BOSTON – If a catcher’s equipment is the tools of ignorance, and if ignorance is bliss, Red Sox catcher Kevin Cash likely would have been very happy if a clubhouse visitor had not informed him of his standing as the major league leader in passed balls.”No, I didn’t know that,” Cash said. “But I probably could have guessed it. I figured I was up there. I didn’t know if I was leading or not.”Cash enters today’s game against the Brewers leading the majors with six passed balls in 15 games. The closest contenders have four passed balls each: San Francisco’s Bengie Molina in 32 games, Pittsburgh’s Ryan Doumit (25), and Cleveland’s Kelly Shoppach (22).One of the hazards of Cash’s job as personal catcher to knuckleballer Tim Wakefield is fighting to catch the fluttering pitch, something he acknowledged is still “a work in progress” since taking over the job in spring training. Still, that does not make it any easier for him to accept the dubious distinction of leading the majors in the PB column.”Yeah, I want the ball to move a lot,” Cash said. “But, no I don’t take it as a positive. I’m not running back to get the ball saying, ‘Man, that’s awesome!'”I think that you got to come into the situation knowing that you’re going to have more (passed balls) than a guy that doesn’t catch knuckleballs.”But at the same time, like the other day in Minnesota, I definitely was not as good as I should have been,” he said. “So passed balls are going to happen with him. But I know the balls that I should be able to catch and the ones that I just don’t have a chance on, a couple the other day that I should have caught.”So it gets frustrating. But Gary Tuck, the bullpen coach, we talked about, not recently, but we talked about the passed balls and they’re going to happen. But just try to keep them, have it happen with a guy going from first to second not a guy coming from third to home.”In 2006, after suffering through 10 passed balls in seven games, including four in one game against the Indians, the Sox sent Josh Bard away in a trade that returned Doug Mirabelli from the Padres in a memorable cross-country flight on a private plane and a ride from the airport guided by a state police cruiser.Such a fate is unlikely to be in the future for Cash, who had a passed ball in four separate games and none since April 25 in Tampa Bay, until he was charged with two in Wakefield’s last start, Sunday in Minnesota, when the knuckleballer lasted just 2 2/3 innings, giving up seven runs on seven hits and two walks, with a wild pitch.”I do anything I can not to put any added, anything extra on him,” Cash said of catching Wakefield. “If a guy gets a base hit or he walks a guy or whatever, that’s fine. Just don’t let that guy get to second base or third base on my passed ball.”I’d rather be it a passed ball on me than a wild pitch on him. It’s part of the job. If he throws one that comes in 50 feet and it’s way over to the right or something, I would imagine that’s going to be a wild pitch. But the ones that are in mid-air and I’m dancing with the ball and they tip off my glove, I’m being paid to catch them. So, got to catch them some way or another.”Cash prepared for this job by catching knuckleballers Charlie Zink and John Barnes last season for Triple-A Pawtucket.”The biggest way, and not to disrespect either one of them because I think they’re both very good knuckleball pitchers,” Cash said, “(but) Wake can do it. He’s got a very good knuckleball in the zone all the time, very consistently.”And for Cash, who entered this season with a combined 126 major league games for the Sox, Rays, and Blue Jays since signing with Toronto as a minor league free agent in 1999, passed balls in Boston are better than caught balls in Pawtucket.”No doubt about it,” he said. “Without a doubt. I’m still not happy about it, but without a doubt.”