MIAMI — Last week before the Phillies left for Toronto, catcher J.T. Realmuto shared his reasons for why he wouldn’t get vaccinated so he could enter Canada, where vaccination against the coronavirus is a requirement. Realmuto was one of four Phillies players who were placed on the restricted list ahead of the Blue Jays series because they were not vaccinated.
Realmuto’s comments were polarizing, but one comment in particular stuck out. He said that the salary he would be forfeiting by missing the two games in Canada — which amounted to approximately $260,000 — was “a little bit of money.”
“I’m not going to let Canada tell me what I do and don’t put in my body for a little bit of money,” Realmuto said on Monday. “It’s just not worth it.”
When asked to clarify his response, Realmuto said Friday that his comments about his salary were the only thing he’d wished he had rephrased.
“The money comment is the one thing I could have said a little different,” he said. “I wasn’t necessarily stating that the amount of money was little. I didn’t know what the amount of money I was missing was. I was more thinking about the fact that I was missing two games’ worth of checks in a 162-game season. That was a small amount compared to how many games we play.
“I was never even intending for the amount to get out there. That’s something personal to me. But it is what it is.”
When asked if he was aware of the blowback he was receiving online for his comments, Realmuto said he received many messages of support for speaking his mind and defending his choice to remain unvaccinated. He said that while he singled out Canada in his comment on Monday, he was not trying to make a political statement, and was simply speaking from his own personal experience.
Realmuto did not address the clubhouse before the Phillies left for Toronto. He said he did not feel as if he had to.
“I got nothing but absolute support from every person here,” he said. “Zero reason to say anything.
“You have to be able to separate the two. For me, my personal life is separate from my professional life, which is the baseball team. Obviously, I care a lot about these guys. ... And I want to win as much as anybody. But when it comes down to personal decisions, I’m not necessarily factoring in that as much as I am my own family and my life.”
