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For Natalia Molina and longtime Mexican American, the most memorable moment of the World Series didn't happen during the tense final game on Saturday, when her team executed one dramatic comeback act after another and then prevailing in extra innings over the Toronto Blue Jays.

It came a game earlier, when two second-tier athletes, the Puerto Rican player and Miguel Rojas, pulled off a thrilling, game-winning play that simultaneously challenged numerous negative stereotypes touted about Hispanic people in recent years.

The play in itself was stunning: Hernández raced in from the outfield to catch a ball he initially lost in the stadium lights, then threw it to the infield to secure another, game-winning play. Rojas, at second base, caught the ball moments before a opposing player collided with him, knocking him backwards.

This was not just a great sporting moment, possibly the key turn in the series in the team's favor after appearing 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 the city after a period of immigration raids, troops patrolling the streets, and a constant drumbeat of negativity from national leaders.

"Kike and Miggy put forth this counter-narrative," explained the professor. "Everyone saw Latinos showing an infectious enthusiasm in what they do, being key figures on the team, exhibiting a different kind of confidence. They're energetic, they're cheering, they're taking off their shirts."

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

Not that it's exactly simple to be a Dodgers 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 venue's fifty thousand seats each time.

The Mixed Relationship with the Organization

After intensified immigration raids started in Los Angeles in June, and national guard units were sent into the city to react to ensuing protests, two of the local sports clubs quickly issued statements of solidarity with affected communities – while the Dodgers.

The team president stated the organization prefer to stay away of politics – a view influenced, perhaps, by the reality that a significant portion of the supporters, including some Hispanic fans, are followers of current leaders. After considerable external demands, the team later pledged $one million in aid for individuals directly affected by the raids but issued no public criticism of the government.

White House Event and Historical Heritage

Months before, the organization did not hesitate in agreeing to an offer to celebrate their previous World Series victory at the official residence – a move that sports writers labeled as "disappointing … spineless … and contradictory", given the team's pride in having been the pioneering professional franchise to end the racial segregation in the 1940s and the regular invocations of that legacy and the principles it represents by officials and current and past players. A number of team members such as the coach had expressed reluctance to go to the event during the first term but then reconsidered or succumbed to pressure from team management.

Business Control and Supporter Dilemmas

A further issue for supporters is that the team are controlled by a large investment group, the ownership group, whose investments, as per media reports and its own published financial documents, involve a stake in a private prison company that runs enforcement facilities. Guggenheim's executives has stated repeatedly that it wants to stay out of political matters, but its critics say the inaction – and the investment – are their own form of compliance to certain policies.

These factors contribute to significant conflicted emotions among Hispanic fans in particular – sentiments that emerged even in the excitement of this year's hard-fought championship victory and the ensuing explosion of Dodgers pride across the city.

"Can one to root for the Dodgers?" area writer one observer reflected at the start of the postseason in an elegant article ruminating on "team loyalty in our blood, but uncertainty in our hearts". He couldn't ultimately bring himself to watch the championship, but he still cared deeply, to the extent that he decided his one-man boycott must have given the squad the fortune it required to succeed.

Separating the Team from the Owners

Many supporters who have similar reservations seem to have concluded that they can continue to support the players and its roster of global players, featuring the Asian superstar a key player, while pouring scorn on the team's corporate overlords. Nowhere was this more evident than at the championship parade at Dodger Stadium on Monday, when the packed audience cheered in support of the coach and his athletes but jeered the team president and the top official of the ownership group.

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

Past Context and Neighborhood Impact

The problem, however, goes further than just the organization's present proprietors. The deal that moved the former franchise to Los Angeles in the late 1950s involved the city demolishing three low-income Latino communities on a elevated area overlooking downtown and then selling the property to the organization for a fraction of its market value. A track on a mid-2000s record that documents the events has an impoverished worker at the stadium stating that the home he lost to eviction is now third base.

A prominent commentator, perhaps southern California most influential Latino writer and media personality, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, problematic relationship between the team and its fanbase. He calls the team the popular snack of baseball, "a corporate entity with an excessive, even unhealthy devotion by too many Latinos" that has been shortchanging its supporters for years.

"They've put one arm around Latino fans while picking their pockets with the other hand for so long because they have been able to avoid consequences," Arellano wrote over the summer, when demands to boycott the team over its absence of reaction to the raids were contradicted by the awkward reality that turnout at home games did not dip, even at the peak of the demonstrations when the city center was subject to a evening restriction.

International Stars and Fan Connections

Distinguishing the squad from its business leadership is not a simple matter, {