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For Natalia Molina and longtime Mexican American, the crowning highlight of the World Series didn't occur during the nail-biting final game on Saturday, when her squad executed one dramatic escape act after another before prevailing in overtime against the Toronto Blue Jays.

It happened in the previous game, when two supporting athletes, Kike Hernández and Miguel Rojas, executed a thrilling, game-winning sequence that at the same time challenged many negative stereotypes promoted about Latinos in the past decades.

The moment in itself was breathtaking: the outfielder raced in from the outfield to catch a ball he at first misjudged in the stadium lights, then fired it to second base to secure another, game-winning out. the second baseman, positioned nearby, received the ball just a split second before a runner collided with him, sending him backwards.

This wasn't merely a remarkable athletic moment, perhaps the decisive turn in momentum in the team's direction after appearing for much of the games like the weaker side. For Molina, it was exhilarating, politically and culturally, a badly needed uplift for the community and for the city after a period of enforcement actions, troops monitoring the neighborhoods, and a steady stream of negativity from official sources.

"Kike and Miggy put forth this counter-narrative," said Molina. "The world witnessed Latinos showing an contagious enthusiasm in what they do, acting as key figures on the team, having a different kind of confidence. They're bombastic, they're yelling, they're taking off their shirts."

"This represented such a juxtaposition with what we see on the news – raids, Latinos detained and pursued. It's so easy to be demoralized right now."

However, it's entirely straightforward to be a Dodgers supporter nowadays – for her or for the legions of other fans who show up regularly to home games and fill up as many as half of the stadium's 50,000 seats per game.

The Complicated Relationship with the Organization

When aggressive enforcement operations started in the city in June, and military units were sent into the area to respond to ensuing demonstrations, two of the local sports clubs quickly issued messages of solidarity with affected communities – while the baseball team.

Management has said the organization want to steer clear of political issues – a stance influenced, possibly, by the fact that a significant minority of the supporters, even Latinos, are supporters of certain leaders. After considerable external demands, the team later committed $1m in aid for individuals directly impacted by the operations but issued no official condemnation of the government.

Official Event and Past Legacy

Months before, the team did not delay in accepting an invitation to celebrate their previous World Series victory at the official residence – a decision that local columnists labeled as "pathetic … spineless … and hypocritical", considering the Dodgers' pride in having been the first major league team to break the racial segregation in the mid-20th century and the regular invocations of that legacy and the values it embodies by officials and present and former athletes. A number of players including the coach had voiced reluctance to go to the event during the initial period but either changed their minds or succumbed to demands from the organization.

Business Ownership and Fan Dilemmas

A further issue for supporters is that the team are owned by a corporate behemoth, Guggenheim Partners, whose equity holdings, as per media reports and its own released financial documents, include a share in a private prison company that runs enforcement centers. Guggenheim's executives has stated many times that it wants to remain neutral of politics, but its critics say the inaction – and the investment – are their own form of acquiescence to certain policies.

All of that contribute to considerable mixed feelings among Hispanic fans in especial – feelings that emerged even in the excitement of this year's hard-won World Series victory and the following explosion of Dodgers support across Los Angeles.

"Can one to support the Dodgers?" area writer one observer reflected at the beginning of the postseason in an elegant essay ruminating on "team loyalty in our veins, but doubt in our minds". He couldn't finally bring himself to view the World Series, but he still felt deeply, to the extent that he believed his one-man protest must have given the squad the fortune it needed to win.

Separating the Players from the Owners

Numerous supporters who have similar reservations seem to have concluded that they can continue to support the team and its lineup of global stars, featuring the Asian megastar a key player, while expressing disdain on the organization's corporate leadership. At no place was this more clear than at the championship parade at the home venue on the following day, when the capacity crowd roared in support of the coach and his athletes but jeered the executive and the chief executive of the investors.

"These men in formal attire do not get to take our players from us," the fan said. "We have been with the team longer than they have."

Past Background and Community Effect

The issue, however, goes further than just the organization's present proprietors. The deal that brought the Brooklyn Dodgers to the city in the 1950s required the city razing three working-class Hispanic communities on a elevated area overlooking downtown and then transferring the property to the organization for a small part of its market value. A song on a 2005 album that documents the events has an impoverished parking attendant at the venue stating that the home he forfeited to eviction is now third base.

Gustavo Arellano, perhaps southern California most influential Latino columnist and media personality, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, problematic dynamic between the team and its fanbase. He describes the Dodgers the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a business organization with an excessive, even harmful following by numerous Latinos" that has been exploiting its fans for decades.

"They have acted around Latino followers while picking their pockets with the other for so long because they have been able to get away with it," Arellano noted over the summer, when demands to avoid the team over its lack of reaction to the raids were upended by the awkward reality that turnout at home games remained steady, even at the peak of the protests when the city center was under to a evening restriction.

International Stars and Community Bonds

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