Realmuto keeps moving

Catcher can play all over.

JUPITER — The Miami Marlins’ grand spring training experiment — teaching catcher J.T. Realmuto to play first base — moved into the more tangible realm of exhibition games recently. It went smoothly and will continue apace over the next week and a half of spring training and into the regular season.

The experiment is, of course, hardly grand or daring or all that adventurous. The consensus from the Marlins is that Realmuto, who converted from the infield to catcher when the Marlins drafted him in 2010, is plenty athletic enough to make that transition and play first on occasion.

Need proof of that athleticism? There’s plenty. Just ask those who knew him as a kid growing up outside Oklahoma City.

“We were loaded with cats,” said Gary Rose, the coach of Realmuto’s state titlewinning football team at Carl Albert High in Midwest City, Okla. “J.T. was the No. 1 cat.”

Realmuto’s schoolboy legend has only grown with the passage of time. Yes, he was a three-sport athlete — football (quarterback), basketball (power forward), baseball (shortstop) — and a legit Division I college football prospect. But more than the gaudy statistics, what stands out years later are the ridiculous things he did on the field.

Wayne Dozier, who won five baseball state championships at Carl Albert, recalls one particular play in a state semifinal Realmuto’s junior year. An opposing batter sent a grounder to the shortstop-third base hole,

and he was so sure he had a single to left field that he rounded first base, as one does.

Turns out, Realmuto reached the ball and threw to first for the out.

“He thought there was no way J.T. got to the ball,” Dozier said. “That’s how deep in the hole he went and how strong his arm was.”

Chad Carman, a former Phillies minor leaguer, was three years ahead of Realmuto in high school and had heard the stories about the hotshot middle schooler coming up.

“Then he comes into the locker room,” Carman said, “and as he’s every bit as big as all of us seniors.”

Realmuto, Carman said, took to the high school game immediately. Realmuto’s freshman season in the spring of 2007 started with a hit streak of 20-plus games. It ended with a state title in which Realmuto — younger than almost everybody else but playing shortstop and batting in the middle of the order — got the big hit, a two-run double in what had been a scoreless game.

“To have a freshman step up and do that kind of thing in that big of a game, it gives me chills,” Carman said.

There are tales from the gridiron and hardwood, too, like the time Realmuto the QB carried the ball 38 times for 200 yards in an upset win over a top team in the state. In basketball, Realmuto said, his job was to defend the biggest guy on the other team.

“You hate to see your quarterback lower his shoulder and run over people, but he did that all the time,” Rose said. “No one ever caught him. If he got loose, they never caught him.”

But baseball was always No. 1. Consider: One year, when the basketball team’s season ended in the state tournament, Realmuto woke up the next day and played in a baseball game. And hit two home runs.

“Yeah, I remember that,” Realmuto said recently, humbly acknowledging the silly reality. “The thing with basketball season was I more just out there trying to have fun, you know? I would still on the weekends go hit and stay in baseball shape. I was semi-ready to go.”

Semi-ready enough, apparently, to mash a pair of homers just hours after his winter season.

“That’s something he could do that other players couldn’t do,” Dozier said.

As much as Realmuto is an athletic freak, in the context of his family he’s practically normal. His father, David, and sisters, Ryan and Amanda, played collegiate baseball/softball. And his mother, Margaret, is the oldest of 10 siblings in the Smith family that — along with in-laws and, now, a very decorated next generation — is royalty in the world of American amateur wrestling.

John Smith, Oklahoma State’s wrestling coach and a six-time world champ (including two-time Olympic gold medalist), is one of Realmuto’s uncles. And Smith is convinced Realmuto could have been as accomplished as his cousins had he not given up wrestling as he entered his teenage years.

“This guy was as competitive as he ever was on a baseball field when he was on a wrestling mat,” Smith said. “He was tough and he was mean. He’s a very polite young man, but when he was on the mat, he was a mean wrestler.”

Smith’s favorite memories of Realmuto the youth wrestler are from holiday get-togethers. The family would gather around the living room and pit the cousins — Realmuto has about three dozen of them on his mom’s side — against each other in tournaments.

Realmuto held his own against those closest to him in age, including future NCAA champions Mark Perry Jr. and Chris Perry.

“And he was at a little disadvantage against kids that were making it a full-time career at 7,” Smith said.

Realmuto and his cousinopponents grew up, but now his cousins’ children have living-room showdowns.

“We still do it,” Realmuto said. “All the adults get around and watch the little kids wrestle. It’s awesome.”

In there somewhere, perhaps, is another future major leaguer or NCAA titlist. Realmuto said his childhood wrestling helped groom him as the wellrounded athlete he is today.

Now, that foundation allows him to play a little first base on the side, plus be one of the best young catchers in baseball.

“Wrestling is one of the best sports you can do as a kid. Balance, strength, athleticism,” Realmuto said. “I still believe to this day that wrestling is a huge part of me being athletic.”

DAVID J. PHILLIP/AP Miami Marlins catcher J.T. Realmuto has excelled at a number of different sports throughout his life. He starred in baseball, football, basketball and wrestling in his youth.