🔗 Share this article

For a lifelong Dodgers fan and longtime Mexican American, the most memorable moment of the World Series did not happen during the tense finale last Saturday, when her squad pulled off one death-defying escape feat after another before winning in extra innings against the opposing team.

It came a game earlier, when two supporting athletes, Kike Hernández and Miguel Rojas, executed a thrilling, decisive play that at the same time challenged numerous negative misconceptions touted about Latinos in the past years.

The moment in itself was breathtaking: Hernández raced in from the outfield to snag a ball he initially lost in the bright lights, then threw it to the infield to record another, game-winning play. Rojas, at second base, caught the ball moments before a runner collided with him, sending him backwards.

This wasn't just a remarkable athletic achievement, perhaps the decisive turn in the series in the Dodgers' favor after looking for much of the series like the weaker team. For Molina, it was exhilarating, on multiple levels, a badly needed morale boost for the community and for Los Angeles after a period of enforcement actions, troops monitoring the streets, and a constant stream of negativity from official sources.

"The players put forth this alternative story," said Molina. "The world saw Latinos showing an infectious pride and joy in what they do, being key figures on the team, exhibiting a distinct kind of masculinity. They are energetic, they're yelling, they're removing their shirts."

"This represented such a contrast with what we observe on the news – raids, Latinos detained and pursued. It's so easy to be demoralized right now."

However, it's exactly straightforward to be a team fan these days – for Molina or for the legions of other Latinos who show up regularly to home games and fill up as many as half of the venue's fifty thousand seats per game.

A Mixed Connection with the Team

After intensified immigration raids began in Los Angeles in early June, and national guard units were sent into the area to respond to ensuing demonstrations, two of the local sports clubs quickly released statements of support with affected communities – while the baseball team.

The team president stated the organization prefer to steer clear of political issues – a view influenced, possibly, by the fact that a sizable minority of the fans, including some Hispanic fans, are followers of current leaders. After considerable external demands, the organization subsequently pledged $one million in support for individuals personally impacted by the operations but issued no public condemnation of the administration.

White House Event and Historical Legacy

Months earlier, the organization did not hesitate in accepting an offer to celebrate their previous World Series win at the official residence – a decision that sports writers described as "disappointing … weak … and hypocritical", given the team's pride in having been the first professional franchise to end the color barrier in the mid-20th century and the regular references of that legacy and the principles it represents by officials and present and past athletes. Several team members such as the manager had expressed unwillingness to go to the White House during the initial period but either reconsidered or gave in to demands from team management.

Corporate Ownership and Supporter Conflicts

A further issue for fans is that the Dodgers are owned by a large investment group, the ownership group, whose equity holdings, as per media reports and its own released financial documents, involve a stake in a private prison corporation that runs enforcement centers. The group's leadership has said repeatedly that it aims to remain neutral of political matters, but its detractors say the inaction – and the financial stake – are their own form of acquiescence to current policies.

These factors contribute to considerable conflicted emotions among Latino supporters in particular – sentiments that emerged even in the euphoria of this year's hard-won championship triumph and the ensuing explosion of Dodgers pride across the city.

"Is it okay to root for the Dodgers?" local writer Erick Galindo agonized at the beginning of the playoffs in an thoughtful article ruminating on "Dodger blue in our veins, but doubt in our hearts". Galindo couldn't finally bring himself to view the World Series, but he still felt strongly, to the point that he believed his one-man boycott must have brought the team the fortune it needed to win.

Distinguishing the Players from the Management

Numerous supporters who have Galindo's reservations seem to have decided that they can continue to support the players and its lineup of international stars, including the Asian megastar a key player, while pouring scorn on the organization's corporate leadership. At no place was this more evident than at the championship parade at the home venue on the following day, when the capacity crowd roared in approval of the manager and his athletes but jeered the team president and the chief executive of the ownership group.

"The executives in formal attire do not get to claim our boys in blue from us," Molina said. "We've been with the Dodgers for more time than they have."

Historical Context and Neighborhood Impact

The issue, however, runs deeper than only the organization's current owners. The agreement that moved the former franchise to Los Angeles in the late 1950s involved the municipality razing three working-class Hispanic neighborhoods on a elevated area overlooking the city center and then transferring the property to the team for a small part of its market value. A song on a mid-2000s record that chronicles the story has an impoverished parking attendant at the stadium revealing that the house he forfeited to removal is now a part of the field.

A prominent commentator, possibly the region's most influential Latino writer and broadcaster, sees a darker side to the lengthy, dysfunctional relationship between the franchise and its fanbase. He describes the Dodgers the popular snack of baseball, "a business organization with an excessive, even harmful following by numerous Latinos" that has been exploiting its fans for decades.

"They've put one arm around Latino fans while profiting from them with the other hand for so long because they have been able to get away with it," the writer noted over the summer, when calls to boycott the organization over its lack of response to the raids were contradicted by the awkward fact that attendance at home games remained steady, even at the peak of the protests when the city center was subject to a evening curfew.

International Players and Community Bonds

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