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For a lifelong Dodgers fan and longtime Mexican American, the most memorable highlight of the World Series did not occur during the tense final game last Saturday, when her squad pulled off one death-defying comeback feat after another before winning in overtime against the opposing team.

It happened in the previous game, when two second-tier athletes, Kike Hernández and Miguel Rojas, pulled off a thrilling, game-winning play that at the same time upended numerous negative misconceptions touted about Hispanic people in the past decades.

The play in itself was breathtaking: Hernández raced in from the outfield to snag a ball he initially misjudged in the bright lights, then fired it to the infield to record another, decisive out. Rojas, positioned nearby, received the ball just a split second before a runner barreled into him, sending him to the ground.

This was not just a great sporting moment, perhaps the decisive turn in momentum in the Dodgers' direction after appearing for most of the series like the underdog team. For Molina, it was thrilling, politically and culturally, a much-required uplift for Latinos and for Los Angeles after a period of enforcement actions, security forces patrolling the neighborhoods, and a constant stream of negativity from national leaders.

"Kike and Miggy put forth this counter-narrative," said the professor. "The world witnessed Latinos displaying an infectious pride and joy in what they do, acting as key figures on the team, having a different kind of masculinity. They're bombastic, they're cheering, they're removing their shirts."

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

Not that it's entirely straightforward to be a team fan these days – for her or for the legions of other Latinos who show up regularly to home games and occupy as many as half of the stadium's fifty thousand spots each time.

The Complicated Relationship with the Team

After intensified immigration raids started in the city in early June, and national guard units were sent into the city to respond to ensuing demonstrations, two of the city's soccer teams quickly issued messages of support with immigrant families – but not the baseball team.

The team president has said the Dodgers want to stay away of politics – a view influenced, possibly, by the reality that a significant portion of the supporters, even some Hispanic fans, are followers of current political figures. After significant external demands, the organization later committed $1m in aid for individuals personally affected by the operations but issued no public criticism of the administration.

White House Event and Past Legacy

Months before, the organization did not hesitate in accepting an invitation to mark their previous championship win at the White House – a move that local writers labeled as "disappointing … weak … and hypocritical", considering the team's boast in having been the pioneering major league franchise to end the racial segregation in the mid-20th century and the frequent references of that history and the values it represents by executives and present and past athletes. Several team members including the coach had expressed reluctance to go to the event during the initial period but either changed their minds or succumbed to demands from team management.

Corporate Control and Supporter Conflicts

An additional complication for supporters is that the Dodgers are owned by a large investment group, Guggenheim Partners, whose investments, according to sources and its own released balance sheets, include a stake in a detention corporation that operates enforcement facilities. Guggenheim's leadership has stated repeatedly that it wants to remain neutral of political matters, but its critics say the inaction – and the financial stake – are their own form of compliance to certain agendas.

These factors add up to considerable mixed feelings among Latino fans in particular – sentiments that surfaced even in the excitement of this season's hard-won championship victory and the following explosion of team pride across the city.

"Can one to root for the Dodgers?" area columnist Erick Galindo agonized at the start of the playoffs in an elegant essay ruminating on "Dodger blue in our veins, but doubt in our minds". Galindo couldn't finally bring himself to view the championship, but he still felt strongly, to the extent that he believed his personal protest must have given the squad the fortune it needed to succeed.

Distinguishing the Team from the Owners

Numerous supporters who share similar reservations seem to have decided that they can keep to back the players and its lineup of global players, including the Asian superstar a key player, while pouring scorn on the team's business overlords. At no place was this more clear than at the championship parade at the home venue on the following day, when the packed audience cheered in support of the coach and his players but booed the team president and the chief executive of the investors.

"The executives in suits don't get to take our players from us," Molina said. "We've been with the team for more time than they have."

Historical Context and Community Effect

The issue, though, runs deeper than only the organization's current owners. The agreement that moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles in the late 1950s required the city demolishing three working-class Hispanic neighborhoods on a hill overlooking the city center and then transferring the property to the organization for a small part of its actual worth. A track on a 2005 record that documents the story has an impoverished parking attendant at the venue stating that the house he forfeited to removal is now third base.

A prominent commentator, perhaps the region's most widely followed Mexican American writer and broadcaster, sees a more troubling side to the long, dysfunctional dynamic between the franchise and its fanbase. He describes the Dodgers the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a business organization with an excessive, even harmful following by numerous Latinos" that has been exploiting its fans for years.

"They've acted around Latino fans while profiting from them with the other hand for so long because they have been able to avoid consequences," Arellano wrote over the warmer months, when demands to boycott the organization over its lack of reaction to the raids were upended by the uncomfortable reality that attendance at matches remained steady, even at the height of the demonstrations when downtown LA was under to a evening restriction.

Global Stars and Fan Connections

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