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For a lifelong Dodgers fan and third-generation Mexican American, the crowning highlight of the World Series did not occur during the tense finale on Saturday, when her team executed multiple death-defying escape feat after another and then prevailing in overtime over the Toronto Blue Jays.

It happened in the previous game, when two supporting players, Kike Hernández and the Venezuelan infielder, pulled off a thrilling, game-winning play that simultaneously upended numerous harmful misconceptions promoted about Hispanic people in the past years.

The moment itself was breathtaking: the outfielder charged in from left field to snag a ball he at first lost in the bright lights, then fired it to second base to record another, decisive out. Rojas, at second base, caught the ball just a split second before a runner collided with him, knocking him backwards.

This wasn't just a great athletic moment, perhaps the decisive shift in momentum in the Dodgers' direction after looking for much of the series like the weaker team. To her, it was thrilling, on multiple levels, a badly needed uplift for the community and for Los Angeles after months of enforcement actions, troops patrolling the neighborhoods, and a constant drumbeat of negativity from national leaders.

"The players presented this counter-narrative," explained Molina. "Everyone witnessed Latinos displaying an contagious pride and joy in what they do, being leaders on the team, exhibiting a different kind of confidence. They are bombastic, they're cheering, they're taking off their shirts."

"This represented such a contrast with what we observe on the news – raids, Latinos thrown to the ground and pursued. It is so easy to be disheartened these days."

Not that it's entirely simple to be a team fan nowadays – for her or for the many of other fans who attend faithfully to matches and fill up as many as half of the venue's 50,000 seats each time.

The Complicated Relationship with the Organization

After intensified enforcement operations began in Los Angeles in June, and national guard units were sent into the area to react to ensuing demonstrations, two of the city's sports teams quickly issued messages of support with immigrant families – but not the Dodgers.

Management stated the Dodgers want to steer clear of politics – a view colored, perhaps, by the reality that a sizable portion of the fans, including Latinos, are supporters of current political figures. After significant public pressure, the organization later pledged $one million in support for families directly impacted by the operations but made no public condemnation of the administration.

Official Event and Past Legacy

Months before, the organization did not hesitate in agreeing to an offer to mark their previous World Series victory at the official residence – a decision that local writers described as "disappointing … spineless … and hypocritical", given the team's 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 represents by officials and current and past players. Several players including the coach had voiced reluctance to travel to the event during the initial period but then changed their minds or gave in to demands from team management.

Corporate Control and Supporter Conflicts

A further complication for supporters is that the Dodgers are owned by a corporate behemoth, Guggenheim Partners, whose investments, according to media reports and its own released financial documents, involve a stake in a private prison corporation that runs detention centers. The group's executives has said repeatedly that it aims to remain neutral of political matters, but its critics say the silence – and the investment – are their own type of compliance to certain policies.

All of that add up to significant conflicted emotions among Hispanic fans in particular – sentiments that emerged even in the excitement of this season's hard-won championship victory and the ensuing outpouring of team pride across the city.

"Is it okay to root for the team?" local columnist Erick Galindo reflected at the beginning of the playoffs in an elegant essay pondering on "team loyalty in our blood, but uncertainty in our hearts". Galindo was unable to ultimately bring himself to watch the championship, but he still cared strongly, to the point that he believed his one-man protest must have brought the team the fortune it needed to succeed.

Separating the Players from the Management

Numerous supporters who share similar reservations seem to have decided that they can keep to back the team and its roster of global stars, featuring the Japanese superstar a key player, while pouring scorn on the team's business overlords. Nowhere was this more clear than at the victory celebration at the home venue on the following day, when the packed audience roared in approval of the manager and his athletes but jeered the executive and the chief executive of the investors.

"The executives in suits don't get to take our players from us," the fan said. "We have been with the team for more time than they have."

Past Context and Community Effect

The issue, however, goes further than just the team's current owners. The agreement that moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to the city in the 1950s involved the city demolishing three low-income Hispanic communities on a hill overlooking downtown and then transferring the property to the team for a small part of its market value. A track on a mid-2000s album that documents the story has an impoverished worker at the venue stating that the home he lost to removal is now a part of the field.

Gustavo Arellano, perhaps southern California most widely followed Mexican American columnist and media personality, sees a darker side to the lengthy, dysfunctional dynamic between the team and its audience. He calls the team the popular snack of baseball, "a corporate entity with an undue, even harmful following by numerous Latinos" that has been shortchanging its fans for years.

"They've acted around Hispanic fans while picking their pockets with the other for so long because they have been able to avoid consequences," Arellano wrote over the summer, when demands to boycott the organization over its lack of reaction to the enforcement actions were upended by the uncomfortable fact that attendance at matches remained steady, even at the height of the protests when the city center was subject to a evening restriction.

International Stars and Community Bonds

Distinguishing the team from its business leadership is not a easy matter, {