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For Natalia Molina and third-generation Mexican American, the most memorable highlight of the World Series didn't happen during the nail-biting final game last Saturday, when her squad pulled off multiple dramatic comeback feat after another before prevailing in extra innings over the Toronto Blue Jays.

It came a game earlier, when two second-tier players, the Puerto Rican player and Miguel Rojas, executed a electrifying, decisive sequence that simultaneously challenged many harmful misconceptions touted about Latinos in the past decades.

The play in itself was stunning: the outfielder charged in from the outfield to snag a ball he initially lost in the stadium lights, then fired it to second base to record another, game-winning play. the second baseman, at second base, received the ball just a split second before a runner collided with him, knocking him to the ground.

This wasn't merely a great sporting moment, possibly the key turn in momentum in the Dodgers' favor after looking for most of the series like the underdog side. For Molina, it was exhilarating, on multiple levels, a badly needed uplift for Latinos and for the city after months of immigration raids, troops patrolling the neighborhoods, and a steady drumbeat of criticism from official sources.

"Kike and Miggy put forth this counter-narrative," explained Molina. "The world witnessed Latinos showing an contagious pride and joy in what they do, being key figures on the team, exhibiting a distinct kind of masculinity. They're energetic, they're yelling, they're removing their shirts."

"This represented such a juxtaposition with what we observe on the news – raids, Latinos thrown to the ground and chased down. It's so easy to be disheartened these days."

However, it's exactly straightforward to be a team fan nowadays – for her or for the many of other Latinos who show up regularly to matches and fill up as many as 50% of the stadium's 50,000 spots each time.

A Complicated Relationship with the Team

After intensified enforcement operations began in the city in early June, and national guard units were deployed into the city to respond to resulting protests, two of the local sports clubs quickly released statements of support with affected communities – but not the baseball team.

Management has said the Dodgers want to stay away of politics – a view influenced, possibly, by the fact that a significant portion of the fans, even some Hispanic fans, are supporters of certain leaders. After significant public pressure, the team later committed $1m in support for individuals directly impacted by the raids but issued no official criticism of the government.

Official Visit and Past Legacy

Months before, the team did not delay in agreeing to an offer to celebrate their previous championship victory at the official residence – a move that sports writers labeled as "pathetic … spineless … and hypocritical", considering the team's pride in having been the first professional team to end the color barrier in the mid-20th century and the regular invocations of that history and the principles it represents by executives and present and former athletes. A number of players such as the coach had expressed unwillingness to travel to the White House during the first term but then changed their minds or gave in to pressure from team management.

Corporate Ownership and Fan Conflicts

A further issue for supporters is that the Dodgers are owned by a large investment group, Guggenheim Partners, whose investments, according to media reports and its own released financial documents, involve a share in a detention corporation that runs enforcement facilities. The group's executives has stated many times 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 agendas.

These factors contribute to considerable conflicted emotions among Hispanic fans in particular – feelings that emerged even in the excitement of this season's hard-won World Series triumph and the ensuing outpouring of team support across Los Angeles.

"Is it okay to root for the Dodgers?" area writer one observer agonized at the start of the playoffs in an elegant essay pondering on "Dodger blue in our blood, but doubt in our hearts". He was unable to finally bring himself to view the championship, but he still cared strongly, to the extent that he decided his one-man protest must have given the squad the luck it required to succeed.

Separating the Players from the Owners

Numerous fans who share Galindo's misgivings appear to have decided that they can keep to support the players and its lineup of global stars, including the Asian superstar a key player, while expressing disdain on the organization's business leadership. At no place was this more evident than at the championship parade at the home venue on Monday, when the packed audience roared in approval of the manager and his athletes but jeered the team president 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 have been with the team for more time than they have."

Past Context and Neighborhood Impact

The issue, however, runs deeper than only the team's current proprietors. The deal that moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to the city in the 1950s involved the municipality razing three working-class Hispanic communities on a elevated area above downtown and then selling the land to the organization for a fraction of its market value. A song on a mid-2000s record that chronicles the story has an low-income worker at the venue stating that the home he lost to eviction is now a part of the field.

Gustavo Arellano, possibly southern California most widely followed Latino columnist and broadcaster, sees a darker side to the lengthy, dysfunctional relationship between the team and its audience. He calls the team the popular snack of baseball, "a corporate entity with an undue, even unhealthy following by too many Latinos" that has been exploiting its supporters for years.

"They've acted around Hispanic fans while profiting from them with the other for so much time because they have been able to avoid consequences," Arellano noted over the summer, when demands to boycott the team over its lack of reaction to the enforcement actions were upended by the awkward fact that turnout at home games remained steady, even at the height of the protests when the city center was under to a nightly restriction.

International Players and Community Bonds

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