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In the eyes of Natalia Molina and third-generation Mexican American, the most memorable moment of the baseball championship didn't happen during the tense finale last Saturday, when her team pulled off one dramatic comeback act after another and then winning in extra innings against the Toronto Blue Jays.

It happened a game earlier, when two supporting players, the Puerto Rican player and the Venezuelan infielder, executed a electrifying, game-winning sequence that at the same time upended numerous negative stereotypes touted about Latinos 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 fired it to second base to secure another, decisive out. the second baseman, at second base, received the ball just a split second before a runner barreled into him, sending him to the ground.

This was not merely a remarkable sporting moment, perhaps the key shift in momentum in the team's direction after appearing for much of the games like the weaker side. For Molina, it was exhilarating, politically and culturally, a badly needed uplift for Latinos and for Los Angeles after months of enforcement actions, security forces monitoring the streets, and a steady stream of negativity from national leaders.

"Kike and Miggy presented this alternative story," explained the professor. "The world saw Latinos displaying an contagious pride and joy in what they do, being leaders on the team, exhibiting a distinct kind of masculinity. They are energetic, they're yelling, they're removing their shirts."

"This represented such a contrast with what we see on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos thrown to the ground and pursued. It is so simple to be disheartened these days."

Not that it's exactly straightforward to be a Dodgers fan these days – for her or for the many of other Latinos who show up regularly to matches and fill up as many as 50% of the venue's fifty thousand spots per game.

A Mixed Connection with the Team

When intensified enforcement operations started in Los Angeles in June, and national guard troops were sent into the area to react to resulting protests, two of the local sports clubs quickly released statements of solidarity with affected communities – but not the baseball team.

Management has said the organization want to steer clear of politics – a stance influenced, possibly, by the fact that a significant minority of the fans, even Latinos, are followers of current leaders. Under considerable public pressure, the organization later pledged $1m in aid for families directly affected by the raids but made no public condemnation of the administration.

White House Visit and Past Legacy

Months before, the organization did not delay in accepting an offer to mark their previous World Series victory at the official residence – a decision that local writers described as "pathetic … weak … and contradictory", considering the team's pride in having been the pioneering major league team to end the color barrier in the 1940s and the frequent invocations of that legacy and the values it represents by officials and current and past athletes. A number of team members including the coach had voiced unwillingness to travel to the White House during the initial period but either reconsidered or succumbed to pressure from the organization.

Corporate Ownership and Supporter Dilemmas

An additional complication for fans is that the team are owned by a large investment group, Guggenheim Partners, whose investments, as per sources and its own published financial documents, include a stake in a private prison corporation that operates detention centers. The group's executives has stated many times that it aims to remain neutral of politics, but its detractors say the silence – and the financial stake – are their own type of acquiescence to certain agendas.

These factors contribute to significant conflicted emotions among Latino supporters in especial – sentiments that emerged even in the euphoria of this year's hard-fought championship victory and the ensuing explosion of Dodgers pride across the city.

"Is it okay to support the Dodgers?" area writer Erick Galindo agonized at the start of the postseason in an thoughtful article pondering on "Dodger blue in our veins, but uncertainty in our hearts". Galindo was unable to ultimately bring himself to watch the World Series, but he still cared strongly, to the extent that he believed his personal protest must have given the team the luck it required to win.

Distinguishing the Team from the Management

Numerous supporters who share similar misgivings seem to have concluded that they can keep to back the players and its lineup of international stars, including the Japanese superstar a key player, while pouring scorn on the organization's corporate leadership. Nowhere was this more clear than at the victory celebration at the home venue on the following day, when the packed audience roared in approval of the manager and his athletes but booed the team president and the top official of the ownership group.

"The executives in suits do not get to claim our players from us," the fan said. "We have been with the Dodgers for more time than they have."

Historical Background and Neighborhood Effect

The problem, however, runs deeper than only the team's current proprietors. The deal that moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles in the 1950s involved the municipality razing three low-income Hispanic neighborhoods on a elevated area overlooking the city center and then transferring the land to the organization for a fraction of its market value. A song on a 2005 record that chronicles the story has an low-income worker at the stadium stating that the house he lost to removal is now third base.

A prominent commentator, possibly the region's most widely followed Mexican American columnist and media personality, sees a darker side to the long, problematic dynamic between the franchise and its fanbase. He describes the team the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a business organization with an undue, even harmful following by numerous Latinos" that has been exploiting its fans for years.

"They've acted around Latino followers while picking their pockets with the other hand for so much time because they have been able to avoid consequences," the writer noted over the summer, when demands to avoid the team over its absence of response to the enforcement actions were upended by the awkward fact that turnout at matches did not dip, even at the height of the demonstrations when downtown LA was under to a nightly restriction.

Global Stars and Community Bonds

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