🔗 Share this article

In the eyes of a lifelong Dodgers fan and third-generation Mexican American, the most memorable highlight of the World Series didn't occur during the nail-biting final game on Saturday, when her squad executed one death-defying comeback act after another before winning in overtime over the opposing team.

It happened in the previous game, when two second-tier athletes, Kike Hernández and Miguel Rojas, pulled off a electrifying, game-winning sequence that simultaneously challenged numerous harmful misconceptions promoted about Latinos in the past years.

The play in itself was breathtaking: the outfielder charged in from left field to snag a ball he initially misjudged in the stadium lights, then threw it to second base to record another, game-winning out. Rojas, 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, possibly the key shift in momentum in the Dodgers' favor after appearing for most of the series like the underdog team. To her, it was exhilarating, on multiple levels, a badly needed uplift for Latinos and for the city after a period of immigration raids, troops patrolling the neighborhoods, and a constant drumbeat of criticism from national leaders.

"Kike and Miggy put forth this counter-narrative," said Molina. "The world witnessed Latinos displaying an infectious pride and joy in what they do, acting as key figures on the team, exhibiting a distinct kind of masculinity. They're bombastic, they're cheering, they're taking off their shirts."

"It was such a contrast with what we see on the news – raids, Latinos thrown to the ground and pursued. It is so simple to be demoralized right now."

Not that it's entirely straightforward to be a team supporter these days – for Molina or for the many of other fans who attend faithfully to home games and fill up as many as half of the venue's fifty thousand seats per game.

The Complicated Connection with the Organization

When aggressive enforcement operations began in Los Angeles in June, and national guard troops were sent into the city to respond to resulting protests, two of the local soccer teams quickly issued statements of solidarity with affected communities – while the Dodgers.

The team president stated the organization want to stay away of political issues – a stance influenced, possibly, by the reality that a significant minority of the supporters, even some Hispanic fans, are followers of certain leaders. Under significant external demands, the organization later pledged $one million in support for individuals directly impacted by the operations but issued no official condemnation of the administration.

White House Event and Past Heritage

Months earlier, the organization did not delay in accepting an offer to mark their previous World Series win at the White House – a move that local columnists described as "disappointing … weak … and hypocritical", considering the Dodgers' boast in having been the pioneering major league franchise to end the racial segregation in the 1940s and the regular invocations of that legacy and the principles it embodies by executives and current and past athletes. Several team members such as the manager had expressed unwillingness to go to the White House during the initial period but then reconsidered or gave in to pressure from team management.

Business Ownership and Supporter Conflicts

A further issue for supporters is that the team are owned by a corporate behemoth, Guggenheim Partners, whose investments, according to media reports and its own released financial documents, include a share in a private prison company that operates enforcement centers. Guggenheim's executives has said repeatedly that it aims to stay out of political matters, but its critics say the inaction – and the investment – are their own type of compliance to certain policies.

These factors add up to significant mixed feelings among Hispanic supporters in especial – feelings that surfaced even in the excitement of this season's hard-fought World Series triumph and the ensuing outpouring of Dodgers pride across Los Angeles.

"Is it okay to support the team?" local columnist one observer agonized at the start of the playoffs in an thoughtful essay ruminating on "team loyalty in our veins, but uncertainty in our minds". Galindo couldn't finally bring himself to view the championship, but he still cared strongly, to the point that he believed his one-man boycott must have given the squad the fortune it needed to succeed.

Separating the Team from the Owners

Many supporters who share similar misgivings seem to have concluded that they can keep to support the players and its roster of international stars, featuring the Asian superstar a key player, while expressing disdain on the organization's corporate overlords. Nowhere was this more evident than at the championship parade at Dodger Stadium on the following day, when the capacity crowd cheered in approval of the coach and his players but jeered the team president and the chief executive of the investors.

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

Historical Context and Neighborhood Effect

The issue, though, runs deeper than only the team's current owners. The agreement that moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles in the late 1950s required the city demolishing three working-class Latino neighborhoods on a elevated area above the city center and then transferring the property to the organization for a small part of its actual worth. A track on a 2005 album that chronicles the events has an low-income worker at the venue revealing that the home he forfeited to removal is now third base.

Gustavo Arellano, possibly southern California most influential Latino columnist and broadcaster, sees a darker side to the long, dysfunctional dynamic between the team and its fanbase. He calls the team the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a corporate entity with an undue, even unhealthy devotion by too many Latinos" that has been exploiting its fans for years.

"They have put one arm around Hispanic followers while picking their pockets with the other for so much time because they have been able to avoid consequences," the writer noted over the summer, when calls to avoid the team over its lack of response to the enforcement actions were upended by the awkward reality that attendance at matches remained steady, even at the height of the protests when the city center was under to a nightly curfew.

Global Players and Community Connections

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