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For a lifelong Dodgers fan and longtime Mexican American, the most memorable moment of the World Series did not happen during the nail-biting finale last Saturday, when her team executed one death-defying escape act after another and then winning in overtime over the opposing team.

It happened a game earlier, when two supporting athletes, Kike Hernández and Miguel Rojas, executed a thrilling, decisive play that simultaneously upended many harmful misconceptions promoted about Hispanic people in recent decades.

The moment itself was stunning: the outfielder raced in from left field to snag a ball he initially misjudged in the bright lights, then fired it to second base to record another, game-winning play. the second baseman, positioned nearby, caught the ball just a split second before a runner collided with him, knocking him backwards.

This was not merely a remarkable sporting achievement, possibly the key shift in momentum in the team's direction after looking for most of the games like the weaker side. For Molina, it was exhilarating, politically and culturally, a badly needed morale boost for Latinos and for the city after a period of immigration raids, troops monitoring the neighborhoods, and a constant drumbeat of criticism from national leaders.

"The players presented this alternative story," explained Molina. "Everyone witnessed Latinos displaying an contagious pride and joy in what they do, being leaders on the team, having a different kind of confidence. They are energetic, they're yelling, they're removing their shirts."

"It was such a juxtaposition with what we observe on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos thrown to the ground and pursued. It is so easy to be disheartened these days."

Not that it's entirely straightforward to be a team supporter these days – for her or for the legions of other Latinos who show up faithfully to matches and fill up as many as half of the venue's fifty thousand spots per game.

The Mixed Relationship with the Team

After intensified immigration raids started in Los Angeles in early June, and military troops were sent into the city to respond to ensuing demonstrations, two of the city's soccer clubs promptly released statements of support with affected communities – but not the baseball team.

Management stated the organization prefer to stay away of political issues – a view influenced, perhaps, by the reality that a significant minority of the supporters, including Latinos, are supporters of current leaders. Under significant external demands, the organization later committed $one million in support for individuals directly impacted by the raids but made no public condemnation of the government.

Official Event and Past Legacy

Months earlier, the organization did not delay in agreeing to an offer to celebrate their previous championship victory at the official residence – a move that sports writers described as "disappointing … weak … and hypocritical", considering the Dodgers' pride in having been the pioneering major league franchise to end the color barrier in the mid-20th century and the frequent invocations of that history and the values it embodies by officials and present and past athletes. A number of team members such as the manager had expressed unwillingness to travel to the White House during the initial period but either changed their minds or succumbed to demands from team management.

Business Ownership and Fan Dilemmas

An additional issue for fans is that the team are owned by a large investment group, Guggenheim Partners, whose investments, according to sources and its own published financial documents, include a share in a detention company that runs enforcement centers. The group's leadership has said repeatedly that it wants to remain neutral of politics, but its critics say the silence – and the financial stake – are their own type of compliance to current policies.

All of that add up to considerable conflicted emotions among Hispanic supporters in particular – sentiments that surfaced even in the euphoria of this year's hard-won World Series victory and the following explosion of Dodgers support across Los Angeles.

"Is it okay to root for the team?" local writer one observer reflected at the start of the postseason in an thoughtful article pondering on "Dodger blue in our veins, but uncertainty in our hearts". Galindo couldn't finally bring himself to view the championship, but he still felt deeply, to the point that he believed his personal protest must have given the team the luck it required to win.

Distinguishing the Players from the Owners

Many fans who have similar reservations seem to have decided that they can keep to support the players and its roster of global stars, including the Japanese megastar a key player, while expressing disdain on the team's corporate leadership. At no place was this more evident than at the championship parade at the home venue on the following day, when the packed audience roared in approval of the coach and his players but jeered the executive and the chief executive of the investors.

"These men in suits don't get to claim our players from us," Molina 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 team's present proprietors. The agreement that moved the former franchise to the city in the late 1950s required the city demolishing three low-income Hispanic communities on a elevated area above the city center and then transferring the land to the organization for a fraction of its market value. A song on a mid-2000s album that documents the events has an impoverished worker at the venue revealing that the house he lost to removal is now third base.

Gustavo Arellano, possibly southern California most influential Mexican American writer and media personality, sees a more troubling side to the long, dysfunctional relationship between the franchise and its audience. He calls the Dodgers the popular snack of baseball, "a corporate entity with an undue, even unhealthy devotion by too many Latinos" that has been shortchanging its fans for years.

"They've put one arm around Hispanic followers while picking their pockets with the other hand for so much time because they have been able to get away with it," Arellano wrote over the summer, when demands to avoid the team over its lack of reaction to the raids were contradicted by the uncomfortable fact that turnout at home games did not dip, even at the height of the protests when the city center was under to a evening restriction.

Global Players and Fan Connections

Separating the team from its business leadership is not a simple task, {