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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 occur during the nail-biting final game on Saturday, when her team executed one dramatic escape feat after another and then winning in extra innings over the Toronto Blue Jays.

It came in the previous game, when two supporting players, Kike Hernández and the Venezuelan infielder, pulled off a thrilling, game-winning play that simultaneously upended numerous harmful stereotypes touted about Hispanic people in recent years.

The moment in itself was stunning: the outfielder raced in from the outfield to catch a ball he initially misjudged in the bright lights, then fired it to the infield to record another, decisive out. Rojas, at second base, received the ball just a split second before a opposing player collided with him, sending him backwards.

This wasn't merely a great athletic achievement, possibly the key shift in the series in the Dodgers' direction after appearing for most of the games like the underdog team. For Molina, it was thrilling, on multiple levels, a much-required morale boost for the community and for the city after months of enforcement actions, security forces monitoring the streets, and a constant stream of negativity from national leaders.

"Kike and Miggy put forth this counter-narrative," explained the professor. "The world witnessed Latinos displaying an contagious pride and joy in what they do, acting as leaders on the team, exhibiting a different kind of masculinity. They are bombastic, they're yelling, they're taking off their shirts."

"This represented such a juxtaposition with what we see on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos thrown to the ground and pursued. It's so easy to be demoralized right now."

Not that it's entirely straightforward to be a team fan these days – for Molina or for the many of other Latinos who show up faithfully to home games and fill up as many as 50% of the venue's 50,000 spots each time.

The Mixed Relationship with the Team

After aggressive enforcement operations began in Los Angeles in early June, and national guard units were sent into the city to respond to resulting demonstrations, two of the city's sports teams quickly released statements of solidarity with immigrant families – while the Dodgers.

The team president stated the organization want to steer clear of political issues – a view influenced, possibly, by the reality that a significant portion of the fans, including Latinos, are supporters of current political figures. After significant public pressure, the organization later committed $one million in support for individuals personally impacted by the raids but issued no public criticism of the administration.

White House Event and Past Heritage

Three months earlier, the team did not delay in agreeing to an offer to celebrate their previous World Series win at the official residence – a move that local writers labeled as "pathetic … weak … and contradictory", considering the team's pride in having been the pioneering major league team to end the racial segregation in the 1940s and the regular invocations of that history and the values it represents by executives and present and former players. Several 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 pressure from the organization.

Business Control and Supporter Dilemmas

An additional complication for supporters is that the team are controlled by a large investment group, Guggenheim Partners, whose equity holdings, according to sources and its own published balance sheets, involve a stake in a private prison company that operates detention facilities. The group's executives has stated repeatedly that it aims to remain neutral of political matters, but its detractors say the inaction – and the investment – are their own type of compliance to certain agendas.

All of that contribute to considerable conflicted emotions among Latino fans in particular – feelings that emerged even in the euphoria of this season's hard-won World Series victory and the ensuing outpouring of Dodgers support across Los Angeles.

"Is it okay to root for the team?" local columnist one observer reflected at the beginning of the postseason in an elegant essay pondering on "team loyalty in our blood, but doubt in our hearts". Galindo was unable to finally bring himself to view the championship, but he still felt deeply, to the point that he believed his personal protest must have given the squad the fortune it required to succeed.

Separating the Players from the Owners

Many supporters who share similar misgivings appear to have decided that they can continue to support the team and its lineup of international players, including the Japanese superstar a key player, while pouring scorn on the team's corporate overlords. Nowhere was this more clear than at the championship parade at Dodger Stadium on the following day, when the packed audience cheered in approval of the coach and his players but jeered the executive and the top official of the investors.

"These men in suits don't get to claim our boys in blue from us," Molina said. "We have been with the Dodgers longer than they have."

Past Background and Community Effect

The issue, though, goes further than only the organization's present owners. The agreement that moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to the city in the 1950s involved the municipality demolishing three working-class Hispanic neighborhoods on a hill overlooking downtown and then transferring the land to the team for a small part of its actual worth. A track on a 2005 record that documents the story has an impoverished parking attendant at the stadium revealing that the house he lost to removal is now third base.

Gustavo Arellano, perhaps the region's most influential Latino writer and media personality, sees a darker side to the lengthy, dysfunctional dynamic between the team and its audience. He describes the Dodgers the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a business organization with an undue, even unhealthy following by numerous Latinos" that has been shortchanging its supporters for decades.

"They've put one arm around Hispanic followers while picking their pockets with the other hand for so much time because they have been able to get away with it," the writer noted over the summer, when demands to boycott the organization over its absence of reaction to the raids were upended by the uncomfortable reality that attendance at matches did not dip, even at the height of the protests when the city center was subject to a evening curfew.

International Stars and Fan Connections

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