Baseballism: The Customized Internship

Intern Masters Contributor: Clayton Gelfand, 2020 JD/MBA Candidate

For those who don’t know, Baseballism is a premium lifestyle brand that pays homage to the class, tradition, and history of baseball. What makes Baseballism’s story interesting is before ever releasing a product, the founders focused on building a community around Baseball on Facebook. They posted baseball-oriented and branded content that connected to everyday baseball fans and built a community that now has 942,000+ likes. This strategic decision was supplemental to initial growth because they developed a market to advertise directly, and it aided in obtaining actionable insights from consumers.

Baseballism, based in Portland, Oregon, started in a garage-like every entrepreneurial success story, but now has stores throughout the country, and just recently opened a 9th brick-and-mortar location in Irvine, California with a 10th location set to open at the Field of Dreams movie site in Dyersville, Iowa. In a time where companies are closing their brick-and-mortar stores, Baseballism is opening them. This company has redefined the retail space, and it was an amazing experience being a small part of their success.

In May of 2017, I graduated from California State University, Chico, where I played baseball for four years and studied business management. I loved school so much that I could not even take three months off before starting law school at Michigan State in August of 2017 (I forgot to mention I minored in sarcasm). Nonetheless, law school was always the dream and something I aspired to do since I was young. However, It only took getting through one semester in law school before I realized I was more passionate about business, so I jumped at the opportunity to apply for dual the J.D. – MBA program. Despite being told my lack of full-time work experience would be a detriment to an MBA admission, I got accepted into the program. I felt fortunate for the opportunity and believe it was my athletic background, my passion for growth, and my drive to use my J.D. to build a career in business were key factors that contributed to my admittance. 

With this newfound opportunity, I realized the future I anticipated for myself just a year prior would completely change. I spent the summer after my first year of law school in Los Angeles at the California Association of REALTORS, working as a corporate legal intern. It was during this internship I spent a lot of time thinking about my future, and what I needed to do to work in an area I was truly passionate about after graduation. Based on my graduation timeline, I had two summers to complete MBA level internships, so I started reaching out to as many people, companies, and sports teams as I could to learn about what potential formal or non-formal opportunities were out there that would provide me a well-rounded experience. 

That leads me to how my internship as a Brand Strategy & Operations Internship at Baseballism came to fruition. Baseballism is a small company compared to most that offer MBA level internships, so there was no formal internship program in place. Despite this, I decided I wanted to try and create an opportunity specific to the value I bring and the needs Baseballism had. I knew they were growing and thought it would provide a great opportunity to learn the business from a holistic perspective.

To learn more about Clayton's story, click the link below.