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In the eyes of Natalia Molina and longtime Mexican American, the crowning highlight of the baseball championship did not happen during the nail-biting finale last Saturday, when her team executed multiple death-defying comeback feat after another and then winning in extra innings over the opposing team.

It came in the previous game, when two supporting players, the Puerto Rican player and Miguel Rojas, executed a electrifying, game-winning sequence that at the same time upended many harmful stereotypes touted about Latinos in the past decades.

The moment itself was stunning: the outfielder raced in from the outfield to catch a ball he initially misjudged in the stadium lights, then threw it to the infield to record another, game-winning play. the second baseman, at second base, caught the ball moments before a runner collided with him, sending him backwards.

This was not just a remarkable athletic achievement, possibly the key turn in the series in the team's direction after appearing for most of the games like the underdog side. For Molina, it was exhilarating, on multiple levels, a badly needed morale boost for Latinos and for the city after months of immigration raids, security forces patrolling the streets, and a steady stream of negativity from official sources.

"The players put forth this alternative story," explained Molina. "The world saw Latinos showing an infectious pride and joy in what they do, being key figures on the team, exhibiting a different kind of confidence. They're energetic, they're cheering, they're taking off their shirts."

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

Not that it's entirely straightforward to be a team fan these days – for Molina or for the many of other Latinos who attend regularly to matches and occupy as many as half of the venue's 50,000 seats per game.

The Mixed Connection with the Organization

When intensified enforcement operations started in the city in June, and national guard troops were sent into the area to react to ensuing demonstrations, two of the city's soccer teams quickly issued statements of support with affected communities – but not the baseball team.

The team president has said the organization prefer to stay away of politics – a stance colored, possibly, by the fact that a significant portion of the supporters, including Latinos, are followers of current leaders. After considerable public pressure, the organization subsequently committed $1m in support for individuals personally impacted by the operations but issued no public criticism of the administration.

Official Visit and Historical Legacy

Three months earlier, the team did not hesitate in agreeing to an offer to celebrate their previous World Series victory at the official residence – a decision that sports columnists described as "pathetic … spineless … and contradictory", given the Dodgers' boast in having been the pioneering major league franchise to end the racial segregation in the 1940s and the frequent references of that legacy and the values it represents by executives and present and past players. Several players including the coach had voiced reluctance to go to the event during the first term but either changed their minds or succumbed to pressure from the organization.

Corporate Control and Supporter Dilemmas

A further issue for supporters is that the Dodgers are owned by a large investment group, the ownership group, whose investments, according to media reports and its own published financial documents, include a stake in a private prison company that runs enforcement facilities. Guggenheim'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 compliance to current policies.

These factors add up to significant conflicted emotions among Hispanic fans in especial – sentiments that surfaced even in the euphoria of this season's hard-won World Series triumph and the following explosion of Dodgers pride across Los Angeles.

"Can one to root for the team?" local writer one observer reflected at the start of the postseason in an elegant essay pondering on "Dodger blue in our veins, but uncertainty in our hearts". Galindo couldn't ultimately bring himself to view the championship, but he still felt deeply, to the point that he believed his personal boycott must have brought the squad the fortune it needed to succeed.

Distinguishing the Team from the Owners

Numerous supporters who have Galindo's misgivings seem to have decided that they can keep to support the team and its lineup of global 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 victory celebration at Dodger Stadium on Monday, when the capacity crowd roared in approval of the manager and his players but jeered 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 have been with the team for more time than they have."

Past Background and Community Effect

The issue, though, goes further than only the team's present proprietors. The deal 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 downtown and then transferring the land to the team for a small part of its market value. A song on a mid-2000s album that chronicles the story has an impoverished parking attendant at the venue revealing that the house he forfeited to eviction is now a part of the field.

Gustavo Arellano, possibly southern California most influential Latino writer and broadcaster, sees a darker side to the long, problematic dynamic between the team and its audience. He calls the Dodgers the popular snack of baseball, "a corporate entity with an undue, even harmful following by numerous Latinos" that has been shortchanging its supporters for years.

"They have put one arm around Latino fans while picking their pockets 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 team over its lack of reaction to the enforcement actions were upended by the uncomfortable fact that turnout at home games did not dip, even at the height of the demonstrations when the city center was subject to a nightly curfew.

Global Stars and Fan Connections

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