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In the eyes of a lifelong Dodgers fan and third-generation Mexican American, the crowning highlight of the baseball championship did not occur during the nail-biting finale on Saturday, when her squad pulled off one dramatic escape feat after another before winning in overtime over the opposing team.

It came in the previous game, when two second-tier players, Kike Hernández and the Venezuelan infielder, pulled off a thrilling, decisive play that simultaneously challenged many harmful misconceptions promoted about Hispanic people in the past decades.

The play in itself was stunning: Hernández charged in from the outfield to catch a ball he initially lost in the stadium lights, then fired it to second base to record another, decisive play. the second baseman, positioned nearby, caught the ball moments before a runner barreled into him, knocking him to the ground.

This wasn't just a remarkable athletic achievement, possibly the key turn in the series in the team's direction after appearing for most of the games like the weaker side. To her, it was thrilling, politically and culturally, a badly needed uplift for the community and for Los Angeles after months of immigration raids, troops patrolling the neighborhoods, and a steady drumbeat of criticism from national leaders.

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

"This represented such a juxtaposition with what we see on the news – raids, Latinos detained and chased down. It is so simple to be demoralized these days."

However, it's exactly straightforward to be a Dodgers supporter nowadays – for Molina or for the many of other fans who attend faithfully to home games and fill up as many as 50% of the stadium's 50,000 seats per game.

The Mixed Connection with the Organization

After aggressive enforcement operations started in Los Angeles in June, and military units were sent into the city to respond to resulting protests, two of the city's sports clubs quickly issued statements of solidarity with affected communities – while the Dodgers.

Management stated the Dodgers prefer to stay away of political issues – a stance influenced, perhaps, by the reality that a significant portion of the supporters, even some Hispanic fans, are supporters of current political figures. Under considerable public pressure, the organization subsequently committed $one million in support for individuals personally affected by the raids but issued no official condemnation of the government.

Official Visit and Historical Heritage

Three months earlier, the organization did not delay in accepting an offer to mark their previous World Series win at the White House – a move that sports columnists labeled as "disappointing … spineless … and hypocritical", considering the team's pride in having been the pioneering major league franchise to end the color barrier in the mid-20th century and the frequent references of that legacy and the values it represents by officials and current and former players. Several team members such as the coach had voiced unwillingness to go to the event during the first term but either changed their minds or succumbed to demands from team management.

Business Ownership and Supporter Dilemmas

An additional issue for fans is that the Dodgers are controlled by a corporate behemoth, the ownership group, whose investments, according to media reports and its own released financial documents, include a stake in a private prison company that operates enforcement facilities. The group's executives has said many times that it wants to remain neutral of political matters, but its critics say the silence – and the financial stake – are their own type of acquiescence to certain policies.

All of that add up to considerable conflicted emotions among Hispanic fans in especial – sentiments that emerged even in the excitement of this season's hard-fought championship victory and the following explosion of Dodgers pride across Los Angeles.

"Is it okay to support the Dodgers?" local columnist one observer agonized at the start of the postseason in an thoughtful essay pondering on "Dodger blue in our blood, but doubt in our hearts". He was unable to ultimately bring himself to watch the World Series, but he still cared strongly, to the extent that he believed his personal protest must have given the squad the luck it needed to win.

Distinguishing the Team from the Owners

Many fans who have Galindo's reservations appear to have concluded that they can continue to back the team and its roster of international stars, featuring the Japanese superstar a key player, while pouring scorn on the organization's corporate leadership. At no place was this more clear than at the championship parade at Dodger Stadium on the following day, when the capacity crowd cheered in approval of the manager and his players but booed the executive and the chief executive of the investors.

"These men in suits don't get to claim our players from us," Molina said. "We've been with the team longer than they have."

Past Background and Neighborhood Effect

The issue, however, runs deeper than only the organization's current owners. The deal that brought the former franchise to Los Angeles in the 1950s required the city demolishing three working-class Hispanic communities on a hill overlooking downtown and then selling the property to the team for a fraction of its actual worth. A track on a 2005 record that documents the events has an low-income parking attendant at the venue revealing that the house he lost to eviction is now third base.

Gustavo Arellano, perhaps the region's most widely followed Mexican American columnist and media personality, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, dysfunctional dynamic between the franchise and its audience. He describes the team the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a corporate entity with an excessive, even harmful following by too many Latinos" that has been exploiting its supporters for years.

"They have acted around Hispanic followers while picking their pockets with the other for so much time because they have been able to get away with it," Arellano noted over the summer, when demands to avoid the team over its absence of response to the enforcement actions were upended by the uncomfortable fact that turnout at home games did not dip, even at the height of the protests when the city center was subject to a nightly restriction.

International Players and Fan Bonds

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