DALLAS, Texas -- Meredith McFadden spent the summer working with the Baltimore Orioles at their Dominican Republic Academy as a player development intern.

It was just one step toward her ultimate career goal of working in an on-field player development role at a Major League level. She doesn¡¯t take the opportunity for granted. It¡¯s an opportunity she wouldn¡¯t have been afforded without MLB¡¯s Take the Field initiative.

Take the Field, which was held for the first time in 2018, is a two-day event at MLB¡¯s annual Winter Meetings designed for women interested in various roles throughout professional baseball. The event provides opportunities for education and networking with MLB and club personnel, including panels and breakout sessions, as well as a resume and interview workshop.

McFadden, an MLB Develops alum who attended the event for the second time in 2024, recalled meeting people within the Orioles organization during Take the Field in 2023. She built relationships with people like Anthony Villa, Baltimore's director of player development, which directly led to her internship.

That¡¯s exactly what keeps her coming back to the event while she completes her degree at the University of South Carolina, where she is also the baseball team¡¯s bullpen catcher.

¡°I keep coming back to the Winter Meetings because of the networking opportunities within the industry of baseball, like not even just women in baseball, but in baseball as a whole,¡± McFadden said. ¡°Just being in this environment and being surrounded by all these great people from all 30 organizations, there's so many opportunities to get your name out there to whoever will listen.¡±

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

Take the Field has continued to grow since the first iteration in Las Vegas. The inaugural event received just 66 applications. In 2024, MLB received well over 500 applications, growing the attendance from 46 to over 100. For the second year in a row, all 30 Major League teams sent representatives.

The two-day event offers women an opportunity to learn from current baseball employees in areas such as analytics, baseball operations, coaching, player development, replay, scouting and umpiring.

¡°I think events like Take the Field are so important because diversity can mean so many things,¡± said Julia Hernandez, MLB¡¯s coordinator of on-field operations. ¡°It can mean having women on the field, in the locker rooms, in the front office, but also diversity of thought, right?

¡°We have people coming from so many schools across the country, whether or not they work for their baseball team, no matter what their major is. Every single person has something that they want to contribute to the game. People are here because they love the game and they want to work in the game.¡±

Michaelene Courtis -- the Rangers¡¯ senior director of baseball operations and also the highest-ranking woman in the organization¡¯s history -- gave the keynote speech at the start of this year¡¯s event.

Courtis spoke about how her path to baseball was unconventional and included years of thinking she would work in politics before a winding road in baseball, from ticket sales, to baseball administration and finally operations.

McFadden said Courtis¡¯ speech stuck with her when looking back.

¡°Not everybody has the same path, especially in a career in baseball,¡± McFadden said. ¡°While you can ask the people that we're surrounded by here what paths they took to try to give us some sort of trajectory on where we could go and how we could get to a similar position, I think it's important to remind yourself that no two paths are going to be the exact same.¡±

Day 1 of the event also included a pair of panels, one focused on understanding baseball operations and another including four Take the Field alums speaking about their journeys.

The second panel included Tigers assistant general manager Sam Menzin, Athletics assistant general manager Billy Owens, Diamondbacks director of baseball administration Kristyn Pierce and Dodgers manager of player development Andrea LaPointe as the moderator to explain various jobs and responsibilities within a club¡¯s baseball operations department.

During the first panel, all of the participants -- Sam Moss, Emma Legault-Laroche, Katie Mooradian and Olivia Lord -- emphasized the importance of the Take the Field event, which puts in effort to grow the game and connect so many women throughout the sport. All four currently work with MLB or a club in some capacity.

A panel like this would not have even been able to take place just a few years ago. But now, tons of Take the Field alumni return to speak, including Hernandez, who attended the event during the first two years and now runs the entire thing as MLB¡¯s coordinator of on-field operations.

¡°It really is so beautiful to see people come back and talk about how their experiences at this event in this room has brought them into a new portion of their life, right?¡± Hernandez said. ¡°This is not just the next thing. This is their livelihood, and it's a beautiful thing to know that we were at least like a little part of it.¡±