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For a lifelong Dodgers fan and third-generation Mexican American, the most memorable highlight of the World Series did not occur during the tense final game last Saturday, when her squad pulled off one death-defying escape act after another and then winning in extra innings against the opposing team.

It came in the previous game, when two supporting athletes, Kike Hernández and Miguel Rojas, pulled off a electrifying, game-winning sequence that at the same time challenged numerous harmful stereotypes promoted about Hispanic people in recent decades.

The play itself was breathtaking: Hernández charged in from the outfield to catch a ball he at first lost in the bright lights, then fired it to the infield to record another, decisive out. Rojas, positioned nearby, caught the ball just a split second before a opposing player barreled into him, knocking him backwards.

This was not merely a great athletic achievement, perhaps the decisive turn in the series in the team's favor after appearing for most of the games like the underdog team. To her, it was exhilarating, politically and culturally, a badly needed morale boost for Latinos and for Los Angeles after a period of enforcement actions, security forces patrolling the streets, and a constant drumbeat of criticism from national leaders.

"Kike and Miggy put forth this counter-narrative," said the professor. "The world saw Latinos showing an infectious pride and joy in what they do, being key figures on the team, exhibiting a distinct kind of confidence. They are bombastic, they're yelling, they're taking off their shirts."

"It was such a contrast with what we see on the news – raids, Latinos thrown to the ground and pursued. It's so easy to be demoralized right now."

However, it's exactly simple to be a Dodgers supporter nowadays – for Molina or for the legions of other Latinos who show up faithfully to home games and occupy as many as half of the stadium's 50,000 spots each time.

The Mixed Connection with the Organization

After intensified enforcement operations began in the city in early June, and military units were deployed into the city to respond to ensuing protests, two of the city's sports clubs quickly issued statements of support with affected communities – while the baseball team.

Management stated the Dodgers want to stay away of political issues – a stance influenced, perhaps, by the reality that a significant minority of the supporters, even Latinos, are followers of certain leaders. Under significant external demands, the team subsequently pledged $one million in support for families directly impacted by the operations but issued no public condemnation of the administration.

Official Visit and Past Heritage

Months before, the team did not delay in accepting an offer to celebrate their 2024 championship win at the official residence – a move that local columnists described as "disappointing … weak … and hypocritical", considering the team's boast in having been the first professional team to end the color barrier in the mid-20th century and the regular references of that legacy and the principles it embodies by officials and present and past athletes. A number of team members such as the coach had voiced unwillingness to travel to the White House during the first term but then changed their minds or gave in to demands from team management.

Corporate Ownership and Supporter Dilemmas

An additional issue for fans is that the team are owned by a corporate behemoth, the ownership group, whose equity holdings, as per sources and its own released balance sheets, involve a stake in a detention corporation that operates enforcement centers. Guggenheim's leadership has said repeatedly that it aims to remain neutral of political matters, but its critics say the inaction – and the investment – are their own type of acquiescence to certain policies.

These factors contribute to considerable mixed feelings among Hispanic fans in especial – feelings that emerged even in the excitement of this year's hard-fought World Series victory and the following outpouring of Dodgers support across Los Angeles.

"Is it okay to root for the Dodgers?" local columnist Erick Galindo reflected at the start of the postseason in an elegant essay pondering on "Dodger blue in our blood, but uncertainty in our hearts". Galindo was unable to ultimately bring himself to watch the championship, but he still cared deeply, to the point that he decided his personal boycott must have brought the squad the fortune it needed to win.

Distinguishing the Players from the Management

Many fans who share Galindo's misgivings 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 pouring scorn on the team's business leadership. At no place was this more evident than at the championship parade at Dodger Stadium on Monday, when the packed audience cheered in approval of the coach and his athletes but booed the team president and the top official of the ownership group.

"These men in formal attire do not get to take our players from us," Molina said. "We have been with the Dodgers longer than they have."

Past Background and Neighborhood Impact

The issue, however, goes further than just the team's present owners. The agreement that moved the former franchise to Los Angeles in the late 1950s required the city razing three low-income Hispanic communities on a hill above downtown and then selling the land to the organization for a fraction of its market value. A song on a 2005 record that chronicles the story has an low-income parking attendant at the stadium stating that the house he lost to removal is now third base.

A prominent commentator, possibly the region's most influential Mexican American columnist and broadcaster, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, problematic dynamic between the team and its fanbase. He calls the Dodgers the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a business organization with an excessive, even unhealthy devotion by too many Latinos" that has been shortchanging its supporters for decades.

"They have acted around Hispanic followers while profiting from them with the other for so long because they have been able to get away with it," Arellano noted over the summer, when calls to boycott the organization over its absence of response to the raids were upended by the awkward reality that attendance at matches remained steady, even at the height of the demonstrations when the city center was under to a evening curfew.

International Players and Community Connections

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