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For a lifelong Dodgers fan and longtime Mexican American, the most memorable highlight of the World Series did not occur during the tense finale on Saturday, when her squad executed one death-defying escape act after another before winning in overtime against the opposing team.

It came in the previous game, when two second-tier players, the Puerto Rican player and the Venezuelan infielder, pulled off a electrifying, decisive play that at the same time challenged numerous harmful stereotypes touted about Hispanic people in recent decades.

The play in itself was breathtaking: the outfielder raced in from the outfield to catch a ball he initially misjudged in the stadium lights, then fired it to second base to secure another, game-winning out. the second baseman, positioned nearby, received the ball just a split second before a opposing player barreled into him, sending him backwards.

This wasn't merely a great athletic achievement, perhaps the key shift in the series in the team's favor after looking for much of the games like the underdog side. For Molina, it was thrilling, on multiple levels, a much-required morale boost for Latinos and for Los Angeles after months of immigration raids, security forces monitoring the neighborhoods, and a constant stream of criticism from national leaders.

"Kike and Miggy put forth this counter-narrative," said Molina. "Everyone saw Latinos showing an infectious enthusiasm in what they do, being leaders on the team, having a different kind of confidence. They're bombastic, they're yelling, they're removing their shirts."

"It was such a contrast with what we observe on the news – raids, Latinos thrown to the ground and pursued. It's so simple to be demoralized right now."

Not that it's entirely straightforward to be a Dodgers fan nowadays – for her or for the legions of other Latinos who show up faithfully to matches and fill up as many as half of the stadium's fifty thousand spots per game.

A Complicated Relationship with the Organization

After aggressive enforcement operations began in the city in June, and national guard units were deployed into the city to react to resulting demonstrations, two of the city's soccer teams quickly issued statements of solidarity with affected communities – but not the baseball team.

Management stated the Dodgers want to stay away of political issues – a view colored, possibly, by the reality that a significant portion of the supporters, including Latinos, are followers of current political figures. Under significant public pressure, the team subsequently pledged $1m in support for families directly affected by the operations but issued no public condemnation of the administration.

White House Event and Past Legacy

Months before, the organization did not hesitate in accepting an invitation to mark their previous World Series victory at the official residence – a decision that sports writers labeled as "disappointing … spineless … and hypocritical", considering the Dodgers' pride in having been the first professional team to end the color barrier in the 1940s and the frequent invocations of that legacy and the values it represents by executives and current and former players. Several players such as the coach had voiced reluctance to go to the event during the first term but then changed their minds or gave in to pressure from the organization.

Business Control and Supporter Dilemmas

A further issue for fans is that the team are controlled by a large investment group, Guggenheim Partners, whose investments, according to sources and its own released balance sheets, involve a share in a private prison company that operates enforcement facilities. Guggenheim's leadership has said repeatedly that it wants to remain neutral of political matters, but its detractors say the inaction – and the financial stake – are their own type of acquiescence to certain policies.

All of that add up to considerable mixed feelings among Hispanic fans in especial – feelings that surfaced even in the euphoria of this year's hard-fought World Series triumph and the ensuing outpouring of team support across the city.

"Is it okay to root for the Dodgers?" local writer Erick Galindo reflected at the start of the postseason in an elegant article ruminating on "team loyalty in our veins, but doubt in our hearts". Galindo was unable to finally bring himself to watch the championship, but he still felt strongly, to the extent that he believed his personal boycott must have brought the squad the fortune it required to win.

Separating the Players from the Owners

Numerous fans who share similar misgivings seem to have decided that they can keep to back the team and its roster of global players, featuring the Japanese megastar a key player, while pouring scorn on the organization's business leadership. At no place was this more clear than at the championship parade at the home venue on Monday, when the capacity crowd cheered in support of the coach and his athletes but jeered the executive and the chief executive of the ownership group.

"These men in formal attire don't get to claim our boys in blue from us," Molina said. "We've been with the team longer than they have."

Historical Context and Community Effect

The problem, however, runs deeper than just the team's present proprietors. The deal that brought the former franchise to Los Angeles in the 1950s involved the city razing three low-income Hispanic neighborhoods on a elevated area overlooking the city center and then selling the land to the organization for a small part of its actual worth. A track on a 2005 record that documents the story has an impoverished parking attendant at the stadium stating that the house he forfeited to removal is now a part of the field.

Gustavo Arellano, perhaps the region's most influential Mexican American columnist and media personality, sees a darker side to the lengthy, problematic dynamic between the team and its audience. He calls the Dodgers the popular snack of baseball, "a business organization with an undue, even harmful devotion by too many Latinos" that has been exploiting its supporters for years.

"They have acted around Hispanic fans while picking their pockets with the other hand for so long because they have been able to get away with it," the writer wrote over the summer, when calls to boycott the team over its absence of response to the raids were contradicted by the uncomfortable reality that attendance at matches remained steady, even at the peak of the demonstrations when the city center was under to a evening curfew.

International Players and Community Bonds

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