Southeast student spends summer as intern for Memphis Redbirds

Kerry Emerson will have an interesting story to tell on how he spent his summer vacation.

The 22-year-old Southeast Missouri State student has spent the entire 2005 calendar year doing intern work with the Memphis Redbirds, the Class AAA affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Baseball has always been a love for Emerson. The left-handed pitcher was a Class all-state performer in 2001 while playing at Holcomb High School. He also was a part of the Dunklin County American Legion team that won the Missouri state championship in 2000 and finished second in the Midwest Region.

Emerson, a sports management major who is scheduled to graduate from Southeast in December, jumped at the opportunity to do his intern work at Memphis, a three-hour drive from his hometown.

"I needed 12 hours of internship to complete my major, and I was excited when I heard about the possibility of coming to Memphis and work with the Redbirds," Emerson said. "It has turned out to be one of the best summers I could imagine."

Emerson actually began his work with the Redbirds Jan. 10. He will continue through the end of the regular season Labor Day -- Memphis is all but eliminated from post-season play. He is expected to continue on after the season through December.

Most of his work has been done in the ticketing department with the Redbirds.

"The ticket sales manager left right before the season started, and they didn't replace that person until recently," Emerson said. "So there was a lot more work to do than I expected. But the Redbirds do things right, and I like the fact that they gave me so much responsibility. I have actually been managing the box office, scheduling employees, doing trouble-shooting and the such."

Memphis plays in a stadium regarded as one of the best in the country for the minor leagues: The Auto Zone Park has the old-school look with the best of the modern conveniences. It seats 12,000, and Memphis is averaging about 10,000 with a season high of 16,000 July 4.

"The stadium is awesome," Emerson said. "It is always clean, and the Memphis fans are pretty knowledgeable about the game. If you come here for a Saturday night game the atmosphere is as close as it can get to being at Busch Stadium."

Emerson was able to visit Busch once in its final season to watch the Cardinals play the New York Yankees. But one of the few downsides to his job is not being able to follow the major leagues as closely as he once did on a day-to-day basis.

"I really don't get to see too much of the games themselves," Emerson said. "I miss that. The other thing I don't especially like is being part of the tarp crew. All the interns have to do that, and it can get pretty wild when the wind is blowing."

Emerson has also had to make an adjustment living in a city the size of Memphis.

"I came from a school which had a graduating class of 20," Emerson said. "It has been an adjustment for sure, but I am getting used to it for the most part. The worst thing is probably the traffic, but one of the best things is the barbecue."

Emerson will get to follow the major leagues more when the Memphis regular season ends on Labor Day to conclude an eight-game homestand.

"It's been a lot of long hours but a great experience and this is definitely something I would like to pursue," said Emerson, who needs to complete seven more hours which can be done from Memphis via the Internet or through independent study. "I love sports and I want to be involved someway. I am big on the operational rather than the sales part and baseball is definitely my favorite sport."