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For Natalia Molina and third-generation Mexican American, the crowning highlight of the World Series didn't occur during the tense final game last Saturday, when her team pulled off one dramatic escape act after another and then winning in extra innings over the Toronto Blue Jays.

It happened in the previous game, when two second-tier players, Kike Hernández and Miguel Rojas, pulled off a electrifying, game-winning play that at the same time challenged many negative stereotypes touted about Hispanic people in the past decades.

The moment in itself was stunning: the outfielder charged in from left field to catch a ball he at first misjudged in the bright lights, then threw it to the infield to record another, decisive out. Rojas, positioned nearby, caught the ball just a split second before a opposing player collided with him, knocking him to the ground.

This wasn't just a great athletic achievement, possibly the key shift in momentum in the Dodgers' direction after looking for much of the games like the underdog team. For Molina, it was thrilling, on multiple levels, a much-required uplift for the community and for Los Angeles after months of enforcement actions, troops monitoring the neighborhoods, and a constant drumbeat of criticism from national leaders.

"The players put forth this counter-narrative," explained Molina. "Everyone saw Latinos displaying an infectious enthusiasm in what they do, acting as leaders on the team, having a distinct kind of confidence. They are bombastic, they're yelling, they're removing their shirts."

"It was such a contrast with what we see on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos detained and chased down. It's so easy to be demoralized right now."

However, it's exactly simple to be a team fan nowadays – for her or for the many of other fans who show up regularly to matches and occupy as many as half of the stadium's fifty thousand spots each time.

The Mixed Relationship with the Organization

When aggressive immigration raids began in the city in June, and military troops were sent into the area to react to ensuing protests, two of the local soccer teams quickly issued statements of support with immigrant families – while the Dodgers.

Management has said the organization want to stay away of politics – a stance influenced, possibly, by the reality that a significant minority of the fans, even some Hispanic fans, are supporters of certain leaders. After considerable external demands, the organization later pledged $one million in aid for families directly affected by the operations but made no official condemnation of the administration.

White House Visit and Historical Heritage

Three months earlier, the team did not hesitate in accepting an invitation to celebrate their previous championship victory at the official residence – a move that sports columnists labeled as "disappointing … spineless … and contradictory", considering the team's boast in having been the first major league team to break the racial segregation in the 1940s and the frequent references of that history and the values it represents by executives and current and former players. Several players including the manager had voiced unwillingness to go to the White House during the initial period but then changed their minds or succumbed to pressure from team management.

Business Ownership and Fan Dilemmas

A further complication for supporters is that the Dodgers are owned by a large investment group, the ownership group, whose investments, according to media reports and its own released balance sheets, include a share in a private prison company that runs detention centers. Guggenheim's executives has stated repeatedly that it aims to stay out of political matters, but its detractors say the silence – and the financial stake – are their own form of acquiescence to certain agendas.

These factors add up to significant conflicted emotions among Hispanic supporters in especial – feelings that emerged even in the euphoria of this year's hard-won championship triumph and the following explosion of team pride across Los Angeles.

"Is it okay to support the team?" area columnist one observer reflected at the beginning of the playoffs in an thoughtful essay pondering on "team loyalty in our veins, but uncertainty in our hearts". Galindo was unable to finally bring himself to view the championship, but he still cared strongly, to the point that he decided his one-man protest must have brought the squad the fortune it required to win.

Separating the Team from the Owners

Numerous fans who share similar reservations seem to have decided that they can keep to back the team and its lineup of global players, including the Japanese megastar a key player, while pouring scorn on the organization's corporate leadership. At no place was this more evident than at the victory celebration at the home venue on Monday, when the packed audience cheered in approval of the coach and his athletes but booed the team president and the chief executive of the investors.

"These men in suits don't get to take our boys in blue from us," Molina said. "We have been with the Dodgers for more time than they have."

Historical Background and Neighborhood Impact

The issue, though, runs deeper than just the team's current proprietors. The deal that moved the former franchise to the city in the late 1950s required the city demolishing three low-income Latino communities on a hill above the city center and then transferring the property to the team for a small part of its actual worth. A song on a mid-2000s record that documents the events has an low-income worker at the venue stating that the home he forfeited to eviction is now third base.

A prominent commentator, possibly the region's most widely followed Latino writer and broadcaster, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, problematic relationship between the franchise and its fanbase. He calls the team the popular snack of baseball, "a business organization with an undue, even harmful devotion by numerous Latinos" that has been exploiting its fans for decades.

"They have put one arm around Latino followers while picking their pockets with the other for so long because they have been able to avoid consequences," Arellano wrote over the warmer months, when demands to avoid the team over its lack of reaction to the enforcement actions were upended by the awkward reality that turnout at matches did not dip, even at the height of the protests when downtown LA was subject to a nightly curfew.

Global Stars and Community Connections

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