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In the eyes of a lifelong Dodgers fan and third-generation Mexican American, the crowning highlight of the baseball championship didn't occur during the tense finale last Saturday, when her team pulled off multiple dramatic comeback act after another and then prevailing in extra innings over the opposing team.

It came a game earlier, when two second-tier athletes, the Puerto Rican player and Miguel Rojas, executed a thrilling, decisive sequence that at the same time upended numerous harmful stereotypes promoted about Hispanic people in recent years.

The play itself was stunning: the outfielder charged in from the outfield to snag a ball he initially lost in the stadium lights, then fired it to second base to secure another, game-winning play. Rojas, positioned nearby, received the ball just a split second before a opposing player collided with him, knocking him to the ground.

This was not just a great athletic moment, possibly the key shift in the series in the team's direction after appearing for much of the games like the underdog team. To her, it was exhilarating, on multiple levels, a badly needed uplift for Latinos and for Los Angeles after months of enforcement actions, troops monitoring the neighborhoods, and a steady drumbeat of criticism from official sources.

"The players put forth this alternative story," explained Molina. "The world witnessed Latinos displaying an contagious pride and joy in what they do, being key figures on the team, exhibiting a distinct kind of masculinity. They're energetic, they're yelling, they're removing their shirts."

"It was such a contrast with what we see on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos detained and chased down. It is so easy to be disheartened these days."

Not that it's entirely straightforward to be a team fan these days – for Molina or for the legions of other Latinos who show up regularly to home games and fill up as many as 50% of the venue's 50,000 seats per game.

A Mixed Connection with the Organization

After intensified immigration raids began in Los Angeles in early June, and military troops were deployed into the city to respond to resulting protests, two of the city's sports clubs promptly issued messages of solidarity with affected communities – but not the Dodgers.

The team president stated the organization want to steer clear of political issues – a view colored, perhaps, by the reality that a sizable minority of the fans, even Latinos, are supporters of current political figures. After significant public pressure, the team subsequently committed $one million in support for individuals directly affected by the raids but made no public criticism of the administration.

White House Event and Past Legacy

Months before, the organization did not hesitate in accepting an offer to mark their previous championship win at the White House – a decision that local writers labeled as "pathetic … spineless … and contradictory", given the Dodgers' boast in having been the first major league franchise to break the color barrier in the 1940s and the frequent references of that legacy and the principles it represents by executives and present and past players. Several team members such as the manager had expressed reluctance to go to the event during the first term but then reconsidered or gave in to pressure from the organization.

Corporate Ownership and Supporter Dilemmas

A further complication for fans is that the team are controlled by a corporate behemoth, Guggenheim Partners, whose investments, according to sources and its own published balance sheets, involve a share in a detention corporation that operates detention facilities. Guggenheim's executives has said repeatedly that it wants to remain neutral of politics, but its detractors say the silence – and the investment – are their own form of compliance to certain agendas.

These factors contribute to considerable mixed feelings among Latino supporters in particular – sentiments that emerged even in the excitement of this year's hard-fought World Series triumph and the following outpouring of Dodgers pride across the city.

"Can one to support the Dodgers?" area writer one observer reflected at the start of the postseason in an thoughtful essay ruminating on "Dodger blue in our veins, but uncertainty in our hearts". He was unable to ultimately bring himself to view the championship, but he still felt deeply, to the extent that he believed his personal protest must have given the squad the luck it needed to win.

Separating the Team from the Owners

Many fans who share similar reservations seem to have concluded that they can continue to back the players and its lineup of international players, featuring the Japanese superstar a key player, while expressing disdain on the team's business leadership. At no place was this more evident than at the victory celebration at the home venue on Monday, when the capacity crowd cheered in support of the manager and his athletes but jeered the executive and the chief executive of the ownership group.

"These men in formal attire don't get to take our boys in blue from us," Molina said. "We've been with the Dodgers for more time than they have."

Historical Context and Community Impact

The issue, however, goes further than only the organization's present proprietors. The agreement that moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to the city in the late 1950s involved the city demolishing three low-income Hispanic neighborhoods on a hill above the city center and then selling the land to the team for a small part of its actual worth. A song on a 2005 record that chronicles the events has an impoverished worker at the stadium stating that the home he forfeited to eviction 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 lengthy, problematic relationship between the franchise and its fanbase. He calls the Dodgers the popular snack of baseball, "a corporate entity with an undue, even unhealthy following by too many Latinos" that has been shortchanging its fans for years.

"They've put one arm around Latino followers while picking their pockets with the other for so long because they have been able to get away with it," Arellano noted over the summer, when demands to avoid the organization over its absence of response to the raids were upended by the uncomfortable fact that attendance at matches remained steady, even at the height of the protests when the city center was under to a nightly curfew.

Global Players and Community Bonds

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