🔗 Share this article

In the eyes of Natalia Molina and longtime Mexican American, the most memorable moment of the World Series did not happen during the nail-biting finale last Saturday, when her team executed one death-defying comeback act after another and then prevailing in extra innings over the Toronto Blue Jays.

It came a game earlier, when two supporting players, the Puerto Rican player and Miguel Rojas, pulled off a electrifying, game-winning sequence that at the same time challenged numerous harmful misconceptions promoted about Hispanic people in the past decades.

The play itself was stunning: Hernández raced in from the outfield to catch a ball he initially misjudged in the bright lights, then threw it to the infield to secure another, decisive play. Rojas, positioned nearby, received the ball just a split second before a runner barreled into him, knocking him backwards.

This was not merely a great sporting moment, perhaps the key shift in momentum in the Dodgers' direction after appearing for much of the games like the underdog side. To her, it was thrilling, on multiple levels, a badly needed morale boost for Latinos and for the city after months of immigration raids, troops patrolling the streets, and a steady drumbeat of negativity from national leaders.

"The players put forth this alternative story," said the professor. "Everyone witnessed Latinos showing an contagious enthusiasm in what they do, acting as leaders on the team, exhibiting a different kind of confidence. They are energetic, they're cheering, they're taking off their shirts."

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

Not that it's entirely straightforward to be a team fan nowadays – for her or for the many of other fans who show up faithfully to matches and fill up as many as 50% of the stadium's 50,000 spots per game.

A Mixed Connection with the Team

After intensified immigration raids began in the city in early June, and military units were sent into the city to respond to ensuing demonstrations, two of the city's soccer teams quickly issued messages of solidarity with affected communities – but not the Dodgers.

Management has said the Dodgers prefer to stay away of political issues – a view colored, possibly, by the reality that a sizable portion of the supporters, even some Hispanic fans, are supporters of current leaders. After significant public pressure, the team subsequently pledged $one million in aid for individuals directly impacted by the raids but made no public condemnation of the administration.

White House Visit and Historical Legacy

Months before, the team did not delay in agreeing to an invitation to mark their previous championship victory at the White House – a decision that sports columnists labeled as "pathetic … spineless … and contradictory", considering the Dodgers' pride in having been the pioneering professional franchise to break the racial segregation in the mid-20th century and the regular invocations of that history and the principles it embodies by officials and present and former players. Several players such as the manager had expressed reluctance to travel to the White House during the initial period but then reconsidered or gave in to pressure from the organization.

Corporate Ownership and Fan Conflicts

An additional issue for supporters is that the team are owned by a corporate behemoth, the ownership group, whose equity holdings, according to sources and its own released balance sheets, involve a stake in a detention company that runs enforcement centers. Guggenheim's leadership has stated many times that it aims to remain neutral of political matters, but its detractors say the silence – and the financial stake – are their own type of compliance to certain agendas.

These factors contribute to considerable mixed feelings among Hispanic supporters in particular – feelings that emerged even in the excitement of this season's hard-fought World Series victory and the ensuing outpouring of team pride across Los Angeles.

"Can one to root for the team?" area writer Erick Galindo agonized at the beginning of the playoffs in an elegant essay pondering on "Dodger blue in our veins, but uncertainty in our hearts". Galindo was unable to ultimately bring himself to watch the championship, but he still cared strongly, to the extent that he believed his personal boycott must have given the team the fortune it needed to win.

Separating the Players from the Owners

Numerous fans who share similar misgivings seem to have decided that they can keep to back the players and its roster of international players, featuring the Asian megastar a key player, while pouring scorn on the team's corporate overlords. At no place was this more evident than at the victory celebration at Dodger Stadium on Monday, when the capacity crowd cheered in approval of the coach and his athletes but booed the team president and the top official of the investors.

"These men in suits do not get to take our players from us," the fan said. "We've been with the team longer than they have."

Historical Context and Neighborhood Effect

The problem, though, goes further than only the organization's current owners. The agreement that brought the Brooklyn Dodgers to the city in the late 1950s required the city razing three working-class Latino neighborhoods on a hill overlooking downtown and then selling the land to the organization for a fraction of its actual worth. A track on a mid-2000s record that chronicles the events has an impoverished parking attendant at the stadium stating that the home he forfeited to removal is now a part of the field.

Gustavo Arellano, perhaps southern California most widely followed Latino columnist and media personality, sees a darker side to the lengthy, problematic dynamic between the team and its audience. He calls the team the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a business organization with an undue, even unhealthy following by numerous Latinos" that has been shortchanging its fans for decades.

"They've put one arm around Latino fans while profiting from them with the other for so much time because they have been able to get away with it," Arellano wrote over the summer, when demands to avoid the team over its absence of reaction to the raids were upended by the uncomfortable reality that attendance at home games remained steady, even at the peak of the demonstrations when the city center was subject to a nightly curfew.

International Stars and Community Bonds

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