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In the eyes of a lifelong Dodgers fan and third-generation Mexican American, the most memorable highlight of the World Series didn't happen during the nail-biting finale on Saturday, when her team pulled off multiple death-defying comeback act after another before prevailing in overtime against the opposing team.

It happened in the previous game, when two supporting players, the Puerto Rican player and Miguel Rojas, executed a thrilling, game-winning play that at the same time upended numerous harmful stereotypes touted about Hispanic people in the past years.

The moment in itself was breathtaking: the outfielder charged in from the outfield to catch a ball he at first misjudged in the stadium lights, then threw it to the infield to secure another, game-winning out. the second baseman, positioned nearby, received the ball moments before a opposing player barreled into him, sending him backwards.

This wasn't merely a remarkable athletic moment, perhaps the decisive turn in momentum in the Dodgers' favor after appearing for most of the games like the weaker team. For Molina, it was exhilarating, on multiple levels, a badly needed uplift for the community and for the city after a period of immigration raids, security forces monitoring the streets, and a constant drumbeat of negativity from official sources.

"Kike and Miggy put forth this alternative story," said the professor. "Everyone saw Latinos displaying an contagious pride and joy in what they do, acting as leaders on the team, exhibiting a distinct kind of confidence. They're energetic, they're yelling, they're taking off their shirts."

"This represented such a contrast with what we observe on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos thrown to the ground and chased down. It is so simple to be demoralized these days."

However, it's exactly straightforward to be a Dodgers fan these days – for Molina or for the legions of other Latinos who show up regularly to home games and fill up as many as half of the stadium's 50,000 seats each time.

A Mixed Connection with the Organization

After aggressive enforcement operations began in the city in early June, and military troops were deployed into the area to respond to resulting protests, two of the local soccer teams quickly issued statements of solidarity with immigrant families – but not the Dodgers.

The team president stated the organization want to stay away of political issues – a stance colored, perhaps, by the fact that a sizable portion of the fans, including some Hispanic fans, are supporters of certain leaders. After considerable public pressure, the team subsequently pledged $one million in aid for families directly affected by the raids but made no public condemnation of the administration.

White House Visit and Past Heritage

Three months before, the organization did not delay in accepting an invitation to celebrate their previous championship win at the official residence – a move that sports writers described as "pathetic … spineless … and contradictory", considering the Dodgers' boast in having been the first major league team to break the racial segregation in the mid-20th century and the regular invocations of that legacy and the values it represents by executives and present and former athletes. A number of team members including the manager had expressed unwillingness to go to the White House during the initial period but then changed their minds or succumbed to demands from the organization.

Business Control and Fan Dilemmas

An additional issue for supporters is that the team are controlled by a large investment group, the ownership group, whose investments, according to media reports and its own released balance sheets, include a stake in a detention company that runs detention facilities. Guggenheim's leadership has stated many times that it aims to stay out of political matters, but its detractors say the inaction – and the investment – are their own form of compliance to certain agendas.

All of that add up to significant conflicted emotions among Hispanic fans in particular – feelings that surfaced even in the euphoria of this year's hard-won championship triumph and the ensuing explosion of team pride across the city.

"Can one to support the team?" area columnist one observer reflected at the beginning of the playoffs in an thoughtful essay ruminating on "Dodger blue in our veins, but uncertainty in our hearts". He was unable to finally bring himself to view the World Series, but he still cared strongly, to the point that he believed his personal boycott must have brought the team the luck it needed to succeed.

Distinguishing the Team from the Owners

Numerous supporters who share similar misgivings appear to have concluded that they can continue to support the players and its lineup of global stars, featuring the Japanese megastar Shohei Ohtani, while pouring scorn on the organization's corporate overlords. At no place was this more evident than at the championship parade at the home venue on the following day, when the packed audience roared in approval of the manager and his players but jeered the team president and the chief executive of the investors.

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

Past Context and Neighborhood Effect

The issue, though, goes further than only the team's current owners. The agreement that moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to the city in the late 1950s required the city demolishing three low-income Hispanic communities on a hill above the city center and then selling the land to the team for a small part of its market value. A song on a 2005 record that chronicles the story has an impoverished worker at the venue revealing that the home he forfeited to removal is now a part of the field.

Gustavo Arellano, perhaps southern California most widely followed Latino columnist and media personality, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, dysfunctional dynamic between the franchise and its audience. He calls the Dodgers the popular snack of baseball, "a business organization with an excessive, even unhealthy following by numerous Latinos" that has been exploiting its supporters for decades.

"They have acted around Hispanic fans while profiting from them with the other for so much time because they have been able to get away with it," Arellano wrote over the warmer months, when demands to boycott the organization over its absence of response to the enforcement actions were contradicted by the uncomfortable fact that attendance at matches did not dip, even at the peak of the demonstrations when downtown LA was subject to a nightly restriction.

Global Stars and Fan Connections

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