I never thought that moving to Chicago would prolong the baseball season for me. Living in the New York City area gave me 13 straight years of October baseball, and now that I’ve left, both Shea Stadium and Yankee Stadium will remain empty for the rest of the fall before they eventually face demolition. It’s lucky for me that I’m now living in a new city that happens to have two teams that are still in it. I get a 14th straight year of local baseball in October! Playoff baseball is by far the most exciting baseball of the year, but it also means that season will soon be over. Those of you who are baseball fans know how long the winter seems when there is only hot stove chatter to keep you entertained while you wait for pitchers and catchers to report to Spring Training. Although it may seem ridiculously early, now is the time to start thinking about your Summer plans if you want to intern with Major League Baseball. It’s pretty obvious that there is a lot of demand for these internships, so you need to make sure that you’re on the ball and beat all of the deadlines.
As far as we can tell, there are 3 types of internships that you can get in Major League Baseball, and, unfortunately, none of them are directly with the league. There are internships with MLB.com, Journalism internships with MLB.com, and internships with specific MLB teams. Here’s a rundown of the three types of internships and how you can apply for them.
MLB.com is part of MLB Advanced Media, which is a separate arm of Major League Baseball. They run all 30 team websites and allegedly have editorial independence from the league. Their focus is entirely on multimedia and production, but they offer quite a variety of internships. You can intern with MLB.com in Finance, Marketing, Club Marketing, E-Commerce, Legal, Technology, Sponsorship, Design, and Public Relations. These internships are located in New York City, are paid $12.50 an hour, and last 8 to 10 weeks. MLB.com is currently recruiting for the Summer of 2009, and you can apply by sending a cover letter and resume to Interns2009@mlb.com.
The second grouping of internships is also with MLB.com, but they separate it out from their regular internship program. These internships are for “aspiring sportswriters” who want to spend the Summer of ’09 writing about baseball. 33 interns will be selected (one for each team, and three total to cover the Minor Leagues) and will be assigned to “work closely with a site reporter to give visitors to a team’s Web site all the information they need to follow the team from Opening Day to season’s end.” You can state a preference for which Major League city that you’d like to be assigned to, but your chances are much better to be selected if you state no preference. Interns are expected to spend at least 10 weeks in the program, and the pay is $500 per week and housing/transportation is not provided. The application deadline is November 30th, and the application is somewhat complex, so you’ll need the time to get things together.
There will also be a small number of copy editor/producer internships available. The application process is the same.
To apply:
Applicants should submit a resume, 5 to 10 published articles (no columns should be included), a list of references and a 750-word essay on why MLB.com should pick you. Please use the essay as a way of showing your creativity as a writer; in short, it should be more than a simple cover letter.
Please mail all internship applications to:
Bill Hill
Assistant Managing Editor/MLB.com
Attn: Internship Application
14825 N. 97th Place
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
That’s right, you need to mail, not e-mail, your application. If you do have questions about these MLB Journalism internships, you can contact Bill Hill at bill.hill@MLB.com. Make sure that you put the words “Internship Info” in the subject line to get through his spam filter.
Finally, you can search for internships with individual MLB teams from a different site. This is where Major League Baseball follows what other major sports leagues do and uses TeamWorkOnline to post their internships. Right now there are listings with the Houston Astros, Cleveland Indians, Minnesota Twins, Oakland Athletics, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and San Diego Padres, but this will probably change over time, as different teams have different hiring schedules. If you’re waiting to hear about internships with a specific team, you can sign up for Internship Notification e-mails or you can subscribe to the MLB Internship RSS Feed. There is an online application process for internships with teams, and it shouldn’t be too difficult to do.
This is all that we can find about interning in Major League Baseball, but we think that there must be some way to intern directly with the league. If anybody has leads on opportunities like these, we’d love to hear from you in the comments section below.
Links to Help You Begin Your Research
Who do you think is going to win the World Series?
Do I Know Anyone at Major League Baseball? - Check LinkedIn | Check Facebook
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Actually, on TeamWorkOnline, they have posted jobs that work directly with MLB. There were a few earlier this year for a position in New York at the MLB HQ.