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In the eyes of Natalia Molina and third-generation Mexican American, the most memorable highlight of the baseball championship did not occur during the tense finale on Saturday, when her team pulled off multiple death-defying escape feat after another before prevailing in extra innings over the Toronto Blue Jays.

It happened in the previous game, when two supporting athletes, Kike Hernández and Miguel Rojas, executed a thrilling, decisive sequence that simultaneously upended many negative stereotypes touted about Latinos in recent decades.

The play in itself was breathtaking: Hernández charged in from the outfield to snag a ball he at first misjudged in the bright lights, then fired it to the infield to record another, decisive out. Rojas, at second base, received the ball just a split second before a runner collided with him, sending him to the ground.

This was not just a remarkable sporting moment, perhaps the decisive shift in momentum in the team's direction after appearing for most of the games like the underdog team. For Molina, it was exhilarating, politically and culturally, a much-required uplift for Latinos and for the city after a period of enforcement actions, security forces monitoring the streets, and a steady stream of negativity from official sources.

"The players put forth this counter-narrative," said Molina. "Everyone witnessed Latinos showing an contagious pride and joy in what they do, acting as key figures on the team, exhibiting a different kind of confidence. They are energetic, they're cheering, they're removing their shirts."

"This represented such a juxtaposition with what we observe on the news – raids, Latinos thrown to the ground and chased down. It's so easy to be demoralized right now."

Not that it's entirely straightforward to be a team supporter nowadays – for her or for the many of other fans who attend regularly to matches and occupy as many as 50% of the venue's fifty thousand seats per game.

The Complicated Relationship with the Organization

When intensified enforcement operations started in the city in early June, and national guard units were sent into the city to respond to resulting demonstrations, two of the local sports teams promptly issued messages of solidarity with affected communities – while the baseball team.

Management has said the organization want to steer clear of politics – a view influenced, perhaps, by the fact that a significant portion of the supporters, even Latinos, are supporters of current leaders. Under significant public pressure, the organization subsequently pledged $one million in support for individuals personally impacted by the raids but made no official criticism of the administration.

White House Event and Historical Heritage

Months earlier, the organization did not hesitate in agreeing to an offer to mark their previous championship win at the official residence – a decision that sports columnists described as "pathetic … weak … and hypocritical", given the team's pride in having been the pioneering professional team to break the color barrier in the mid-20th century and the frequent references of that legacy and the values it represents by executives and current and former athletes. Several players such as the manager had expressed reluctance to travel to the event during the initial period but then reconsidered or succumbed to demands from the organization.

Corporate Control and Fan Dilemmas

A further complication for fans is that the Dodgers are controlled by a corporate behemoth, Guggenheim Partners, whose investments, as per sources and its own released financial documents, include a stake in a private prison company that operates enforcement facilities. Guggenheim's leadership has stated many times that it wants to remain neutral of politics, but its detractors say the silence – and the financial stake – are their own form of acquiescence to current agendas.

These factors add up to considerable mixed feelings among Latino supporters in particular – feelings that emerged even in the euphoria of this year's hard-won World Series victory and the ensuing outpouring of team support across the city.

"Is it okay to root for the Dodgers?" local writer Erick Galindo agonized at the start of the postseason in an elegant essay pondering on "Dodger blue in our blood, but uncertainty in our hearts". Galindo was unable to finally bring himself to view the championship, but he still felt strongly, to the extent that he decided his personal protest must have brought the squad the fortune it needed to succeed.

Distinguishing the Players from the Owners

Many supporters who have Galindo's misgivings seem to have concluded that they can continue to support the players and its lineup of global stars, including the Japanese megastar Shohei Ohtani, while expressing disdain on the organization's business overlords. Nowhere was this more clear than at the championship parade at Dodger Stadium on the following day, when the capacity crowd roared in support of the manager and his players but jeered the team president and the chief executive of the investors.

"These men in formal attire do not get to claim our players from us," the fan said. "We've been with the Dodgers longer than they have."

Past Background and Neighborhood Impact

The problem, though, runs deeper than only the team's present owners. The agreement that moved the former franchise to Los Angeles in the 1950s involved the municipality demolishing three low-income Hispanic neighborhoods on a hill above the city center and then selling the property to the organization for a small part of its market value. A song on a mid-2000s album that chronicles the story has an impoverished parking attendant at the venue stating that the house he forfeited to removal is now a part of the field.

A prominent commentator, perhaps southern California most widely followed Mexican American writer and broadcaster, sees a darker side to the lengthy, dysfunctional dynamic between the team and its fanbase. He calls the team the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a business organization with an excessive, even harmful devotion by too many Latinos" that has been shortchanging its supporters for decades.

"They've acted around Hispanic followers while picking their pockets 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 boycott the team over its absence of reaction to the raids were upended by the uncomfortable reality that turnout at home games remained steady, even at the height of the demonstrations when downtown LA was under to a evening restriction.

International Stars and Fan Connections

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