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In the eyes of a lifelong Dodgers fan and third-generation Mexican American, the crowning moment of the World Series didn't occur during the tense final game on Saturday, when her team pulled off multiple dramatic escape feat after another and then prevailing in extra innings against the opposing team.

It happened in the previous game, when two second-tier athletes, Kike Hernández and Miguel Rojas, pulled off a electrifying, decisive play that simultaneously upended many negative misconceptions promoted about Hispanic people in recent years.

The moment in itself was stunning: Hernández raced in from the outfield to snag a ball he initially lost in the bright lights, then threw it to the infield to secure another, game-winning play. the second baseman, at second base, caught the ball moments before a opposing player barreled into him, sending him backwards.

This was not merely a remarkable athletic achievement, perhaps the decisive turn in the series in the Dodgers' favor after looking for much of the games like the underdog team. For Molina, it was exhilarating, on multiple levels, a much-required morale boost for Latinos and for Los Angeles after a period of immigration raids, troops monitoring the neighborhoods, and a steady stream of negativity from national leaders.

"Kike and Miggy presented this counter-narrative," said Molina. "The world witnessed Latinos showing an infectious pride and joy in what they do, acting as key figures on the team, exhibiting a different kind of confidence. They are energetic, they're yelling, they're removing their shirts."

"It was such a juxtaposition with what we see on the news – raids, Latinos detained and pursued. It's so simple to be disheartened these days."

Not that it's entirely straightforward to be a Dodgers fan nowadays – for her or for the legions of other fans who attend regularly to home games and fill up as many as half of the stadium's 50,000 spots per game.

A Complicated Connection with the Team

When aggressive enforcement operations began in the city in early June, and national guard units were deployed into the area to react to resulting protests, two of the local soccer clubs quickly issued messages of solidarity with immigrant families – but not the Dodgers.

Management stated the organization want to stay away of politics – a view influenced, possibly, by the reality that a significant portion of the supporters, even Latinos, are followers of current political figures. After considerable public pressure, the organization later pledged $one million in aid for families directly impacted by the operations but made no official criticism of the administration.

Official Visit and Historical Legacy

Three months earlier, the team did not hesitate in agreeing to an offer to mark their previous World Series win at the official residence – a move that local columnists labeled as "disappointing … spineless … and contradictory", considering the team's pride in having been the pioneering professional team to break the color barrier in the 1940s and the regular references of that history and the principles it represents by executives and present and former players. A number of players such as the manager had expressed unwillingness to travel to the White House during the initial period but then changed their minds or gave in to pressure from team management.

Corporate Ownership and Supporter Dilemmas

An additional issue for fans is that the Dodgers are controlled by a large investment group, Guggenheim Partners, whose investments, according to sources and its own released balance sheets, include a stake in a private prison corporation that operates detention centers. The group's leadership has stated many times that it aims to remain neutral of politics, but its detractors say the silence – and the financial stake – are their own type of compliance to certain agendas.

These factors add up to significant conflicted emotions among Latino fans in particular – sentiments that surfaced even in the excitement of this season's hard-won championship victory and the following explosion of team support across the city.

"Can one to root for the Dodgers?" local writer one observer agonized at the beginning of the postseason in an elegant essay pondering on "Dodger blue in our veins, but doubt in our minds". He was unable to ultimately bring himself to watch the World Series, but he still cared strongly, to the extent that he decided his personal protest must have given the team the fortune it required to win.

Separating the Team from the Management

Numerous fans who share Galindo's reservations seem to have concluded that they can continue to back the team and its roster of international stars, including the Japanese megastar a key player, while expressing disdain on the organization's corporate leadership. Nowhere was this more evident than at the victory celebration at Dodger Stadium on the following day, when the packed audience cheered in approval of the coach and his players but jeered the team president and the top official of the investors.

"These men in suits do not get to claim our boys in blue from us," Molina said. "We have been with the team for more time than they have."

Past Background and Community Effect

The problem, however, runs deeper than only the team's current owners. The agreement that brought the former franchise to Los Angeles in the late 1950s required the city razing three working-class Latino neighborhoods on a elevated area above the city center and then transferring the land to the team for a small part of its market value. A track on a mid-2000s album that chronicles the events has an low-income parking attendant at the stadium revealing that the home he lost to removal is now a part of the field.

Gustavo Arellano, perhaps southern California most widely followed Latino writer and media personality, sees a darker side to the long, problematic dynamic between the franchise and its audience. He calls the team the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a business organization with an excessive, even unhealthy devotion by numerous Latinos" that has been shortchanging its supporters for years.

"They have acted around Hispanic followers while profiting from them with the other for so much time because they have been able to get away with it," the writer wrote over the warmer months, when demands to avoid the organization over its absence of response to the enforcement actions were upended by the uncomfortable fact that attendance at matches did not dip, even at the height of the demonstrations when downtown LA was under to a nightly restriction.

International Stars and Fan Bonds

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