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For a lifelong Dodgers fan and longtime Mexican American, the most memorable highlight of the World Series didn't occur during the tense final game last Saturday, when her team executed multiple dramatic comeback feat after another before prevailing in overtime against the Toronto Blue Jays.

It happened in the previous game, when two supporting players, the Puerto Rican player and the Venezuelan infielder, executed a thrilling, decisive sequence that simultaneously challenged numerous harmful stereotypes touted about Hispanic people in the past decades.

The moment in itself was breathtaking: the outfielder raced in from left field to catch a ball he initially lost in the bright lights, then fired it to second base to secure another, decisive out. the second baseman, positioned nearby, caught the ball moments before a runner collided with him, knocking him to the ground.

This wasn't just a remarkable athletic achievement, perhaps the key shift in momentum in the team's favor after looking for most of the series like the underdog team. For Molina, it was thrilling, politically and culturally, a badly needed uplift for the community and for Los Angeles after a period of enforcement actions, troops patrolling the streets, and a steady drumbeat of criticism from official sources.

"Kike and Miggy put forth this alternative story," said Molina. "The world witnessed Latinos displaying an contagious enthusiasm in what they do, being leaders on the team, having a distinct kind of confidence. They're energetic, they're yelling, they're removing their shirts."

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

However, it's exactly simple 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 stadium's 50,000 seats per game.

The Mixed Connection with the Team

When intensified immigration raids started in the city in June, and national guard units were deployed into the city to respond to resulting protests, two of the city's soccer clubs promptly issued messages of support with affected communities – while the baseball team.

Management has said the organization prefer to steer clear of political issues – a stance influenced, possibly, by the fact that a significant minority of the fans, even some Hispanic fans, are followers of current political figures. Under significant external demands, the organization subsequently pledged $1m in aid for individuals directly impacted by the raids but made no public condemnation of the administration.

Official Visit and Past Heritage

Months earlier, the organization did not hesitate in agreeing to an offer to celebrate their previous championship win at the White House – a decision that sports columnists labeled as "disappointing … weak … and hypocritical", given the Dodgers' pride in having been the first professional franchise to break the color barrier in the 1940s and the regular invocations of that legacy and the values it represents by officials and current and past players. A number of team members such as the manager had voiced unwillingness to travel to the White House during the first term but either changed their minds or succumbed to demands from team management.

Business Control and Fan Conflicts

An additional issue for supporters is that the Dodgers are owned by a large investment group, the ownership group, whose investments, as per sources and its own released balance sheets, involve a share in a private prison company that runs detention facilities. The group's leadership has said many times that it aims to stay out of political matters, but its detractors say the inaction – and the investment – are their own type of compliance to certain policies.

All of that add up to significant mixed feelings among Hispanic supporters in especial – feelings that emerged even in the euphoria of this season's hard-won World Series triumph and the ensuing explosion of team support across Los Angeles.

"Is it okay to support the team?" area columnist one observer reflected at the beginning of the postseason in an thoughtful article ruminating on "team loyalty in our blood, but uncertainty in our minds". He couldn't ultimately bring himself to watch the World Series, but he still felt deeply, to the point that he believed his one-man protest must have given the team the fortune it needed to succeed.

Distinguishing the Players from the Owners

Numerous supporters who have Galindo's misgivings appear to have decided that they can continue to back the players and its roster of international stars, featuring the Asian superstar a key player, while expressing disdain on the organization's corporate overlords. At no place was this more evident than at the championship parade at the home venue on the following day, when the capacity crowd roared in approval of the manager and his athletes but jeered the executive and the top official of the investors.

"The executives in formal attire do not get to claim our boys in blue from us," Molina said. "We have been with the Dodgers for more time than they have."

Historical Context and Community Effect

The problem, though, goes further than just the team's current proprietors. The deal that moved the former franchise to the city in the late 1950s required the city demolishing three low-income Hispanic neighborhoods on a elevated area overlooking downtown and then transferring the property to the organization for a small part of its market value. A track on a mid-2000s album that documents the events has an impoverished parking attendant at the stadium revealing that the home he forfeited to eviction is now a part of the field.

Gustavo Arellano, possibly southern California most influential Mexican American writer and media personality, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, dysfunctional dynamic between the team and its audience. He calls the Dodgers the popular snack of baseball, "a corporate entity with an undue, even harmful following by numerous Latinos" that has been exploiting its fans for decades.

"They've put one arm around Hispanic fans while profiting from them 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 absence of response to the raids were upended by the awkward reality that turnout at home games remained steady, even at the height of the protests when the city center was subject to a nightly restriction.

Global Stars and Community Bonds

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