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In the eyes of Natalia Molina and third-generation Mexican American, the crowning highlight of the World Series didn't occur during the tense finale on Saturday, when her team pulled off multiple death-defying comeback feat after another and then winning in overtime over the opposing team.

It happened in the previous game, when two supporting players, the Puerto Rican player and the Venezuelan infielder, pulled off a thrilling, decisive sequence that simultaneously upended many negative misconceptions promoted about Hispanic people in recent years.

The play in itself was breathtaking: the outfielder raced in from left field to snag a ball he at first misjudged in the bright lights, then threw it to second base to record another, game-winning out. Rojas, positioned nearby, received the ball moments before a runner collided with him, sending him to the ground.

This was not merely a remarkable athletic achievement, possibly the decisive shift in the series in the Dodgers' direction after appearing for much of the series like the underdog team. To her, it was exhilarating, on multiple levels, a badly needed morale boost for Latinos and for the city after months of enforcement actions, troops patrolling the neighborhoods, and a steady stream of negativity from national leaders.

"The players presented this counter-narrative," said Molina. "The world witnessed Latinos displaying an infectious pride and joy in what they do, being leaders on the team, exhibiting a different kind of confidence. They're energetic, they're yelling, they're removing their shirts."

"This represented such a contrast with what we observe on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos thrown to the ground and chased down. It's so simple to be disheartened right now."

Not that it's exactly straightforward to be a Dodgers fan nowadays – for her or for the many of other Latinos who attend regularly to matches and fill up as many as half of the venue's 50,000 spots each time.

A Mixed Relationship with the Team

When intensified immigration raids started in the city in early June, and national guard troops were deployed into the area to react to ensuing protests, two of the city's soccer clubs promptly issued statements of support with affected communities – but not the baseball team.

The team president stated the Dodgers prefer to steer clear of politics – a stance influenced, perhaps, by the fact that a significant minority of the supporters, even some Hispanic fans, are followers of current leaders. Under considerable external demands, the organization later committed $one million in support for families directly affected by the raids but issued no official condemnation of the administration.

Official Visit and Historical Legacy

Months earlier, the organization did not delay in agreeing to an invitation to mark their previous championship win at the official residence – a decision that sports columnists described as "disappointing … weak … and contradictory", considering the Dodgers' pride in having been the first major league team to end the racial segregation in the mid-20th century and the regular invocations of that history and the principles it represents by officials and current and former players. A number of team members such as the coach had expressed reluctance to travel to the White House during the initial period but then changed their minds or gave in to pressure from team management.

Business Ownership and Fan Dilemmas

An additional issue for supporters is that the Dodgers are controlled by a corporate behemoth, Guggenheim Partners, whose equity holdings, according to media reports and its own released financial documents, include a share in a detention company that operates detention centers. Guggenheim's leadership has said repeatedly that it wants to remain neutral of political matters, but its critics say the silence – and the investment – are their own type of compliance to current policies.

These factors contribute to considerable conflicted emotions among Latino supporters in especial – sentiments that surfaced even in the euphoria of this season's hard-fought World Series victory and the following explosion of team pride across the city.

"Is it okay to root for the Dodgers?" local writer one observer agonized at the start of the postseason in an thoughtful article ruminating on "team loyalty in our veins, but uncertainty in our hearts". He couldn't ultimately bring himself to view the championship, but he still cared deeply, to the point that he decided his personal protest must have given the team the fortune it required to succeed.

Separating the Team from the Owners

Numerous supporters who share Galindo's misgivings seem to have concluded that they can continue to support the team and its lineup of global players, including the Asian superstar a key player, while pouring scorn on the organization's corporate leadership. At no place was this more clear than at the championship parade 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 formal attire do not get to claim our players from us," the fan said. "We've been with the team longer than they have."

Historical Background and Community Impact

The issue, however, goes further than only the team's present owners. The agreement that brought the Brooklyn Dodgers to the city in the late 1950s involved the municipality demolishing three low-income Hispanic communities on a elevated area overlooking downtown and then transferring the property to the organization for a fraction of its actual worth. A track on a 2005 record that documents the events has an impoverished worker at the stadium stating that the house he lost to eviction is now third base.

A prominent commentator, possibly the region's most widely followed Mexican American writer and broadcaster, sees a darker side to the lengthy, dysfunctional relationship between the franchise and its audience. He describes the Dodgers the popular snack of baseball, "a business organization with an undue, even unhealthy devotion by numerous Latinos" that has been shortchanging its supporters for years.

"They've acted around Hispanic followers while picking their pockets with the other for so much time because they have been able to avoid consequences," Arellano wrote over the warmer months, when calls to avoid the team over its lack of reaction to the enforcement actions were upended by the uncomfortable reality that attendance at matches remained steady, even at the peak of the demonstrations when downtown LA was subject to a nightly restriction.

Global Stars and Fan Bonds

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