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In the eyes of Natalia Molina and longtime Mexican American, the most memorable highlight of the World Series didn't occur during the tense final game last Saturday, when her team executed one death-defying escape act after another and then prevailing in overtime over the Toronto Blue Jays.

It came a game earlier, when two second-tier athletes, the Puerto Rican player and the Venezuelan infielder, pulled off a electrifying, decisive sequence that simultaneously upended numerous harmful stereotypes promoted about Latinos in the past decades.

The play itself was breathtaking: Hernández charged in from the outfield to snag a ball he at first misjudged in the bright lights, then fired it to second base to record another, game-winning out. Rojas, at second base, received the ball just a split second before a opposing player barreled into him, sending him to the ground.

This was not just a remarkable sporting achievement, possibly the decisive turn in momentum in the team's direction after looking for most of the series like the weaker side. For Molina, it was thrilling, politically and culturally, a much-required morale boost for the community and for the city after a period of enforcement actions, troops monitoring the neighborhoods, and a constant stream of criticism from official sources.

"The players presented this counter-narrative," said the professor. "The world saw Latinos showing an infectious enthusiasm in what they do, acting as key figures on the team, having a distinct kind of masculinity. They are bombastic, they're yelling, they're removing their shirts."

"It was such a juxtaposition with what we see on the news – raids, Latinos thrown to the ground and pursued. It's so easy to be disheartened these days."

Not that it's exactly straightforward to be a Dodgers supporter nowadays – for Molina or for the legions of other fans who show up regularly to home games and occupy as many as half of the stadium's fifty thousand seats per game.

The Complicated Relationship with the Team

When aggressive immigration raids started in the city in June, and national guard units were deployed into the city to respond to resulting protests, two of the local soccer clubs quickly issued messages of support with immigrant families – but not the baseball team.

The team president stated the Dodgers prefer to steer clear of political issues – a view colored, possibly, by the fact that a sizable minority of the supporters, even Latinos, are supporters of certain political figures. Under considerable public pressure, the team later pledged $one million in aid for individuals personally affected by the operations but issued no official criticism of the administration.

Official Event and Past Heritage

Months earlier, the team did not hesitate in agreeing to an invitation to celebrate their 2024 World Series win at the official residence – a decision that local writers described as "pathetic … weak … and hypocritical", considering the Dodgers' boast in having been the pioneering professional franchise to end the racial segregation in the 1940s and the frequent references of that legacy and the principles it embodies by officials and current and former players. Several team members including the manager had expressed reluctance to go to the event during the initial period but either reconsidered or succumbed to pressure from the organization.

Business Control and Supporter Conflicts

An additional issue for fans is that the team are owned by a corporate behemoth, the ownership group, whose investments, as per media reports and its own released balance sheets, involve a share in a private prison corporation that runs enforcement facilities. The group's leadership has stated many times that it wants to stay out of political matters, but its detractors say the inaction – and the investment – are their own form of compliance to certain agendas.

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

"Can one to root for the team?" local columnist one observer reflected at the start of the playoffs in an thoughtful essay ruminating on "Dodger blue in our veins, but doubt in our minds". He was unable to ultimately bring himself to view the World Series, but he still cared deeply, to the extent that he decided his personal boycott must have brought the squad the luck it needed to succeed.

Separating the Team from the Owners

Numerous fans who share similar misgivings appear to have decided that they can continue to back the team and its lineup of international stars, featuring the Asian superstar Shohei Ohtani, while pouring scorn on the team's corporate leadership. At no place was this more evident than at the victory celebration at Dodger Stadium on the following day, when the packed audience cheered in approval of the manager and his athletes but booed the executive and the top official of the investors.

"These men in suits don't get to take our boys in blue from us," Molina said. "We have been with the Dodgers for more time than they have."

Historical Background and Community Effect

The problem, however, runs deeper than just the team's present proprietors. The deal that brought the Brooklyn Dodgers to the city in the 1950s required the city razing three low-income Hispanic neighborhoods on a hill overlooking downtown and then transferring the land to the team for a fraction of its actual worth. A song on a 2005 record that chronicles the events has an impoverished worker at the venue revealing that the home he forfeited to removal is now a part of the field.

A prominent commentator, perhaps southern California most widely followed Latino writer and media personality, sees a darker side to the long, problematic dynamic between the team and its audience. He describes the team the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a business organization with an undue, even harmful devotion by too many Latinos" that has been shortchanging its fans for years.

"They have put one arm around Hispanic followers while profiting from them with the other hand for so long because they have been able to avoid consequences," the writer noted over the summer, when demands to boycott the team over its lack of response to the raids were upended by the uncomfortable fact that turnout at matches did not dip, even at the peak of the demonstrations when downtown LA was subject to a evening curfew.

International Players and Community Bonds

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