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In the eyes of a lifelong Dodgers fan and longtime Mexican American, the most memorable moment of the World Series didn't happen during the tense finale last Saturday, when her team executed multiple death-defying comeback act after another before winning in extra innings against the opposing team.

It happened in the previous game, when two second-tier players, the Puerto Rican player and the Venezuelan infielder, pulled off a thrilling, decisive play that at the same time challenged many negative stereotypes promoted about Latinos in recent decades.

The play in itself was stunning: Hernández charged in from left field to snag a ball he at first misjudged in the bright lights, then fired it to second base to record another, decisive play. Rojas, positioned nearby, caught the ball just a split second before a runner barreled into him, knocking him to the ground.

This was not merely a great athletic achievement, possibly the decisive turn in momentum in the team's favor after appearing for most of the series like the underdog team. For Molina, it was thrilling, politically and culturally, a much-required uplift for the community and for the city after months of enforcement actions, troops patrolling the neighborhoods, and a constant stream of negativity from national leaders.

"Kike and Miggy presented this counter-narrative," explained the professor. "Everyone saw Latinos displaying an contagious pride and joy in what they do, being key figures on the team, having a different kind of masculinity. They are energetic, they're cheering, they're taking off their shirts."

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

However, it's entirely straightforward to be a team fan these days – for her or for the legions of other fans who attend regularly to home games and fill up as many as half of the stadium's fifty thousand spots per game.

The Complicated Relationship with the Team

When intensified immigration raids began in the city in June, and national guard troops were sent into the area to react to ensuing demonstrations, two of the local soccer clubs promptly released statements of solidarity with affected communities – while the Dodgers.

Management stated the Dodgers want 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 leaders. After significant external demands, the organization subsequently pledged $one million in aid for families personally impacted by the operations but made no public condemnation of the government.

Official Visit and Past Legacy

Months before, the team did not hesitate in agreeing to an invitation to mark their previous championship win at the White House – a move that sports columnists labeled as "pathetic … weak … and contradictory", given the Dodgers' boast in having been the pioneering professional team to break the color barrier in the mid-20th century and the regular references of that legacy and the principles it embodies by executives and present and former athletes. A number of players such as the coach had expressed unwillingness to go to the White House during the first term but then reconsidered or gave in to pressure from the organization.

Corporate Ownership and Supporter Dilemmas

An additional complication for fans is that the Dodgers are controlled by a large investment group, the ownership group, whose equity holdings, according to sources and its own released financial documents, involve a share in a detention company that runs enforcement facilities. Guggenheim's executives has stated many times that it aims to stay out of political matters, but its detractors say the silence – and the investment – are their own type of compliance to certain agendas.

All of that contribute to significant conflicted emotions among Hispanic supporters in particular – feelings that emerged even in the excitement of this season's hard-fought World Series triumph and the ensuing outpouring of team support across the city.

"Is it okay to support the Dodgers?" area columnist one observer reflected at the start of the postseason in an thoughtful article ruminating on "Dodger blue in our veins, but uncertainty in our minds". Galindo was unable to finally bring himself to view the World Series, but he still cared strongly, to the extent that he believed his personal boycott must have given the team the fortune it needed to win.

Separating the Team from the Owners

Numerous fans who have similar misgivings seem to have concluded that they can continue to back the team and its lineup of international stars, featuring the Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani, while expressing disdain on the team's business leadership. At no place was this more clear than at the championship parade at Dodger Stadium on the following day, when the capacity crowd roared in approval of the manager and his athletes but jeered the executive and the top official of the ownership group.

"The executives in formal attire do not get to claim our players from us," Molina said. "We have been with the team for more time than they have."

Historical Context and Neighborhood Impact

The issue, however, goes further than just the organization's present owners. The deal that moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to the city in the late 1950s involved the municipality demolishing three working-class Hispanic neighborhoods on a hill overlooking downtown and then selling the property to the organization for a fraction of its market value. A song on a 2005 album that chronicles the story has an impoverished worker at the stadium stating that the home he forfeited to removal is now a part of the field.

Gustavo Arellano, perhaps the region's most influential Latino writer and media personality, sees a darker side to the long, problematic dynamic between the franchise and its fanbase. He calls the Dodgers the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a corporate entity with an undue, even harmful following by too many Latinos" that has been shortchanging its fans for years.

"They've acted around Latino fans while picking their pockets with the other for so much time because they have been able to get away with it," the writer noted over the warmer months, when calls to boycott the team over its absence of reaction to the raids were upended by the awkward reality that turnout at home games did not dip, even at the height of the demonstrations when the city center was under to a evening curfew.

International Players and Community Connections

Distinguishing the squad from its corporate owners is not a easy task, {