J.T. Realmuto's Journey From Small-Town Oklahoma To MLB All-Star Catcher | The Pure Athlete Podcast

hey guys Jeff franor here thanks for listening to our content and please like And subscribe before we get to the podcast if you have middle school or high school kids that play sports and you don't want a fund raise like me we got you covered my buddy Chris carel owns booster Chris we help schools and sports team teams raise funds in a super fun and engaging way in fact the last 22 years we've raised $750 million and we can't wait to help you choose booster.com welcome back to Pure athlete I'm Jeff Frank core along with Brit Lee and Brad Williams and I'm excited to introduce today's guest uh a former teammate of mine on the Miami fighting fish back in 2016 but uh uh really All-Star catcher uh going to be playing for the WBC this year and of course went to the World Series last year with the Philadelphia Phillies JT real Muto thanks JT hey guys thanks for having me on uh thanks for being here with us definitely thank you so much so before this is about Youth Sports and I know I've kind of filled you in but you got to talk to us a little bit about last October and what that was like for you personally oh man you know it was it's it's hard even to this day it's hard to put in words it was just such an incredible experience obviously I haven't I haven't got to experience the playoffs yet to this point in my career so this year getting to experience that for the first time you know you really just kind of get to see what what Baseball's all about and um you know the purest form of the game for me is is right there in the playoffs when the only thing that matters every day is whether you win or lose a baseball game you know your individual stats kind of go out the window all this me ey stuff you don't even think about anymore because it's all about did our team win a game today and if we did we celebrate if we don't we figure out how to win tomorrow it was it was just an incredible experience so JT I'm curious y'all y'all had an incredible run came up just short when you come out of that are you exhausted or are y'all is your team like man we can't wait to get going again and get after it I think a little bit of both honestly I mean um definitely was more physically and mentally exhausted at the end of this season than I'd ever been I I didn't realize how much you know a month of extra baseball how big of a difference that actually makes more mentally than anything you know it's just so much more you have to be so much more locked in for a lot longer than your normal than you're used to um but then also when it's over you know especially For Us Falling two game two wins short it just makes you that much more hungry you know I couldn't I couldn't wait to get back started this offseason and start getting ready that's because you don't ever take a day off you catch every darn day you know but I try to but you know moving over to Youth Sports you know you know my passion for it I've told you about kind of what we're doing here but starts off what was your favorite Youth Sports memory growing up in Oklahoma favorite us Sports SP to be honest it probably wasn't even a game for anything like that it was it was the thing I can remember the most was um growing up every single Sunday whether it was cuz I played I played a lot of sports I didn't just play baseball so every Sunday no matter what sport I was in I would always ask my dad I would beg my dad to take me up to the baseball field and hit batting practice so no matter like I mean we were out there hitting in 35 40 degree weather no matter what the weather was like I always every single Sunday it's like what I look forward to the most we we' go to the church in the morning go get lunch and then every Sunday no matter what time of year I was like Dad can you please take me up to the ball field like I want to hit batting practice and he never said no to me one time so like I can remember those days hitting batting practice probably more than I can remember any event or any tournament that I went to yeah that's so cool that's awesome uh so JT let's dig into that a little a little more I know you came from a big Sports family and uh and you played just about everything can you kind of walk us through your journey just from from being a little kid you know all the way up until when you decided baseball you know baseball is the one and uh just kind of tell us about that yeah so there's there's a lot there because I um growing up I tried to I played just about every sport I could um because I always from a young age I just loved Sports and competing um I started off my first couple Sports were wrestling and baseball you know getting into t-ball getting into wrestling those were like my first two loves growing up um then started playing a little basketball around Middle School football I started playing and I want to say fourth grade was the first year they let us wear pads so started football in fourth grade um continued that through high school I wrestled from the time I was about four till nth grade and then um kind of knew my future what like I wanted my future to be either in baseball or football at that time so I didn't love the idea of cutting weight during the winter during wrestling season and so I kind of stopped wrestling in like ninth grade and then picked up basketball more as kind of my offseason like staying in shape thing um so did that through high school I did uh baseball basketball and football in high school and then in Middle School I also played on the tennis team and then Lov playing tennis I picked that up in seventh grade played for through ninth grade and then a baseball coach made me quit tennis because it was the same time as baseball season so it wouldn't let me keep that it's a good