Giving it a shot meant hours of practice with Debus, a former catcher, on the fields in Vero Beach. And practice meant things like putting on equipment and squatting behind the plate while Debus fired balls into the dirt in front of him as Martin practiced blocking them with whatever part of his body got there first.

He had to learn the proper techniques for crouching, both the primary and secondary stances. He had to learn how to present a target to the pitcher, how to frame the pitch properly to induce a strike call from the umpire, how to block pitches in the dirt, how to throw to second base to catch a potential thief, how to make a pickoff throw to first base and, most demanding and nuanced of all, how to call pitches.

“It was just tons and tons of repetition,” Martin said.

In 2005, Martin became the everyday catcher for the Dodgers’ Class AA affiliate in Jacksonville, Fla., catching 117 games. He did well, impressing Debus and Collins so much that Collins issued favorable reports to his boss, Paul DePodesta, then the Dodgers’ general manager. DePodesta was scheduled to make a trip to Jacksonville that summer when Collins noticed that Martin was not in the lineup. It was a day game after a night game, and catchers usually get those off unless the team is in a pennant race.

“I told him, ‘Do you realize who is here?’ ” Collins said he asked Martin. “ “He came here to see you play.’ After I told him that, he played like he had just come off three days’ rest. He did everything, at the plate, behind the plate. I think from that moment, Paul had it in his mind to get Russell to the big leagues.”

A year later, on May 5, 2006, at Dodger Stadium, Martin made his debut after only 23 games at Class AAA. He caught Derek Lowe and helped the Dodgers to a 4-3 victory while collecting two hits of his own.

Martin — after a detour to Paris, after a flirtation with third base, after a crash course in how to crouch and how best to process pain — was standing right in the middle of the freeway.

And now, a third of the way into Martin’s seventh season, halfway through June, with more than 50 games under his belt and his team in contention, the heavy traffic is still to come.