Mia Franceschi grew up the daughter and granddaughter of baseball coaches. Now the Saint Mary's College junior is running social media for a championship team.
Franceschi, a Communication and Media Production double major from the Class of 2027, is spending the summer as social media associate for the Oakland Ballers, the Pioneer League club that won its first title in September 2025. She is the first student placed through Saint Mary's inaugural Media Production Summer Immersion Experience, a program that Media Production Director Jason Jakaitis created to place students inside professional organizations.
Working out of Raimondi Park in West Oakland, Franceschi creates short-form video, graphics, and social posts aimed at building the Ballers' fan base. Her toolkit leans on Adobe Premiere Pro and Photoshop, software she learned in Jakaitis's coursework on the Moraga campus.
The approach is paying off. During a June game honoring University of California students, Franceschi posted jumbotron footage of a reel from Calgorithm, a Cal student-run meme account. When the video's creator replied on X calling it an "Unbelievably massive W," Franceschi fired back from the official @OaklandBallers account:
@OaklandBallers: "just talked to nasa they said they could see this W from space."
The reply collected more than 200 likes.
"Fan engagement is one of the most important things you as a brand can do," Franceschi told Saint Mary's College in a July 29 profile. "The more, as a brand, you interact with regular people, the more inclined they are to support you. They'll see interactions like that and think 'Oh, the Oakland Ballers are funny. Let's go catch a game!'"
SMC's championship connection
Franceschi isn't the only Gael making an impact at Raimondi Park. Saint Mary's baseball alumnus Christian Almanza ('23, MA '24) set single-season franchise records for home runs and RBI during the Ballers' 2025 title run, slashing .315 with 31 homers and 105 RBI across 91 games.
The Ballers finished that regular season 73-23, a modern-era Pioneer League record, then defeated the Idaho Falls Chukars 8-1 in Game 5 of the championship series before a sellout crowd of 4,100 on Sept. 21, 2025. Oakland gave the team a key to the city and a championship parade.
What's next
Franceschi plans to graduate in spring 2027 and hopes to stay in professional baseball, ideally with the San Francisco Giants. Her first baseball memories trace to the Giants' three-title run between 2010 and 2015.
Saint Mary's faculty and staff looking to see the program's results firsthand can attend Extra Credit Night (Teacher Appreciation Night) on Friday, Aug. 21, when the Ballers host the Modesto Roadsters at 6:35 p.m. at Raimondi Park.
