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In the eyes of a lifelong Dodgers fan and third-generation Mexican American, the most memorable moment of the World Series did not happen during the nail-biting finale on Saturday, when her squad executed one dramatic comeback feat after another and then prevailing in overtime against the opposing team.

It happened a game earlier, when two second-tier players, the Puerto Rican player and Miguel Rojas, executed a thrilling, game-winning sequence that at the same time challenged many harmful misconceptions touted about Hispanic people in recent years.

The moment in itself was breathtaking: Hernández charged in from the outfield to catch a ball he initially lost in the stadium lights, then threw it to the infield to record another, game-winning play. the second baseman, positioned nearby, received the ball moments before a runner barreled into him, sending him backwards.

This was not just a remarkable athletic moment, perhaps the key shift in the series in the Dodgers' favor after looking for most of the series like the weaker team. For Molina, it was thrilling, on multiple levels, a much-required uplift for Latinos and for the city after a period of enforcement actions, troops monitoring the streets, and a steady drumbeat of negativity from official sources.

"The players put forth this counter-narrative," explained the professor. "Everyone witnessed Latinos displaying an contagious enthusiasm in what they do, acting as key figures on the team, having a different kind of confidence. They're energetic, they're yelling, they're taking off their shirts."

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

However, it's entirely straightforward to be a team fan these days – for Molina or for the legions of other Latinos who show up regularly to matches and fill up as many as half of the stadium's fifty thousand seats per game.

The Mixed Connection with the Organization

When aggressive immigration raids began in Los Angeles in early June, and military units were sent into the city to respond to ensuing protests, two of the local sports clubs quickly issued statements of solidarity with affected communities – but not the Dodgers.

The team president has said the Dodgers want to stay away of political issues – a view influenced, possibly, by the fact that a sizable minority of the supporters, including some Hispanic fans, are supporters of current leaders. After considerable external demands, the organization later pledged $1m in support for individuals personally impacted by the raids but issued no public criticism of the government.

White House Visit and Past Legacy

Months earlier, the team did not hesitate in accepting an offer to mark their previous World Series win at the White House – a decision that sports writers described as "pathetic … spineless … and contradictory", given the team's pride in having been the first professional team to end the racial segregation in the mid-20th century and the regular invocations of that legacy and the values it embodies by executives and current and former players. Several team members such as the manager had voiced reluctance to travel to the event during the first term but either reconsidered or succumbed to demands from team management.

Corporate Control and Supporter Conflicts

An additional issue for supporters is that the Dodgers are owned by a corporate behemoth, the ownership group, whose investments, according to media reports and its own published balance sheets, include a stake in a private prison company that operates enforcement centers. The group's leadership has said many times that it aims to stay out of politics, but its detractors say the inaction – and the financial stake – are their own type of acquiescence to current agendas.

These factors contribute to significant mixed feelings among Hispanic supporters in particular – feelings that emerged even in the euphoria of this year's hard-fought championship victory and the ensuing explosion of team pride across Los Angeles.

"Can one to support the team?" area columnist one observer reflected at the start of the playoffs in an elegant essay ruminating on "Dodger blue in our blood, but doubt in our minds". Galindo couldn't ultimately bring himself to view the championship, but he still felt strongly, to the point that he decided his personal boycott must have given the squad the fortune it required to succeed.

Separating the Team from the Management

Numerous supporters who share Galindo's reservations seem to have concluded that they can continue to support the players and its roster of international stars, including the Asian superstar Shohei Ohtani, while expressing disdain on the organization's corporate overlords. At no place was this more clear than at the victory celebration at Dodger Stadium on the following day, when the capacity crowd cheered in support of the manager and his athletes but booed the team president and the top official of the ownership group.

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

Historical Background and Neighborhood Effect

The issue, though, runs deeper than only the team's current owners. The deal that moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles in the 1950s required the city razing three low-income Hispanic communities on a hill overlooking the city center and then selling the property to the team for a fraction of its actual worth. A song on a 2005 album that documents the story has an low-income worker at the venue revealing that the home he forfeited to eviction is now a part of the field.

A prominent commentator, perhaps the region's most influential Latino writer and broadcaster, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, dysfunctional relationship between the franchise and its fanbase. He describes the team 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 years.

"They've put one arm around Latino followers while profiting from them 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 calls to boycott the organization over its absence of response to the enforcement actions were upended by the awkward reality that attendance at matches remained steady, even at the peak of the protests when the city center was subject to a evening curfew.

Global Stars and Fan Bonds

Distinguishing the team from its corporate owners is not a easy task, {