Breaking News
Home / News / Santa Fe’s Ron Porterfield hoping for a 2020 World Series matching the Dodgers

Santa Fe’s Ron Porterfield hoping for a 2020 World Series matching the Dodgers

By Arnie Leshin 
It’s been three years now since Ron Porterfield took his place alongside the Tampa Bay Rays players he helped develop, train, and even helped lead them to the 2005 World Series.
After graduating from St. Michael’s, he began a journey that brought him to Major League Baseball, first as an athletic assistant with a Houston Astros farm team, followed by receiving a Bachelor’s Degree from New Mexico State University, and than was first hired in 1997 to join the Tampa Bay franchise as a minor league medical coordinator, and in 2003 was named an assistant trainer for the club before moving up as the parent team’s head athletic trainer in 2006, a position he held for the remainder of his tenure with the organization, which totaled 15 years.
In 2018, he, his wife Barbara, and his son and daughter, left their home in Parrish, Fla., for the West Coast, hired by the Los Angeles Dodgers as their new director of player health, a newly created position than that would bring his more than 30 years of experience working with current and former baseball Hall of Famers.
Nowadays he’s happy in Los Angeles, it’s a new and different role, but his experience in the field has him way ahead of the game. But to forget Tampa Bay, no way.
“Oh, I’m overjoyed to see what’s happening there in sports,” Porterfield recently said. “Unreal, the Rays just won their third American League East championship, the Tampa Bay Lighting hockey team is two wins away from carrying off the prestigious Stanley Cup, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers football team has a new quarterback in Tom Brady, so there’s excitement in those parts, but I still follow them.”
He began his career in 1987, was one semester shy of completing his undergraduate degree at NMSU in Las Cruces. But at the time, he was also offered a summer position with the Astros as an athletic trainer with its short-season affiliate in Albany, N.Y. for a salary of $9,000, and held the position for about 10 years. In December of that year, he graduated with his Bachelor’s Degree.
“It’s been all good,” said Porterfield, “I’ve been involved in baseball in about every way, and in 2013 was named to the American League All-Star team as athletic trainer. In 2010, we won the American League East, and the year before that, I was chosen as the athletic training staff of the year. But I’m amazed at the success of the Rays this shortened season because they’ve had a run of injuries and still going strong. I’m thinking maybe they could face the Dodgers in the World Series, and I will be there if that happens.
“But I do miss some parts about being in the dugout, the fans, the excitement, but I’m also closer to home in Santa Fe when I’m based out of Dodgers’ training farm at Camelback Ranch in Arizona.”
His dad, George Porterfield, was the long-time athletic director at Santa Fe Indian School, so he has relatives and friends here in the City Different. There have been many athletic trainers coming out of Santa Fe, but Ron Porterfield has been the most successful, a role model for all of them.

Check Also

God’s Encouraging Word of the day

“Happy are the people whose strength is in You, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.” …