"He catches like a quarterback."
And plays like Coltrane with a saxophone, improvising here, freelancing there, nearly every note perfect pitch.
Russell Nathan Jeanson Coltrane Martin Jr., 24, was born in Ontario, Canada, spent part of his childhood in Paris, most of the rest of it in Montreal. His father, who was separated from his mother when the kid was two, played the saxophone in subways and on streets.
Russell Sr.'s passion was jazz. Russell Jr.'s passion was baseball.
The name?
Well, first thing is, it's listed as Russell Nathan Coltrane Jeanson Martin Jr. in the Dodgers' media guide, but Martin says it should be the way it's written three paragraphs above. That's the way it appears on his birth certificate, anyway.
"There are so many names I forget where they all go," he says.
Russell is his father. Jeanson is his mother's maiden name. Nathan is his middle name. And his smooth father just sort of slipped Coltrane in there like an extra note.
By high school, Russell Jr. moved in with his father so he could attend Polyvalente Edouard-Montpetit High School. The place has another famous baseball alumni -- ex-Dodger by the name of Eric Gagne.
"The reason why I stayed with my dad in Montreal was because it was one of the only high schools around that had baseball," Martin says. "And it was the only school where I could play baseball in the winter."
He fell in love with the game in Canada when he was just four or five and never wanted to be anything other than a major leaguer ever since. Baseball in Montreal? It was such an afterthought that no other high schools fielded baseball teams for Martin's school to play.
"We just had three classes before lunch, and then after lunch it would be baseball, or conditioning," Martin says.
Still. It was a heck of a lot more baseball-friendly than Paris.
"It was tough when you're a kid and all you care about is playing baseball with your friends," Martin says of his two years in France.
Oh, he made some friends there, and he rounded them up for pickup games.
"They just couldn't play," he says, chuckling. "It wasn't fun. I'd try and teach them."
Mostly, he was a third baseman. That's where he was playing at Chipola Junior College in Marianna, Fla., when the Dodgers made him their 17th-round pick in the 2002 draft. It was that fall, in the Instructional League, when Dodgers' catching instructor John Debus thought Martin had a chance to be something special if the club moved him behind the plate. Terry Collins, then the Dodgers' farm director, signed off on it.
Martin wasn't far behind. They told him it would be a quicker path to the big leagues, and the kid who grew up idolizing Ozzie Smith, Ken Griffey Jr., and every Expo from Larry Walker to Delino DeShields to Tim Wallach and Gary Carter, jumped at the chance.
Three full summers in the minors, and he landed in Dodger Stadium last season. Batted .282 with an on-base percentage of .355. The Dodgers, who earned the NL wild-card slot, were 71-43 when he started behind the plate. Landed with John Roseboro and Benito Santiago as the only rookie catchers ever to hit 10 or more homers and steal 10 or more bases.
And this year? So far, the growth chart is headed due north.
Pudge Rodriguez?
bigdmgr 
