Inside Athletic Training

Scott Takao has seen just about everything there is to see in professional baseball medicine. As the Medical Administrator for the Chicago White Sox, Scott has spent nearly four decades with one organization, watching the profession evolve, the game change, and generations of players and staff come and go. On this episode, we sit down with Scott to talk about his journey, what nearly 40 years with one club teaches you about loyalty, longevity, and leadership, and what the future of athletic training in professional baseball looks like from someone who’s lived through its entire modern era.

For more information about PBATS and athletic training, visit pbats.com. 

Hamstring injuries are one of the most persistent challenges in professional baseball — and two of the sport’s top sports medicine minds are breaking down why. In this episode of The Research Rundown, Philadelphia Phillies Assistant Athletic Trainer Joe Rauch and Atlanta Braves Physical Therapist Jeremiah Randall dig into the research behind hamstring injuries in baseball, covering everything from off-season training and spring training ramp-up to in-season management and setting athletes up for long-term success. 

For more information about PBATS and athletic training, visit pbats.com. 

In this episode of Inside Athletic Training, we sit down with LJ Petra, Head Athletic Trainer for the Miami Marlins. LJ spent over a decade working his way through professional baseball before stepping into the head role in Miami, where he leads a young staff and is doing the intentional work of shaping a program's culture from the ground up.

We talk about his career path, how he thinks about developing the athletic trainers around him, the importance of staff relationships, what he has learned about himself as a leader since taking the job, and much more. 

For more information about PBATS and athletic training, visit pbats.com. 

In this episode of Inside Athletic Training, we sit down with Joe Myers, Director of Baseball Performance Science for the Tampa Bay Rays and one of the most credentialed minds in the sports science space. Joe spent nearly 15 years as a professor and researcher at UNC before making the jump to professional baseball, and that academic foundation shapes everything about how he approaches performance, injury prevention, and player development in the Rays organization.

We dig into what sports science actually means at the major league level, how Joe thinks about building a performance team that works alongside and in collaboration with athletic trainers rather than in parallel to them, and what innovation looks like inside one of the most analytically progressive organizations in the game. 

For more information about PBATS and athletic training, visit pbats.com. 

In this episode of Inside Athletic Training, we sit down with Jeremy Harris, Director of Minor League Medical Services for the Cleveland Guardians. Jeremy talks about what it actually takes to oversee player health across an entire minor league system, how he thinks about building a culture within a large and constantly changing medical staff, and what mentorship has meant to his own career, how he pays it forward to the athletic trainers coming up behind him, and much more. 

For more information about PBATS and athletic training, visit pbats.com. 

Few people in professional baseball have seen and done what Ron Porterfield has. Over the course of a career spanning nearly four decades, Ron built one of the most respected sports medicine programs in the game with the Tampa Bay Rays, served as President of PBATS, and has now been part of three World Series championship clubs with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

In this episode, Ron takes us through the full arc of his career, from his early days in the minor leagues to the major league level, what it meant to build a program from the ground up with an expansion franchise, the Rays remarkable 2008 World Series run, and what it has been like to contribute to a dynasty in Los Angeles. He also gets into his time as PBATS President, what that role meant to him, and what he believes the future of athletic training in professional baseball looks like.

For more information about PBATS and athletic training, visit pbats.com. 

In episode 7 of the Research Rundown, Paul Buchheit and Joe Rauch sit down with Dave Yeager to dig into one of the most meaningful evolutions in his clinical practice — the shift from a broad, generalized approach to something far more precise and individualized.

Dave calls it going from shotgun to sniper. Over years of working with professional athletes, he has refined the way he thinks about each player's capacity, load tolerance, and movement patterns, moving away from one-size-fits-all protocols and toward strategies built around the individual in front of him.

The conversation gets into how clinicians, practitioners, and coaches can work together to take that individualized information and actually apply it on the field, in the weight room, and throughout the rehabilitation process. A practical, experience-driven discussion with real implications for anyone working at the intersection of sports medicine and performance.

For more information about PBATS and athletic training, visit pbats.com. 

Bob Tarpey spent 20 years building a career in professional baseball's medical world, working his way up through the Blue Jays, Mets, and Angels organizations before finally reaching the Major League level this year. Along the way, he earned Midwest League and Eastern League Athletic Trainer of the Year honors, was named PBATS Minor League Athletic Trainer of the Year, and represented the World Team as ATC at the MLB Futures Game.

In this episode, Bob joins Inside Athletic Training to talk about his path from a Carolina Mudcats internship in 2002 to Director of Minor League Medical for two different organizations, and what it's actually been like stepping into a Major League clubhouse for the first time. He shares what prepared him for the jump, what surprised him, and what two decades in the game taught him that no amount of experience could have fully prepared him for.

For more information about PBATS and athletic training, visit pbats.com. 

The Research Rundown continues with Episode 6, where host Joe Rauch (Philadelphia Phillies) sits down with Jacob Newburn (Texas Rangers) to unpack one of the hottest trends on the training room floor: red light therapy. From wearable clothing, and infrared saunas, red and near-infrared light have exploded into the recovery space — but what's actually happening at the cellular level? Drawing on his co-authored research for PBATS, Newburn breaks down the wavelengths that matter, how photobiomodulation actually works, what the data shows on pain, inflammation, and DOMS, and how athletic trainers can separate credible products from the noise. 

For more information about PBATS and athletic training, visit pbats.com. 

In this episode of Inside Athletic Training, we sit down with Derek Lawrance, Assistant Athletic Trainer for the United States Men's National Team. Derek just came off one of the most intense and high-profile assignments any athletic trainer in the country could have — serving on the medical staff for the U.S. squad during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, hosted right here on American soil. From the preparation and logistics of keeping elite international players healthy through a tournament of that magnitude, to the pressure and adrenaline of working on the biggest stage in global sports, Derek takes us inside what that experience was really like. We also dig into his career in professional soccer, how he got to the national team level, and what the day-to-day demands of working in professional soccer look like for an athletic trainer.

For more information about PBATS and athletic training, visit pbats.com.