After the Giants announced they were erecting a Gaylord Perry statue, it didn’t take long for the silly jokes to surface.

Will it include a dab of Vaseline?

Will there be a tube of K-Y jelly in the back pocket?

Will it be near McCovey Cove to absorb the moisture?

Ha, ha and ha. No, no and no.

Perry’s statue will be unveiled Saturday at AT&T Park, depicting the Hall of Famer in his classic follow-through, a position he reached thousands and thousands of times during his 22-year career.

No, it’s not of Perry throwing a spitball, which this week he jokingly called “my best pitch … when they thought I was throwing it.”

It’s actually of Perry throwing a slider — he could tell by how his fingers are positioned — and it’ll be located a few feet from the Orlando Cepeda statue. They’ll flank the Second Street lobby entrance below the clock tower.

The unveiling is at 1 p.m., five hours before the first pitch, allowing enough time for King Street to be closed for the ceremony and opened in time for the pregame rush.

Nearly 100 of Perry’s family members and friends will attend, along with many former Giants including Perry’s fellow Hall of Famers: Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal and Cepeda.

All were teammates for five seasons in the ’60s.

“We were living the life of dreams,” Perry, 77, said in a phone interview from his North Carolina farm before he flew to San Francisco.

The Perry statue completes the quintet, the only Hall of Famers whose primary team was the San Francisco Giants. Mays’ statue was erected in 2000, McCovey’s in 2003, Marichal’s in 2005 and Cepeda’s in 2008.

Perry was on deck, though he didn’t hear he was being welcomed into the statue fraternity until last year. All five were sculpted by Will Behrends of Perry’s home state of North Carolina, the latest bronzed edition checking in at 9 feet and 1,400 pounds.

“When we talk about Giants Hall of Famers, it’s always Mays, McCovey, Marichal, Cepeda and Perry,” said Mario Alioto, the Giants’ executive vice president of business operations. “I don’t think we ever have a conversation and leave Gaylord out.”

Like Cepeda, Perry had great success elsewhere. Cepeda was in his ninth season as a Giant when he was traded to St. Louis in May 1966, and he won the MVP award in 1967, a World Series championship season for the Cardinals.

Perry, a Giant for 10 seasons, was dealt to Cleveland in November 1971 and immediately won his first Cy Young Award. Six years later, as a Padre, he won another.

Yet, both players went in the Hall of Fame as Giants, joining the other three men recognized with statues at the downtown ballpark, all with their numbers retired. Perry said he’s honored to be in their company.

He called McCovey “the most feared hitter I saw.” Cepeda was an “awesome hitter, hitting to the opposite field in that Candlestick wind.” Mays simply was the “best player in baseball.”

As for Marichal, a fellow pitcher, “Just the greatest friend I had, a gentleman. Love that guy.”

Perry’s reputation for doctoring baseballs with foreign substances is well-chronicled, and in the peak of his career he released his famous book, “Me And The Spitter: An Autobiographical Confession,” in which he detailed how and when he used the illegal pitch.

Perry wrote in the book he stopped throwing the spitter, which could make pitches unnaturally sink, but opposing teams didn’t believe him. He continued to play into the controversy, making hitters think he was loading up on every pitch by taking his sweaty fingers to the bill of his cap, hair, forehead, arms, neck, cheek or ear, anything to make the hitter believe a trick pitch was coming.

Of course, it often was.

“I reckon,” Perry wrote in the book, “I tried everything on that old apple but salt and pepper and chocolate sauce topping.”

Perry got penalized just once, and that wasn’t until his penultimate season when umpire Dave Phillips ejected him for throwing pitches that allegedly were illegal. He was suspended 10 days and fined $250.

“They thought I threw it, and that was a great weapon of mine. They thought I did it all the time,” said Perry, still coy after all these years — it’s speculated (by very few) that he wrote the book in his playing days as a psychological ploy to put distorted thoughts in hitters’ heads.

“Doug Harvey was the best umpire in baseball when I played. He told me when he got in the Hall of Fame, ‘I wanted to get you, I tried to find something on you, but I couldn’t find something that’s not there.’ ”

Perry was influenced by pitcher Bob Shaw, who threw a spitter and was dealt to the Giants in the December 1963 trade that sent Felipe Alou to the Milwaukee Braves. Perry, who was building a repertoire to give him a chance at a spot in the rotation, took pointers from Shaw.

