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In the eyes of a lifelong Dodgers fan and third-generation Mexican American, the most memorable moment of the baseball championship didn't happen during the nail-biting final game last Saturday, when her squad pulled off multiple death-defying comeback feat after another before winning in overtime against the opposing team.

It came in the previous game, when two supporting athletes, the Puerto Rican player and the Venezuelan infielder, executed a thrilling, game-winning sequence that simultaneously upended numerous negative stereotypes promoted about Hispanic people in recent years.

The moment itself was breathtaking: the outfielder raced in from the outfield to catch a ball he at first lost in the stadium lights, then fired it to the infield to secure another, decisive out. Rojas, at second base, received the ball moments before a runner collided with him, sending him backwards.

This wasn't just a remarkable sporting moment, possibly the decisive turn in the series in the team's direction after appearing for much of the games like the underdog team. To her, it was thrilling, politically and culturally, a badly needed uplift for Latinos and for Los Angeles after a period of immigration raids, troops patrolling the neighborhoods, and a steady drumbeat of criticism from national leaders.

"The players presented this alternative story," said Molina. "The world witnessed Latinos displaying an infectious enthusiasm in what they do, being leaders on the team, exhibiting a distinct kind of masculinity. They're energetic, they're cheering, they're removing their shirts."

"This represented such a contrast with what we see on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos thrown to the ground and pursued. It's so easy to be disheartened these days."

However, it's entirely straightforward to be a Dodgers supporter nowadays – for Molina or for the legions of other Latinos who attend regularly to home games and fill up as many as 50% of the stadium's 50,000 seats each time.

A Mixed Connection with the Organization

After aggressive immigration raids began in Los Angeles in June, and national guard units were deployed into the area to respond to resulting demonstrations, two of the city's sports teams promptly issued messages of solidarity with immigrant families – while the Dodgers.

The team president stated the organization want to stay away of political issues – a view influenced, possibly, by the reality that a sizable portion of the supporters, including Latinos, are followers of certain leaders. After considerable external demands, the organization later committed $1m in aid for families directly impacted by the operations but made no public condemnation 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 win at the White House – a decision that local columnists described as "pathetic … spineless … and hypocritical", given the Dodgers' pride in having been the pioneering major league team to end the color barrier in the 1940s and the frequent references of that history and the principles it represents by executives and current and past players. A number of team members including the coach had voiced unwillingness to travel to the White House during the initial period but then changed their minds or succumbed to pressure from the organization.

Business Control and Supporter Dilemmas

A further issue for fans is that the team are controlled by a large investment group, Guggenheim Partners, whose equity holdings, according to media reports and its own published balance sheets, involve a stake in a detention company that operates detention centers. The group's executives has stated repeatedly that it wants to stay out of politics, but its critics say the inaction – and the financial stake – are their own type of compliance to current policies.

All of that contribute to significant conflicted emotions among Latino supporters in especial – feelings that surfaced even in the excitement of this year's hard-won championship victory and the ensuing outpouring of team support across Los Angeles.

"Can one to root for the team?" local writer one observer reflected at the beginning of the postseason in an elegant article pondering on "team loyalty in our veins, but doubt in our hearts". Galindo was unable to finally bring himself to view the championship, but he still felt deeply, to the extent that he decided his personal boycott must have brought the team the luck it required to win.

Distinguishing the Players from the Owners

Numerous supporters who share similar reservations appear to have decided that they can keep to back the players and its lineup of global players, featuring the Asian megastar Shohei Ohtani, while expressing disdain on the organization's corporate leadership. Nowhere was this more evident than at the victory celebration at the home venue on Monday, when the capacity crowd cheered in approval of the manager and his athletes but booed the team president and the top official of the ownership group.

"The executives in suits don't get to claim our players from us," Molina said. "We've been with the Dodgers longer than they have."

Historical Context and Neighborhood Effect

The problem, though, goes further than only the organization's current owners. The agreement that moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to the city in the late 1950s involved the municipality demolishing three low-income Latino communities on a elevated area overlooking the city center and then transferring the land to the organization for a fraction of its market value. A track on a mid-2000s album that documents the events has an impoverished worker at the venue stating that the home he forfeited to removal is now a part of the field.

A prominent commentator, possibly southern California most influential Mexican American writer and broadcaster, sees a more troubling side to the long, dysfunctional relationship between the franchise and its fanbase. He calls the Dodgers the popular snack of baseball, "a business organization with an undue, even unhealthy following by too many Latinos" that has been exploiting its supporters for decades.

"They have put one arm around Latino followers while profiting from them with the other for so long because they have been able to avoid consequences," Arellano wrote over the summer, when demands to avoid the organization over its lack of response to the enforcement actions were upended by the awkward fact that turnout at home games did not dip, even at the height of the protests when downtown LA was subject to a evening restriction.

Global Stars and Community Connections

Distinguishing the squad from its corporate owners is not a easy task, {