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In the eyes of Natalia Molina and third-generation Mexican American, the crowning highlight of the World Series didn't occur during the nail-biting finale on Saturday, when her team executed multiple dramatic comeback feat after another and then winning in extra innings against the opposing team.

It came in the previous game, when two second-tier athletes, Kike Hernández and Miguel Rojas, executed a electrifying, game-winning sequence that at the same time upended numerous negative misconceptions touted about Hispanic people in the past decades.

The moment itself was stunning: Hernández raced in from left field to snag a ball he at first lost in the bright lights, then threw it to second base to record another, decisive play. the second baseman, positioned nearby, caught the ball just a split second before a opposing player collided with him, sending him backwards.

This wasn't just a remarkable athletic achievement, possibly the decisive turn in momentum in the team's direction after looking for most of the games like the underdog team. For Molina, it was thrilling, politically and culturally, a much-required morale boost for Latinos and for Los Angeles after months of enforcement actions, security forces patrolling the neighborhoods, and a steady stream of criticism from national leaders.

"Kike and Miggy put forth this alternative story," said Molina. "Everyone witnessed Latinos displaying an contagious pride and joy in what they do, being leaders on the team, exhibiting a distinct kind of masculinity. They are energetic, they're cheering, they're taking off their shirts."

"It was such a contrast with what we observe on the news – raids, Latinos detained and chased down. It is so simple to be disheartened right now."

Not that it's entirely straightforward to be a Dodgers supporter these days – for her or for the many of other fans who show up regularly to matches and fill up as many as half of the stadium's 50,000 spots per game.

The Mixed Relationship with the Team

After intensified enforcement operations started in the city in early June, and military troops were deployed into the city to respond to resulting protests, two of the city's soccer clubs promptly issued messages of solidarity with immigrant families – but not the baseball team.

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, including some Hispanic fans, are supporters of certain political figures. After considerable external demands, the organization later pledged $one million in support for individuals personally affected by the operations but made no public condemnation of the government.

White House Visit and Historical Legacy

Months before, the organization did not hesitate in agreeing to an invitation to celebrate their previous championship win at the White House – a move that local writers labeled as "disappointing … weak … and hypocritical", considering the Dodgers' boast in having been the first professional franchise to end the racial segregation in the 1940s and the regular invocations of that history and the principles it represents by officials and current and former players. A number of players including the coach had voiced unwillingness to go to the event during the initial period but then changed their minds or succumbed to demands from team management.

Business Ownership and Supporter Dilemmas

An additional issue for supporters is that the Dodgers are owned by a corporate behemoth, the ownership group, whose equity holdings, according to sources and its own released balance sheets, involve a stake in a private prison company that operates enforcement centers. The group's executives has stated repeatedly that it wants to remain neutral of politics, but its detractors say the inaction – and the investment – are their own type of compliance to certain policies.

All of that add up to significant conflicted emotions among Latino supporters in particular – feelings that emerged even in the euphoria of this year's hard-won World Series victory and the ensuing explosion of Dodgers pride across the city.

"Can one to support the team?" local columnist Erick Galindo agonized at the beginning of the playoffs in an elegant essay pondering on "team loyalty in our blood, but doubt in our minds". He couldn't ultimately bring himself to view the World Series, but he still cared strongly, to the point that he believed his one-man boycott must have brought the team the luck it required to win.

Distinguishing the Team from the Owners

Many supporters who share similar reservations appear to have decided that they can continue to support the team and its lineup of global players, including the Asian megastar Shohei Ohtani, while expressing disdain on the organization's corporate overlords. At no place was this more evident than at the victory celebration at the home venue on Monday, when the capacity crowd roared in support of the manager and his athletes but jeered the executive and the top official of the ownership group.

"The executives in suits don't get to take our players from us," Molina said. "We've been with the team for more time than they have."

Historical Background and Community Effect

The problem, though, goes further than just the team's current proprietors. The agreement that moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles in the late 1950s involved the city demolishing three working-class Latino communities on a hill overlooking downtown and then transferring the land to the organization for a fraction of its market value. A track on a 2005 record that documents the events has an low-income worker at the stadium stating that the home he forfeited to removal is now third base.

Gustavo Arellano, perhaps the region's most influential Latino columnist and media personality, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, problematic relationship between the team and its fanbase. He calls the Dodgers the popular snack of baseball, "a corporate entity with an excessive, even unhealthy devotion by numerous Latinos" that has been shortchanging its supporters for decades.

"They've acted around Hispanic fans while profiting from them with the other for so long because they have been able to get away with it," Arellano wrote over the summer, when demands to boycott the team over its absence of response to the raids were upended by the uncomfortable fact that attendance at matches did not dip, even at the height of the protests when the city center was subject to a nightly curfew.

Global Stars and Fan Connections

Separating the team from its corporate owners is not a simple matter, {