It was a meaningless baseball game in a lost season 20 years ago, but Frank Catalanotto remembers it like it was yesterday.
The Blue Jays left-fielder was unstoppable.
“I remember my first at-bat. I saw the ball really, really well,” Catalanotto recalls. “I got a hit and I remember thinking to myself, man, everything seemed to slow down.”
On May 1, 2004, the Jays utility player set the franchise record for hits in a single game with six, a remarkable achievement that has yet to be broken two decades later.
“I remember my breathing was perfect,” Catalanotto tells the Star. “There were no butterflies.”
Catalanotto was batting second in the second game of a doubleheader against the Chicago White Sox. His first hit in the opening inning was a liner back over the mound past starting pitcher Dan Wright.
He followed with a single to right field in the top of the second inning and quickly found himself up to bat again in the top of the fourth, where he singled, scoring Chris Woodward.
In the top of the fifth, Catalanotto delivered another single, this time off pitcher Jon Adkins and again scoring Woodward. He was 4-for-4.
About halfway through the game, the then-30-year-old took a bathroom break, during which he saw Jays outfielder Reed Johnson. Johnson commented on how well the day was going for him.
“I told Reed, I don’t know how many at-bats I’m going to get today,” Catalanotto recalls. “But however many it is, that’s how many hits I’m going to get.”
In the top of the seventh inning, facing reliever Michael Jackson, Catalanotto hit his first double of the night, bringing his total to five hits and tying the franchise record — one that had been accomplished on many occasions over the years.
In his second season in Toronto after spending the first six years of his career split between Detroit and Texas, Catalanotto had a close relationship with three-time all-star centre-fielder Vernon Wells, who was batting right behind him in the lineup that evening.
In the top of the eighth, moments before Catalanotto went up for his sixth and potentially record-breaking at-bat, Wells, breaking every unwritten rule in sports, had a message for his teammate: “Don’t screw this up.”
“Did I say it? Yes, most likely, because that was always our kind of banter,” says Wells. “We kept things light and fun, and it helped us relax.”
Catalanotto wasn’t fazed. His record-setting sixth hit in the 10-6 Jays win was a line drive single to left field off White Sox reliever Shingo Takatsu, a 2022 Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame inductee.
Catalanotto started that game with a .276 batting average and .329 on-base percentage and ended up bumping those numbers to .329 and .374.
“I was thinking I was having a crappy year, and then all of a sudden I’m having a really good year,” Catalanotto says. He finished the 2004 season with a .293 batting average, though the Jays were a disappointing 67-94 and last place in the AL East.
On July 22, 2022, more than 18 years after the record was set, outfielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. became the second Jay to pick up six hits in a 28-5 beating of the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park.
“I must have had 25 text messages from friends saying your record just got tied,” recalls Catalanotto. He may be waiting a long time for that to happen again.
With more rest days, injuries and strategic bullpen use, six hits in a game are rare in today’s MLB. Luis Garcia of the Washington Nationals was the last to achieve the feat on May 26, 2023.
Even if a game goes to extra innings — and both Catalanotto and Gurriel managed six hits in nine-inning games, where the MLB record is seven — the new extra-innings rule featuring a ghost runner starting at second base makes the games end significantly quicker, reducing the opportunities for these records to fall.
But to Catalanotto, who coaches baseball at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., there’s more to it.
“The swing has changed, too,” he says. “Now they’re talking about launch angle, and there’s a lot of uppercuts. So fewer guys have level swings and are trying to make contact.”
“I was embarrassed when I struck out … It seems like nobody cares about striking out anymore.”
But if a Blue Jay were to break the six-hit mark? Wells, who led the AL with 215 hits in the 2003 season, a Jays record, sees only one obvious choice.
”Bo Bichette,” he says. “I thought he was well on pace to break my most hits in a season record before he got hurt (last year). He has the type of approach and the type of swing that when he’s locked in, he has the ability to hit the ball anywhere.”
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