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For Natalia Molina and third-generation Mexican American, the crowning highlight of the World Series didn't happen during the nail-biting final game last Saturday, when her squad pulled off one dramatic escape act after another and then prevailing in overtime against the Toronto Blue Jays.

It happened in the previous game, when two second-tier players, the Puerto Rican player and Miguel Rojas, executed a thrilling, game-winning sequence that simultaneously upended many harmful misconceptions touted about Latinos in the past years.

The play itself was breathtaking: Hernández charged in from left field to catch a ball he initially misjudged in the stadium lights, then fired it to second base to record another, decisive play. Rojas, positioned nearby, caught the ball just a split second before a opposing player collided with him, sending him backwards.

This was not just a great athletic moment, possibly the key shift in the series in the team's direction after looking for most of the games like the weaker side. For Molina, it was thrilling, on multiple levels, a much-required morale boost for the community and for the city after a period of enforcement actions, troops monitoring the neighborhoods, and a constant drumbeat of criticism from national leaders.

"The players presented this counter-narrative," said Molina. "The world saw Latinos displaying an infectious enthusiasm in what they do, acting as key figures on the team, having a different kind of confidence. They're bombastic, they're cheering, they're removing their shirts."

"It was such a juxtaposition with what we observe on the news – raids, Latinos detained and chased down. It is so easy to be demoralized right now."

Not that it's exactly straightforward to be a Dodgers supporter these days – for her or for the many of other Latinos who show up faithfully to matches and occupy as many as 50% of the stadium's 50,000 spots per game.

A Complicated Relationship with the Organization

After aggressive 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 teams quickly issued messages of support with affected communities – while the baseball team.

Management stated the organization prefer to steer clear of politics – a stance influenced, possibly, by the reality that a sizable portion of the supporters, even Latinos, are supporters of current leaders. After significant external demands, the team later pledged $1m in aid for families directly impacted by the operations but issued no public criticism of the administration.

White House Visit and Historical Heritage

Three months earlier, the team did not hesitate in accepting an invitation to mark their previous World Series victory at the official residence – a move that local columnists described as "pathetic … weak … and hypocritical", considering the Dodgers' boast in having been the pioneering major league franchise to break the color barrier in the 1940s and the frequent references of that history and the principles it embodies by executives and current and former athletes. A number of team members including the coach had voiced unwillingness to travel to the White House during the initial period but either reconsidered or gave in to pressure from the organization.

Corporate Ownership and Supporter Dilemmas

A further complication for fans is that the team are owned by a large investment group, Guggenheim Partners, whose investments, according to sources and its own released balance sheets, include a stake in a detention corporation that operates enforcement centers. The group's leadership has stated many times that it wants to remain neutral of politics, but its detractors say the inaction – and the financial stake – are their own type of compliance to current policies.

All of that add up to significant mixed feelings among Hispanic supporters in particular – sentiments that emerged even in the euphoria of this season's hard-fought championship victory and the following outpouring of Dodgers pride across the city.

"Is it okay to support the Dodgers?" local writer Erick Galindo agonized at the beginning of the playoffs in an elegant essay pondering on "team loyalty in our veins, but doubt in our hearts". He was unable to finally bring himself to watch the World Series, but he still felt deeply, to the point that he believed his personal boycott must have given the team the fortune it needed to win.

Distinguishing the Players from the Management

Numerous supporters who share similar reservations appear to have decided that they can keep to back the players and its roster of global stars, including the Japanese megastar Shohei Ohtani, while pouring scorn on the organization's corporate overlords. At no place was this more clear than at the championship parade at Dodger Stadium on Monday, when the packed audience cheered in approval of the coach and his players but jeered the team president and the top official of the ownership group.

"The executives in formal attire don't get to claim our boys in blue from us," Molina said. "We have been with the team longer than they have."

Past Context and Community Impact

The problem, though, runs deeper than just the organization's current proprietors. The deal that brought the former franchise to the city in the 1950s required the city demolishing three working-class Latino neighborhoods on a hill overlooking the city center and then transferring the land to the organization for a small part of its market value. A song on a mid-2000s record that documents the events has an impoverished parking attendant at the venue revealing that the home he forfeited to eviction is now a part of the field.

A prominent commentator, perhaps southern California most influential Latino writer and broadcaster, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, dysfunctional relationship between the franchise and its fanbase. He describes the Dodgers the popular snack of baseball, "a business organization with an undue, even harmful devotion by numerous Latinos" that has been shortchanging its fans for decades.

"They've acted around Latino followers while profiting from them with the other for so long because they have been able to get away with it," Arellano wrote over the warmer months, when calls to avoid the team over its lack of reaction to the enforcement actions were upended by the uncomfortable reality that attendance at home games remained steady, even at the height of the protests when the city center was subject to a evening curfew.

Global Players and Fan Connections

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