National Baseball Hall of Fame
Frank and Peggy Steele Internship Program
The Frank and Peggy Steele Internship Program was founded by its latter namesake in 2001. It operates out of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Museum in departments such as digital content, membership, programming, collections, library, curatorial and more. I was one of 16 members selected for the Class of 2024. My role as the social media intern remains the highlight of my undergraduate college career. There, in this program, I sat in a cubicle in the Hall of Fame’s basement alongside the multimedia intern — working with one another to edit, film and post content across the organization’s social media platforms (Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook). Our supervisors were the Director of Digital Content, Kourage Kundahl, and Content Production Coordinator, Hailey Marx.
As a Steele intern, I was also required to give 10-minute presentations to patrons called “Artifact Spotlights,” in which I spoke about three artifacts not on display within the Museum. Peggy tells us public speaking and education are two of the program’s hallmarks, as they were both important to her late husband Frank. All interns also hosted the All Star Gala, a screening of the annual MLB All Star game in the Grandstand Theater, featuring interactive games and trivia — as well as work Hall of Fame Weekend Events like Ozzie Smith’s Turn Two and the Induction Ceremony.
I fell in love with sports social media at the Hall of Fame and hope to one day find my way back to it. Scroll through some of my favorite memories from the program below.
Notable Social Media Posts
Ken Griffey Jr. at the East West Classic: “When the Kid asks to take your picture, you smile.”
This was my first assignment as a Steele intern, and it was surreal to have photos taken by Ken Griffey Jr. AirDropped to me on a Tuesday afternoon, to say the last. Griffey Jr.’s quite the photographer — his work can be found all over his Instagram account.
He was kind enough to capture portraits of players participating in the Hall of Fame’s first (and last) East-West Baseball Classic, in which they paid tribute to the Negro Leagues.
Hall of Fame 85th Anniversary Birthday Card: “Our 85th birthday called for a card of its own.”
This baseball card is among my favorite social media projects. It was one of the first times my supervisor allowed me full creative control. I used Adobe Photoshop and InDesign, and worked with the Hall of Fame’s graphic designer to create it in honor of the Hall of Fame’s 85th anniversary.
The post was the most shared of the week on Instagram, an accomplishment I still boast and think of fondly.
Ask the Interns: 2024 All-Star Game Predictions: “All rise for the Steele Interns’ 2024 #allstargame picks!”
Every year, the Steele Interns are in charge of hosting the Hall’s All Star Gala, during which patrons are welcomed into the Grand Stand Theater for a night of food, games and screening of the MLB All Star Game.
The then-multimedia intern and I filmed this promotional TikTok of our fellow interns the week of the event. It allowed followers to connect with interns by seeing their faces, and sharing our excitement for getting to see the sport’s best and brightest in the annual exhibition game.
The Sights and Sounds of Plaque Installations: “Baseball’s four newest legends officially join the roster.”
My final social media video of the internship came in the form of a behind-the-scenes look at plaque installations — including following HOF interns and employees as they presented the plaques, and providing close-ups of their installations onto the wall.
The Class of 2024 inductees were: Adrian Beltre, Todd Helton, Jim Leyland and Joe Mauer.
Web Design
Every intern within the Frank and Peggy Steele internship program is required to write at least one #Shortstop story for the Hall of Fame and Museum’s website. We each selected an artifact from the Museum off of a list of those that had not yet been written about. In addition to writing — and designing the webpage — for mine, I designed those of several others. I also designed the web page of a commemorative story about Jackie Robinson, something particularly special to me as a Dodgers fan, as my supervisor and I selected photographs from the Museum’s digital archives. For these tasks, I formatted and wrote captions for photos, edited URL addresses and ensured that each #Shortstop story’s webpage met the organization’s style and standards.
My own #Shortstop story is titled “Lou’s Luggage,” and details a luggage tag belonging to Lou Gehrig from his 12-city, 18-game tour of Japan in 1934, for which he was accompanied by fellow Hall of Famers Babe Ruth and Jimmie Foxx.
See the stories’ full webpages linked above, or scroll through some screenshots of them below.
