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In the eyes of a lifelong Dodgers fan and longtime Mexican American, the crowning highlight of the baseball championship didn't occur during the tense final game on Saturday, when her squad executed one dramatic comeback act after another before winning in overtime over the Toronto Blue Jays.

It came in the previous game, when two supporting players, the Puerto Rican player and Miguel Rojas, pulled off a electrifying, game-winning sequence that at the same time upended many harmful misconceptions touted about Latinos in the past years.

The play in itself was breathtaking: Hernández raced in from left field to snag a ball he at first misjudged in the stadium lights, then fired it to the infield to record another, game-winning play. the second baseman, at second base, caught the ball moments before a opposing player collided with him, sending him backwards.

This was not merely a remarkable athletic achievement, possibly the decisive shift in momentum in the Dodgers' favor after looking for most of the series like the underdog side. For Molina, it was exhilarating, politically and culturally, a much-required morale boost for Latinos and for Los Angeles after months of enforcement actions, security forces patrolling the neighborhoods, and a constant drumbeat of negativity from national leaders.

"Kike and Miggy put forth this alternative story," explained Molina. "Everyone witnessed Latinos displaying an infectious enthusiasm in what they do, being leaders on the team, exhibiting a distinct kind of masculinity. They're energetic, they're yelling, they're removing their shirts."

"This represented such a contrast with what we observe on the news – raids, 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 Dodgers supporter these days – for her or for the legions of other Latinos who show up faithfully to home games and occupy as many as half of the venue's 50,000 spots per game.

A Complicated Relationship with the Team

After aggressive immigration raids began in Los Angeles in early June, and military units were sent into the area to react to resulting protests, two of the local soccer teams quickly released messages of support with affected communities – but not the Dodgers.

The team president stated the Dodgers prefer to steer clear of politics – a view influenced, possibly, by the fact that a sizable minority of the supporters, even Latinos, are followers of current political figures. Under considerable public pressure, the organization subsequently committed $one million in support for individuals personally affected by the operations but made no official criticism of the government.

White House Event and Historical Legacy

Months before, the organization did not hesitate in agreeing to an invitation to mark their previous World Series win at the official residence – a move that local writers labeled as "disappointing … spineless … and contradictory", given the Dodgers' boast in having been the first major league team to break the racial segregation in the mid-20th century and the frequent invocations of that legacy and the principles it embodies by officials and present and former athletes. Several team members including the coach had expressed reluctance to go to the White House during the initial period but then changed their minds or gave in to pressure from the organization.

Corporate Control and Fan Dilemmas

A further issue for supporters is that the Dodgers are owned by a large investment group, Guggenheim Partners, whose investments, as per sources and its own published balance sheets, involve a share in a private prison company that operates detention centers. Guggenheim's executives has said repeatedly that it aims to remain neutral of political matters, but its detractors say the inaction – and the financial stake – are their own form of compliance to certain policies.

All of that contribute to considerable conflicted emotions among Hispanic supporters in especial – feelings that surfaced even in the euphoria of this season's hard-fought championship victory and the following explosion of Dodgers support across the city.

"Can one to root for the Dodgers?" local columnist one observer reflected at the beginning of the postseason in an elegant article ruminating on "team loyalty in our veins, but doubt in our hearts". Galindo was unable to finally bring himself to watch the World Series, but he still cared strongly, to the extent that he believed his one-man boycott must have brought the team the fortune it required to win.

Separating the Players from the Owners

Numerous fans who have Galindo's misgivings seem to have concluded that they can keep to back the players and its lineup of global players, including the Asian superstar a key player, while expressing disdain on the team's corporate leadership. 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 coach and his athletes but booed the team president and the chief executive of the ownership group.

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

Past Background and Community Effect

The issue, however, runs deeper than just the organization's current owners. The agreement that moved the former franchise to Los Angeles in the 1950s required the city demolishing three low-income Hispanic neighborhoods on a elevated area above the city center and then transferring the property to the team for a fraction of its market value. A song on a mid-2000s album that chronicles the events has an impoverished parking attendant at the venue stating that the home he lost to eviction is now a part of the field.

Gustavo Arellano, possibly the region's most influential Latino columnist and broadcaster, sees a darker side to the long, problematic dynamic between the franchise and its fanbase. He describes the Dodgers the popular snack of baseball, "a business organization with an undue, even harmful following by too many Latinos" that has been shortchanging its supporters for years.

"They have put one arm around Hispanic followers while profiting from them with the other for so much time because they have been able to avoid consequences," the writer noted over the summer, when calls to avoid the team over its lack of reaction to the enforcement actions were upended by the uncomfortable fact that turnout at home games remained steady, even at the height of the protests when the city center was subject to a evening curfew.

International Players and Fan Bonds

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