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For Natalia Molina and longtime Mexican American, the crowning highlight of the World Series did not occur during the tense finale last Saturday, when her team executed one dramatic comeback feat after another and then prevailing in extra innings over the opposing team.

It came a game earlier, when two second-tier players, the Puerto Rican player and Miguel Rojas, pulled off a thrilling, game-winning sequence that at the same time upended many harmful misconceptions touted about Latinos in recent years.

The play itself was breathtaking: the outfielder raced in from the outfield to catch a ball he initially misjudged in the bright lights, then fired it to second base to secure another, game-winning play. Rojas, positioned nearby, caught the ball just a split second before a opposing player collided with him, knocking him backwards.

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 side. To her, it was thrilling, politically and culturally, a much-required uplift for the community and for the city after a period of enforcement actions, security forces monitoring the neighborhoods, and a constant stream of negativity from official sources.

"Kike and Miggy put forth this counter-narrative," explained Molina. "Everyone witnessed Latinos displaying an contagious enthusiasm in what they do, being leaders on the team, exhibiting a different kind of masculinity. They are energetic, they're yelling, 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 simple to be disheartened right now."

Not that it's entirely straightforward to be a Dodgers fan these days – for Molina or for the many of other Latinos who attend faithfully to matches and occupy as many as 50% of the stadium's 50,000 spots per game.

A Complicated Connection with the Team

When aggressive immigration raids started in Los Angeles in early June, and national guard units were sent into the city to respond to ensuing demonstrations, two of the local sports teams promptly released statements of support with immigrant families – while the Dodgers.

Management has said the organization want to steer clear of politics – a view colored, possibly, by the reality that a significant portion of the supporters, even some Hispanic fans, are followers of certain political figures. Under significant public pressure, the team subsequently committed $1m in aid for families personally impacted by the raids but issued no public criticism of the government.

Official Event and Past Legacy

Months before, the team did not hesitate in accepting an invitation to celebrate their previous championship victory at the official residence – a decision that sports columnists described as "disappointing … weak … and contradictory", given the Dodgers' boast in having been the pioneering professional team to end the color barrier in the mid-20th century and the regular references of that legacy and the values it embodies by executives and present and former athletes. Several players including the coach had expressed reluctance to go to the event during the initial period but either changed their minds or gave in to demands from the organization.

Business Control and Supporter Dilemmas

An additional complication for fans is that the team are owned by a corporate behemoth, Guggenheim Partners, whose equity holdings, as per sources and its own released financial documents, involve a stake in a private prison corporation that runs detention facilities. The group's leadership has stated many times that it wants to remain neutral of politics, but its critics say the inaction – and the investment – are their own form of acquiescence to certain agendas.

These factors add up to considerable conflicted emotions among Latino supporters in particular – sentiments that emerged even in the euphoria of this year's hard-fought World Series triumph and the ensuing explosion of team pride across the city.

"Is it okay to support the Dodgers?" area writer Erick Galindo agonized at the start of the playoffs in an elegant essay ruminating on "team loyalty in our blood, but uncertainty in our hearts". Galindo couldn't ultimately bring himself to watch the World Series, but he still felt deeply, to the point that he believed his personal boycott must have brought the team the luck it required to succeed.

Separating the Players from the Management

Numerous fans who have similar misgivings appear to have concluded that they can continue to back the team and its lineup of international players, including the Asian megastar a key player, while pouring scorn on the team's corporate leadership. At no place was this more clear than at the victory celebration at the home venue on the following day, when the packed audience cheered in approval of the manager and his players but jeered the executive and the top official of the investors.

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

Historical Context and Community Impact

The issue, however, runs deeper than only the team's current proprietors. The agreement that moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles in the 1950s involved the municipality razing three working-class Hispanic neighborhoods on a hill overlooking downtown and then selling the property to the team for a small part of its market value. A track on a mid-2000s album that chronicles the events has an impoverished parking attendant at the stadium revealing that the home he forfeited to eviction is now third base.

A prominent commentator, perhaps the region's most widely followed Latino writer and media personality, sees a darker side to the lengthy, problematic relationship between the franchise and its fanbase. He calls the team the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a corporate entity with an undue, even unhealthy following by numerous Latinos" that has been shortchanging its fans for years.

"They have acted around Latino fans while picking their pockets with the other for so much time because they have been able to avoid consequences," the writer wrote over the summer, when demands to boycott the team over its absence of reaction to the raids were upended by the uncomfortable fact that attendance at matches did not dip, even at the height of the protests when downtown LA was under to a nightly restriction.

Global Stars and Community Bonds

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