Jacoby Ellsbury Is King Of Catcher Interference

You might already be familiar with the most insignificant of Jacoby Ellsbury’s baseball skills—his ability to get on base via catcher interference. He set a single-season record last year by doing it 12 times, meaning that he alone was responsible for nearly a third of the league’s calls. Tonight, he made a little bit more wholly unimportant history: getting his 29th catcher interference call to tie the all-time record set by Pete Rose. A little tip of the mitt of catcher Kevan Smith in a loss to the White Sox, and, bam, history books.

As the Associated Press notes, Rose set the record in a career that lasted 15,890 plate appearances. Ellsbury has done it in just 5,129.

Here is what Ellsbury told New Jersey Advance Media about nearing the record when he received catcher interference call no. 28 last month:

“I knew I was close,” Ellsbury said. “Someone mentioned it in spring training, but it’s definitely not something I’m trying to do or anything like that. That would be an unbelievable talent to do something like that.”

An unbelievable talent, truly. Catchers: beware!