In Rod We Trust- Tafoya to start for Salina Stockade tommorow

By Carter Cromwell

Rod Tafoya is old enough to have retired from his career as a banking executive, but his baseball career just keeps going, and going . . . and going.

When the 56-year-old lefthander takes the mound for Salina in a Pecos League game August 7, he’ll be going for the 450th win in a career that began in the Mexican winter league in 1986, wound through a couple of years in the U.S. minor leagues and then many more in semi-pro and Mexican and independent U.S. pro leagues.

“I go where the games are,” he said.

For him, the games have been all over the U.S. map, plus Mexico. He last was in North Carolina in mid-July pitching – and winning – for the East Coast Weekenders in the Old North State League.

This year marks the fifth decade in which he’s pitched. By his accounting, he’s played in 671 games for 176 teams and has a 449-93 lifetime record – much of that in the Men’s Senior Baseball League. He estimates that he’s thrown at least 80,000 pitches. He is a Hall-of-Fame honoree for both the MSBL and National Baseball Semi-Professional association.

His Wikipedia page notes several milestones, including, among others:
• Five no hitters, including one perfect game
• A 20-win season
• A season in which he was 17-0
• A “double-win victory day” in the MSBL Puerto Rican Winter Tournament, which included 222 pitches, an MVP, and a Puerto Rico Winter Tournament championship In addition, he claims a 23-strikeout game and a 22-strikeout effort – both in 2013 – and three contests in which he struck out 19.

  He bills himself as the Ageless Arm, with justification. While he’s not the oldest pitcher to win a professional game – former big-leaguer Bill Lee pitched a complete-game win for the San Rafael Pacifics in 2012 – few, if any, can match Tafoya’s longevity.

  A native of Santa Fe, NM, where he still lives, he went to New Mexico Highlands University before transferring to Newman University in Wichita, KS. He played in a league in Mexico one summer. After college, he signed his first pro contract with Puerto Vallarta in the Mexican Winter League. In 1987, he went to the Mexican Tabasquena League's Comalcalco Cocaoteros and later to Aguascalientes Rieleros. “I tried out with the Mexico City Reds, who are like the Yankees of the Mexican League,” Tafoya said. “But they could only take four Americans, and I was #5, so they optioned me.” In 1989, he signed with the Northwest League’s Boise, ID, franchise, posting a 3-4 record with a 3.26 ERA. After an arm injury in the Mexican Winter League in 1989, Tafoya signed with the Class A New York-Penn League's Erie Sailors, but the arm injury recurred, and he was released in July 1990. Since then, he’s played amateur, semi-pro and independent pro ball. Beginning in 2012, he’s appeared in the Pecos League each season. He’s already the oldest pitcher to start a game in the 10-year history of the league, and he’ll extend that record when he starts August 7. “I already have butterflies,” he said. “It’s going to be fun.” “This guy may just pitch forever,” Pecos League Commissioner Andrew Dunn remarked.

  Well, for now at least, 500 wins is his goal, one that started coming into view only gradually. The next goal will be 512 . . . Some guy named Cy Young won 511, you may recall.

  “I didn’t start out going for 500 or anything like that,” he said. “One day, I saw that I was at 100 – then 150, then 200, then 250 . . . The total just kept growing until 500 seemed like a real possibility.

  “It will probably take me three or four more years to get to 500,” he added. “I’ve won three this year and would like to get to 10.

  Tafoya has always kept a game ball from each of his victories. When the Covid-19 pandemic restricted activities, he started mounting each ball in a holder shaped like a small baseball glove.

  “I kept the ball after I started my first high-school game and won,” he said, “and I’ve done that since. When the pandemic hit, I got bored after a while and started putting all the balls together. It took me about 180 hours, but it was fun.”

  Almost as much fun as playing, something Tafoya doesn’t currently see ending. At least not anytime soon. He says that he’d like to get into coaching with minor league teams eventually, but adds that his arm is still in “great shape” and that he’s been working hard on his overall conditioning. A hiking and workout regimen has helped him drop 30 pounds since October.

  “I really committed myself last fall, and now I’m in the best shape of my life,” he said. “This morning, I climbed Picacho Peak, the only mountain around Santa Fe that I hadn’t climbed. That goes up to about 8500 feet, and it was a 14-mile round-trip hike.”

  To some, Tafoya’s baseball odyssey seems like a long, strange trip. But while it has been long – and will get longer – Tafoya sees it as almost magical.

  “A lot of people – the doubters, the naysayers, the haters – have laughed at me,” he said. “Some have said I’m crazy, obsessed and have no life, but I’ve held firm and moved on. In fact, I’ve had a great life, and some find what I’m doing as admirable and inspirational. I like having goals – knowing where I am and where I’m headed.

  I’m doing what I love to do,” he added. “If I’m not broken, I’ll keep going.”