Experience Spotlight - Melissa Kelly, Major League Baseball

In this semester's Experience Spotlight series, the blog will be featuring Cornell ILR SBS members who have excelled in positions in the sports industry. Many talented Cornell students are making impressions all across the sports world, and this is their chance to showcase their experiences.

This week's Spotlight focuses on Melissa Kelly '15.  Melissa is a senior in Cornell's Industrial and Labor Relations School. She has been a dedicated member of the club since her first year at Cornell, serving as Social Impact chairperson in 2013.

Melissa worked this summer at Major League Baseball's Office of the Commissioner, serving as an Economics Intern in the Labor Relations Department. She originally interned in the same position during an ILR Credit Internship in Fall 2013.  Melissa was kind enough to answer some questions about her experiences.

What were some of your day-to-day responsibilities of the position?

Over the duration of my internship I was asked to complete a myriad of tasks in all different formats and for a number of different people. Although I was technically on the economics side of the Labor Relations department, I was also asked to do work for the legal side. The legal side included research projects to find information regarding past Collective Bargaining Agreements and the legal statutes that were used in them. The economics side of Labor Relations is where I spent most of my time, and where I really learned a lot about the field. 

As a fall intern, I was fortunate enough to experience the Salary Arbitration process and how players are statistically valued. Through the utilization of MLB’s databases and Excel formulas, we are able to come up with a value that a player is worth based on their Platform Season performance as well as their career.

During the summer, the tasks were a little bit different. Two of the main projects I worked on were to create an Offensive Splits tool and to research information on the Tommy John epidemic. The offensive splits tool was something I created in excel that would generate all of the platform season and career splits statistics for any position players in the last 15 years. This tool will help the Labor Relations Department during the offseason to be able to look at up to three comparable players splits side by side.  

Any baseball fan knows the biggest current issue with Major League pitchers is the amount of UCL tears that are occurring. As the player loses between 12 and 18 months rehabbing this injury, it is great concern to the teams and the league. I assisted my bosses in researching information about Tommy John surgery including the theories on what makes a player more vulnerable to the tear, the best ways to rehabilitate an injured elbow, the top doctors in the field and what they have to say about the problem, and how past players have rebounded from this injury. I hope that my contributions to this effort and help the league develop programs to reduce the amount of UCL tears for the future.

How were you able to get the internship?

Originally, in Fall 2013, I received the internship through the ILR Credit Internship Program. I was fortunate enough to be asked back for the summer.

What advice would you give another student interested in a similar experience?

The baseball industry is very tough to get involved in. The ILR’s credit internship program is a great way to get your foot in the door for an amazing opportunity at the Commissioner’s office. Any students that are interested in this internship are more than welcome to contact me with any questions about the application process or the internship itself! 

What was your favorite aspect of the experience?

What was fulfilling about this experience was the degree of freedom that my supervisors gave me not only in the tasks they assigned me, but also in how the assignments were completed. I was fortunate enough to be given the responsibility to meet high profile clients, which helped me mature as a worker and learn how to handle myself in those types of situations. The experience that I have gained from this internship is invaluable, and the skills I can take away will help me in my future. I am so grateful that I was fortunate enough to be able to be a part of the Credit Internship program and is the best decision I have made at Cornell.

When I returned for the summer, I had a great time taking place in MLB’s Summer Internship Program. They do a great job hosting events for the interns to go to every few weeks and hear from leaders in the industry. The room that I spent my summer in was filled with Labor Relations Interns (both legal and economic) as well as interns from the HR department. My experience working with the other interns and collaborating on certain projects made the work even more enjoyable.

Thank you to Melissa and Major League Baseball for allowing us to share this awesome experience. We hope you have learned about some of the wonderful opportunities that Cornell, the ILR School, and the ILR Sports Business Society can provide in the sports world. We hope to feature many more stories from students and employers this fall!

Experience Spotlight - Matthew Provenzano, SBNation

In this semester's Experience Spotlight series, the blog will be featuring Cornell ILR SBS members who have excelled in positions in the sports industry. Many talented Cornell students are making impressions all across the sports world, and this is their chance to showcase their experiences.

This week's Spotlight focuses on Matthew Provenzano '16.  Matt is a junior in Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences where he majors in Information Sciences and minors in Law & Society. Matt has been an active member of the club since his freshman year, helping to win the SABR Analyitic Conference's Diamond Dollar Classic case competition this past March.  He also has played a critical role in the success of the Big Red Sports Network as well. He can be reached at mjp294@cornell.edu.

