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In the eyes of a lifelong Dodgers fan and third-generation Mexican American, the most memorable moment of the baseball championship didn't occur during the nail-biting final game last Saturday, when her squad pulled off one death-defying comeback act after another before winning in extra innings over the opposing team.

It came in the previous game, when two second-tier athletes, the Puerto Rican player and Miguel Rojas, executed a electrifying, decisive sequence that at the same time upended many harmful misconceptions promoted about Hispanic people in the past decades.

The play in itself was stunning: the outfielder charged in from left field to catch a ball he at first misjudged in the bright lights, then fired it to the infield to record another, game-winning play. Rojas, positioned nearby, caught the ball just a split second before a runner barreled into him, knocking him to the ground.

This was not just a great sporting achievement, perhaps the decisive turn in the series in the team's direction after appearing for most of the series like the weaker team. For Molina, it was thrilling, on multiple levels, a much-required morale boost for the community and for the city after months of enforcement actions, troops patrolling the streets, and a constant drumbeat of negativity from national leaders.

"Kike and Miggy presented this counter-narrative," explained Molina. "Everyone saw Latinos displaying an contagious enthusiasm in what they do, acting as key figures on the team, having a different kind of confidence. They are energetic, they're cheering, they're taking off their shirts."

"It was such a juxtaposition with what we observe on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos detained and chased down. It is so simple to be demoralized these days."

However, it's entirely straightforward to be a Dodgers fan nowadays – for Molina or for the legions of other fans who show up regularly to home games and occupy as many as 50% of the stadium's 50,000 spots per game.

A Mixed Relationship with the Organization

After aggressive enforcement operations started in Los Angeles in June, and national guard units were sent into the area to react to resulting demonstrations, two of the local soccer clubs promptly released messages of support with immigrant families – while the Dodgers.

The team president has said the organization prefer to stay away of politics – a stance influenced, perhaps, by the reality that a sizable minority of the supporters, even some Hispanic fans, are followers of certain political figures. Under considerable public pressure, the organization later committed $1m in support for families personally impacted by the operations but issued no public criticism of the administration.

Official Event and Historical Heritage

Months before, the organization did not delay in accepting an invitation to mark their 2024 World Series victory at the White House – a decision that sports writers described as "disappointing … spineless … and hypocritical", considering the Dodgers' boast in having been the pioneering professional franchise to end the color barrier in the mid-20th century and the regular invocations of that legacy and the principles it embodies by officials and present and former athletes. A number of team members such as the manager had voiced reluctance to travel to the event during the first term but either changed their minds or succumbed to pressure from the organization.

Corporate Ownership and Fan Dilemmas

An additional complication for fans is that the Dodgers are owned by a corporate behemoth, Guggenheim Partners, whose equity holdings, as per sources and its own published balance sheets, involve a stake in a detention corporation that runs enforcement centers. The group's executives has said repeatedly that it wants to stay out of political matters, but its detractors say the inaction – and the financial stake – are their own type of acquiescence to certain policies.

These factors add up to considerable mixed feelings among Latino supporters in especial – feelings that surfaced even in the excitement of this season's hard-won championship triumph and the following outpouring of Dodgers pride across the city.

"Can one to support the team?" local writer one observer reflected at the start of the playoffs in an thoughtful essay ruminating on "Dodger blue in our veins, but doubt in our hearts". He was unable to ultimately bring himself to view the championship, but he still cared deeply, to the point that he decided his personal boycott must have brought the squad the luck it needed to win.

Separating the Team from the Management

Many fans who share similar misgivings seem to have concluded that they can keep to back the players and its lineup of international players, featuring the Asian superstar a key player, while pouring scorn on the organization's corporate overlords. At no place was this more evident than at the victory celebration at Dodger Stadium on Monday, when the capacity crowd roared in approval of the coach and his athletes but booed the team president and the top official of the investors.

"These men in suits don't get to claim our boys in blue from us," Molina said. "We've been with the team longer than they have."

Historical Context and Neighborhood Effect

The problem, however, runs deeper than only the team's current proprietors. The agreement that brought the former franchise to Los Angeles in the late 1950s involved the city demolishing three working-class Latino neighborhoods on a hill overlooking the city center and then transferring the land to the organization for a fraction of its actual worth. A track on a mid-2000s record that documents the story has an low-income parking attendant at the stadium revealing that the house he lost to eviction is now third base.

Gustavo Arellano, perhaps southern California most widely followed Mexican American writer and media personality, sees a darker side to the lengthy, dysfunctional relationship between the team and its fanbase. He describes the Dodgers the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a corporate entity with an undue, even unhealthy devotion by numerous Latinos" that has been exploiting its fans for years.

"They have put one arm around Latino fans while picking their pockets with the other hand for so much time because they have been able to avoid consequences," the writer wrote over the summer, when calls to avoid the organization over its absence of response to the raids were contradicted by the awkward fact that attendance at home games remained steady, even at the peak of the demonstrations when downtown LA was subject to a nightly restriction.

International Stars and Community Connections

Distinguishing the squad from its corporate owners is not a easy matter, {