MLB launches Content Diversity Fellowship
Baseball could also be America’s nationwide pastime, however it’s a recreation that actually belongs to all the world. The proof is plain.
There have been 269 internationally born gamers from 19 international locations and territories on 2023 Opening Day rosters. This spring’s World Baseball Classic was an enormous hit. The sport’s most gifted and engaging participant is from Japan. The cowl athlete for MLB The Show hails from The Bahamas.
It is extra necessary than ever that the tales of those gamers are advised by writers and content material creators who come from equally various backgrounds. That’s why Major League Baseball’s content material group and the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Department partnered to launch MLB.com’s Diversity Fellowship for this season.
The Content Diversity Fellowship is a nine-month program designed to arrange latest graduates who come from various, underrepresented backgrounds for roles in MLB’s Content Department and within the baseball trade at massive. The effort to create this program was spearheaded final 12 months by Jesse Sanchez, MLB’s director of expertise improvement and variety outreach for content material, and Matthew Meyers, MLB’s vice chairman for content material.
“The Content initiative is consistent with the MLB Diversity Pipeline Program, MLB’s Diversity Fellowship Program and the league’s goals to expand pipelines and attract diverse talent to our great game,” Sanchez mentioned. “It’s a priority and a designed effort to diversify the lenses through which the game is viewed, stories are told and content is created.”
This season’s two Content Diversity Fellows are Jesús Cano and Matthew Ritchie. They started their time with MLB in March and have undertaken a sequence of duties, together with recreation protection and manufacturing throughout Spring Training and the common season. They produce newsletters, work carefully with MLB.com’s editorial producers, and may have alternatives to help within the protection of MLB Jewel Events, such because the 2023 All-Star Game, 2023 Little League Classic, 2023 London Series, and extra.
“Getting to cowl baseball for MLB.com has been a dream come true,” Cano mentioned.
Cano was born in Mexico however was raised in Pittsburg, Calif. His love for sports activities grew on the Oakland Coliseum, the place he cheered on the A’s. He received his begin by protecting highschool sports activities at 16 and by no means regarded again. A proud group faculty product, Cano graduated from Fresno State, the place he served because the managing editor of the college’s pupil newspaper. Before coming to MLB, he labored on the Bay Area News Group as a sports activities editorial clerk.
“Growing up as the son of two Mexican immigrants, I would have never imagined having those opportunities,” mentioned Cano, who’s fluent in English and Spanish and a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. “My favourite a part of the fellowship has been writing articles about Spanish-speaking gamers as a result of with the ability to converse the identical language gives the prospect to uncover a deeper layer of a narrative.
“With extra range within the clubhouses and press packing containers, it permits for higher storytelling, serving to bridge all of the cultures which might be in MLB by the sport.”
Ritchie, a member of the National Association of Black Journalists who can also be fluent in English and Spanish, grew up in Virginia, watching the Orioles religiously since childhood. He performed baseball for 4 years at Johns Hopkins University and was additionally one of many sports activities editors for the campus newspaper. He attended Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism for graduate college and was a contract author for websites akin to Baseball Prospectus and Pitchfork previous to becoming a member of MLB.
“Baseball content should be representative of the people who love and watch baseball,” Ritchie mentioned. “I believe that for a long time, a large swath of the population has been sort of forgotten about. It’s important minority baseball fans — and players, for that matter — are able to look and see the stories that they may care about are being told and handled with care.”
As Cano, Ritchie and future Content Diversity Fellows efficiently full this program, MLB goals to develop their visibility inside the trade by inserting them immediately into hiring pipelines with golf equipment.
“The Diversity Content Fellowship is a team effort that has provided MLB with immediate results,” mentioned Billy Bean, MLB’s senior vice chairman of range, fairness & inclusion. “The imaginative and prescient of our content material group and the beneficiant mentorship of Jesse Sanchez have created a collaboration that has already impacted the Office of the Commissioner.
“I am so proud that our DEI team is a part of this programming. MLB will be reaching a broader audience because of the new, fresh perspective of these talented young writers. We are all excited.”
