Second Post
As July wrapped up, my time with the Lexington County Blowfish officially came to a close. From broadcasting to sales training to guest playing on the actual roster, it feels like I’ve done just about everything this summer. I’d like to use this blog post to look back at how exactly I came to find myself two states and seven hours away from Fredericksburg, working in a front office that had never once heard of Mary Washington, the school or the person.
This time last year, I knew that I wanted to spend the summer of 2022 doing baseball play-by-play. I had the fall and winter seasons (2021-22) of UMW sports on the horizon, meaning plenty of chances to learn how to call a game. But while those were great chances, baseball was and still is my passion, and I knew a summer internship was the best chance to really explore this as a career option.
Understanding that most professional teams start in April, and also require multiple years of baseball broadcast experience, I set my sights on the collegiate summer ranks instead of the pro level. Through conversations with multiple professionals in the industry, I located three primary ways to find this kind of internship. The Sportscasters Talent Agency of America, which prioritizes its members but does have a public job board, the website TeamworkOnline, which posts jobs in all sports, and the websites of individual teams. Between the three, I located and applied for about 15 internships from Massachusetts to South Dakota.
The immediate feedback, as expected, was scarce. A couple of teams informed me they no longer had openings, but most just resulted in disturbing silence in the wake of my applications. I was applying primarily with tape from volleyball and basketball, and a practice inning called directly off a video from my laptop. There were people my age applying who had been calling baseball since they were in high school, and had connections from their school that no UMW alumnus (that I could find) could provide. Finally, I turned to the Blowfish, which are part of the Coastal Plain League (CPL).
I knew of the CPL from having friends play in years past, and I knew where Lexington County was because UMW played there during spring break my freshman year. With that knowledge, I printed out the application, filled it out quickly, and emailed it back in along with my demo tape. Within 36 hours, I had an interview!
I interviewed over Zoom with the two co-owners and the assistant general manager. The interview was calm and low-key, with it being made clear how much they liked my tape immediately. They offered me the internship after about 10 minutes, and I accepted a few weeks later. The rest, as they say, is history. This summer was a blast and then some, and they’ve already offered me a paid position to come back for 2023. Regardless of whether or not I accept, this experience was the best I could’ve asked for, and it all started after over a dozen rejections.