choice but yeah I mean I pretty much played every sport I could JT did you feel uh did you feel any pressure because I've read where you've got an amazing Sports family and especially in wrestling uh did did was it a tough uh tough active follow I mean did you love wrestling or baseball just you loved it more did the family kind of put any pressure on you to focus on wrestling at all you know what I definitely felt pressure to keep wrestling I don't know if that was from my family putting it on me or me just you know putting that on myself but um nothing but support once I did decide to just stop wrestling and play basketball but in the back of my mind I was always like oh are they are they mad at me for not wrestling anymore you know because that's just probably something as a kid I was putting on myself but I think uh at that even that age you know when I was in nth grade I think everybody could kind of tell that baseball was probably going to be my future either baseball or football so nobody gave me too hard a time about it you know growing up uh you know we always a lot of our you know listeners and a lot of us our parents were such huge impacts in our lives you know what kind of role did your mom and dad play growing as you were growing up playing sports oh I mean they were everything you know they um so I had three older siblings I had an older brother and two older sisters and my dad so to give you a little background like my mom's side of the family they were the whole wrestling family so everything on my mom's side was all wrestling all my cousins wrestled all my uncles wrestled and then my dad he was the first one he married into the family and he was like the big baseball player you know he loved baseball played in college um he's the one who really got us all started in baseball and my my two older sisters both played softball at the division one level so they were older than me and he coached their softball teams through the Summers so I never really got him as a coach necessarily but my mom kind of I was the fourth the youngest child and she kind of got me thrown on her where she had to be the one taking me to the ball games taking me to the ballpark um so she was a huge part of me growing up just because without her I mean there's no probably wouldn't have be able to play sports because my dad was so busy with the older siblings and then like I said my dad always made time for me every Sunday afternoon when I wanted to go to the cage sometimes when I didn't want to go to cage he was there to to help me get there and get better you think back to to growing up uh you don't have to name who they are but uh name one thing uh one coach that you loved and why and one coach that maybe you didn't like and and what he did that you know you didn't love as a as a player being coached by him yeah so for I was pretty fortunate that all my coaches when I grew up and I think this is also a testament to my parents is they would never put me on teams that the sole focus of that you know eight and under 10 and under team was to win a tournament you know so I was never on teams that it was only about winning it was always about like being able to play with my friends the coaches were there to you know direct us and help us and Coach us but also like we're there to have fun and they kept that their priority is like we're not going to be too hard on these kids we're not going to be too strict on them we want our team to have fun and in turn like we were fortunate we always had good teams so like I can always remember loving my coaches and and I had the same pretty much two coaches all the way growing up till high school and they were both just incredible to me because I don't know if it CU I was a good player or what but like they were never hard on me it was always about having fun they were always there to correct me when I was doing wrong but at the end of the day they weren't scolding me they weren't making it about hey we got to win this tournament that's all that matters he like no we're going to go out we're going to have fun we're go to the hotel after and everybody jump in the pool and do all the fun things they kids should be doing it for little league tournaments JT you uh you know for for our audience who might not be as familiar You've Won several gold gloves as a catcher I know in high school you were a quarterback in football I think you played some short stop in baseball when did you were were you playing catcher in high school and if if not or if you did I mean when did you start honing those skills uh to become a gold glove catcher um so I played catcher for I want to say two games in high school two games my senior year um I was a shortstop all the way growing up but I don't know if it was Destiny or what because both of my older sisters I mentioned that played softball they were both catchers in college but for me I played shortstop all growing up and then two games my senior year our catcher happened to be pitching those two games and they needed to throw somebody behind the plate so our coach threw me back there um Stan meek and Steve Taylor were the Marlin scouts at the time for my area and they happened to be at one of those games I caught and they came and talked to me immediately and said like hey we have you ever thought about being a catcher in the future you know like we love your tools behind the plate we like your arm action we like your footwork we think you know with some work you could be pretty good back there and I remember I was to that I was I think a junior in high school at the time and I or maybe a senior and I told them that day I was like I mean whatever you think's going to get me to the big leagues I'll do it so for a couple years I regretted saying that because once I got to the miner leagues and first started