The LA Dodgers Win the Championship, However for Latino Fans, It's Not So Simple

In the eyes of a lifelong Dodgers fan and longtime Mexican American, the crowning highlight of the World Series did not occur during the tense final game last Saturday, when her squad executed one dramatic comeback act after another before prevailing in extra innings over the Toronto Blue Jays.

It happened in the previous game, when two supporting athletes, the Puerto Rican player and the Venezuelan infielder, pulled off a electrifying, game-winning sequence that simultaneously upended numerous negative misconceptions promoted about Hispanic people in the past years.

The moment in itself was stunning: Hernández charged in from left field to snag a ball he initially misjudged in the stadium lights, then threw it to second base to record another, game-winning play. the second baseman, positioned nearby, caught the ball moments before a runner barreled into him, sending him to the ground.

This was not merely a great sporting achievement, perhaps the decisive turn in momentum in the team's direction after looking for most of the series like the weaker side. For Molina, it was thrilling, politically and culturally, a much-required morale boost for Latinos and for the city after a period of immigration raids, security forces monitoring the neighborhoods, and a constant stream of negativity from national leaders.

"Kike and Miggy presented this alternative story," explained Molina. "The world witnessed Latinos showing an contagious pride and joy in what they do, being leaders on the team, exhibiting a distinct kind of masculinity. They're energetic, they're yelling, they're removing their shirts."

"This represented such a juxtaposition with what we see on the news – raids, Latinos detained and pursued. It's so simple to be disheartened these days."

Not that it's exactly simple to be a team fan these days – for her or for the legions of other fans who show up regularly to matches and fill up as many as half of the venue's 50,000 spots per game.

The Complicated Connection with the Team

When aggressive immigration raids started in Los Angeles in June, and national guard troops were deployed into the city to react to resulting protests, two of the local soccer teams quickly issued messages of solidarity with affected communities – but not the Dodgers.

The team president stated the Dodgers want to stay away of politics – a view colored, possibly, by the fact that a sizable minority of the supporters, including Latinos, are followers of current leaders. After significant external demands, the team later pledged $1m in aid for families personally impacted by the operations but issued no official condemnation of the administration.

White House Event and Historical Heritage

Three months before, the team did not delay in agreeing to an offer to celebrate their previous championship victory at the White House – a decision that local writers described as "pathetic … weak … and hypocritical", considering the Dodgers' boast in having been the pioneering major league team to end the color barrier in the mid-20th century and the regular references of that legacy and the values it represents by officials and present and past players. Several players such as the coach had voiced reluctance to go to the White House during the initial period but then changed their minds or succumbed to pressure from the organization.

Corporate Ownership and Supporter Conflicts

An additional issue for supporters is that the Dodgers are controlled by a large investment group, Guggenheim Partners, whose investments, as per sources and its own released balance sheets, involve a share in a detention company that runs detention centers. Guggenheim's executives has stated repeatedly that it aims to stay out of politics, but its detractors say the silence – and the financial stake – are their own form of compliance to current policies.

These factors add up to considerable mixed feelings among Hispanic supporters in especial – feelings that emerged even in the euphoria of this season's hard-fought championship victory and the ensuing outpouring of team pride across Los Angeles.

"Can one to support the team?" local writer Erick Galindo agonized at the beginning of the playoffs in an elegant essay pondering on "team loyalty in our blood, but doubt in our minds". He couldn't ultimately bring himself to view the World Series, but he still felt deeply, to the point that he decided his personal protest must have given the team the fortune it required to succeed.

Separating the Team from the Management

Many fans who share similar reservations seem to have decided that they can keep to support the team and its roster of international stars, featuring the Japanese megastar a key player, while pouring scorn on the organization's business overlords. Nowhere was this more evident than at the championship parade at the home venue on the following day, when the capacity crowd roared in support of the coach and his players but booed the team president and the chief executive of the ownership group.

"These men 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."

Past Background and Community Effect

The problem, though, goes further than just the team's current owners. The agreement that brought the former franchise to Los Angeles in the late 1950s involved the municipality razing three low-income Latino communities on a hill overlooking the city center and then selling the land to the team for a fraction of its market value. A track on a 2005 album that documents the events has an impoverished worker at the venue stating that the house he lost to removal is now third base.

Gustavo Arellano, possibly the region's most widely followed Latino writer and broadcaster, sees a darker side to the long, problematic dynamic between the team and its audience. He describes the team the popular snack of baseball, "a corporate entity with an undue, even unhealthy following by too many Latinos" that has been shortchanging its supporters for decades.

"They've put one arm around Latino followers while picking their pockets with the other for so much time because they have been able to avoid consequences," the writer wrote over the summer, when demands to boycott the organization over its absence of reaction to the enforcement actions were upended by the awkward reality that attendance at home games remained steady, even at the peak of the demonstrations when downtown LA was under to a nightly restriction.

Global Stars and Community Connections

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