Curt Conrad, Staff Reporter

In baseball parlance, a player who drifts from franchise to franchise without ever finding a permanent home is called a journeyman.

Baseball doesn’t have a term befitting a player like J.T. Core.

The Galion Graders slugger already has put more pins in the map than most people will in a lifetime.

The 21-year-old Core has played in three countries and on two continents. He has hit fastballs in no fewer than 13 states — in 2015 alone.

So how did Core, who plays college baseball in Fargo, N.D., and whose hometown is Cave Creek, Ariz., end up in north central Ohio?

“It’s an interesting story,” Core said while sitting in the third base dugout at Heddleson Field as a steady rain fell Monday afternoon.

James Thomas Core was born in Germany, the son of Tom and Jerrie Core, who were stationed there with the United States Army. After two years overseas, the family was relocated to California. Assignments in Oklahoma and Kansas followed.

“Then we went back to Germany,” said Core, whose father served in Operation Desert Storm and was deployed in Kosovo and Iraq. “I started playing over there, but it was on a military post. It was like a rec league for the military families.

“After that, we moved to a really small base. All the dads on the post deployed at the same time so one of the moms who played softball in college ended up taking over the Little League team.”

Having his father away for extended periods of time could be a little unnerving, Core said.

“It was a little scary. I was kind of young, maybe 8 or 9 years old, but I remember my mom being sad a lot,” Core said. “We had good friends around us. It was a small post and there was a good support group that understood what was going on.”

The family, which now included J.T.’s younger sister, Marrissa, relocated to Kansas for a second time and spent seven years there.

“That is the longest I’ve ever been in one place,” said Core, whose parents have since retired from the military and moved to Arizona. “I consider Kansas home.”

A standout catcher, Core graduated from Leavenworth High School in Kansas in 2012. He signed with Western Nebraska Community College and spent two seasons in Scottsbluff, Neb., before landing a Division I offer from North Dakota State in Fargo, N.D.

“Living all over the place has been interesting,” Core said. “It’s tough not having that best friend that you grew up with from the time you were 4 or 5, but you get used to meeting new people and being a part of different groups.”

The 6-foot-2, 210-pound Core spent last summer with the Saskatoon Yellow Jackets of the Western Major Baseball League in Canada, batting .239 in 37 games with 12 runs batted in. He batted .299 with eight doubles and 17 runs batted in while appearing in 33 of 51 games in his first season at North Dakota State (20-31 overall, 11-19 in the Summit League).

The college baseball season started in mid-February, when the average high temperature in Fargo was 24 degrees.

“Spring baseball in Fargo is more like winter baseball,” Core joked.

NDSU’s first 27 games were all on the road. The Bison played games in Arizona, Florida, Colorado, Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska, Illinois and Indiana before opening at home.

“We spent the first eight weeks of our season on the road,” Core said. “We made trips to Arizona, Florida and Colorado and then we started our conference games, but we play all our conference games on the road before we play any at home.

“It was 35 degrees outside for our first home game this year.”

While NDSU was touring the country, Galion Graders general manager Mike O’Leary was searching for players to fill out his first-year Great Lakes Summer Collegiate League franchise’s roster.

“I emailed a friend and eventually I was put in contact with (NDSU coach) Tod Brown,” O’Leary said. “We had a couple guys lined up, but one fell through. We were glad to get J.T.”

Brown, who was a pitching coach and recruiting coordinator at Bowling Green before taking over at North Dakota State, played for the Grand Lake Mariners of the GLSCL in the early 1990s.

“One day after practice, coach called me into his office and said, ‘You can go to Kansas or you can go to Ohio to play summer ball,’ ” Core said. “I asked him which league he thought was better and he said he thought the Great Lakes was better.”

After school let out, Core loaded up his 2013 Chevy Silverado extended cab and headed for Ohio. The road trip was more than 1,300 miles and took him through eight states.

“I drove from North Dakota to Kansas and spent a few days there, then I drove from Kansas to Ohio. This is the furthest east I’ve ever been,” Core said. “I bought my truck last fall and it only had 17,000 miles on it. It’s up over 30,000 miles now.”

The trip has been a fruitful one for Core, a utility man who has seen most of his time at third base for the Graders (4-12). The left handed-hitting Core leads the team with 11 RBIs and has five multi-RBI games.

“He’s a hitter,” O’Leary said. “He can play any of the corner spots for us and he’s definitely an RBI guy in the middle of our lineup.”

When O’Leary needed help with some heavy lifting over the weekend, he knew who to call.

“I was helping a friend move some stuff and I knew J.T. had a big truck and plenty of muscle,” said O’Leary, whose younger brother, Nate, is serving as Core’s host this summer. “That is when I found out about his past. He has been all over the country ever since he was a little kid.”

Given his transient upbringing, the adjustment to life in a new town and a new team has been an easy one for Core.

“It helps that there is such a great group of guys in Galion. Everybody gets along and looks out for each other,” Core said. “Everybody was really open to branching out. They just don’t hang out with the other guys from their college teams.

“We’ve gone and seen a few movies together. The night Jurassic World came out I think we had 12 guys at the theater. We’re trying to set up a Cedar Point day for later in the season.”

The Graders have lost six straight games and eight of their last 10. Galion is eight games in back of league-leading Hamilton.

“As a team, we’ve got to keep working hard,” Core said. “Sooner or later it’s going to translate onto the field.

“One of these days, we’re going to get it turned around.”

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