An internship in minor league baseball might not sound as prestigious as anything in the majors, but NYU senior Chase Kressel saw the value in one.

“I don’t exactly know what I want to do yet,” the sports management major said. “It’s great to get experience here and to see what I like and don’t like.”

Kressel is one of three NYU students and alumni working for the Newark Bears. But over the course of one game day in mid-July, he did much more than most interns do in an ordinary afternoon.

I walked into Bears & Eagles Riverfront Stadium just after 9 a.m., two hours before a morning match-up with Atlantic League rival Bridgeport.

Players were beginning to file in when Kressel asked me to wait on a couch in the lobby of the team offices. After a few minutes, Ricky Benichak, another sports management intern from NYU, approached me.

Benichak, a sophomore, primarily assists the club behind the scenes, working on the players’ payroll, sponsorship contracts and game promotions.

“It’s all about putting fans in the seats,” said. This game happened to be a camp-day promotion, where Tri-State area summer camps were invited for hot dogs and to watch the game.

We talked for a few minutes before I went to explore the stadium. As I paced the concourse, I noticed the sky looked threatening.

I quickly made my way up to the press box and found business manager and NYU alumnus, Tom Phillips. Because the general manager wasn’t around that day, Phillips was especially busy. Still, he assured me the game would be played.

Phillips earned a master’s degree in sports management at NYU, and now does, as he put it, “a little bit of everything” for the team.

When first pitch was finally delivered at 11:08 a.m., I settled into my seat for what I hoped would be a relaxing afternoon of baseball. Benichak sat next to me and operated the scoreboard while Kressel was in the next room serving as game announcer.

An hour of clean baseball passed, but during the top of the fourth inning the skies opened up. The grounds crew quickly ran to place the tarp on the field, and a marathon, two-hour rain delay began.

I tried to find Phillips several times to ask him when the delay would end, but he was nowhere to be found. Later he told me he was one of the men out pulling the tarp over the field and updating both teams with weather reports.

As 1,600 children from eight local summer camps trickled out of the stadium, assuming the game would be canceled, the delay dragged on.

With the stadium seemingly empty, Kressel and Benichak had to return to work fast when the tarp came off the field and play finally resumed. The later innings dragged, but in the end, the last place Bears pulled out a 4-1 victory.