A bit more on Jung-Ho Kang’s (unchanged) visa situation

The Post-Gazette has a story by Bill Brink recapping Jung-Ho Kang’s visa situation. It’s noteworthy mainly because Brink, to my knowledge, is the first reporter to take the painfully obvious step of interviewing an experienced immigration attorney. The story doesn’t add dramatically to what we already know, including some discussions of the applicable law that have been provided by commenters here, primarily Trogluddite if I remember correctly. There are some interesting insights about the process from somebody who seems to have a lot of experience with situations like Kang’s.

The bottom line, to the extent there is one, seems to be that Kang returning any time soon is a longshot. What evidently would help him most is going a very long time without getting into any more trouble, but obviously that won’t do his baseball career any good. The main problem seems to be the multiple DUIs, which is pretty much a killer. The possibility that he failed to disclose the earlier DUIs on earlier visa applications is also a major problem if it happened. In any case, Kang is in the process of submitting a visa application now.

In other news:

Things are looking at least marginally better for the Giants in their pursuit of Giancarlo Stanton. There are reports both that Stanton really would prefer the west coast to St. Louis and that the Marlins’ priority is cost-cutting, not prospects. The latter point is a big help to a San Francisco team with a bottom-feeding farm system.

MLBTR concludes its writeup of the Pirates’ staffing moves by stating, “While these moves seem to be mostly routine shuffling, it’s worth noting that very few first-round picks of the Pirates have lived up to their billing over the past 12 years.”

Cleveland has locked down a key piece for its next World Series appearance by re-signing Michael Martinez to a minor league deal. Pirate fans can breathe easier with that temptation removed.