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In the eyes of Natalia Molina and longtime Mexican American, the crowning highlight of the World Series did not happen during the tense final game last Saturday, when her squad pulled off one dramatic comeback feat after another before winning in overtime over the Toronto Blue Jays.

It happened a game earlier, when two second-tier athletes, Kike Hernández and Miguel Rojas, executed a electrifying, game-winning play that at the same time challenged numerous harmful stereotypes promoted about Latinos in the past decades.

The moment itself was breathtaking: the outfielder charged in from the outfield to catch a ball he at first lost in the stadium lights, then threw it to the infield to secure another, game-winning play. the second baseman, at second base, caught the ball just a split second before a opposing player collided with him, knocking him backwards.

This wasn't merely a remarkable sporting achievement, possibly the key turn in the series in the team's favor after appearing for much of the series like the underdog side. For Molina, it was exhilarating, on multiple levels, a much-required morale boost for the community and for the city after months of enforcement actions, troops monitoring the streets, and a steady stream of criticism from official sources.

"The players presented this alternative story," said the professor. "The world saw Latinos showing an contagious pride and joy in what they do, acting as key figures on the team, having a distinct kind of masculinity. They are energetic, they're cheering, they're taking off their shirts."

"This represented such a contrast with what we observe on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos thrown to the ground and pursued. It is so easy to be disheartened right now."

Not that it's exactly simple to be a Dodgers fan nowadays – for Molina or for the legions of other fans who show up regularly to home games and occupy as many as 50% of the venue's 50,000 spots each time.

A Mixed Relationship with the Team

After intensified enforcement operations began in Los Angeles in June, and national guard troops were sent into the area to respond to resulting protests, two of the city's soccer clubs quickly released messages of solidarity with immigrant families – but not the baseball team.

Management has said the Dodgers prefer to stay away of politics – a stance colored, perhaps, by the reality that a significant portion of the supporters, including some Hispanic fans, are followers of certain political figures. Under significant public pressure, the organization subsequently pledged $1m in support for families directly affected by the operations but made no public criticism of the government.

Official Visit and Past Heritage

Months earlier, the organization did not hesitate in accepting an offer to mark their previous championship victory at the White House – a decision that local writers labeled as "disappointing … spineless … and hypocritical", considering the Dodgers' pride in having been the first professional team to break the color barrier in the 1940s and the frequent invocations of that history and the values it represents by executives and current and past players. A number of players including the manager had expressed unwillingness to go to the event during the first term but then reconsidered or succumbed to pressure from the organization.

Business Ownership and Supporter Dilemmas

An additional complication for fans is that the team are controlled by a large investment group, the ownership group, whose equity holdings, as per media reports and its own released financial documents, involve a share in a detention company that runs enforcement centers. The group's executives has stated repeatedly that it aims to remain neutral of political matters, but its detractors say the inaction – and the investment – are their own form of acquiescence to current policies.

All of that add up to significant conflicted emotions among Hispanic supporters in particular – feelings that surfaced even in the excitement of this year's hard-fought championship victory and the ensuing explosion of team pride across Los Angeles.

"Can one to support the Dodgers?" local columnist one observer agonized at the start of the playoffs in an thoughtful article ruminating on "Dodger blue in our blood, but doubt in our hearts". He was unable to finally bring himself to view the World Series, but he still cared strongly, to the extent that he believed his personal protest must have brought the team the fortune it needed to win.

Separating the Team from the Owners

Many supporters who share Galindo's reservations appear to have concluded that they can keep to support the players and its lineup of global players, including the Asian megastar a key player, while expressing disdain on the team's corporate leadership. At no place was this more clear than at the championship parade at Dodger Stadium on the following day, when the packed audience cheered in support of the coach and his players but jeered the executive and the top official of the investors.

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

Past Background and Community Impact

The problem, though, runs deeper than just the team's present owners. The deal that moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to the city in the 1950s involved the city razing three working-class Latino communities on a elevated area above the city center and then selling the property to the organization for a fraction of its actual worth. A track on a mid-2000s album that chronicles the story has an impoverished worker at the venue revealing that the house he lost to removal is now a part of the field.

Gustavo Arellano, possibly the region's most influential Latino writer and broadcaster, sees a darker side to the long, problematic relationship between the franchise and its fanbase. He describes the Dodgers the popular snack of baseball, "a business organization with an undue, even unhealthy devotion by numerous Latinos" that has been exploiting its supporters for years.

"They've acted around Latino fans while picking their pockets with the other for so long because they have been able to get away with it," the writer wrote over the warmer months, when demands to avoid the organization over its lack of reaction to the enforcement actions were upended by the awkward reality that attendance at home games did not dip, even at the peak of the demonstrations when downtown LA was subject to a evening restriction.

Global Stars and Fan Connections

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