Matt has been working since last November for SBNation at Pinstripe Alley, where he covers the Yankees. He was kind enough to answer some questions about his experience.
What were some Day-to-Day responsibilities of the position?

At PinstripeAlley.com my responsibilities are three-fold. Firstly, I'm a writer; I'm responsible for writing analysis, editorial, or game recap posts once or twice each week for the site. Secondly, I'm the social media manager where I am responsible for posting articles, lineups, game recaps/scores, and news to the Facebook page for general consumption. And lastly, I am part of the podcast team. Every week I and two others record the Pinstripe Alley Podcast where we discuss the state of the Yankees, answer questions, and humorously talk about baseball in general.

How were you able to get the position?

One of the editors found my baseball writing through a baseball blog started on campus, Batting Leadoff.

How has this experience shaped your career plans?

This experience has certainly opened my eyes to the possibility of sports journalism as a possible career. At the very least, it's given me the ability to communicate my ideas clearly.

What advice would you give another student interested in a similar experience?

Write. Write some more. And then when you're done writing, write even more than that. Aristotle said that to be a virtuous person one must do virtuous things, and so it is the same with writing. To be a good writer you have to write well, as ridiculous as that sounds. And the only way that happens is if you write and constantly ask yourself new questions about the topic at hand.

What was your favorite aspect of the experience?

Recording a podcast is my favorite part, for sure. Talking with like-minded people about baseball and the Yankees is always a fun thing, especially when it's not all that serious and we can joke around about it.

Thank you to Matthew and SBNation for allowing us to share this awesome experience. We hope you have learned about some of the wonderful opportunities that Cornell, the ILR School, and the ILR Sports Business Society can provide in the sports world. We hope to feature many more stories from students and employers this fall!

Experience Spotlight - Sarah Gilman, Major League Baseball

In this semester's Experience Spotlight series, the blog will be featuring Cornell ILR SBS members who have excelled in positions in the sports industry. Many talented Cornell students are making impressions all across the sports world, and this is their chance to showcase their experiences.

This week's Spotlight focuses on Sarah Gilman '16.  Sarah is a junior in Cornell's Industrial and Labor Relations School. She has been a dedicated member of the club since her freshman year at Cornell, serving as Director of Alumni Relations this past spring.

Sarah worked this summer at Major League Baseball's Office of the Commissioner. She served as a Human Resources Intern and was kind enough to answer some questions about her experience.

What were some of your day-to-day responsibilities of the position?

Get in and check email-respond to emails if necessary. 

Go into the anti-harassment training software and check to see if anyone has completed the training and if so print their certificates and file away, I had a master spreadsheet that contained all of the employees so I kept a tally on all of them-All employees including full time, part time, interns and contractors all need to take the anti-harassment training. 

Projects- examples include tallying survey answers in an excel spreadsheet, quantifying how much money MLB has given out to those who have continued their education or just finishing their education, completing a list of those who had gone to law school and where with what year. 

Filing. 

Shredding. 

Check in with boss at least three times a day to see if anything specific needs to get done. 

Preparation for the human resources conference with all the clubs which included getting over 50 binders ready with the specific content order.

How were you able to get the internship?

I got the internship through a connection. Networking is extremely important in this industry. It’s not about just sending that first email but maintaining the friendship with the person and asking questions so that person knows you are thinking about them and how there experience can help you.

How has this experience shaped your career plans?

This experience has only reaffirmed my love for human resources and that I definitely want to be in the sports industry whether it is for a club, a league, or something related to sports.

What advice would you give another student interested in a similar experience?

If I could say one thing to anyone who is interested in getting into the industry it is that you need to work for it. For some it might come easy with connections, but for others you are really going to need to work hard and network your butt off because this industry is tough to crack into, but once you will see the fruit of your hard work.

What was your favorite aspect of the experience?

My favorite part of the experience was the professional growth I had this summer in both learning about human resources in real time versus in a classroom and networking. If you attended the “An Inside Look at Sports and Law” event this summer, that took a lot of networking and finding people who would mesh well together. I am so glad the event went well and hopefully those who went got a lot out of it (including a few contacts).

Thank you to Sarah and Major League Baseball for allowing us to share this awesome experience. We hope you have learned about some of the wonderful opportunities that Cornell, the ILR School, and the ILR Sports Business Society can provide in the sports world. We hope to feature many more stories from students and employers this fall!