Barber: Major League Baseball needs a Day Without Immigrants

Major League Baseball players should go on strike. Hear me out, America. I know that work stoppages are the bane of the sports fan, but the one I’m proposing will last only 24 hours.

MLB athletes, please organize a Day Without Immigrants.

Every foreign-born player in both leagues should refuse to take the field for one day this season. Schedule it for Cinco de Mayo. Or August 23, the 90th anniversary of the death of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian-American immigrants and anarchists executed after a shoddy trial.

Better yet, let’s do this on July 4. All 30 teams play that day, and what could possibly celebrate America more aptly than recognizing ourselves as a nation of immigrants? Happy Interdependence Day.

Think back to the Day Without Immigrants on February 16.?The protest had no national organizer. Word spread via social media and word of mouth, and hundreds of thousands of immigrants across the country skipped work to demonstrate their economic worth. Restaurants, auto shops and beauty salons were impacted. Some sympathetic employers shuttered their businesses for a day. School attendance fell.

In Sonoma County, hundreds of businesses closed. More than 1,300 students within Santa Rosa City Schools stayed home; other districts in the county experienced a higher rate of absenteeism.

The show of strength made a statement, but ultimately a modest one. If most Americans even noticed, they probably experienced the walkouts as a minor annoyance, perhaps a slower line at the cafe counter.

Participation wasn’t massive enough to truly disrupt the economy, and for an obvious reason: A lot of folks simply couldn’t afford to take the day off. Immigrants can be college professors and doctors, of course. But they disproportionately fill low-wage service jobs. Missing a day of work is no small sacrifice for someone supporting a family on anything close to minimum wage.

Fortunately, I have located a pool of immigrant laborers who are in much more stable financial position. They make an average of $4.47 million per year (according to USA Today), and a minimum of $535,000 per year (according to their collective bargaining agreement), and they occupy one of the most visible and beloved soapboxes in the land.

So what do you say, MLB players? Sit one out for the team? The big team?

Let’s face it, the political climate that encouraged the Day Without Immigrants in February hasn’t changed much since. It might have gotten worse.

I’ve been to recent forums in Napa, where I live, in which local law enforcement officials have engaged with citizens on their role in immigration issues. I know from these meetings that Bay Area cops tend to be sympathetic toward their foreign-born communities, and do not generally question people on their immigration status or pass that information along to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. I also know that if ICE decides it wants to get back into the business of raiding restaurant kitchens or vineyards, there isn’t much local law enforcement can do to prevent it.

Another thing of which I am certain after attending these forums: A lot of local immigrants are living in palpable fear right now. And that includes many who have gained citizenship, because everyone knows someone whose status is shakier.

These people have every reason to be nervous. Donald Trump has characterized Mexican immigrants as rapists. He vowed to shut down all Muslim entry into the U.S., and his Executive Order 13769 was a strong step in that direction before the courts went Dikembe Mutombo on it.

And recall, on that first chaotic day of the Muslim ban, even green card holders were being detained at airports. Trump isn’t clamping down on illegal immigration. He’s hostile to all immigrants, or at least the ones who aren’t white and Christian.

This is baseball’s chance to stand for many of the workers who groom its fields, prepare its pregame meals and manufacture its equipment. Imagine what a major-league Day Without Immigrants would look like. This year, opening-day rosters and inactive lists across the two leagues included a record 259 players born in other countries, an average of nearly nine per team. There were 93 Dominicans and 77 Venezuelans, but also outliers from places like Germany (Minnesota’s Max Kepler) and the Netherlands (the Yankees’ Didi Gregorius).

If every immigrant in the majors refused to play, some clubs would scarcely be able to field a team. Others could, but it would be a skeleton dugout with no room for manipulating the lineup or bullpen.

And man, the star power that would be erased. Just think, no Miguel Cabrera (Venezuela). No Robinson Cano (Dominican Republic). No Jose Altuve (Venezuela). No Nelson Cruz (D.R.) or Kenley Jansen (Curacao) or Albert Pujols (D.R.) or Carlos Correa (Puerto Rico) or Edwin Encarnacio (D.R.) or Masahiro Tanaka (Japan).

Here in the Bay Area, the A’s pitching staff would be in tatters without immigrant employees; Jharel Cotton (U.S. Virgin Islands), Santiago Casilla (Dominican Republic), Raul Alcantara (D.R.), John Axford (Canada), Frankie Montas (D.R.) and Liam Hendriks (Australia) all would be unavailable to throw. First baseman Yonder Alonso (Cuba) would have a day off, too.

The Giants wouldn’t be as severely affected, but they would be without the services of starting pitcher Johnny Cueto (D.R.), infielder Eduardo Nunez (D.R.) and outfielder Gorkys Hernandez (Venezuela).

Of course, if the immigrants really went on a one-day strike, you’d have to figure many native-born Americans would join them in solidarity.

I’m told that if a protest of this magnitude were to occur, teams could likely use the restricted list to call up temporary replacements. But consider the optics of ignoring close to one-third of your talent pool and playing through their peaceful demonstration. It would look terrible.

I think MLB would have to cancel its full slate of games. Or postpone them. Even if the 15 games were eventually made up, the players would have delivered a powerful message.

This idea is no doubt distasteful to Major League Baseball. And let’s be honest, it would suck for families who bought tickets for games on the Day Without Immigrants. But check it out. Protest is supposed to be inconvenient, supposed to be disruptive. That’s the whole point. Shake people out of their routines and remind them that something unacceptable is happening under their noses - in this case, the demonization and mistreatment of the immigrants who help us maintain our elevated quality of life.

Not sure how A’s manager Bob Melvin would feel about it. I’d like to think the Giants’ Bruce Bochy (France) would lend his support.

You can reach Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Skinny_Post. His blog “110 Percent” is at http://110percent.blogs.pressdemocrat.com.