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In the eyes of Natalia Molina and longtime Mexican American, the crowning moment of the baseball championship did not occur during the nail-biting finale on Saturday, when her team pulled off one dramatic comeback act after another before winning in overtime against the opposing team.

It happened in the previous game, when two second-tier athletes, Kike Hernández and the Venezuelan infielder, pulled off a thrilling, decisive sequence that simultaneously upended many negative stereotypes touted about Hispanic people in the past decades.

The moment itself was stunning: Hernández charged in from left field to snag a ball he initially lost in the stadium lights, then fired it to second base to record another, decisive out. the second baseman, positioned nearby, caught the ball just a split second before a opposing player collided with him, sending him backwards.

This wasn't just a great athletic moment, perhaps the decisive turn in momentum in the Dodgers' favor after looking for much of the games like the weaker side. To her, it was exhilarating, on multiple levels, a badly needed morale boost for the community and for Los Angeles after months of enforcement actions, troops patrolling the neighborhoods, and a constant stream of negativity from official sources.

"Kike and Miggy presented this counter-narrative," said Molina. "The world saw Latinos showing an contagious enthusiasm in what they do, acting as key figures on the team, having a distinct kind of masculinity. They're bombastic, they're cheering, they're removing their shirts."

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

However, it's entirely simple to be a team supporter these days – for Molina or for the many of other Latinos who show up regularly to home games and occupy as many as 50% of the stadium's fifty thousand seats each time.

A Complicated Relationship with the Organization

When intensified enforcement operations began in the city in early June, and military troops were sent into the area to respond to ensuing protests, two of the local sports teams promptly issued messages of support with affected communities – while the baseball team.

The team president has said the organization prefer to stay away of politics – a stance colored, perhaps, by the fact that a significant portion of the fans, even some Hispanic fans, are followers of current leaders. Under significant external demands, the organization subsequently committed $1m in support for individuals directly impacted by the raids but issued no public condemnation of the government.

White House Visit and Historical Legacy

Months before, the team did not delay in accepting an offer to celebrate their 2024 championship victory at the official residence – a move that local writers described as "disappointing … spineless … and hypocritical", considering the team's boast in having been the first major league franchise to break the color barrier in the 1940s and the regular invocations of that history and the values it represents by officials and current and former players. A number of team members including the coach had voiced unwillingness to go to the White House during the first term but then changed their minds or gave in to demands from team management.

Business Ownership and Supporter Conflicts

An additional complication for fans is that the Dodgers are owned by a large investment group, the ownership group, whose investments, according to media reports and its own published balance sheets, include a share in a private prison corporation that operates enforcement facilities. Guggenheim's leadership has stated many times that it aims to stay out of politics, but its critics say the silence – and the investment – are their own type of compliance to certain policies.

These factors contribute to significant mixed feelings among Hispanic supporters in particular – feelings that surfaced even in the excitement of this year's hard-fought championship triumph and the ensuing explosion of Dodgers pride across Los Angeles.

"Is it okay to support the Dodgers?" local writer Erick Galindo agonized at the start of the postseason in an thoughtful essay ruminating on "Dodger blue in our blood, but uncertainty in our hearts". Galindo couldn't finally bring himself to watch the World Series, but he still felt deeply, to the point that he decided his personal boycott must have given the team the fortune it needed to succeed.

Separating the Players from the Management

Numerous fans who share similar misgivings appear to have decided that they can keep to back the team and its lineup of international players, including the Asian megastar Shohei Ohtani, while expressing disdain on the team's corporate overlords. At no place was this more clear than at the victory celebration at the home venue on Monday, when the capacity crowd cheered in approval of the manager and his players but jeered the executive and the chief executive of the investors.

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

Past Background and Neighborhood Effect

The issue, however, runs deeper than only the organization's current owners. The deal that brought the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles in the 1950s required the city demolishing three working-class Hispanic neighborhoods on a hill overlooking the city center and then transferring the property to the organization for a fraction of its actual worth. A track on a 2005 album that chronicles the events has an impoverished parking attendant at the stadium stating that the house he forfeited to eviction is now third base.

Gustavo Arellano, possibly southern California most influential Latino writer and broadcaster, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, problematic relationship between the franchise and its fanbase. He calls the team the popular snack of baseball, "a corporate entity with an excessive, even harmful devotion by too many Latinos" that has been shortchanging its fans for years.

"They have acted around Latino fans while profiting from them with the other for so much time because they have been able to get away with it," the writer noted over the summer, when calls to avoid the organization over its lack of reaction to the raids were upended by the uncomfortable reality that attendance at matches did not dip, even at the height of the protests when downtown LA was under to a evening restriction.

International Players and Community Bonds

Distinguishing the team from its business leadership is not a simple matter, {