SAN FRANCISCO — There’s nothing else in baseball quite like McCovey Cove.

Parking garages near AT&T Park, with prices soaring into triple digits, don’t make for good tailgating. A bevy of bars near the Giants’ ballpark bustle before and after games, and some fans set up miniature grills along the Embarcadero before they amble over to the stadium for first pitch.

But for all those with access to some sort of sea-faring vessel and without a ticket for the game, there’s no party quite like the one afloat in the small section of San Francisco Bay just beyond the park’s right-field wall.

About an hour before Game 3 on Friday, a steady stream of kayakers paddle into the Cove to join the dozens of runabouts and cabin cruisers that have already dropped anchor. An amplified bluegrass band plucks out standards into the salty air as bros of seemingly all shapes, sizes, colors and creeds pass cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon from boats to floats and take drags from vaporizers, the lingering scents of seawater and burning charcoal occasionally overpowered by skunky wafts of pot smoke. Guys hanging off the sides of boats throw footballs back and forth with landed fans on Bay Trail, under the park’s right-field bleachers.

(USA TODAY Sports)

Two dudes in electric pink wigs and fake Brian Wilson beards drift by on a pink inflatable raft. Young kids munch on sandwiches and dangle their legs into the water as their parents negotiate a small fishing boat around rafts attached to kayaks attached to canoes tied up to buoys, a veritable flotilla of Giants fans, decked out in black and orange, exchanging pleasantries with the strangers to whom they’ll now be hitched for the length of the ballgame.

Matt Estabrook of Tracy, Calif. and his brother Brian, from Livermore, putt around the cove on a rubber dinghy they have upgraded with a taped-up scaffold of PVC piping that supports a hanging radio, a handwritten oak-tag sign, and one of those beer-dispensing plastic helmets adjusted so that the tubes connect to a pair of small horns.

“It’s the party atmosphere, and spending time with my brother,” says Matt, who estimated that they’ve attended 15 games in McCovey Cove before. “The first time we came out was about a month and a half before the Home Run Derby in ’07. The Home Run Derby, you could have run across the hundreds of little boats. It was fun.”

“Me and my buddy got our hands on a canoe, so we can out in the hopes of maybe catching a (Brandon) Belt home run,” says Jed Miillie, a 26-year-old Davis native who made his McCovey Cove debut on Friday. “It’s pretty insane. I didn’t expect nearly this many people, even for the World Series. But I’m really happy with how easy it was to get out here.”

(USA TODAY Sports)

Once the game starts, the cacophony from various boomboxes and iPod docks gives way to the more comforting din of hundreds of handheld radios all tuned to the Giants’ radio broadcast, punctuated by the occasional blaring of enthusiastic air-horns. And from out here, you can hear the roar of the AT&T Park crowd whenever the Giants do something worth celebrating.

“You feel the energy of the game,” said Kim Boester, straddling a surfboard in a neon orange wig and black wetsuit. “Actually you feel a little bit more of it, because all the people that really have that passion that maybe don’t have the funds to buy a ticket come out here.”

About that: There’s no charge to set up in McCovey Cove during games, so fans with any reasonable means of floatation and a reliable ride to the park can enjoy a baseball experience for free. Nearby kayak rentals run $59 during the World Series, less than one-tenth of the average ticket price on StubHub.com.

You don’t actually get to watch the game, of course. But enjoying games from McCovey Cove is an event of its own, and one that somehow seems perfectly in keeping with the joys of baseball: An odd lot, connected by an orderly sort of weirdness, drinking cheap beer and cheering their team as the strong sun gives way to cool October breezes in the evening.

(USA TODAY Sports)

There’s even a chance to take home a souvenir. Dave Edlund, a 58-year-old retiree from Los Gallos, Calif, has snagged 24 home run balls while kayaking here, including 17 of the Giants’ 68 splash hits.

“My favorite play is the home run, so that kind of attracts me to McCovey Cove,” Edlund says. “I look at every home run, and where they’ve gone in the past is where they’ll go in the future. I do what the players are doing, but I do it more fanatically. I shift for every player. From my perspective, I’m playing outfield.”

McCovey Cove provides a scene entirely unique among Major League Ballparks. It’s delightfully strange, extremely San Franciscan, and ultimately, incredibly fun.

And this might not apply to all visitors, but even if you can’t quite keep the water out of your kayak and you end up sitting in about four inches of water for six innings but still have to cover the Giants’ clubhouse after the game with soaking wet pants and seawater squishing out of your sneakers, it’s totally worth it.

[sigallery id=”94ad1d59aa11eb3d562b02833345ed99″ title=”World Series Game 5″ type=’sigallery’]