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In the eyes of a lifelong Dodgers fan and longtime Mexican American, the crowning moment of the baseball championship didn't occur during the tense finale last Saturday, when her team executed one death-defying comeback act after another and then prevailing in extra innings against the Toronto Blue Jays.

It happened in the previous game, when two supporting players, the Puerto Rican player and Miguel Rojas, executed a thrilling, decisive play that at the same time upended many negative misconceptions touted about Hispanic people in the past decades.

The moment itself was stunning: Hernández raced in from the outfield to catch a ball he initially misjudged in the bright lights, then fired it to second base to secure another, game-winning out. Rojas, at second base, caught the ball moments before a opposing player barreled into him, sending him to the ground.

This wasn't merely a great sporting achievement, perhaps the key shift in momentum in the Dodgers' favor after appearing for much of the series like the underdog team. To her, it was exhilarating, on multiple levels, a badly needed uplift for the community and for the city after a period of immigration raids, security forces patrolling the streets, and a constant stream of criticism from national leaders.

"The players presented this counter-narrative," explained Molina. "The world saw Latinos showing an infectious enthusiasm in what they do, being leaders on the team, having a different kind of masculinity. They're bombastic, they're yelling, they're removing their shirts."

"It was such a contrast with what we see on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos detained and chased down. It's so simple to be demoralized these days."

Not that it's exactly straightforward to be a team supporter nowadays – for Molina or for the many of other Latinos who show up faithfully to matches and occupy as many as 50% of the stadium's fifty thousand seats per game.

The Complicated Relationship with the Team

After intensified enforcement operations started in Los Angeles in early June, and military units were deployed into the city to react to resulting demonstrations, two of the city's soccer clubs promptly issued messages of support with immigrant families – but not the baseball team.

Management stated the Dodgers prefer to stay away of politics – a stance colored, possibly, by the reality that a significant minority of the fans, including Latinos, are followers of certain leaders. After significant external demands, the organization later committed $one million in support for families directly impacted by the operations but issued no official criticism of the administration.

Official Visit and Past Legacy

Months before, the organization did not delay in accepting an invitation to mark their 2024 championship win at the official residence – a move that local columnists described as "pathetic … spineless … and hypocritical", given the team's boast in having been the pioneering major league team to break the racial segregation in the 1940s and the regular invocations of that legacy and the values it represents by officials and present and past players. Several team members such as the coach had voiced reluctance to travel to the event during the initial period but then changed their minds or gave in to pressure from the organization.

Corporate Ownership and Supporter Conflicts

A further complication for fans is that the team are controlled by a corporate behemoth, Guggenheim Partners, whose equity holdings, according to media reports and its own released financial documents, involve a share in a detention corporation that runs enforcement facilities. Guggenheim's leadership has stated many times that it aims to stay out of political matters, but its critics say the silence – and the investment – are their own type of compliance to certain agendas.

All of that contribute to significant conflicted emotions among Latino fans in particular – feelings that emerged even in the euphoria of this year's hard-fought World Series victory and the ensuing explosion of team support across Los Angeles.

"Is it okay to support the Dodgers?" local columnist one observer agonized at the start of the postseason in an elegant essay ruminating on "team loyalty in our veins, but uncertainty in our minds". Galindo couldn't ultimately bring himself to watch the championship, but he still felt deeply, to the extent that he believed his personal boycott must have brought the team the fortune it required to succeed.

Distinguishing the Players from the Owners

Many fans who have similar reservations appear to have concluded that they can continue to support the team and its roster of global players, including the Japanese megastar Shohei Ohtani, while expressing disdain on the team's business leadership. At no place was this more clear than at the championship parade at the home venue on Monday, when the capacity crowd cheered in approval of the manager and his athletes but jeered the team president and the top official of the ownership group.

"The executives in formal attire do not get to claim our boys in blue from us," the fan said. "We've been with the team for more time than they have."

Past Background and Neighborhood Impact

The problem, though, goes further than just the organization's current proprietors. The agreement that moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to the city in the 1950s involved the city demolishing three low-income Latino communities on a elevated area overlooking downtown and then selling the property to the organization for a fraction of its actual worth. A song on a 2005 record that chronicles the story has an impoverished parking attendant at the venue stating that the home he lost to removal is now a part of the field.

A prominent commentator, perhaps southern California most influential Mexican American writer and broadcaster, sees a more troubling side to the long, problematic relationship between the team and its audience. He describes the team the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a corporate entity with an undue, even unhealthy following by too many Latinos" that has been shortchanging its fans for years.

"They've put one arm around Latino followers while profiting from them with the other for so long because they have been able to get away with it," the writer wrote over the summer, when demands to boycott the organization over its absence of reaction to the raids were upended by the awkward reality that turnout at home games remained steady, even at the peak of the demonstrations when the city center was subject to a evening curfew.

International Players and Fan Connections

Distinguishing the squad from its corporate owners is not a easy matter, {