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For a lifelong Dodgers fan and longtime Mexican American, the crowning highlight of the World Series didn't occur during the tense final game on Saturday, when her team pulled off multiple death-defying escape act after another before winning in overtime against the Toronto Blue Jays.

It happened in the previous game, when two supporting players, the Puerto Rican player and the Venezuelan infielder, pulled off a electrifying, game-winning play that simultaneously challenged many negative misconceptions touted about Hispanic people in the past decades.

The moment in itself was stunning: Hernández charged in from the outfield to catch a ball he initially lost in the bright lights, then fired it to the infield to secure another, game-winning play. Rojas, at second base, caught the ball moments before a opposing player collided with him, knocking him backwards.

This wasn't merely a remarkable sporting moment, perhaps the decisive turn in the series in the Dodgers' favor after looking for most of the series like the weaker team. For Molina, it was thrilling, politically and culturally, a much-required morale boost for Latinos and for the city after months of immigration raids, security forces patrolling the neighborhoods, and a steady drumbeat 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, being leaders on the team, exhibiting a distinct kind of confidence. They are bombastic, they're cheering, they're taking off their shirts."

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

Not that it's entirely straightforward to be a team fan nowadays – for her or for the legions of other fans who attend faithfully to matches and fill up as many as 50% of the venue's fifty thousand spots per game.

The Mixed Relationship with the Organization

When aggressive immigration raids started in the city in June, and military units were deployed into the area to react to resulting protests, two of the city's sports clubs promptly issued messages of solidarity with affected communities – while the Dodgers.

Management has said the organization want to steer clear of politics – a view colored, possibly, by the reality that a significant portion of the supporters, even some Hispanic fans, are followers of current political figures. After considerable external demands, the organization later pledged $1m in support for families personally impacted by the operations but issued no public criticism of the government.

Official Visit and Historical Legacy

Months before, the team did not hesitate in accepting an invitation to mark their previous World Series win at the White House – a decision that sports columnists labeled as "disappointing … spineless … and contradictory", considering the team's boast in having been the pioneering professional franchise to break the racial segregation in the 1940s and the regular invocations of that legacy and the values it represents by executives and current and former athletes. Several players such as the coach had voiced unwillingness to travel to the event during the first term but either reconsidered or gave in to pressure from the organization.

Corporate Control and Fan Conflicts

A further issue for supporters is that the team are controlled by a large investment group, the ownership group, whose investments, as per sources and its own released balance sheets, involve a share in a detention corporation that operates detention facilities. The group's executives has said many times that it wants to stay out of political matters, but its detractors say the silence – and the investment – are their own type of acquiescence to certain policies.

These factors contribute to significant mixed feelings among Latino supporters in particular – sentiments that emerged even in the euphoria of this year's hard-fought World Series victory and the ensuing explosion of Dodgers support across Los Angeles.

"Is it okay to root for the team?" area columnist one observer agonized at the start of the playoffs in an thoughtful article ruminating on "team loyalty in our blood, 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 protest must have brought the squad the luck it required to win.

Separating the Team from the Management

Numerous fans who have Galindo's reservations appear to have decided that they can keep to support the team and its lineup of international players, including the Japanese superstar a key player, while expressing disdain on the team's corporate leadership. At no place was this more clear than at the championship parade at Dodger Stadium on the following day, when the packed audience cheered in approval of the coach and his athletes but booed the team president and the chief executive of the investors.

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

Historical Context and Community Effect

The problem, however, runs deeper than only the organization's present proprietors. The deal that brought the former franchise to Los Angeles in the 1950s involved the city razing three working-class Hispanic communities on a hill above downtown and then transferring the land to the team for a small part of its actual worth. A track on a 2005 album that chronicles the story has an low-income worker at the venue revealing that the home he forfeited to eviction is now third base.

A prominent commentator, possibly southern California most widely followed Mexican American writer and broadcaster, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, dysfunctional relationship between the team and its fanbase. He describes the team the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a corporate entity with an excessive, even unhealthy following by numerous Latinos" that has been shortchanging its supporters for decades.

"They've acted around Latino fans while picking their pockets with the other hand for so long because they have been able to avoid consequences," the writer noted over the warmer months, when demands to avoid the team over its lack of response to the enforcement actions were contradicted by the awkward reality that turnout at matches remained steady, even at the height of the protests when downtown LA was under to a evening restriction.

Global Stars and Community Connections

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