The Los Angeles Dodgers just won the 2025 World Series, and three Japanese players were central to that success: Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Roki Sasaki.

Their talent is obvious. But there’s another advantage they have—one that doesn’t show up in the box score.

The noise doesn’t reach them.

The Pressure That Doesn’t Exist

American athletes live under constant scrutiny. The media dissects every at-bat. Fans debate every decision on social media. Opposing teams’ cities build narratives. The pressure is relentless, and it’s everywhere.

But for Ohtani, Yamamoto, and Sasaki? Most of it doesn’t exist.

They speak Japanese. They consume Japanese media. They live their lives digitally in Japanese—talking to friends and family back home, reading news that matters to them, existing in a completely different information ecosystem.

The American sports media cycle—the hot takes, the criticism, the manufactured controversy—it’s all happening in a language and cultural context they’re not fully immersed in.

It’s not that they’re unaware. It’s that it doesn’t penetrate. It doesn’t affect them the same way.

And that’s a massive advantage.

Living Under the Radar

I can tell you this from experience.

I’m an immigrant. I speak English and live in Brazil.

When Brazilian politics erupt—when there’s a national controversy, when everyone’s debating the new education policy, when social media is on fire about some cultural issue—it doesn’t touch me.

Not because I don’t care. But because I genuinely don’t understand what’s at stake. I don’t have the cultural background to know why this matters more than that. I can’t develop an opinion because even if someone explained it to me, half the context would be missing.

So I don’t engage. I can’t. And that means I don’t get pulled into the spiral.

I watch other people around me get consumed by it. I see them stressed, distracted, angry. And for me? It’s just noise in a language I don’t fully speak.

My life exists under the radar. The stuff that feels urgent and all-consuming to everyone else goes right over my head.

And here’s the thing: it really isn’t important. You always knew that. You always knew you should spend less time doom-scrolling. But the temptation was constant. You had to actively detach yourself.

As an immigrant, that temptation doesn’t exist. You’re detached by default.

The Advantage for Your Children

This is what the Japanese players on the Dodgers have.

They’re not getting pulled into the noise. They’re not reading the takes. They’re not absorbing the pressure the same way American-born players are.

They show up. They play. They go home and exist in their own world.

That’s not avoidance. That’s clarity.

And it’s an advantage you can give your children.

Raise them bilingual. Raise them in a country where they’re partially removed from the dominant cultural narrative. Let them grow up under the radar.

Not disconnected. Just insulated.

They’ll still be informed. They’ll still participate. But they won’t be consumed by it. They won’t feel the constant pull to check what’s happening, to have an opinion, to engage with every manufactured controversy.

They’ll have space to focus on what actually matters.

The Real Benefit

The Japanese players on the Dodgers aren’t just talented. They’re operating with less mental clutter.

And that clarity—that ability to stay focused on the work without getting pulled into the noise—is a competitive advantage.

It’s the same advantage you gain as an immigrant.

And it’s the same advantage you can build into your children’s lives.

Not by isolating them. But by giving them another lane—another language, another cultural context, another place where the noise just doesn’t reach them the same way.

That’s not a disadvantage. That’s freedom.