It’s 9 a.m. on a weekday in Japan. Offices go quiet. Kids are home from school. The country pauses just to watch one man take the field. That’s what happens when Los Angeles Dodgers’ superstar Shohei Ohtani plays baseball.

During this year's World Series, nearly 20 million viewers are putting life on hold every other day to watch their countryman on television. For a few hours, an entire nation stops what it is doing to cheer for one of its own.

That same ritual also runs deep in New Mexico. When Pascal Siakam spins through NBA defenses, or when Nick Gonzales steps up to the plate for the Pittsburgh Pirates, people in Las Cruces notice. Recently I witnessed an entire restaurant pause because Las Cruces native Doug Eddings was the umpire behind the Major League Baseball game on the TV’s.

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