BALTIMORE – For Kevin Youkilis, history is now quite literally within arm’s reach.

The Red Sox third baseman has been hit by 70 pitches in his career. He has been plunked in the back, on the elbow, on the rear, the leg, the helmet… Nearly every appendage has been bruised in his relentless march through the ranks of franchise history.

He has been hit by chance encounters, as three pitchers (Steve Reed, Eric O’Flaherty and Jay Marshall) drilled Youkilis in their only confrontations with him. He has been drilled by Cy Young winners (CC Sabathia) and future Hall of Famers (Mike Mussina). Indeed, no one has hit Youkilis more than the great Mariano Rivera, who has clipped the Sox cleanup hitter three times in 14 career plate appearances.

And now, Youkilis stands near the summit in the Red Sox record book. He has already surpassed Jim Rice, who now ranks third in team annals, having been hit 64 times in his Hall of Fame Red Sox career.

“Already?!” bellowed David Ortiz. “Jim Rice played, what, 10 more years than him?”

Something like that. Rice played in parts of 16 seasons, stepping to the plate 9,058 times on his way to those 64 HBPs. Youkilis is in his eighth season and sixth as an everyday player; he stands on the threshold of history after just 3,378 plate appearances.

Only Mo Vaughn, whose burly right elbow -- encased in a plastic fortress of an elbow guard -- absorbed the brunt of his 71 hit by pitches as a Red Sox, stands between Youkilis and team history. But even Vaughn needed over 1,000 more plate appearances than Youkilis to achieve his slice of Sox history.

Since becoming an everyday player in 2006, Youkilis' seasonal HBP totals are: 9 in 2006, 15 in 2007 (6th in the AL), 12 in 2008 (5th), 16 in 2009 (4th) and 10 (10th in the AL -- despite missing the final two months of the year). This year, he has been hit twice.

“Hang with it,” Ortiz said, shaking his head. “I’m not a big fan of getting hit.”

Nor, to be sure, is Youkilis, who gets sufficiently dismayed by being hit that he couldn’t recall a single one that had most enraged him (though it is worth noting that he has charged the mound only once in his career, when Rick Porcello drilled him in the back in August 2009 in apparent retaliation for the Sox hitting Detroit slugger Miguel Cabrera).

“It is what it is,” shrugged Youkilis. “I get hit by a lot of pitches. I’ve accepted it. You’ve got to keep going. You can’t think too deep into it other than that it’s a part of the game.

“You’re not happy when you get hit. There are some that are easy – curveballs, breaking balls. But any fastball hurts. You’re going to be [ticked].”

Even so, as he noted, it is something that he has accepted. Getting hit has become a necessary part of his game. He stands about six inches from the line of the batter’s box (further than he used to set up, according to Sox first base coach Ron Johnson, who managed Youkilis in Double-A and Triple-A), almost daring opponents to try to get inside on him.

From that position, Youkilis can punish pitches that are left over the plate. And so, opposing pitchers do what they must to try to make him uncomfortable and prevent him from extending his arms.

“He’s kind of on the plate. When you face him, you realize that if you’re going to go in, you’ve got to keep him honest and sometimes the ball gets away from you,” explained reliever Dan Wheeler, whose former team, the Rays, have hit Youkilis eight times in 90 games. “It just happens.”

“Our scouting report on him was always if you’re going to go in, go in off the plate,” concurred catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia, recalling his time with the Rangers. “He wants to swing at pitches over the plate, so go in off the plate, make him foul some pitches, get some quick strikes and hopefully jam him so he doesn’t get the bat extended and get the barrel on the ball.”

Youkilis is now accustomed to the bruises. He understands that it is a necessary consequence of how he sets up, noting stoically, “It is what it is.” Since his approach has helped to yield tremendous results, with Youkilis emerging as one of the most formidable hitters in the American League in the last three years, the HBP is unlikely to disappear as a frequent part of his game.

So, it seems fair to wonder, is there something intrinsic about a player that permits him to pursue this mark (so to speak) of distinction in Red Sox history?

“You need tough skin. I think personality is out of the picture. It’s body parts,” said Johnson. “And an elbow guard. He’s always got that bad boy with him. He needs it.

“Kevin never backs off. He’s never going to change his ways, because he’s had success, so it’s going to happen,” added Johnson. “When you’re a diver, a good hitter, people throw you in. Put ‘em together, two plus two makes four and ouch!”

That call of the wounded has now taken place 70 times. Red Sox history awaits, with Vaughn and his 71 HBPs staring down Youkilis.

“He’ll blow that away,” said Johnson. “He’ll tear that up, man.”

The Red Sox have been surprisingly muted in their buildup to the milestone. Unlike when Manny Ramirez had his pursuit of 500 homers, there are no numbers on the stanchion of the light tower in left field. There are no numbers being unfurled in the manner of Cal Ripken’s consecutive games played streak at Camden Yards.

Youkilis is not offended.

“I don’t think there will ever be anywhere where they’ll be turning numbers over for anything I do in my career,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll have any milestones that huge.”

He is not caught up in the hoopla of this little piece of Red Sox history. In sharp contrast to Ramirez when he went after home run No. 500 and sundry pitchers who have struggled to break through for career victory No. 300, there is no anxiety about when he might surpass the milestone.

But while he does not exactly celebrate this piece of history, he does not foreswear it, either.

“I pay all my bills, so I can’t complain,” Youkilis said when asked if it was worth it. “I’m not even close to [career HBP leader Craig] Biggio. You’d have to ask Biggio if it was worth it for him, or Don Baylor. At the end of the day, I think most people would say yes. As long as it doesn’t cause harm down the road, or have something happen like Tony Conigliaro, it just happens.”

Youkilis once joked that, in the spirit of Rickey Henderson – who celebrated setting the career stolen base record by tearing second base out of the ground, holding it over his head and pronouncing himself the greatest player of all time – he might observe his Sox record by holding up the elbow guard that he wears.

Reminded of that suggestion on Tuesday, he offered an addendum.

“Hopefully it hits the elbow pad,” said Youkilis, “so I don’t feel it.”