catching I mean it was a whole different world than trying to catch my my High School pitcher you know I was I was back there getting my butt kicked every day and it was a lot of work and I honestly I don't I think all the way up until 3 or four years ago I was really still working on the craft of catching and trying to figure myself out and figure out how my body moves and obviously I'm still working this day like to try to get better but I think I made considerable strides maybe three or four years ago and kind of started to figure out how how My Body Works JT did you how old younger were you when you started kind of having uh those dreams and those goals that you kind of wanted to especially in baseball like at what age did you say hey I I really think this is uh you I could maybe play in college or even Beyond how old were you um I was probably Middle School maybe eth or nth grade you know young high school or late in middle school is when I started realizing like okayy I I mean I always loved baseball but I never knew how good I was going to be or or how much work I was willing to put in and I think once I started playing basketball and like I would leave basketball tournaments and ask my dad hey I want to go to the cage I think that's when I started realized man I I really love this and like I enjoy putting the work in and um my dad always instilled in me you know if I worked hard I was going to make it and you know so I really never had any doubt that I had the ability to make it it was just whether I loved it enough to put in the work to do so and I I started to figure that out you know sometime in middle school high school so so JT even though you played other sports did you did you work on your craft of baseball year round you know as a teenager what what did your training look like um so my my dad was pretty strict on me as far as like he never let me play baseball if it wasn't baseball season like the Summers you know so I never I always beg to play fall ball I always beg to do like these these random you know travel tournaments with my friends but you know if I was in football season or I was in basketball season he would always say no and you know he didn't tell me at the time but later on he told me he wanted me to love like want to get to baseball season like he never wanted to burn me out of playing ball growing up so by the time baseball season rolled around he wanted me to be begging to get out there and play baseball you know so I never I never didn't want to play I never got burnt out of it so other than like this Sunday afternoon where he would take me up and and hit with me for an hour or two at the field that was pretty much the only baseball I would do if it wasn't smack dab in the middle of of Little League season you know we talk about all the physical attributes you have you know to some of the younger listeners in here you know for you mentally H how do you prepare every single day handle you know look the pressures of playing in Philadelphia you know it's not the easiest place to play uh you know how do you kind of take all that and stride yeah I mean I just think you have to you have to realize that this is a game of failure and a lot of being successful in this sport is how you can handle that adversity and how you can respond for because the best players in the world are failing seven out of 10 times you know and so it's we're we're all going to fail and we're all going to struggle and it's it's not going to ever be easy this Sport's never easy for anybody um so the sooner you realize that and the sooner you can mentally prepare yourself to know how you're going to respond to certain situations and certain failures and know that you're going to get on the other side of them and you're going to have your hot streaks and and be able to ride those but on your cold streaks not get too down not beat yourself up and just know that you're going to get out of it I feel like that is the most important thing mentally especially as a hitter on the hitting side of things just being able to get through those times and know that you're going to get out of it and have have trust in yourself makes the game in my opinion a lot easier because when you do go through those struggles you're already prepared for it you're ready for it and you're just ready to do the work to get out of it was there ever a point in the Myer leagues JT where you kind of had that internal question of you know am I G to be able to do this I mean is I if you're having those times like you said especially at the plate or you're learning how to catch where you you really started questioning you know is my future Major League Baseball yeah yeah absolutely I can I can remember uh you know I was roommates with Christian Yelich for we got drafted together signed together we were roommates for the first five you know all the way through the minor leagues and I can remember sitting in our Apartments having conversations like man are we going to make it like I don't know if we're good enough and then I'd get to the ballpark the next day and I look at yish and he's hitting 320 and I'm hitting 220 struggling behind the plate I'm like what you got to stop saying I'm struggling know so absolutely those those feelings creep into your mind um like I said because it's a game of failure you're always going to like you're going to question yourself sometimes and that's just part of it but um I think in the back of my mind I always knew that if I worked hard and I kept at it um learning a new position catching wasn't easy but I felt like if I just kept putting the work in and kept putting the time in that eventually I was going to get there so JT you talk about baseball being a game of failure and and and at all levels kids go through slumps professionals go go through