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For a lifelong Dodgers fan and third-generation Mexican American, the most memorable highlight of the World Series didn't happen during the nail-biting final game last Saturday, when her team pulled off multiple death-defying escape feat after another before prevailing in extra innings over the Toronto Blue Jays.

It happened in the previous game, when two second-tier athletes, the Puerto Rican player and the Venezuelan infielder, pulled off a thrilling, decisive play that at the same time upended many harmful misconceptions promoted about Hispanic people in recent decades.

The moment itself was stunning: Hernández charged in from left field to catch a ball he initially lost in the stadium lights, then fired it to the infield to record another, game-winning out. Rojas, at second base, caught the ball just a split second before a opposing player barreled into him, sending him backwards.

This wasn't merely a great athletic moment, perhaps the decisive turn in the series in the team's direction after appearing for much of the games like the weaker team. To her, it was exhilarating, on multiple levels, a badly needed morale boost for the community and for Los Angeles after months of immigration raids, troops patrolling the neighborhoods, and a steady drumbeat of negativity from official sources.

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

"This represented such a juxtaposition with what we see on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos detained and chased down. It's so easy to be demoralized these days."

Not that it's exactly straightforward to be a team supporter these days – for Molina or for the many of other Latinos who attend faithfully to home games and fill up as many as half of the stadium's fifty thousand seats per game.

The Complicated Connection with the Team

After aggressive immigration raids began in the city in early June, and military units were sent into the area to respond to resulting protests, two of the city's sports clubs promptly issued statements of support with affected communities – while the Dodgers.

Management stated the organization want to steer clear of political issues – a stance colored, perhaps, by the reality that a significant minority of the fans, even Latinos, are supporters of certain leaders. Under considerable public pressure, the organization subsequently pledged $one million in support for families personally impacted by the raids but issued no official condemnation of the government.

Official Event and Past Heritage

Months earlier, the organization did not hesitate in agreeing to an invitation to mark their previous championship victory at the White House – a decision that local writers labeled as "pathetic … spineless … and hypocritical", given the Dodgers' boast in having been the first professional franchise to break the color barrier in the mid-20th century and the frequent invocations of that legacy and the values it embodies by officials and current and past players. Several team members such as the coach had expressed unwillingness to travel to the event during the initial period but then reconsidered or succumbed to pressure from the organization.

Business Ownership and Supporter Dilemmas

A further complication for fans is that the Dodgers are owned by a corporate behemoth, the ownership group, whose investments, according to media reports and its own published financial documents, include a stake in a detention company that operates detention centers. The group's executives has said many times that it wants to stay out of politics, but its detractors say the inaction – and the financial stake – are their own type of acquiescence to certain policies.

These factors contribute to significant mixed feelings among Hispanic supporters in especial – sentiments that surfaced even in the euphoria of this year's hard-fought championship triumph and the ensuing explosion of Dodgers support across the city.

"Can one to root for the Dodgers?" local writer one observer agonized at the beginning of the playoffs in an elegant essay ruminating on "team loyalty in our veins, but uncertainty in our minds". He couldn't finally bring himself to watch the World Series, but he still cared deeply, to the point that he decided his one-man boycott must have brought the team the luck it required to succeed.

Distinguishing the Team from the Owners

Numerous supporters who share Galindo's reservations seem to have decided that they can continue to support the players and its lineup of global players, including the Asian megastar a key player, while pouring scorn on the team's business leadership. At no place was this more clear than at the championship parade at the home venue on the following day, when the packed audience cheered in support of the coach and his athletes but jeered the team president and the chief executive of the ownership group.

"These men in suits do not get to claim our players from us," Molina said. "We've been with the team longer than they have."

Historical Background and Neighborhood Impact

The problem, though, goes further than just the team's present owners. The agreement that brought the Brooklyn Dodgers to the city in the late 1950s required the municipality demolishing three low-income Latino communities on a hill overlooking the city center and then selling the property to the team for a fraction of its market value. A track on a 2005 album that chronicles the events has an low-income worker at the venue revealing that the house he lost to eviction is now third base.

A prominent commentator, possibly the region's most influential Mexican American writer and media personality, sees a darker side to the lengthy, problematic dynamic between the franchise and its fanbase. He describes the Dodgers the popular snack of baseball, "a corporate entity with an undue, even harmful following by numerous Latinos" that has been shortchanging its fans for years.

"They have acted around Latino fans while picking their pockets with the other hand for so much time because they have been able to avoid consequences," the writer noted over the summer, when demands to boycott the organization over its lack of response to the enforcement actions were upended by the awkward fact that turnout at matches did not dip, even at the height of the demonstrations when the city center was subject to a nightly restriction.

International Stars and Fan Bonds

Separating the team from its business leadership is not a simple matter, {