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

It happened a game earlier, when two supporting athletes, the Puerto Rican player and the Venezuelan infielder, pulled off a thrilling, decisive sequence that simultaneously upended numerous harmful stereotypes promoted about Hispanic people in the past decades.

The moment in itself was stunning: the outfielder raced in from the outfield to snag a ball he at first misjudged in the stadium lights, then threw it to the infield to record another, decisive out. Rojas, positioned nearby, received the ball moments before a runner collided with him, knocking him to the ground.

This wasn't merely a remarkable athletic achievement, possibly the key turn in momentum in the Dodgers' favor after looking for most of the games like the weaker team. To her, it was thrilling, on multiple levels, a much-required uplift for Latinos and for Los Angeles after a period of enforcement actions, security forces monitoring the neighborhoods, and a steady stream of criticism from national leaders.

"Kike and Miggy put forth this counter-narrative," explained Molina. "Everyone witnessed Latinos showing an contagious pride and joy in what they do, being leaders on the team, having a different kind of masculinity. They're bombastic, they're cheering, they're taking off their shirts."

"It was such a contrast with what we observe on the news – raids, Latinos detained and chased down. It's so simple to be disheartened right now."

Not that it's entirely simple to be a team fan these days – for her or for the many of other fans who attend faithfully to home games and fill up as many as half of the venue's fifty thousand seats each time.

The Complicated Relationship with the Organization

After intensified enforcement operations began in the city in early June, and military troops were sent into the city to respond to resulting protests, two of the local sports clubs promptly released statements of solidarity with affected communities – while the baseball team.

Management stated the organization prefer to stay away of politics – a view influenced, possibly, by the fact that a significant minority of the fans, including some Hispanic fans, are supporters of certain political figures. After considerable public pressure, the team subsequently committed $one million in support for individuals directly impacted by the operations but made no public condemnation of the government.

White House Visit 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 "disappointing … weak … and contradictory", given the Dodgers' pride in having been the pioneering major league team to end the racial segregation in the mid-20th century and the regular references of that legacy and the principles it embodies by officials and present and former players. A number of players including the coach had expressed unwillingness to go to the event during the first term but either reconsidered or gave in to demands from team management.

Corporate Control and Fan Dilemmas

An additional issue for fans is that the Dodgers are controlled by a large investment group, Guggenheim Partners, whose equity holdings, as per media reports and its own published balance sheets, involve a share in a detention corporation that operates detention facilities. Guggenheim's executives has stated repeatedly that it wants to remain neutral of politics, but its detractors say the inaction – and the investment – are their own form of compliance to certain policies.

All of that contribute to significant conflicted emotions among Hispanic fans in especial – sentiments that emerged even in the euphoria of this season's hard-won World Series triumph and the following explosion of team pride across Los Angeles.

"Can one to root for the team?" local writer Erick Galindo agonized at the beginning of the postseason in an thoughtful article ruminating on "Dodger blue in our blood, but uncertainty in our hearts". He couldn't finally bring himself to view the World Series, but he still felt deeply, to the extent that he decided his personal boycott must have brought the squad the luck it needed to succeed.

Distinguishing the Team from the Owners

Many supporters who share similar misgivings appear to have decided that they can keep to back the players and its roster of international players, including the Asian superstar Shohei Ohtani, while expressing disdain on the organization's business overlords. Nowhere was this more clear than at the victory celebration at the home venue on Monday, when the capacity crowd roared in support of the manager and his athletes but jeered the team president and the top official of the ownership group.

"These men in suits don't get to claim our boys in blue from us," the fan said. "We have been with the team for more time than they have."

Past Background and Neighborhood Effect

The problem, though, runs deeper than only the organization's current owners. The agreement that brought the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles in the 1950s involved the city razing three low-income Latino neighborhoods on a hill overlooking the city center and then transferring the property to the organization for a fraction of its market value. A track on a mid-2000s record that chronicles the story has an impoverished parking attendant at the venue stating that the house he forfeited to removal is now third base.

Gustavo Arellano, perhaps the region's most influential Latino writer and broadcaster, sees a darker side to the long, problematic dynamic between the franchise and its audience. He describes the Dodgers the popular snack of baseball, "a corporate entity with an undue, even unhealthy devotion by numerous Latinos" that has been shortchanging its supporters for years.

"They've put one arm around Hispanic followers while profiting from them with the other hand for so much time because they have been able to avoid consequences," Arellano wrote over the warmer months, when calls to boycott the team over its lack of reaction to the enforcement actions were upended by the awkward fact that attendance at home games did not dip, even at the height of the protests when downtown LA was under to a evening restriction.

Global Stars and Fan Connections

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