Pat Sullivan / AP file

Astros second baseman Craig Biggio is within one hit of being the all time record holder for being hit by pitch.

But he’s often been able to make the anguish worthwhile, scoring 35 percent (94-of-266) of the time after getting hit by a pitch.

“I’m definitely paying my dues, but that’s part of the job,” Biggio said. “It’s nothing you can try to do. You just have to have a huge pain threshold for this sometimes.”

Once the games are over, though, all that whacking isn’t quite so funny. The combination of Biggio’s high-energy playing style and accumulation of the hits have certainly taken their toll, though Biggio has never been placed on the disabled list because of a plunking.

“Some of these things you wouldn’t believe — they’re horrific, these huge, swollen bruises all over his body,” said Biggio’s wife, Patty. “Sometimes he struggles to get out of bed, and then you have to be careful of bumping into him after games.”

To protect himself as he digs in close to the plate, Biggio now wears a bigger-than-normal helmet (“It looks like a football helmet,” Biggio jokes) and a thick elbow pad. That’s nothing compared to the bulky plastic protector he once used to wear on his left arm, which was eventually prohibited following league-wide legislation from the commissioner’s office.

“Man, I used to hate Craig Biggio. I used to tell my team to hit him in the neck — that was the only area with no pad,” said Astros manager Phil Garner, who once faced Biggio’s teams as manager of Milwaukee. “Now, I love it when he’s on my team.”

But Biggio gets a little irritated at the suggestion that his extra cushion, um, padded his total. He insists that he earned this record the hard way, specifically pointing to the scariest plunking of his career.

That was Sept. 25, 1997 at the Astrodome, when Jeremi Gonzalez buzzed a 90 mph fastball into his cheekbone. The pitch grazed the earflap of his helmet first, Biggio recalled, likely saving him from serious injury.

Though Biggio was a little groggy, he dutifully picked himself up off the turf and took first base. No way he was coming out of the game at that point — the Astros were a win away from clinching their first playoff berth in 11 years.

“That was my first chance to get to the postseason,” Biggio said. “I wasn’t coming out unless I broke something.”

Now that he’s destined to pass Baylor, a Web log called plunkbiggio.blogspot.com has collectively tracked Biggio’s push for the record. The operator of the blog says that it’s “dedicated to Craig Biggio and his (probably unintentional) quest to break the all-time major league career record for getting hit by pitches.”

But, the blogger, notes in a “moral disclaimer” at the bottom of the page that: “The author of this blog does not support or endorse intentionally throwing at Craig Biggio.”

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