slumps and we hear about working hard working through it can you you know describe what you do you know if you're going through a rough patch you know how what do you specifically do to work your way out of that so I have uh you know it's funny you ask that because this season I probably went through one of the my worst stretches of my career at least the longest you know I was for probably two or three months I just didn't feel like myself you know nothing felt right at the plate I really struggled um and it's funny you know I've got this my eighth season in the big leagues and and I'm still learning how to deal with this failure and how to deal with this struggle and how when things start going wrong it's so easy to chase a rabbit down the hole and you're watching all this film on your swing and you're trying to change things and you're like oh you watch other guys hit and you're like well he does it this way you know maybe I should try that maybe I should try this and then you and then it gets worse and your one two week stretch turns into a two- Monon stretch and that just happened for me this year so it's something I'm still trying to learn how to handle but for me you just have to get back to the basics you have to know yourself and what you do well what's worked for you in the past and when I did that this summer you know my season took off I I stopped thinking about what my swing could look like and I started focus on hey what have I done in the past that has made me successful what are the feels what are the thoughts and um I text one of my old coaches that I used to work with hitting and he gave me the three most simple things you could think of as far as hitting goes and that's all I focused on for a few days in my work in the game it was basically an approach like you know Drive the ball right center it's something that simple and it I stopped thinking about all this other stuff that I could change in my swing or I might want to try next and just got back to what I did well in the past and took off from there you got the uh World Baseball Classic coming up and you get a chance to play for my neighbor Mark D Roa uh talk about that how excited are you to represent the USA well oh man I'm I I can't tell you how excited I am I I was bummed I didn't get to play in the last one so when they when they called this time and asked me to play um I said yes before they could even finish asking the question you know that I was just to be able to wear that Jersey put USA across my chest and uh get to suit it up with I mean the the team we put together the lineup is pretty incredible so just to get to work with those guys get to play with those type of athletes it's something I'm definitely excited for yeah finishing up here a couple more questions um you got a lot of young guy athletes out there male and female trying to figure out navigate you know what is your best advice for them as they go through you know8 nine 10 years old but even through Middle School and High School what's your best advice for young athletes you know I think um what worked so well for me was not specializing in one sport too early because if I had done that I probably would have ended up wrestling in college you know something would have completely changed for my career but because I was you know tried every single sport really played them all as long as I could to see what I loved and what I enjoyed doing the most I feel like that propelled me to to where I am today and and also just specializing in sometimes especially if you're specializing in a sport like baseball it's such a you know technique Sport and um the fundamentals are so important but if you're only playing baseball your whole life and you don't get to play other sports like wrestle football basketball sometimes you won't develop you know explosiveness or the strength or the flexibility you get from those sports like I feel like for me playing so many sports when I was younger it helped me to become a more well-rounded athlete and not just a fundamentally sound baseball player which obviously you want to be fundamentally sound as well but my athleticism has taken me to another level than what I could have been if I was just a a fundament fundamentally sound athlete you know so for me being able to not specialize too early and just play the sports you love as long as you can that's the best thing I think a kid could do I know you got a bunch of youngers at home so as they grow up and you start to coach them what's something that your parents did that you will for sure instill in your kids I think the work ethic for one you know that if you want to get better at anything in life it's going to take a ton of work more work than you could imagine and then also just letting them kind of choose their path you know if if they want to dance I'm going to let them dance if they love it keep dancing if they want to do gymnastics do that if they want to play soccer whatever I want to put everything I can in front of them let them try as many sports as they can as many activities as they can whether it's music whatever it is you know let them try as much as they can and see what they fall in love with and let them follow that path all right well dude we can't thank you enough for joining us today I know you're getting ready for the season and uh you know you've always been a great friend and a good teammate when we play together and I know both these guys I've told them so much about you but thanks for being a good role model too for for all our kids out there of course man love what you guys are doing here thanks for having me on thanks so much all right see you guys hey guys Jeff franor here thanks for checking out pure athlete And subscribe to our channel on Apple Spotify or wherever you go to listen to our [Music] podcast