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For Natalia Molina and third-generation Mexican American, the most memorable moment of the World Series did not occur during the nail-biting finale last Saturday, when her team executed one dramatic comeback feat after another before prevailing in extra innings over the Toronto Blue Jays.

It happened in the previous game, when two supporting athletes, the Puerto Rican player and Miguel Rojas, executed a thrilling, decisive sequence that simultaneously challenged numerous negative stereotypes promoted about Hispanic people in recent years.

The play in itself was stunning: Hernández charged in from the outfield to snag a ball he at first misjudged in the stadium lights, then fired it to the infield to record another, decisive out. the second baseman, at second base, caught the ball moments before a opposing player barreled into him, sending him to the ground.

This was not merely a remarkable athletic moment, possibly the decisive shift in momentum in the team's direction after appearing for most of the games like the weaker team. To her, it was thrilling, on multiple levels, a badly needed uplift for Latinos and for the city after a period of enforcement actions, security forces patrolling the streets, and a constant drumbeat of criticism from national leaders.

"Kike and Miggy put forth this counter-narrative," explained the professor. "The world saw Latinos showing an infectious enthusiasm in what they do, acting as leaders on the team, having a different kind of confidence. They're energetic, they're cheering, they're removing their shirts."

"This represented such a contrast with what we observe on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos thrown to the ground and chased down. It is so easy to be disheartened these days."

Not that it's entirely simple to be a Dodgers supporter these days – for Molina or for the many 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

When aggressive enforcement operations began in Los Angeles in early June, and national guard troops were sent into the area to respond to resulting demonstrations, two of the city's soccer teams quickly issued messages of support with affected communities – while the Dodgers.

Management has said the Dodgers prefer to steer clear of politics – a view colored, perhaps, by the fact that a significant minority of the supporters, even some Hispanic fans, are supporters of current leaders. After considerable public pressure, the organization subsequently pledged $one million in support for families personally affected by the raids but made no official condemnation of the government.

White House Visit and Historical Heritage

Three months before, the team did not hesitate in agreeing to an offer to mark their previous championship win at the White House – a decision that local columnists described as "disappointing … spineless … and hypocritical", considering the Dodgers' boast in having been the pioneering major league franchise to break the color barrier in the mid-20th century and the regular references of that history and the values it represents by officials and present and past players. Several players including the manager had voiced reluctance to go to the White House during the first term but then changed their minds or gave in to pressure from team management.

Corporate Control and Fan Dilemmas

A further complication for supporters is that the team are owned by a large investment group, the ownership group, whose investments, according to media reports and its own released balance sheets, involve a share in a detention corporation that operates detention centers. Guggenheim's executives has said repeatedly that it aims to remain neutral of politics, but its critics say the silence – and the financial stake – are their own form of compliance to certain policies.

These factors add up to considerable mixed feelings among Latino fans in particular – feelings that emerged even in the euphoria of this season's hard-won championship victory and the following outpouring of team pride across Los Angeles.

"Can one to support the team?" local writer one observer reflected at the start of the postseason in an elegant essay ruminating on "team loyalty in our blood, but uncertainty in our hearts". He couldn't finally bring himself to watch the World Series, but he still cared deeply, to the point that he believed his personal protest must have given the team the fortune it required to succeed.

Distinguishing the Team from the Management

Many fans who share Galindo's reservations appear to have decided that they can keep to support the team and its roster of global players, featuring the Asian megastar Shohei Ohtani, while pouring scorn on the organization's corporate leadership. At no place was this more clear than at the championship parade at Dodger Stadium on Monday, when the packed audience cheered in support of the manager and his athletes but jeered the executive and the top official of the ownership group.

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

Past Background and Neighborhood Impact

The issue, though, runs deeper than only the organization's present proprietors. The deal that moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to the city in the 1950s involved the city razing three low-income Latino communities on a elevated area above the city center and then transferring the property to the organization for a fraction of its market value. A track on a 2005 record that chronicles the story has an low-income parking attendant at the stadium revealing that the house he lost to removal is now a part of the field.

Gustavo Arellano, perhaps the region's most widely followed Mexican American writer and media personality, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, problematic dynamic between the franchise and its fanbase. He describes the Dodgers the popular snack of baseball, "a business organization with an excessive, even harmful following by too many Latinos" that has been exploiting its fans for decades.

"They've acted around Hispanic fans while profiting from them with the other hand for so much time because they have been able to avoid consequences," the writer noted over the warmer months, when demands to avoid the organization over its absence of reaction to the enforcement actions were upended by the uncomfortable reality that turnout at home games did not dip, even at the height of the protests when the city center was under to a evening restriction.

International Players and Fan Bonds

Distinguishing the team from its corporate owners is not a simple task, {