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In the eyes of a lifelong Dodgers fan and longtime Mexican American, the most memorable moment of the baseball championship did not happen during the tense finale last Saturday, when her team pulled off one death-defying escape feat after another and then prevailing in extra innings against the opposing team.

It happened a game earlier, when two second-tier players, the Puerto Rican player and the Venezuelan infielder, executed a thrilling, decisive sequence that at the same time challenged numerous negative stereotypes touted about Hispanic people in recent decades.

The play in itself was stunning: the outfielder raced in from left field to catch a ball he at first misjudged in the stadium lights, then fired it to second base to record another, game-winning play. the second baseman, positioned nearby, caught the ball just a split second before a opposing player barreled into him, sending him backwards.

This wasn't just a remarkable athletic achievement, possibly the decisive shift in momentum in the team's favor after looking for much of the games like the weaker team. For Molina, it was thrilling, politically and culturally, a badly needed morale boost for the community and for the city after a period of enforcement actions, security forces monitoring the streets, and a steady stream of negativity from official sources.

"The players put forth this alternative story," said Molina. "The world witnessed Latinos displaying an contagious pride and joy in what they do, acting as leaders on the team, having a different kind of confidence. They're bombastic, they're cheering, they're taking off their shirts."

"It was such a contrast with what we observe on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos thrown to the ground and pursued. It is so easy to be demoralized these days."

Not that it's entirely straightforward to be a Dodgers supporter nowadays – for her or for the many of other Latinos who show up regularly to home games and fill up as many as half of the venue's 50,000 spots per game.

The Mixed Connection with the Organization

When intensified enforcement operations started in Los Angeles in early June, and military units were sent into the area to respond to ensuing protests, two of the local sports clubs quickly released messages of solidarity with affected communities – while the Dodgers.

The team president stated the Dodgers prefer to steer clear of political issues – a view influenced, perhaps, by the reality that a sizable minority of the supporters, including Latinos, are followers of certain political figures. Under considerable external demands, the team subsequently committed $one million in support for families personally affected by the operations but issued no official criticism of the administration.

Official Visit and Past Heritage

Months earlier, the team did not hesitate in accepting an offer to mark their previous World Series victory at the official residence – a decision that local columnists labeled as "disappointing … spineless … and contradictory", given the Dodgers' boast in having been the pioneering major league franchise to end the color barrier in the 1940s and the frequent references of that legacy and the values it embodies by executives and current and former athletes. A number of players such as the coach had voiced reluctance to go to the White House during the first term but either reconsidered or succumbed to demands from team management.

Corporate Ownership and Supporter Dilemmas

A further issue for fans is that the team are controlled by a corporate behemoth, Guggenheim Partners, whose investments, as per sources and its own released balance sheets, involve a share in a detention company that runs enforcement facilities. Guggenheim's executives has said repeatedly that it wants to stay out of politics, but its critics say the inaction – and the financial stake – are their own type of acquiescence to certain policies.

All of that contribute to significant conflicted emotions among Latino supporters in especial – sentiments that surfaced even in the euphoria of this season's hard-won World Series victory and the following explosion of team pride across the city.

"Can one to support the Dodgers?" area columnist one observer reflected at the beginning of the playoffs in an elegant essay ruminating on "team loyalty in our veins, but uncertainty in our hearts". He couldn't finally bring himself to watch the championship, but he still cared deeply, to the extent that he decided his personal protest must have given the team the fortune it required to win.

Separating the Team from the Owners

Many supporters who share similar reservations seem to have concluded that they can continue to support the players and its lineup of international stars, including the Japanese megastar 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 Monday, when the capacity crowd cheered in approval of the coach and his players but booed the team president and the chief executive of the investors.

"These men in formal attire don't get to take our players from us," the fan said. "We've been with the team longer than they have."

Past Background and Community Impact

The problem, however, goes further than only the organization's present owners. The agreement that brought the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles in the 1950s involved the city demolishing three working-class Latino communities on a hill overlooking downtown and then transferring the land to the organization for a fraction of its market value. A track on a 2005 record that documents the story has an low-income parking attendant at the stadium stating that the house he lost to eviction is now third base.

A prominent commentator, perhaps southern California most widely followed Latino writer and broadcaster, sees a darker side to the lengthy, dysfunctional relationship between the franchise and its audience. He calls the team the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a business organization with an excessive, even unhealthy devotion by too many Latinos" that has been shortchanging its fans for years.

"They have put one arm around Latino followers while profiting from them with the other hand for so long because they have been able to get away with it," Arellano noted over the warmer months, when demands to boycott the organization over its absence of reaction to the enforcement actions were contradicted by the awkward fact that turnout at matches remained steady, even at the height of the protests when the city center was subject to a evening curfew.

Global Stars and Community Bonds

Separating the squad from its business leadership is not a easy task, {