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In the eyes of Natalia Molina and third-generation Mexican American, the most memorable moment of the World Series did not happen during the tense final game last Saturday, when her squad pulled off multiple dramatic escape act after another before prevailing in extra innings against the opposing team.

It came in the previous game, when two second-tier athletes, the Puerto Rican player and Miguel Rojas, pulled off a electrifying, decisive play that at the same time upended numerous harmful misconceptions touted about Hispanic people in the past years.

The moment itself was breathtaking: the outfielder raced in from left field to snag a ball he at first misjudged in the stadium lights, then threw it to the infield to record another, game-winning play. the second baseman, positioned nearby, caught the ball just a split second before a opposing player collided with him, knocking him backwards.

This wasn't just a great athletic moment, perhaps the key turn in the series in the Dodgers' direction after looking for most of the series like the underdog team. For Molina, it was thrilling, politically and culturally, a badly needed morale boost for the community and for Los Angeles after a period of immigration raids, troops monitoring the neighborhoods, and a constant stream of negativity from national leaders.

"Kike and Miggy presented this alternative story," said Molina. "The world witnessed Latinos showing an infectious enthusiasm in what they do, acting as leaders on the team, exhibiting a different kind of masculinity. They're energetic, they're cheering, they're removing their shirts."

"It was such a contrast with what we see on the news – raids, Latinos detained and pursued. It's so easy to be disheartened right now."

However, it's entirely straightforward to be a team fan nowadays – for her or for the many of other fans who show up regularly to home games and fill up as many as half of the stadium's 50,000 seats each time.

A Complicated Connection with the Team

When aggressive immigration raids started in Los Angeles in early June, and military troops were deployed into the area to respond to resulting demonstrations, two of the city's sports teams promptly released statements of support with affected communities – while the baseball team.

Management has said the Dodgers prefer to stay away of politics – a view colored, perhaps, by the fact that a significant minority of the fans, including some Hispanic fans, are supporters of current political figures. Under considerable public pressure, the organization subsequently pledged $one million in aid for families directly impacted by the operations but made no official condemnation of the government.

White House Event and Historical Heritage

Months earlier, the team did not hesitate in agreeing to an invitation to celebrate their 2024 World Series victory at the official residence – a decision that local columnists labeled as "disappointing … spineless … and contradictory", considering the Dodgers' pride in having been the pioneering major league team to break the color barrier in the 1940s and the regular references of that history and the principles it embodies by officials and current and former players. A number of players such as the manager had expressed unwillingness to go to the event during the initial period but then changed their minds or succumbed to demands from team management.

Business Ownership and Fan Dilemmas

An additional complication for fans is that the Dodgers are controlled by a corporate behemoth, the ownership group, whose equity holdings, according to media reports and its own published balance sheets, include a share in a private prison company that runs enforcement centers. Guggenheim's executives has stated many times that it aims to remain neutral of political matters, but its critics say the inaction – and the investment – are their own type of compliance to current policies.

These factors contribute to significant conflicted emotions among Hispanic supporters in particular – sentiments that surfaced even in the euphoria of this season's hard-won championship victory and the following explosion of Dodgers support across Los Angeles.

"Is it okay to root for the Dodgers?" area columnist Erick Galindo reflected at the start of the postseason in an thoughtful essay pondering on "Dodger blue in our blood, but uncertainty in our hearts". He was unable to finally bring himself to view the World Series, but he still cared deeply, to the point that he decided his one-man protest must have given the team the fortune it needed to win.

Distinguishing the Players from the Management

Many fans who have Galindo's reservations seem to have decided that they can continue to back the team and its lineup of international players, featuring the Japanese superstar a key player, while pouring scorn on the organization's corporate overlords. At no place was this more evident than at the victory celebration at Dodger Stadium on the following day, when the packed audience roared in approval of the manager and his athletes but jeered the team president and the top official of the investors.

"The executives in suits do not get to take our boys in blue from us," the fan said. "We've been with the team longer than they have."

Past Context and Neighborhood Effect

The problem, however, goes further than only the organization's current owners. The deal that brought the former franchise to Los Angeles in the 1950s required the municipality razing three low-income Latino neighborhoods on a elevated area above the city center and then transferring the property to the team for a small part of its market value. A track on a 2005 record that chronicles the story has an impoverished worker at the stadium stating that the home he lost to eviction is now a part of the field.

Gustavo Arellano, perhaps southern California most widely followed Mexican American columnist and media personality, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, dysfunctional dynamic between the team and its fanbase. He calls the team the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a business organization with an undue, even harmful devotion by numerous Latinos" that has been exploiting its fans for years.

"They've acted around Hispanic followers while profiting from them with the other for so much time because they have been able to get away with it," the writer wrote over the summer, when calls to avoid the team over its lack of response to the raids were upended by the uncomfortable reality that attendance at matches remained steady, even at the peak of the demonstrations when the city center was subject to a evening curfew.

Global Stars and Community Bonds

Distinguishing the team from its corporate owners is not a simple task, {