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In the eyes of a lifelong Dodgers fan and longtime Mexican American, the crowning moment of the World Series didn't happen during the nail-biting final game last Saturday, when her team executed one death-defying comeback act after another before winning in extra innings against the opposing team.

It happened in the previous game, when two second-tier players, the Puerto Rican player and Miguel Rojas, pulled off a thrilling, decisive play that at the same time upended many harmful misconceptions touted about Hispanic people in the past years.

The play in itself was stunning: the outfielder charged in from left field to snag a ball he at first misjudged in the bright lights, then threw it to the infield to record another, decisive play. the second baseman, positioned nearby, received the ball just a split second before a opposing player collided with him, knocking him to the ground.

This wasn't merely a great athletic moment, perhaps the decisive turn in the series in the team's favor after appearing for most of the series like the underdog team. For Molina, it was thrilling, on multiple levels, a badly needed uplift for Latinos and for the city after a period of immigration raids, troops patrolling the neighborhoods, and a constant drumbeat of criticism from official sources.

"Kike and Miggy presented this alternative story," explained the professor. "Everyone saw Latinos showing an infectious pride and joy in what they do, acting as leaders on the team, having a different kind of confidence. They are energetic, they're cheering, they're taking off their shirts."

"It was such a contrast with what we observe on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos detained and pursued. It's so easy to be disheartened right now."

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

The Complicated Connection with the Team

When intensified enforcement operations started in the city in early June, and national guard troops were deployed into the city to respond to resulting protests, two of the local soccer clubs promptly issued statements of support with immigrant families – while the baseball team.

Management stated the Dodgers want to steer clear of political issues – a view colored, possibly, by the fact that a significant minority of the fans, even Latinos, are supporters of certain political figures. Under considerable external demands, the organization subsequently pledged $one million in support for families directly affected by the raids but issued no official criticism of the administration.

White House Event and Historical Legacy

Months before, the team did not delay in agreeing to an offer to mark their 2024 championship victory at the official residence – a move that local columnists described as "pathetic … weak … and contradictory", given the Dodgers' boast in having been the first professional team to break the racial segregation in the mid-20th century and the regular invocations of that legacy and the principles it embodies by officials and current and past athletes. A number of players including the coach had expressed unwillingness to go to the event during the first term but either reconsidered or succumbed to demands from the organization.

Business Control and Fan Dilemmas

An additional issue for fans is that the Dodgers are controlled by a corporate behemoth, Guggenheim Partners, whose equity holdings, according to sources and its own published financial documents, include a stake in a private prison company that runs enforcement facilities. Guggenheim's leadership has stated repeatedly that it aims to remain neutral of political matters, but its detractors say the silence – and the investment – are their own form of acquiescence to certain agendas.

All of that add up to considerable mixed feelings among Hispanic fans in especial – sentiments that surfaced even in the excitement of this year's hard-fought championship victory and the ensuing explosion of team support across the city.

"Is it okay to support the team?" local writer one observer reflected at the start of the postseason in an elegant essay ruminating on "team loyalty in our veins, but uncertainty in our hearts". Galindo was unable to finally bring himself to view the World Series, but he still cared deeply, to the point that he decided his one-man boycott must have given the squad the fortune it needed to win.

Distinguishing the Team from the Management

Many supporters who share similar misgivings seem to have concluded that they can keep to support the team and its roster of global stars, including the Asian megastar Shohei Ohtani, while expressing disdain on the team's corporate overlords. At no place was this more clear than at the victory celebration at Dodger Stadium on the following day, when the packed audience cheered in support of the coach and his athletes but jeered the team president and the top official of the ownership group.

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

Past Context and Neighborhood Impact

The problem, though, goes further than just the team's current owners. The agreement that brought the former franchise to the city in the late 1950s involved the municipality demolishing three working-class Latino neighborhoods on a hill overlooking the city center and then selling the land to the organization for a fraction of its market value. A song on a 2005 album that documents the story has an low-income parking attendant at the stadium revealing that the house he forfeited to eviction is now a part of the field.

Gustavo Arellano, possibly the region's most widely followed Mexican American columnist and media personality, sees a darker side to the lengthy, problematic dynamic 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 supporters for years.

"They have acted around Hispanic fans while picking their pockets with the other for so long because they have been able to avoid consequences," the writer wrote over the warmer months, when calls to avoid the team over its absence of reaction to the raids were upended by the uncomfortable reality that turnout at matches remained steady, even at the height of the demonstrations when downtown LA was under to a nightly curfew.

Global Players and Fan Connections

Separating the team from its corporate owners is not a simple matter, {