Mo’ne Davis isn’t your average summer intern for Dodgers

At Mo’ne Davis“By the time he turned 22, the Dodgers’ newest intern had a full to-do list.

Before the game the youngest Hampton University The graduate was needed on the field to capture footage of the Dodgers’ pre-game practice sessions.

She was with her bosses throughout the day, coordinating a list of promotional video productions for the team’s scoreboard and social media channels at the stadium.

And she was always ready for “anything they ask of me.”

“This is nothing new,” Davis said in a depressing phase this past Saturday. “I used to go to a baseball field on my birthday.”

Davis is known to the rest of the baseball world as an icon.

Nine years ago, she caused an overnight sensation during the 2014 Little League World Series, becoming the first girl in event history to record a pitching win and a shutout.

In her hometown of Philadelphia, Davis’ dominance in an almost exclusively male sport was already a local feel-good story and becoming a national phenomenon. Her next start in the tournament drew almost 5 million viewers on ESPN. A week later, she was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, accompanied by the headline, “Mo’ne. Remember her name.”

In fact, Davis has been in the spotlight ever since. She has been featured on more magazine covers (most notably a 2017 Time magazine feature) and even a short documentary produced by Spike Lee. She has been on camera on Major League Baseball’s social media platforms. And by the time she enrolled at Hampton and joined the Hampton softball team four years ago, she was already a role model for young athletes across the country.

“I’ve always tried to push women’s sport forward,” she said. “Give it the attention it needs.”

Mo’ne Davis autographs a copy of Sports Illustrated for a fan in 2016, two years after becoming the first girl to pitch a win and a shutout at the Little League World Series.

(Butch Comegys/Associated Press)

That summer, however, Davis focused on advancing her own future.

After graduating with a communications degree in May, she was hired by the Dodgers as an intern in their video production department, a possible first step toward her ultimate goal of one day working in a front office (she’s returning to school this fall to to start there). Master’s degree in Sports Management).

While her past gives her more notoriety than the other 20 interns the Dodgers hired for various roles at the club this summer — a pool chosen from around 5,000 applicants — her current role is surprisingly ordinary; a college intern simply trying to make a strong professional impression.

“She went through the exact same process as all of our other interns,” said Courtney Moore, the Dodgers’ vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion.

“I think we would have hired her whether she was who she was or not,” added Erick Vazquez, who oversees Davis as director of Dodgers Productions. “That’s how impressive she was in her interview.”

Since beginning her internship in late May, Davis’ work has mostly been behind the scenes.

She will edit highlight packages from previous games that will be shown before the first pitch at Chavez Ravine.

She will help produce promotional items for the club’s social media channels, such as the team’s recent collaboration with Disney film Elemental and a video feature with star outfielder Mookie Betts for the club’s Black Heritage Night last month.

And like any intern, she’ll take on any other duties her bosses ask of her – even modeling for photos at a stadium jersey raffle in one of her rare on-camera assignments this summer.

“Ever since eighth grade, I’ve wanted to get into broadcasting,” said Davis, who called games for a college summer team in Washington, DC two summers ago. “But as time went by I just wanted to learn more about the sport and also learn about the business side of the sport to go in that direction.”

It’s not a path anyone of Davis’ public standing would normally take.

With more than 230,000 followers on Instagram, she is already well known on the internet. Her previous work at MLB could have opened more glamorous doors than a summer gig as a de facto production assistant. She is also recognized at Dodger Stadium when she is stopped for a picture by a group of fans in the crowd on one of her first days on the job.

“She looked at me and said, ‘Is that cool?’ ‘ Vazquez recalled with a laugh. “Obviously she’s quite famous. So it’s totally fine as long as it doesn’t interrupt their work for us.”

Mo’ne Davis warms up to prepare for the first throw before a Dodgers-Washington Nationals game September 2, 2014 at Dodger Stadium.

(Jon SooHoo / Dodgers)

For Davis, however, leveraging her past successes in social media influence was far less appealing than pursuing a future as a senior decision-maker somewhere in baseball.

“Hopefully I can work my way up to a front office position,” she said before revealing her ultimate goal. “Maybe a GM. We’ll see where it takes me.”

At the moment she has only one goal.

“I make sure I don’t make Little League the highlight of my life,” she explained. “I still have so much to do.”

So this summer, as a college intern, she embarks on an arduous, familiar path, hoping that her time with the Dodgers will open a new chapter in their already familiar story.

“It’s really cool to see someone that everyone knows from their days as a little league player turn around and take this really seriously the way she did,” Vazquez said. “She goes through the same steps as any other person who didn’t have the status that they did.”