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For Natalia Molina and third-generation Mexican American, the most memorable moment of the baseball championship did not happen during the nail-biting final game last Saturday, when her squad executed multiple dramatic comeback act after another and then prevailing in extra innings over the opposing team.

It came in the previous game, when two second-tier players, Kike Hernández and Miguel Rojas, pulled off a electrifying, decisive play that simultaneously upended many harmful misconceptions touted about Latinos in recent decades.

The play in itself was breathtaking: the outfielder raced in from left field to snag a ball he at first lost in the stadium lights, then fired it to the infield to secure another, decisive play. Rojas, at second base, caught the ball moments before a runner collided with him, knocking him to the ground.

This wasn't merely a remarkable athletic moment, possibly the decisive shift in momentum in the team's direction after looking for much of the series like the underdog team. For Molina, it was exhilarating, on multiple levels, a much-required morale boost for the community and for the city after months of enforcement actions, troops monitoring the neighborhoods, and a constant stream of negativity from national leaders.

"The players presented this counter-narrative," explained the professor. "The world saw Latinos showing an infectious enthusiasm in what they do, acting as leaders on the team, having a different kind of confidence. They're bombastic, they're cheering, they're taking off their shirts."

"This represented such a contrast with what we see on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos thrown to the ground and pursued. It's so easy to be demoralized right now."

However, it's entirely simple to be a Dodgers fan these days – for Molina or for the legions of other Latinos who attend regularly to matches and fill up as many as 50% of the stadium's 50,000 spots per game.

A Complicated Relationship with the Organization

After aggressive immigration raids started in Los Angeles in June, and military units were sent into the city to respond to ensuing protests, two of the local sports teams promptly released statements of support with immigrant families – while the Dodgers.

The team president stated the Dodgers want to steer clear of politics – a view influenced, possibly, by the reality that a sizable portion of the supporters, including Latinos, are supporters of current leaders. Under considerable external demands, the team subsequently committed $one million in support for individuals directly affected by the raids but issued no public condemnation of the government.

White House Visit and Historical Heritage

Three months earlier, the organization did not hesitate in accepting an invitation to celebrate their 2024 World Series win at the official residence – a decision that local writers labeled as "pathetic … weak … and contradictory", given the team's boast in having been the first professional team to end the color barrier in the mid-20th century and the frequent invocations of that history and the values it represents by executives and present and past athletes. A number of players including the coach had expressed unwillingness to travel to the White House during the first term but then changed their minds or succumbed to pressure from the organization.

Corporate Control and Fan Conflicts

An additional issue for fans is that the Dodgers are controlled by a large investment group, Guggenheim Partners, whose equity holdings, according to media reports and its own released balance sheets, involve a stake in a private prison corporation that runs detention centers. The group's executives has stated repeatedly that it aims to remain neutral of politics, but its critics say the inaction – and the investment – are their own type of compliance to certain agendas.

All of that contribute to considerable mixed feelings among Hispanic fans in particular – sentiments that surfaced even in the euphoria of this year's hard-fought World Series victory and the ensuing explosion of Dodgers support across the city.

"Is it okay to support the Dodgers?" area writer one observer agonized at the beginning of the playoffs in an thoughtful essay ruminating on "Dodger blue in our veins, but doubt in our minds". Galindo was unable to ultimately bring himself to view the World Series, but he still cared deeply, to the point that he believed his personal boycott must have brought the squad the luck it needed to succeed.

Separating the Team from the Owners

Many supporters who have Galindo's misgivings seem to have decided that they can continue to back the team and its roster of international players, featuring the Asian superstar a key player, while pouring scorn on the team's corporate overlords. At no place was this more clear than at the victory celebration at Dodger Stadium on Monday, when the capacity crowd roared in support of the coach and his players but booed the executive and the chief executive of the ownership group.

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

Past Background and Community Impact

The issue, however, goes further than just the team's present proprietors. The deal that moved the former franchise to the city in the 1950s required the city demolishing three working-class Latino neighborhoods on a hill overlooking downtown and then transferring the property to the team for a small part of its actual worth. A track on a mid-2000s album that documents the events has an low-income worker at the venue revealing that the house he forfeited to eviction is now third base.

A prominent commentator, perhaps southern California most influential Latino writer and broadcaster, sees a darker side to the long, dysfunctional dynamic between the team and its audience. He describes the team the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a business organization with an excessive, even harmful following by too many Latinos" that has been exploiting its supporters for years.

"They have acted around Latino fans while picking their pockets with the other for so long because they have been able to get away with it," the writer wrote over the warmer months, when calls to avoid the team over its lack of response to the enforcement actions were contradicted by the uncomfortable fact that attendance at home games did not dip, even at the height of the demonstrations when downtown LA was subject to a evening curfew.

Global Stars and Community Bonds

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