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For a lifelong Dodgers fan and longtime Mexican American, the crowning moment of the World Series didn't happen during the nail-biting final game last Saturday, when her team executed multiple death-defying escape act after another and then prevailing in extra innings against the opposing team.

It happened a game earlier, when two second-tier players, Kike Hernández and Miguel Rojas, pulled off a electrifying, game-winning sequence that at the same time challenged numerous harmful stereotypes touted about Hispanic people in the past years.

The moment in itself was stunning: Hernández charged in from left field to snag a ball he at first lost in the stadium lights, then threw it to second base to record another, game-winning play. Rojas, at second base, caught the ball moments before a runner collided with him, knocking him backwards.

This wasn't just a remarkable athletic achievement, perhaps the decisive turn in momentum in the team's direction after appearing for most of the games like the underdog side. To her, it was exhilarating, on multiple levels, a much-required uplift for Latinos and for Los Angeles after months of enforcement actions, security forces patrolling the streets, and a constant drumbeat of criticism from national leaders.

"The players put forth this alternative story," said Molina. "The world saw Latinos displaying an contagious enthusiasm in what they do, being leaders on the team, having a distinct kind of confidence. They're energetic, they're yelling, they're removing their shirts."

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

However, it's entirely simple to be a team fan these days – for Molina or for the legions of other fans who attend regularly to matches and occupy as many as half of the venue's 50,000 seats each time.

A Complicated Relationship with the Team

When intensified enforcement operations began in the city in June, and national guard units were deployed into the area to respond to ensuing demonstrations, two of the city's sports clubs promptly released messages of support with immigrant families – while the baseball team.

The team president has said the organization prefer to stay away of political issues – a stance colored, perhaps, by the fact that a significant minority of the supporters, even some Hispanic fans, are followers of certain political figures. After significant external demands, the team later pledged $one million in aid for individuals personally impacted by the operations but made no public criticism of the government.

Official Visit and Historical Legacy

Months earlier, the team did not delay in agreeing to an invitation to mark their 2024 World Series win at the White House – a move that local columnists described as "disappointing … spineless … and contradictory", considering the Dodgers' boast in having been the pioneering professional team to break the racial segregation in the 1940s and the frequent invocations of that history and the values it embodies by officials and current and former players. A number of team members including the coach had voiced reluctance to travel to the event during the initial period but either changed their minds or succumbed to pressure from the organization.

Corporate Ownership and Supporter Dilemmas

A further complication for fans is that the Dodgers are owned by a corporate behemoth, the ownership group, whose equity holdings, as per media reports and its own published balance sheets, involve a stake in a detention corporation that operates enforcement centers. Guggenheim's leadership has stated repeatedly that it aims to stay out of political matters, but its critics say the silence – and the financial stake – are their own type of compliance to certain policies.

These factors contribute to considerable conflicted emotions among Hispanic supporters in particular – sentiments that emerged even in the euphoria of this year's hard-won World Series triumph and the ensuing outpouring of Dodgers support across the city.

"Is it okay to root for the Dodgers?" local writer one observer agonized at the beginning of the playoffs in an thoughtful article ruminating on "team loyalty in our blood, but doubt in our hearts". Galindo was unable to ultimately bring himself to view the championship, but he still cared strongly, to the point that he decided his personal protest must have brought the team the luck it required to succeed.

Distinguishing the Players from the Owners

Numerous fans who have Galindo's reservations seem to have concluded that they can continue to support the players and its roster of international players, including the Asian megastar a key player, while expressing disdain on the organization's business overlords. At no place was this more clear than at the championship parade at the home venue on Monday, when the capacity crowd cheered in support of the coach and his athletes but booed the executive and the top official of the investors.

"The executives in formal attire don't get to claim our players from us," Molina said. "We have been with the team for more time than they have."

Historical Context and Neighborhood Effect

The issue, though, goes further than just the team's present owners. The deal that moved the former franchise to Los Angeles in the late 1950s required the city demolishing three working-class Latino communities on a elevated area above the city center and then transferring the property to the organization for a small part of its actual worth. A track on a 2005 album that documents the events has an low-income worker at the venue stating that the home he lost to removal is now a part of the field.

A prominent commentator, possibly southern California most widely followed Latino writer and broadcaster, sees a more troubling side to the long, dysfunctional dynamic between the franchise and its fanbase. He calls the Dodgers the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a business organization with an undue, even harmful devotion by numerous Latinos" that has been shortchanging its supporters for decades.

"They've put one arm around Hispanic fans while picking their pockets with the other for so long because they have been able to avoid consequences," Arellano wrote over the summer, when demands to avoid the organization over its lack of response to the enforcement actions were upended by the uncomfortable reality that attendance at matches did not dip, even at the height of the demonstrations when downtown LA was subject to a evening restriction.

International Players and Fan Connections

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