Ronald Young
MLN Sports Zone

What do minor league baseball players have in common with summer hotel workers, seasonal timber laborers, and minor league hockey players?  If they’re not U.S. citizens or permanent residents, they can’t get their H-2B temporary worker visas due to restrictions imposed by the U.S. government.

While major league players get P-1 visas, minor leaguers need “H-2B” visas.  In the past, the government allotted 1,400 H-2B temporary worker visas to Major League Baseball (MLB), which was more than enough to go around.  Teams could send a foreign player home if he did not perform well or suffered an injury.  The club could then use that same visa slot for another player.  It was common practice to develop Latin American players in academies or summer leagues and then bring them Stateside later in the year.

For Everyone Else, There’s (No) Visa

The official news came on March 9 of 2004.  The government announced 13,000 fewer H-2B visas than in 2003.  The 2004 limit of 66,000 visas was reached in early March.  MLB did not get any special treatment, either.

“It was a total surprise,” admits Oneri Fleita, the Cubs’ Director of Player Development. 

“We had about a seven day window,” adds Grant Griesser, the Assistant Director of Player Development for the Reds. “Major League Baseball got wind of it and at least alerted us all a week ahead, which… allowed some teams to do some ‘hurry up, let’s get a couple more guys over,”.

The crisis appears to be headed for a repeat this season, as the INS has not increased the number of available visas in this category in 2005, and ballplayers in the minors will receive no special treatment.

Juggling Rosters

The visa restrictions caused headaches particularly in the lower minor leagues. 

“When you can’t get eight or ten players into your rookie league club, it’s a problem for the whole industry,” notes Fleita.

Indians Director of Player Development John Farrell says that his team was largely unaffected last season because most of the players needing visas already had them and were in the United States before the March 9th announcement.

The Reds were another fortunate club.  "We brought over the guys we felt warranted a spot on a team here and we did that early enough that they were all approved,” reports Griesser.  “We had most everyone we wanted over from Latin American countries by the end of March."

Guys You Can Count On

According to Farrell, the real problem will set in again when teams need to replace a player.  It sometimes proved impossible to bring in a player from Latin America who had not already obtained a visa last season.  Such a situation puts pressure on teams to make the right personnel decisions. 

"You try to make sure that guys you bring in now are guys you can count on,"says Fleita.

Creating Crisis from Canada to the Caribbean

Fleita encountered another sort of problem.  After pitching briefly in the Dominican Winter League, Cuban lefty Raúl Valdéz signed with the Cubs during Spring Training. 

"He should be pitching in AA or AAA," says Fleita.  However, because the Cubs had no more visas, Valdez had to toil away in the Dominican Summer League, where he overmatched the rookie-level players.  Valdéz went 7-2 with a miniscule 0.54 ERA, while striking out 142 batters in the DSL, where no one else even struck out 100.

The visa restrictions also affected Canadian players.  Going into the 2004 draft, pitcher Philippe Alexandre Valiquette was the highest rated Canuck.  Griesser recalls that the Reds’ brass asked him what could done if the team selected the hurler. 

Griesser offered two solutions, neither of them ideal:  Simply to wait for the 2005 season for him to play, or bring him in on a tourist visa to let him work out with a team.  To avoid an infraction of U.S. immigration law though, Valiquette could not actually participate in games or be paid. 

Steven-Ryder Carter, a Canadian pitcher drafted by the Oakland Athletics (A’s) in the 26th round in 2004, was unable to get a visa. The A’s allowed Carter to skip the Arizona League and sent him to the Vancouver Canadians of short-season Northwest League instead.  Carter could pitch in home games but, without the proper U.S. visa, he couldn’t do U.S. road trips. The visa shortage forced him to stay behind to work out on his own.

The Fix Gets Nixed

Major League Baseball tried to help minor league teams this season by waiving age restrictions at certain levels. 

“Those rules were relaxed this year because teams couldn’t bring over extra, young Latin players,” says Griesser.  This temporary rule change helped the Reds fill out their Gulf Coast League and Billings rosters. 

It also gave a breath of life into the careers of players who would have otherwise sought refuge in the independent leagues for a season or two more, and stayed the career executions of a few older indy players who would have been cleared from the great baseball food chain as well.

Maine Senator Susan Collins introduced legislation last year that would allow minor league athletes to apply for the same P-1 visas that major leaguers get.  The Senator’s constituents, a hockey team in Maine, were able to get H2-B visas, and the matter was largely dropped.

Ironically, Cubans may have an easier time obtaining visas than other international  players. Congressman Serrano introduced legistlation in the 2005 congressional session, the ‘Baseball Diplomacy Act’ (HR 209 IH), which eases restrictions on Cuban players’ seasonal travel, and may give them a leg up on the hard-to-come-by visas.

There is still no quick fix to the post-911 world of immigration. Teams will have to be more proactive, says Farrell.  The team will have all the visa applications ready to be processed by the first week of January. His team will pay to have the application process expedited, which involves additional cost, but ensures that all Indian farmhands will be able to enter the country.

Griesser was also filling out visa applications while everyone else was doing their holiday shopping.  “We’ll have to have our list together of who we want to bring over much earlier,” he says. 

Yet even this solution is imperfect.  The Rule V draft took place in December, so teams had to scramble to get an application in for a newly acquired player.

To further complicate matters, there is plenty of competition for these visas from outside of baseball.

“Everybody in the business world knows this is going to happen, not just us,” worries Griesser, “So everybody’s going to file earlier.  It’s going to be a mess.”