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In the eyes of Natalia Molina and third-generation Mexican American, the crowning highlight of the World Series didn't occur during the nail-biting final game last Saturday, when her squad pulled off multiple death-defying escape act after another and then winning in extra innings against the Toronto Blue Jays.

It came in the previous game, when two second-tier athletes, the Puerto Rican player and the Venezuelan infielder, executed a electrifying, decisive sequence that at the same time challenged numerous harmful stereotypes promoted about Hispanic people in the past years.

The play itself was stunning: Hernández raced in from left field to snag a ball he at first misjudged in the bright lights, then threw it to the infield to secure another, game-winning out. the second baseman, at second base, caught the ball just a split second before a runner barreled into him, knocking him to the ground.

This was not just a remarkable athletic moment, possibly the decisive turn in the series in the Dodgers' direction after appearing for much of the series like the underdog side. To her, it was exhilarating, politically and culturally, a much-required uplift for the community and for the city after a period of immigration raids, troops patrolling the neighborhoods, and a constant stream of negativity from national leaders.

"The players presented 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 confidence. They are bombastic, they're cheering, they're removing their shirts."

"It was such a juxtaposition with what we observe 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 team supporter nowadays – for Molina or for the many of other fans who show up regularly to matches and fill up as many as half of the stadium's fifty thousand seats each time.

A Mixed Relationship with the Team

When intensified immigration raids started in the city in June, and national guard troops were sent into the area to react to resulting protests, two of the local sports clubs promptly released messages of solidarity with affected communities – while the Dodgers.

The team president has said the organization prefer to stay away of politics – a stance influenced, possibly, by the reality that a significant portion of the supporters, including some Hispanic fans, are followers of certain political figures. After significant public pressure, the organization later committed $one million in aid for individuals directly affected by the operations but issued no public criticism of the government.

White House Visit and Historical Heritage

Months before, the team did not delay in agreeing to an invitation to mark their previous championship win at the official residence – a move that sports writers described as "disappointing … weak … and contradictory", considering the Dodgers' boast in having been the pioneering professional team to end the racial segregation in the 1940s and the frequent references of that history and the values it embodies by executives and present and past players. Several team members such as the coach had voiced reluctance to go to the event during the initial period but either reconsidered or succumbed to pressure from the organization.

Corporate Ownership and Fan Conflicts

A further complication for supporters is that the Dodgers are owned by a corporate behemoth, Guggenheim Partners, whose equity holdings, as per sources and its own released balance sheets, involve a share in a detention corporation that runs enforcement centers. Guggenheim's executives has said many times that it wants to remain neutral of politics, but its critics say the silence – and the financial stake – are their own type of acquiescence to certain agendas.

All of that contribute to significant mixed feelings among Hispanic supporters in particular – feelings that emerged even in the euphoria of this season's hard-won championship victory and the ensuing outpouring of Dodgers pride across the city.

"Can one to root for the team?" area columnist one observer reflected at the start of the playoffs in an elegant essay ruminating on "Dodger blue in our veins, but uncertainty in our hearts". Galindo couldn't finally bring himself to view the World Series, but he still cared deeply, to the extent that he decided his one-man protest must have brought the team the fortune it required to succeed.

Separating the Players from the Management

Many supporters who share similar misgivings appear to have decided that they can continue to back the team and its lineup of international players, including the Japanese superstar a key player, while expressing disdain on the organization's corporate overlords. Nowhere was this more evident than at the victory celebration at the home venue on Monday, when the capacity crowd roared in support of the manager and his players but booed the executive and the top official of the investors.

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

Past Background and Community Effect

The issue, however, goes further than only the team's present proprietors. The deal that brought the former franchise to Los Angeles in the late 1950s required the city demolishing three low-income Latino neighborhoods on a elevated area overlooking the city center and then selling the property to the organization for a fraction of its market value. A track on a 2005 record that chronicles the events has an low-income worker at the stadium revealing that the home he lost to eviction is now a part of the field.

A prominent commentator, perhaps southern California most influential Latino writer and media personality, sees a darker side to the long, problematic dynamic between the franchise and its audience. He calls the team the popular snack of baseball, "a business organization with an excessive, even unhealthy following by numerous Latinos" that has been exploiting its fans for years.

"They've put one arm around Hispanic followers while profiting from them with the other hand for so long because they have been able to get away with it," the writer wrote over the summer, when calls to avoid the team over its absence of reaction to the raids were upended by the awkward fact that turnout at home games did not dip, even at the peak of the protests when the city center was under to a nightly restriction.

International Players and Fan Bonds

Separating the squad from its corporate owners is not a easy task, {