As the story goes, Perry began throwing a spitter in the second game of a May 31, 1964, double-header in New York. It lasted 23 innings, and Perry entered in the 13th and was told by catcher Tom Haller that it was time to bust out the funny stuff. Perry threw 10 scoreless innings for the win.

Some fans equate throwing the spitball, which was banned in 1920, to using performance-enhancing drugs, especially when making a case for PED users getting in the Hall of Fame. There’s a difference, however: While spitballs were outlawed by baseball, PEDs were outlawed by the federal government. The Hall is filled with players who stretched the rules of the game, not necessarily by breaking the law.

Asked about erecting a statue for someone linked to the spitter, Alioto said, “The only answer to that is Gaylord is in the Hall of Fame. He must’ve done something to be selected into Cooperstown. Listen, he’s a Hall of Famer, and his stats warrant why he’s in the Hall of Fame.”

Perry had 314 wins, 303 complete games, 53 shutouts, 3,534 strikeouts and a 3.11 ERA. In 1968, he no-hit the Cardinals at Candlestick, outdueling Bob Gibson, which he called his favorite individual memory in a Giants uniform.

“Ron Hunt hit a home run in the first inning, we won 1-0,” Perry said, “and it’s a good day when you can beat Mr. Gibson.”

The next day, in the ultimate payback, St. Louis’ Ray Washburn no-hit the Giants.

“Not a lot of time to enjoy mine,” Perry said.

A’s broadcaster Ray Fosse was Perry’s catcher in Cleveland in Perry’s first year as an ex-Giant when he pitched so deep into games that he got a decision for each of his 40 starts: 24 wins, 16 losses. He had a 1.92 ERA, 0.978 WHIP, 233 K’s and 29 complete games in 3422/3 innings. He relieved once and got a save.

“I couldn’t be more thrilled they’re putting up a statue,” Fosse said. “He’s such a gracious man. Not to disparage anyone else I caught, but there was nobody that was a better competitor.”

Asked about Perry’s spitter, Fosse smiled and said, “He did write a book — and gave me a signed copy.” Fosse also smiled when recalling what Perry used to tell him: “He says, ‘I only throw what my catcher calls.’”

Perry played for eight teams, but his lone playoff appearance was with the 1971 Giants. He beat the Pirates in the opener, but the Giants dropped the NLCS three games to one. Perry lost the finale and was traded a month later for Sam McDowell, one of the worst trades in Giants history.

Owner Horace Stoneham — who had lost his general manager, Chub Feeney, who became the NL president — wanted a younger guy, and McDowell was four years younger than Perry. But while Perry pitched 12 more years, McDowell lasted just four, thanks to his well-documented bouts with injuries and alcoholism.

“Charlie Fox was our manager and had been a scout with the Giants and wanted Sam out of high school,” Perry said. “He got outbid by Cleveland. Sam and Charlie were very close. I understand that. No hard feelings.”

For all the Hall of Famers who played together — four of them (minus Cepeda) were teammates for 10 years — the Giants didn’t win a World Series on their watch, and Perry credits the competition, saying, “You didn’t have any easy games.’’

Not until another North Carolinian — and a few other key figures — came aboard did the Giants start winning championships. Madison Bumgarner’s high school in Hudson, N.C., is 4½ hours from Perry’s in Williamston, N.C.

“I think he’s awesome,” Perry said. “I just think they don’t let him pitch enough. I saw them take him out after giving up one run. I know they think the world of him. We do, too. He’s a real competitor. I just think management should have a little more faith in him.”

Realize that Perry intended to finish every game he started, and he was successful 44 percent of the time. One year with the Giants, he completed 26 of 39 starts. By comparison, Bumgarner, one of the majors’ most durable pitchers, has 14 complete games in his career.

Twelve Hall of Famers have played in San Francisco. Aside from the five with statues, the other seven played here briefly: Duke Snider, Warren Spahn, Joe Morgan, Steve Carlton, Rich Gossage, Gary Carter and Randy Johnson.

John Shea is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jshea@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JohnSheaHey