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In the eyes of Natalia Molina and longtime Mexican American, the crowning moment of the World Series didn't happen during the nail-biting final game on Saturday, when her squad pulled off multiple death-defying comeback feat after another and then prevailing in extra innings over the opposing team.

It happened in the previous game, when two supporting athletes, Kike Hernández and Miguel Rojas, executed a electrifying, decisive play that simultaneously upended numerous negative misconceptions promoted about Latinos in recent years.

The play in itself was stunning: the outfielder raced in from left field to snag a ball he initially misjudged in the bright lights, then fired it to second base to record another, decisive play. Rojas, positioned nearby, received the ball just a split second before a opposing player collided with him, knocking him backwards.

This was not merely a great sporting moment, perhaps the key turn in the series in the team's direction after appearing for much of the games like the underdog team. To her, it was thrilling, on multiple levels, a much-required morale boost for Latinos and for the city after months of enforcement actions, security forces monitoring the streets, and a constant drumbeat of negativity from official sources.

"Kike and Miggy put forth this alternative story," explained the professor. "Everyone saw Latinos showing an contagious pride and joy in what they do, acting as leaders on the team, having a distinct kind of masculinity. They're energetic, they're yelling, they're removing their shirts."

"It was such a contrast with what we see on the news – raids, Latinos thrown to the ground and chased down. It is so simple to be disheartened these days."

However, it's exactly simple to be a Dodgers supporter nowadays – for Molina or for the many of other fans who attend regularly to home games and occupy as many as 50% of the venue's 50,000 spots each time.

The Mixed Connection with the Organization

After aggressive enforcement operations started in Los Angeles in June, and national guard units were sent into the city to respond to resulting protests, two of the local sports teams quickly released statements of solidarity with immigrant families – while the baseball team.

Management stated the Dodgers prefer to steer clear of political issues – a view influenced, possibly, by the reality that a sizable portion of the fans, even some Hispanic fans, are supporters of certain political figures. Under considerable external demands, the team later pledged $one million in support for families directly impacted by the raids but issued no public criticism of the administration.

Official Visit and Historical Heritage

Three months before, the team did not hesitate in accepting an offer to mark their previous World Series victory at the official residence – a decision that local writers labeled as "pathetic … weak … and hypocritical", given the team's boast in having been the first major league team to break the color barrier in the 1940s and the frequent references of that history and the principles it represents by executives and present and past athletes. A number of team members such as the manager had voiced unwillingness to go to the event during the initial period but then changed their minds or gave in to pressure from team management.

Corporate Control and Supporter Dilemmas

A further complication for supporters is that the team are controlled by a corporate behemoth, Guggenheim Partners, whose investments, according to media reports and its own published financial documents, include a share in a private prison corporation that operates detention facilities. The group's executives has said many times that it wants to remain neutral of politics, but its detractors say the inaction – and the financial stake – are their own type of compliance to certain agendas.

These factors add up to considerable conflicted emotions among Latino supporters in especial – feelings that emerged even in the excitement of this season's hard-won championship triumph and the ensuing explosion of Dodgers support across the city.

"Is it okay to support the team?" area columnist one observer agonized at the start of the playoffs in an elegant essay ruminating on "team loyalty in our blood, but doubt in our hearts". He couldn't finally bring himself to watch the World Series, but he still felt deeply, to the extent that he decided his one-man boycott must have brought the team the luck it required to win.

Separating the Players from the Owners

Many supporters who have Galindo's misgivings appear to have decided that they can continue to back the team and its lineup of global players, featuring the Japanese megastar Shohei Ohtani, while expressing disdain on the team's business overlords. Nowhere was this more evident than at the victory celebration at the home venue on the following day, when the capacity crowd cheered in approval of the coach and his athletes but jeered the executive and the chief executive of the ownership group.

"The executives in suits do not get to take our players from us," Molina said. "We have been with the team longer than they have."

Historical Background and Neighborhood Impact

The issue, though, goes further than only the organization's current proprietors. The agreement that moved the former franchise to the city in the 1950s required the municipality demolishing three low-income Latino communities on a elevated area above the city center and then transferring the property to the organization for a fraction of its market value. A song on a 2005 album that documents the story has an impoverished worker at the venue stating that the house he forfeited to eviction is now a part of the field.

A prominent commentator, possibly southern California most widely followed Mexican American columnist and media personality, sees a darker side to the lengthy, dysfunctional relationship between the team and its fanbase. He describes the Dodgers the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a corporate entity with an excessive, even harmful following by too many Latinos" that has been exploiting its fans for years.

"They have acted around Hispanic fans while profiting from them with the other hand for so long because they have been able to get away with it," the writer noted over the summer, when demands to avoid the organization over its absence of reaction to the raids were upended by the uncomfortable fact that turnout at matches did not dip, even at the height of the demonstrations when the city center was under to a nightly restriction.

International Stars and Fan Connections

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