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In the eyes of Natalia Molina and third-generation Mexican American, the crowning highlight of the World Series did not occur during the tense finale on Saturday, when her squad pulled off one dramatic comeback feat after another and then prevailing in extra innings against the opposing team.

It happened in the previous game, when two supporting athletes, the Puerto Rican player and Miguel Rojas, executed a thrilling, game-winning sequence that at the same time challenged many negative stereotypes touted about Latinos in the past years.

The play itself was breathtaking: Hernández raced in from left field to snag a ball he at first lost in the stadium lights, then threw it to the infield to secure another, decisive play. the second baseman, at second base, received the ball just a split second before a runner collided with him, sending him backwards.

This was not merely a great sporting achievement, perhaps the key shift in momentum in the Dodgers' favor after looking for much of the games like the underdog team. To her, it was exhilarating, politically and culturally, a much-required uplift for Latinos and for Los Angeles after months of enforcement actions, security forces patrolling the streets, and a constant drumbeat of criticism from national leaders.

"Kike and Miggy put forth this counter-narrative," explained Molina. "The world saw Latinos displaying an infectious enthusiasm in what they do, being key figures on the team, exhibiting a different kind of confidence. They're bombastic, they're yelling, they're removing their shirts."

"This represented such a juxtaposition with what we observe on the news – raids, Latinos thrown to the ground and chased down. It's so easy to be demoralized these days."

However, it's exactly simple to be a Dodgers supporter these days – for Molina or for the legions of other fans who show up faithfully to home games and occupy as many as half of the venue's fifty thousand spots per game.

The Mixed Connection with the Organization

After intensified enforcement operations started in the city in June, and military troops were sent into the city to respond to resulting protests, two of the city's soccer teams quickly released statements of support with affected communities – while the Dodgers.

The team president stated the Dodgers want to steer clear of politics – a stance influenced, possibly, by the fact that a significant minority of the fans, even some Hispanic fans, are supporters of current leaders. After considerable external demands, the organization later pledged $one million in support for individuals directly affected by the raids but made no official condemnation of the government.

Official Event and Historical Heritage

Months earlier, the team did not hesitate in agreeing to an offer to mark their previous World Series win at the White House – a move that sports columnists described as "disappointing … spineless … and hypocritical", given the team's pride in having been the first major league franchise to end the color barrier in the 1940s and the regular invocations of that history and the principles it represents by executives and current and past athletes. Several team members including the manager had voiced reluctance to go to the White House during the initial period but then reconsidered or gave in to demands from the organization.

Business Ownership and Fan Conflicts

An additional issue for fans is that the team are owned by a corporate behemoth, the ownership group, whose equity holdings, according to media reports and its own published financial documents, include a share in a detention corporation that operates detention facilities. The group's executives has stated repeatedly that it aims to stay out of politics, but its critics say the silence – and the financial stake – are their own type of acquiescence to certain agendas.

These factors add up to considerable conflicted emotions among Hispanic supporters in especial – feelings that emerged even in the excitement of this season's hard-fought championship victory and the ensuing outpouring of Dodgers pride across the city.

"Is it okay to root for the team?" area writer one observer reflected at the beginning of the playoffs in an elegant essay pondering on "Dodger blue in our blood, but doubt in our minds". Galindo couldn't finally bring himself to view the World Series, but he still cared strongly, to the point that he decided his one-man boycott must have given the team the luck it required to succeed.

Separating the Team from the Owners

Many fans who have similar misgivings appear to have decided that they can continue to back the players and its roster of global players, including the Asian megastar Shohei Ohtani, while pouring scorn on the team's corporate leadership. Nowhere was this more evident than at the championship parade at Dodger Stadium on Monday, when the packed audience cheered in support of the coach and his players but jeered the team president and the chief executive of the investors.

"These men in formal attire do not get to take our boys in blue from us," Molina said. "We've been with the Dodgers longer than they have."

Historical Background and Neighborhood Impact

The problem, though, runs deeper than only the team's present proprietors. The agreement that moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles in the 1950s involved the municipality demolishing three low-income Latino communities on a hill overlooking the city center and then transferring 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 parking attendant at the venue revealing that the house he lost to eviction is now a part of the field.

A prominent commentator, perhaps the region's most influential Latino columnist and media personality, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, problematic relationship between the team and its audience. He describes the team 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 decades.

"They have acted around Hispanic fans while profiting from them with the other hand for so long because they have been able to avoid consequences," Arellano wrote over the summer, when demands to avoid the organization over its absence of response to the raids were contradicted by the awkward fact that attendance at home games did not dip, even at the peak of the demonstrations when the city center was subject to a evening curfew.

International Players and Fan Bonds

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