🔗 Share this article

In the eyes of a lifelong Dodgers fan and longtime Mexican American, the crowning moment of the World Series didn't happen during the nail-biting finale on Saturday, when her squad pulled off one dramatic comeback act after another and then prevailing in extra innings over the opposing team.

It came a game earlier, when two supporting players, Kike Hernández and the Venezuelan infielder, pulled off a thrilling, decisive sequence that simultaneously upended many harmful stereotypes touted about Hispanic people in the past years.

The moment in itself was stunning: the outfielder charged in from left field to snag a ball he at first misjudged in the stadium lights, then threw it to the infield to record another, game-winning play. the second baseman, at second base, caught the ball moments before a runner collided with him, knocking him backwards.

This was not merely a great sporting moment, perhaps the key turn in momentum in the Dodgers' direction after appearing for most of the series like the underdog side. To her, it was exhilarating, on multiple levels, a badly needed uplift for the community and for Los Angeles after months of immigration raids, security forces monitoring the neighborhoods, and a steady drumbeat of criticism from official sources.

"The players presented this alternative story," said Molina. "The world saw Latinos showing an contagious enthusiasm in what they do, being leaders on the team, exhibiting a distinct kind of confidence. They are bombastic, they're cheering, they're removing their shirts."

"It was such a juxtaposition with what we observe on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos detained and pursued. It's so easy to be demoralized right now."

Not that it's exactly simple to be a team fan these days – for Molina or for the many of other Latinos who attend regularly to home games and occupy as many as half of the stadium's fifty thousand spots each time.

The Mixed Relationship with the Team

When intensified immigration raids began in the city in early June, and national guard units were deployed into the area to respond to resulting demonstrations, two of the local soccer clubs promptly issued messages of support with immigrant families – while the Dodgers.

Management has said the Dodgers want to stay away of politics – a stance colored, possibly, by the reality that a sizable portion of the supporters, even some Hispanic fans, are followers of current political figures. Under considerable public pressure, the team subsequently pledged $one million in aid for individuals personally impacted by the raids but made no public criticism of the administration.

Official Visit and Past Heritage

Three months before, the team did not hesitate in agreeing to an offer to mark their previous championship victory at the official residence – a move that local writers labeled as "pathetic … spineless … and hypocritical", given the Dodgers' boast in having been the pioneering professional franchise to end the racial segregation in the 1940s and the frequent references of that legacy and the values it represents by executives and present and past athletes. Several team members such as the manager had expressed unwillingness to travel to the White House during the initial period but either reconsidered or succumbed to pressure from team management.

Corporate Control and Fan Conflicts

An additional issue for fans is that the team are owned by a corporate behemoth, the ownership group, whose investments, as per sources and its own released financial documents, involve a share in a private prison corporation that operates detention centers. Guggenheim's leadership has stated repeatedly that it wants to remain neutral of political matters, but its critics say the silence – and the investment – are their own form of acquiescence to certain agendas.

These factors contribute to significant conflicted emotions among Hispanic supporters in especial – sentiments that emerged even in the euphoria of this season's hard-won World Series triumph and the ensuing explosion of Dodgers pride across Los Angeles.

"Is it okay to root for the Dodgers?" local writer one observer agonized at the beginning of the postseason in an elegant article ruminating on "Dodger blue in our veins, but uncertainty in our minds". Galindo was unable to finally bring himself to view the World Series, but he still felt deeply, to the extent that he believed his personal protest must have given the squad the fortune it needed to succeed.

Separating the Players from the Management

Many supporters who share similar reservations seem to have decided that they can keep to back the players and its lineup of international stars, featuring the Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani, while expressing disdain on the team's corporate overlords. At no place was this more evident than at the victory celebration at the home venue on the following day, when the packed audience cheered in approval of the coach and his athletes but jeered the executive and the chief executive of the investors.

"These men in formal attire don't get to take our boys in blue from us," Molina said. "We've been with the team longer than they have."

Past Context and Neighborhood Impact

The problem, though, runs deeper than just the team's current proprietors. The deal that moved the former franchise to Los Angeles in the late 1950s involved the city demolishing three low-income Hispanic neighborhoods on a hill overlooking the city center and then transferring the land to the team for a fraction of its actual worth. A song on a mid-2000s album that documents the story has an impoverished worker at the stadium revealing that the house he forfeited to eviction is now third base.

Gustavo Arellano, possibly the region's most influential Mexican American columnist and broadcaster, sees a darker side to the lengthy, dysfunctional dynamic between the team and its audience. He calls the Dodgers the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a business organization with an excessive, even unhealthy following by too many Latinos" that has been exploiting its fans for decades.

"They've acted around Latino fans while picking their pockets with the other for so much time because they have been able to avoid consequences," the writer wrote over the summer, when calls to avoid the organization over its absence of response to the raids were upended by the awkward fact that turnout at home games remained steady, even at the height of the demonstrations when the city center was under to a evening curfew.

International Stars and Fan Connections

Distinguishing the team from its business leadership is not a easy task, {