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For a lifelong Dodgers fan and third-generation Mexican American, the crowning highlight of the World Series did not happen during the nail-biting finale last Saturday, when her team pulled off one dramatic comeback feat after another and then winning in overtime over the Toronto Blue Jays.

It came a game earlier, when two supporting players, Kike Hernández and Miguel Rojas, pulled off a electrifying, decisive sequence that at the same time upended many negative misconceptions touted about Latinos in recent years.

The moment itself was stunning: the outfielder raced in from the outfield to snag a ball he at first lost in the bright lights, then threw it to second base to record another, decisive play. Rojas, positioned nearby, caught the ball just a split second before a opposing player barreled into him, knocking him to the ground.

This wasn't merely a remarkable sporting achievement, possibly the decisive shift in momentum in the Dodgers' direction after looking for much of the series like the underdog side. For Molina, it was thrilling, on multiple levels, a badly needed morale boost for Latinos and for Los Angeles after a period of immigration raids, security forces monitoring the streets, and a steady stream of criticism from official sources.

"Kike and Miggy presented this counter-narrative," explained the professor. "The world witnessed Latinos showing an contagious enthusiasm in what they do, acting as leaders on the team, exhibiting a distinct kind of masculinity. They are energetic, they're cheering, they're taking off 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 disheartened these days."

Not that it's entirely simple to be a Dodgers fan these days – for Molina or for the many of other fans who attend faithfully to home games and occupy as many as 50% of the venue's 50,000 spots each time.

The Mixed Relationship with the Team

When intensified enforcement operations started in Los Angeles in early June, and national guard troops were deployed into the city to respond to ensuing protests, two of the local sports clubs promptly issued statements of support with immigrant families – but not the Dodgers.

Management stated the organization want to stay away of politics – a view colored, perhaps, by the reality that a significant minority of the supporters, including Latinos, are followers of certain political figures. Under significant external demands, the team subsequently committed $one million in aid for individuals personally impacted by the raids but issued no public criticism of the administration.

Official Visit and Historical Heritage

Months earlier, the team did not delay in agreeing to an offer to celebrate their previous championship win at the White House – a move that sports writers labeled as "pathetic … weak … and contradictory", considering the team's boast in having been the pioneering professional team to end the color barrier in the mid-20th century and the regular invocations of that legacy and the values it represents by executives and present and former players. Several team members such as the manager had voiced reluctance to travel to the White House during the initial period but either changed their minds or gave in to pressure from the organization.

Corporate Control and Fan Dilemmas

A further issue for supporters is that the Dodgers are owned by a large investment group, the ownership group, whose equity holdings, as per sources and its own released financial documents, include a stake in a detention company that operates enforcement facilities. Guggenheim's leadership has said many times that it wants to remain neutral of politics, but its critics say the inaction – and the investment – are their own type of acquiescence to current agendas.

All of that add up to significant conflicted emotions among Hispanic fans in particular – feelings that emerged even in the euphoria of this season's hard-won World Series triumph and the ensuing explosion of Dodgers pride across Los Angeles.

"Can one to root for the Dodgers?" local writer one observer agonized at the start of the playoffs in an thoughtful article pondering on "Dodger blue in our blood, but doubt in our hearts". He couldn't finally bring himself to watch the championship, but he still cared deeply, to the point that he decided his personal boycott must have brought the squad the fortune it needed to succeed.

Distinguishing the Players from the Management

Numerous supporters who share similar reservations seem to have concluded that they can keep to back the players and its roster of global players, featuring the Japanese superstar a key player, while expressing disdain on the team's corporate leadership. Nowhere was this more clear than at the victory celebration at Dodger Stadium on Monday, when the capacity crowd cheered in support of the manager and his athletes but jeered the executive and the chief executive of the ownership group.

"These men in formal attire do not get to take our players from us," Molina said. "We have been with the team longer than they have."

Historical Background and Neighborhood Impact

The problem, though, runs deeper than only the team's present owners. The deal that brought the former franchise to the city in the 1950s required the city razing three low-income Latino neighborhoods on a hill above the city center and then transferring the property to the organization for a small part of its market value. A track on a mid-2000s album that documents the story has an impoverished parking attendant at the stadium revealing that the home he forfeited to eviction is now third base.

A prominent commentator, perhaps the region's most widely followed Mexican American columnist and media personality, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, dysfunctional relationship between the franchise and its audience. He describes the team the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a corporate entity with an undue, even harmful devotion by too many Latinos" that has been shortchanging its fans for years.

"They've acted around Latino fans while profiting from them with the other for so long because they have been able to avoid consequences," the writer wrote over the summer, when calls to avoid the organization over its absence of reaction to the enforcement actions were contradicted by the uncomfortable reality that turnout at home games remained steady, even at the peak of the demonstrations when the city center was subject to a nightly restriction.

Global Stars and Community Connections

Distinguishing the squad from its business leadership is not a easy task, {