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In the eyes of Natalia Molina and longtime Mexican American, the most memorable moment of the World Series did not happen during the nail-biting finale last Saturday, when her team pulled off one death-defying comeback act after another and then prevailing in extra innings against the opposing team.

It happened a game earlier, when two second-tier players, Kike Hernández and the Venezuelan infielder, pulled off a thrilling, decisive play that at the same time challenged many negative stereotypes touted about Latinos in recent years.

The play in itself was breathtaking: the outfielder charged in from left field to catch a ball he at first lost in the bright lights, then fired it to the infield to record another, decisive out. Rojas, at second base, caught the ball just a split second before a runner barreled into him, sending him to the ground.

This wasn't just a remarkable sporting moment, possibly the key turn in the series in the team's favor after appearing for most of the series like the underdog side. For Molina, it was exhilarating, politically and culturally, a much-required uplift for the community and for the city after a period of immigration raids, troops monitoring the streets, and a steady stream of negativity from national leaders.

"Kike and Miggy put forth this alternative story," explained Molina. "The world saw Latinos displaying an contagious pride and joy in what they do, being 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 contrast with what we see on the news – raids, Latinos thrown to the ground and chased down. It is so easy to be demoralized right now."

However, it's exactly simple to be a team fan these days – for her or for the legions of other fans who show up faithfully to home games and occupy as many as half of the stadium's fifty thousand spots per game.

A Complicated Connection with the Team

After intensified enforcement operations began in Los Angeles in June, and military units were deployed into the area to respond to resulting demonstrations, two of the local soccer teams quickly issued messages of support with affected communities – while the baseball team.

Management has said the organization want to stay away of political issues – a stance influenced, possibly, by the fact that a sizable portion of the fans, including some Hispanic fans, are followers of current leaders. Under considerable external demands, the organization later pledged $1m in aid for individuals directly affected by the raids but made no public criticism of the administration.

Official Visit and Past Legacy

Three months before, the team did not delay in accepting an offer to mark their previous championship victory at the official residence – a decision that sports writers labeled as "pathetic … weak … and contradictory", considering the team's boast in having been the pioneering professional team to end the color barrier in the mid-20th century and the regular references of that history and the values it represents by officials and present and past players. Several team members such as the coach had voiced reluctance to travel to the event during the first term but then reconsidered or gave in to demands from the organization.

Business Control and Fan Dilemmas

A further issue for supporters is that the team are owned by a large investment group, Guggenheim Partners, whose equity holdings, as per sources and its own released financial documents, include a stake in a detention corporation that runs detention centers. The group's leadership has stated repeatedly that it aims to stay out of political matters, but its detractors say the inaction – and the investment – are their own form of acquiescence to current policies.

All of that contribute to considerable conflicted emotions among Hispanic fans in particular – sentiments that emerged even in the euphoria of this year's hard-fought championship victory and the following explosion of Dodgers support across the city.

"Is it okay to support the Dodgers?" area writer one observer agonized at the start of the postseason in an elegant essay ruminating on "team loyalty in our blood, but uncertainty in our minds". He couldn't finally bring himself to watch the World Series, but he still felt deeply, to the extent that he decided his one-man protest must have given the team the luck it required to win.

Separating the Players from the Owners

Numerous fans who have Galindo's reservations appear to have concluded that they can keep to back the team and its lineup of international players, including the Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani, while expressing disdain on the organization's corporate overlords. Nowhere was this more evident than at the victory celebration at Dodger Stadium on Monday, when the capacity crowd roared in approval of the coach and his players but jeered the team president and the top official of the ownership group.

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

Past Background and Community Effect

The problem, however, goes further than only the team's present owners. The deal that brought the former franchise to the city in the 1950s involved the municipality demolishing three working-class Hispanic neighborhoods on a hill above the city center and then transferring the land to the team for a small part of its actual worth. A song on a mid-2000s album that chronicles the story has an impoverished parking attendant at the stadium stating that the home he lost to removal is now third base.

A prominent commentator, possibly southern California most widely followed Latino writer and media personality, sees a darker side to the lengthy, problematic relationship between the franchise and its fanbase. He describes the Dodgers the popular snack of baseball, "a business organization with an excessive, even unhealthy devotion by numerous Latinos" that has been shortchanging its fans for decades.

"They've put one arm around Hispanic fans while picking their pockets with the other for so long because they have been able to get away with it," the writer wrote over the summer, when calls to boycott the organization over its absence of reaction to the raids were upended by the awkward fact that attendance at home games remained steady, even at the peak of the protests when the city center was subject to a evening curfew.

International Players and Fan Connections

Separating the squad from its business leadership is not a easy matter, {