🔗 Share this article

In the eyes of a lifelong Dodgers fan and longtime Mexican American, the crowning moment of the World Series did not occur during the tense final game last Saturday, when her team pulled off one death-defying escape act after another and then prevailing in extra innings against the opposing team.

It came a game earlier, when two supporting players, the Puerto Rican player and Miguel Rojas, executed a thrilling, game-winning play that at the same time upended numerous harmful misconceptions promoted about Hispanic people in recent years.

The play itself was breathtaking: the outfielder raced in from the outfield to snag a ball he at first misjudged in the stadium lights, then threw it to the infield to record another, decisive play. the second baseman, at second base, caught the ball moments before a runner collided with him, knocking him to the ground.

This was not merely a remarkable sporting moment, possibly the decisive turn in the series in the Dodgers' favor after appearing for much of the series like the underdog side. To her, it was exhilarating, on multiple levels, a much-required uplift for the community and for Los Angeles after months of enforcement actions, troops patrolling the neighborhoods, and a constant drumbeat of criticism from national leaders.

"The players put forth this counter-narrative," explained the professor. "The world saw Latinos showing an infectious enthusiasm in what they do, being leaders on the team, exhibiting a distinct kind of masculinity. They are bombastic, they're yelling, they're removing their shirts."

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

However, it's exactly simple to be a Dodgers fan these days – for her or for the many of other fans who attend faithfully to home games and occupy as many as half of the venue's fifty thousand seats per game.

A Complicated Relationship with the Team

After intensified enforcement operations started in Los Angeles in early June, and national guard troops were sent into the city to respond to ensuing protests, two of the city's sports clubs promptly issued statements of solidarity with affected communities – while the baseball team.

Management has said the Dodgers prefer to steer clear of politics – a stance influenced, possibly, by the reality that a sizable minority of the supporters, including Latinos, are followers of certain leaders. After significant external demands, the team later pledged $one million in aid for families personally affected by the raids but issued no public condemnation of the government.

White House Visit and Historical Legacy

Three months earlier, the organization did not hesitate in accepting an invitation to celebrate their previous World Series victory at the White House – a move that local columnists described as "pathetic … spineless … and hypocritical", given the team's pride in having been the first professional team to break the racial segregation in the 1940s and the regular invocations of that legacy and the values it represents by officials and current and former athletes. Several players including the coach had expressed reluctance to travel to the White House during the initial period but then changed their minds or succumbed to demands from the organization.

Business Ownership and Supporter Conflicts

An additional complication for supporters is that the team are controlled by a large investment group, Guggenheim Partners, whose investments, according to sources and its own published financial documents, involve a stake in a detention company that operates detention facilities. The group's leadership has said repeatedly that it wants to remain neutral of political matters, but its detractors say the inaction – and the investment – are their own type of acquiescence to current policies.

All of that contribute to considerable mixed feelings among Hispanic fans in particular – sentiments that emerged even in the excitement of this season's hard-won championship triumph and the following explosion of team pride across the city.

"Can one to support the team?" local columnist one observer reflected at the beginning of the postseason in an elegant article ruminating on "Dodger blue in our blood, but doubt in our minds". Galindo was unable to finally bring himself to watch the World Series, but he still felt strongly, to the extent that he decided his personal boycott must have brought the squad the luck it needed to succeed.

Distinguishing the Players from the Owners

Numerous supporters who share similar misgivings appear to have decided that they can continue to back the players and its roster of international stars, featuring the Asian superstar Shohei Ohtani, while expressing disdain on the organization's business overlords. At no place 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 booed the team president and the chief executive of the investors.

"These men in suits do not get to take our players from us," Molina said. "We have been with the team for more time than they have."

Historical Background and Neighborhood Effect

The problem, however, runs deeper than just the team's present proprietors. The deal that moved the former franchise to the city in the 1950s required the city demolishing three working-class Hispanic neighborhoods on a hill overlooking the city center and then selling the land to the organization for a small part of its market value. A track on a 2005 album that documents the events has an impoverished worker at the venue stating that the house he lost to eviction is now a part of the field.

A prominent commentator, perhaps southern California most widely followed Mexican American writer and media personality, sees a darker side to the lengthy, problematic dynamic between the franchise and its fanbase. He calls the team the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a business organization with an excessive, even harmful devotion by too many Latinos" that has been shortchanging its supporters for years.

"They've put one arm around Latino fans while profiting from them with the other for so much time because they have been able to avoid consequences," the writer noted over the summer, when demands to avoid the organization over its lack of response to the enforcement actions were contradicted by the uncomfortable reality that attendance at matches remained steady, even at the peak of the protests when the city center was subject to a nightly curfew.

International Players and Community Connections

Separating the team from its corporate owners is not a easy matter, {