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For a lifelong Dodgers fan and longtime Mexican American, the most memorable moment of the World Series did not occur during the nail-biting final game last Saturday, when her squad pulled off one dramatic comeback feat after another before prevailing in overtime against the opposing team.

It came in the previous game, when two second-tier athletes, Kike Hernández and the Venezuelan infielder, pulled off a thrilling, decisive play that simultaneously challenged many negative misconceptions promoted about Hispanic people in recent decades.

The play in itself was breathtaking: the outfielder raced in from the outfield to snag a ball he at first lost in the bright lights, then fired it to second base to record another, decisive out. the second baseman, positioned nearby, received the ball moments before a runner collided with him, sending him backwards.

This wasn't merely a remarkable sporting achievement, possibly the key turn in the series in the Dodgers' favor after looking for much of the games like the weaker team. To her, it was exhilarating, politically and culturally, a much-required morale boost for the community and for Los Angeles after months of immigration raids, troops patrolling the neighborhoods, and a constant stream of negativity from national leaders.

"Kike and Miggy presented this alternative story," explained Molina. "Everyone saw Latinos showing an contagious pride and joy in what they do, being key figures on the team, having a distinct kind of masculinity. They are bombastic, they're cheering, they're removing their shirts."

"This represented such a contrast with what we see on the news – raids, Latinos thrown to the ground and pursued. It's so simple to be demoralized these days."

However, it's exactly straightforward to be a Dodgers supporter these days – for Molina or for the legions of other fans who attend regularly to matches and fill up as many as half of the stadium's fifty thousand spots per game.

The Complicated Relationship with the Organization

After aggressive enforcement operations began in the city in June, and national guard units were sent into the city to react to ensuing demonstrations, two of the city's soccer teams promptly issued messages of solidarity with affected communities – but not the baseball team.

The team president stated the Dodgers prefer to stay away of politics – a stance colored, possibly, by the reality that a significant minority of the fans, even Latinos, are supporters of certain political figures. Under considerable external demands, the organization later committed $one million in support for individuals directly impacted by the operations but issued no public criticism of the government.

White House Visit and Historical Legacy

Months before, the organization did not hesitate in accepting an offer to celebrate their previous World Series win at the White House – a decision that sports columnists described as "pathetic … spineless … and contradictory", considering the Dodgers' pride in having been the first professional team to break the racial segregation in the mid-20th century and the frequent invocations of that legacy and the values it represents by officials and present and past athletes. Several players such as the coach had voiced unwillingness to go to the White House during the first term but then changed their minds or succumbed to demands from the organization.

Business Control and Fan Dilemmas

An additional issue for supporters is that the Dodgers are controlled by a corporate behemoth, the ownership group, whose investments, as per media reports and its own released balance sheets, involve a stake in a private prison corporation that operates enforcement facilities. The group's leadership has said 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 policies.

All of that add up to considerable mixed feelings among Latino fans in particular – feelings that emerged even in the excitement of this season's hard-fought championship triumph and the following outpouring of team support across Los Angeles.

"Is it okay to root for the Dodgers?" local writer one observer reflected at the beginning of the playoffs in an thoughtful essay pondering on "team loyalty in our veins, but uncertainty in our hearts". Galindo was unable to finally bring himself to watch the championship, but he still felt strongly, to the point that he believed his personal protest must have brought the squad the fortune it needed to win.

Distinguishing the Players from the Owners

Numerous supporters who have similar misgivings appear to have decided that they can keep to support the team and its lineup of international stars, including the Asian superstar a key player, while pouring scorn on the team's business overlords. Nowhere was this more clear than at the victory celebration at Dodger Stadium on the following day, when the packed audience roared in approval of the manager and his athletes but jeered the executive and the top official of the ownership group.

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

Historical Background and Community Impact

The problem, however, runs deeper than only the organization's current proprietors. The agreement that brought the former franchise to Los Angeles in the 1950s required the municipality razing three working-class Latino communities on a elevated area overlooking downtown and then selling the land to the organization for a small part of its actual worth. A track on a 2005 album that chronicles the story has an low-income worker at the stadium revealing that the home he forfeited to removal is now third base.

A prominent commentator, perhaps the region's most widely followed Latino writer and broadcaster, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, dysfunctional relationship between the team and its fanbase. He describes the Dodgers the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a business organization with an excessive, even harmful following by too many Latinos" that has been exploiting its fans for decades.

"They have put one arm around Latino followers while picking their pockets with the other for so long because they have been able to avoid consequences," Arellano wrote over the warmer months, when demands to boycott the team over its absence of reaction to the enforcement actions were contradicted by the uncomfortable reality that attendance at matches did not dip, even at the height of the demonstrations when downtown LA was under to a evening curfew.

International Stars and Fan Connections

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