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For Natalia Molina and longtime Mexican American, the crowning moment of the World Series didn't happen during the nail-biting finale last Saturday, when her team pulled off multiple dramatic comeback act after another before prevailing in overtime against the Toronto Blue Jays.

It came in the previous game, when two second-tier players, the Puerto Rican player and the Venezuelan infielder, executed a thrilling, game-winning play that simultaneously upended numerous negative stereotypes promoted about Latinos in recent years.

The play itself was breathtaking: Hernández charged in from left field to snag a ball he at first lost in the stadium lights, then fired it to the infield to record another, decisive play. the second baseman, at second base, received the ball just a split second before a runner collided with him, sending him to the ground.

This was not merely a remarkable athletic achievement, perhaps the decisive turn in momentum in the Dodgers' favor after looking for most of the series like the weaker side. To her, it was thrilling, politically and culturally, a much-required uplift for the community and for Los Angeles after a period of immigration raids, security forces patrolling the neighborhoods, and a constant drumbeat of negativity from national leaders.

"Kike and Miggy put forth this counter-narrative," said Molina. "Everyone witnessed Latinos displaying an infectious pride and joy in what they do, acting as leaders on the team, having a different kind of masculinity. They are energetic, they're yelling, they're taking off their shirts."

"This represented such a juxtaposition with what we observe on the news – raids, Latinos detained and chased down. It's so easy to be demoralized these days."

Not that it's entirely simple to be a Dodgers supporter these days – for her or for the many of other Latinos who show up regularly to home games and fill up as many as 50% of the stadium's fifty thousand spots per game.

A Complicated Connection with the Team

When intensified enforcement operations began in Los Angeles in early June, and military troops were sent into the city to react to ensuing protests, two of the local sports clubs quickly issued messages of support with affected communities – while the Dodgers.

Management has said the organization want to steer clear of political issues – a view influenced, perhaps, by the reality that a significant portion of the fans, even some Hispanic fans, are followers of current political figures. After significant external demands, the team subsequently committed $1m in aid for individuals personally impacted by the operations but made no official condemnation of the government.

Official Visit and Historical Heritage

Months earlier, the team did not delay in accepting an offer to mark their previous World Series win at the official residence – a move that local writers labeled as "pathetic … weak … and hypocritical", considering the team's boast in having been the pioneering major league franchise to break the color barrier in the mid-20th century and the frequent references of that history and the principles it embodies by officials and present and past players. Several players such as the manager had expressed unwillingness to travel to the White House during the initial period but then changed their minds or succumbed to demands from team management.

Corporate Control and Fan Conflicts

A further issue for fans is that the Dodgers are owned by a corporate behemoth, the ownership group, whose investments, according to sources and its own published financial documents, include a share in a detention company that runs enforcement centers. Guggenheim's executives has said repeatedly 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 current policies.

All of that contribute to considerable conflicted emotions among Latino supporters in particular – feelings that emerged even in the excitement of this year's hard-won championship victory and the ensuing outpouring of team support across the city.

"Is it okay to root for the Dodgers?" area columnist one observer reflected at the start of the postseason in an elegant article pondering on "team loyalty in our veins, but uncertainty in our minds". He was unable to finally bring himself to view the championship, but he still cared strongly, to the extent that he decided his one-man protest must have brought the team the luck it needed to win.

Distinguishing the Players from the Management

Numerous fans who have Galindo's reservations seem to have concluded that they can continue to back the team and its roster of international stars, featuring the Asian superstar Shohei Ohtani, while expressing disdain on the team's corporate overlords. At no place was this more evident than at the championship parade at the home venue on Monday, when the packed audience cheered in support of the coach and his players but jeered the team president and the top official of the investors.

"The executives in suits do not get to take our players from us," the fan said. "We've been with the Dodgers for more time than they have."

Past Background and Neighborhood Impact

The issue, however, goes further than only the organization's current owners. The agreement that brought the former franchise to the city in the 1950s required the city razing three low-income Latino neighborhoods on a elevated area above the city center and then transferring the property to the team for a small part of its market value. A song on a 2005 album that documents the events has an impoverished worker at the venue stating that the home he lost to removal is now third base.

Gustavo Arellano, possibly the region's most influential Mexican American columnist and broadcaster, sees a darker side to the lengthy, dysfunctional relationship between the franchise and its audience. He calls the team the popular snack of baseball, "a corporate entity with an undue, even unhealthy devotion by too many Latinos" that has been shortchanging its supporters for years.

"They've acted around Hispanic followers while picking their pockets with the other hand for so long because they have been able to avoid consequences," Arellano wrote over the warmer months, when calls to avoid the organization over its lack of reaction to the enforcement actions were contradicted by the awkward reality that attendance at home games did not dip, even at the peak of the protests when downtown LA was subject to a nightly curfew.

International Stars and Fan Bonds

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