San Francisco Giants’ pitcher Masanori Murakami was the first Japanese national to appear in a Major League Baseball game. On September 1, 1964, Murakami entered the ninth inning against the New York Mets, faced four batters, struck out two, and allowed no runs. Three decades would pass before the next Japanese player donned an MLB uniform; Hideo Nomo, also a pitcher, debuted in 1995 for the Los Angeles Dodgers. In all, 74 Japanese have played in the MLB, and none more spectacularly than the Dodgers’ 2025 World Series superstars, MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shohei Ohtani, and Roki Sasaki. The trio’s incomes are as astonishing as their on-field performances. Yamamoto, Ohtani, and Sasaki contracts call for, respectively, $325 million over 12 years, $700 million over 10 years, and 2.35 million, one-year because of his amateur status.
More Japanese players are on the way to MLB in 2026 and beyond; Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) sluggers Munetaka Murakami and Kazuma Okamoto are set to be posted this offseason. NPB players who do not have nine years of professional experience to gain international free agency can request that team owners post them for MLB open bidding. Posting enriches the Japanese team owners who get a cut of the players MLB signing bonus, makes the Japanese players multimillionaires, and fattens billionaire owners’ bank accounts through television rights and merchandise sales. Ticket sales have partially offset the Dodgers’ other-worldly investments. The ticket price for the Dodgers’ 2024 home opener versus the St. Louis Cardinals with both Ohtani and Yamamoto on the roster averaged a fan-unfriendly $987.
Since the early 2000s, the Dodger have been heavily invested in Asian prospects. The Dodgers put together a scouting team that featured Scott Akasaki covering Japan along with Curtis Jung, who handled Korea, and Vincent Lau, who was responsible for Taiwan and China. Akasaki explained how the Dodgers are a magnet for Japanese, "You hear Yamamoto, Ohtani, and Sasaki talk about one of the reasons they chose the Dodgers is because of its history. " He pointed to Los Angeles’ relative proximity to Japan and the city’s strong relationship with the local Japanese community. Moreover, Akasaki added, “We have a really unique infrastructure. We have Japanese-speaking trainers. We have Japanese-speaking staff in the front office. I am bilingual. Will Ireton was Kenta Maeda's interpreter---Maeda was [with the Dodgers] a long time ago, but he's still on the support staff. You drop a Japanese player in our Dodgers clubhouse and that will be seamless." Ireton replaced Ohtani’s original interpreter when Ippei Mizuhara was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison for bank fraud and tax evasion after stealing nearly $17 million from the slugger to pay off gambling debts.
Easing the path for Japanese, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and other foreign nationals to America’s baseball diamonds is a liberal visa policy that welcomes all with lax time limits on the visas’ periods of stay. The national pastime looks increasingly un-American with each passing season. On the 2025 opening day rosters, 30% conservatively are foreign-born. In the minors, half of the 7,000 players have international roots, thanks to the COMPETE Act of 2006 [Creating Opportunities for Minor League Professionals, Entertainers, and Teams through Legal Entry Act of 2006] that President George W. Bush championed. Bush was the Texas Rangers managing general manager, a role he shed after elected governor while retaining his 2% ownership. Nevertheless, during his presidency, Bush was sympathetic to MLB’s general managers who complained to him that the State Department’s visa regulations hampered their ability to import quality players.
Before 1990, baseball players could enter the U.S. on H-1B visas as temporary worker. However, the Immigration Act of 1990 which President George H.W. Bush signed, eliminated athletes as well as foreign artists, entertainers from the H-1B category and created the O and P visas specifically for these groups. The O visa is for aliens with extraordinary ability to work temporarily in the U.S.; athletes fall under the O-1A subcategory. The O visa is valid for one to three years.
To qualify for the P visa, a major league contract is often sufficient. The P-1A Major League Sports classification also applies to those playing minor league ball; there is no cap and the visa is valid for up to five years. However, requirements to the P-1A include active participation during a prior season on a U.S. team, international competition on a national team, or a significant award. For those few new minor league recruits that do not qualify for the P visa, the H-2B visa for non-ag temporary workers remains an option.
Every employment-based visa represents a job that a foreign national will take from an American. And playing baseball is a contracted job, has several management layers, and professional responsibilities. MLB rosters should be limited to three international players, not hard to do but impossible to envision as part of globalist commissioner Rob Manfred’s agenda. Also noteworthy: NPB is thriving, with record attendance. To keep the league vibrant, the U.S. should not import Japan’s most skilled players.
Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org
