Take the Field success stories grateful for MLB program

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The Winter Meetings bring together all of baseball’s top decision-makers for a week full of breaking news and transactions. But in addition to negotiating massive moves, those same executives are meeting with the next generation of baseball leaders.

For the sixth consecutive year, MLB is running Take the Field, a two-day event that helps women find front-office and on-field roles in professional baseball. Representatives from all 30 Major League teams meet with more than 100 young women and give them rare access to how the industry works.

Along with other programs under MLB Develops, the league’s youth baseball and softball program, Take the Field is growing the game of baseball no matter what the person’s passion is. Some attendees have even taken part in both MLB Develops and Take the Field, including Alexia Jorge, who plays catcher for Saint Elizabeth University’s baseball team, and Meredith McFadden, who is the bullpen catcher for South Carolina’s baseball team.

• 'Take the Field' helping more women find work in baseball

“I feel like everybody here has different goals on why they’re here,” McFadden said. “Some people are here to find a job. Some people are here to meet people. Some people are here to figure out what they want that career path to be if they are unsure. I think this is a great place to figure out those things, whether that is finding a job or just figuring out things you want to do or things you don’t want to do. Learning more about the intricacies of baseball that you can’t really find anywhere else.”

After taking part in scores of MLB Develops programs over the past decade, McFadden and Jorge both entered Take the Field wanting to work in baseball when their playing days end but weren’t sure where their best fit would be. The opportunity to talk to coaches, scouts, umpires and more front-office members proved illuminating.

Jorge, in particular, remembers being nervous about attending when Take the Field went from virtual in 2021 to in-person last year. But it was as if a lightbulb went off when she spoke to a coach at this event, and she got invaluable insight on how to work with high-level players in a personable way.

“I’ve been so grateful to have these opportunities with MLB, on the field and off the field,” Jorge said. “I don’t really know what I would’ve done without events like Take the Field because I wouldn’t be involved in this area and environment without it.

“I really got exposed to a whole bunch of different people and the world of baseball aside from play. Being able to come back each year, whether it be virtually or in person, I really have grown into the sense of where I now am more comfortable in my own skin in this room and getting the courage to just go up to somebody I don’t know and say, ‘Hey, what do you do? Tell me about yourself.’ Dive deeper into who I can be and who I want to be in my future with baseball.”

Take the Field has also been a key driver for women entering front offices -- more than 40 have landed roles with Major League teams in the last five years -- as the attendees network with executives, hold mock interviews and discuss what makes a compelling candidate. Take the Field then sends their updated résumés out to all 30 clubs.

Amanda Taylor is one success story from last year’s event. After working one summer in the Cape Cod League, she was planning to go back after graduating college. But she met with Tigers vice president and assistant general manager Sam Menzin in the 2022 program and threw her hat in the ring for an internship position with Detroit. Before long, she was hired in a role in baseball operations and pro scouting under Menzin to begin her baseball career in earnest.

Taylor returned for her third year with Take the Field and continues to take more from the program. She has a renewed perspective and a new set of questions to ask -- and even got to meet her future supervisors now that she’s accepted a role with the Reds for 2024 as a baseball operations intern.

“Now that I have experience in a front office, a lot of my questions were rules-oriented because that is my interest and is something that I want to keep learning about, exploring, reading on,” Taylor said. “A lot of my questions are more front office, operations-based and how they interact with rules and things of that nature. It also has a social element to it, getting to see friends that I made last year, other connections that I made and following up. A lot of it is maintaining things during the year, but then you come here and there are all these friends that you’ve made that you haven’t seen in a year. It’s really exciting.”