he says.

All of his water-bound strategies have served him well in snagging balls from historic blasts. He caught Carlos Beltran's 300th homer, as well as the 1,000th home run ever hit at Oracle Park, among other notable splash hits, according to SF Gate.

As to the outcome of Friday's game, and the series as a whole, it's anyone's guess. The two California titans ended the regular season remarkably on par, with the Giants ahead by just a single game after their 19 meetups this year.

Of course, Edlund wants the orange and black to come out on top. But no matter which way it goes, he’ll be more than ready to rescue a piece of history from the briny blue.

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