🔗 Share this article

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 tense final game last Saturday, when her squad executed one death-defying comeback act after another and then prevailing in overtime over the Toronto Blue Jays.

It happened in the previous game, when two second-tier athletes, the Puerto Rican player and Miguel Rojas, executed a electrifying, game-winning play that at the same time upended many harmful stereotypes promoted about Latinos in recent decades.

The play itself was breathtaking: the outfielder raced in from left field to snag a ball he initially misjudged in the bright lights, then threw it to the infield to record another, game-winning out. Rojas, positioned nearby, caught the ball just a split second before a opposing player barreled into him, knocking him to the ground.

This was not merely a remarkable sporting achievement, possibly the key shift in momentum in the Dodgers' direction after appearing for much of the games like the weaker side. To her, it was exhilarating, politically and culturally, a much-required morale boost for the community and for the city after a period of immigration raids, troops monitoring the streets, and a steady stream of criticism from official sources.

"The players presented this counter-narrative," explained Molina. "Everyone witnessed Latinos displaying an contagious pride and joy in what they do, acting as key figures on the team, having a different kind of masculinity. They are energetic, they're cheering, they're removing their shirts."

"This represented such a contrast with what we see on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos detained and chased down. It's so simple to be disheartened these days."

Not that it's entirely simple to be a team supporter nowadays – for her or for the legions of other fans who show up faithfully to home games and fill up as many as half of the venue's fifty thousand seats per game.

A Complicated Relationship with the Organization

When aggressive immigration raids started in the city in June, and military troops were deployed into the area to respond to resulting protests, two of the city's sports teams quickly released statements of solidarity with affected communities – while the baseball team.

Management stated the organization prefer to stay away of politics – a view influenced, perhaps, by the reality that a significant minority of the supporters, even Latinos, are followers of certain leaders. After significant external demands, the team subsequently pledged $1m in aid for families personally affected by the operations but made no official condemnation of the government.

White House Visit and Past Heritage

Three months earlier, the team did not delay in accepting an invitation to celebrate their previous championship win at the official residence – a move that sports columnists described as "disappointing … spineless … and hypocritical", given the team's boast in having been the first major league franchise to end the color barrier in the mid-20th century and the regular invocations of that legacy and the principles it represents by officials and present and former athletes. Several players such as the manager had voiced reluctance to travel to the event during the initial period but either changed their minds or gave in to pressure from the organization.

Business Control and Fan Dilemmas

A further issue for supporters is that the Dodgers are controlled by a large investment group, Guggenheim Partners, whose investments, as per media reports and its own released financial documents, involve a stake in a detention company that runs detention centers. Guggenheim's leadership has stated many times that it wants to stay out of political matters, but its critics say the inaction – and the financial stake – are their own form of acquiescence to certain policies.

These factors add up to significant mixed feelings among Latino supporters in especial – feelings that surfaced even in the euphoria of this season's hard-fought World Series victory and the ensuing outpouring of team pride across the city.

"Can one to support the team?" local writer one observer reflected at the beginning of the playoffs in an elegant article pondering on "Dodger blue in our blood, but doubt in our minds". He was unable to finally bring himself to view the championship, but he still felt deeply, to the extent that he believed his one-man protest must have given the team the fortune it needed to succeed.

Separating the Team from the Owners

Many supporters who share Galindo's reservations seem to have decided that they can continue to back the players and its lineup of international players, featuring the Asian megastar Shohei Ohtani, while pouring scorn on the team's business leadership. Nowhere was this more evident than at the championship parade at Dodger Stadium on Monday, when the capacity crowd roared in approval of the manager and his players but booed the executive and the top official of the investors.

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

Historical Context and Community Impact

The issue, though, runs deeper than just the team's current owners. The deal that brought the former franchise to Los Angeles in the late 1950s required the city demolishing three working-class Latino neighborhoods on a elevated area above the city center and then selling the property to the team for a fraction of its actual worth. A track on a 2005 album that chronicles the events has an low-income worker at the stadium stating that the home he forfeited to eviction is now a part of the field.

Gustavo Arellano, perhaps southern California most widely followed Latino writer and broadcaster, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, dysfunctional relationship between the team and its audience. He calls the team the popular snack of baseball, "a corporate entity with an excessive, even harmful following by numerous Latinos" that has been shortchanging its fans for decades.

"They have acted around Latino followers while picking their pockets with the other hand for so much time because they have been able to avoid consequences," the writer wrote over the warmer months, when calls to boycott the team over its lack of reaction to the enforcement actions were contradicted by the awkward fact that turnout at home games did not dip, even at the peak of the protests when the city center was under to a evening curfew.

Global Stars and Fan Bonds

Distinguishing the squad from its business leadership is not a simple matter, {