The LA Dodgers Claim the Championship, But for Latino Fans, It's Complex

For Natalia Molina and third-generation Mexican American, the most memorable moment of the World Series did not happen during the nail-biting final game on Saturday, when her team pulled off multiple dramatic escape act after another and then prevailing in overtime over the Toronto Blue Jays.

It came a game earlier, when two second-tier players, Kike Hernández and Miguel Rojas, pulled off a electrifying, game-winning play that simultaneously challenged numerous negative misconceptions promoted about Hispanic people in the past years.

The play in itself was breathtaking: the outfielder raced in from left field to catch a ball he at first lost in the bright lights, then fired it to the infield to secure another, decisive play. the second baseman, at second base, caught the ball moments before a opposing player barreled into him, knocking him backwards.

This wasn't merely a remarkable athletic achievement, possibly the decisive turn in the series in the team's direction after looking for much of the games like the weaker side. For Molina, it was exhilarating, on multiple levels, a badly needed morale boost for Latinos and for the city after a period of enforcement actions, security forces patrolling the neighborhoods, and a steady drumbeat of criticism from official sources.

"Kike and Miggy put forth this counter-narrative," said the professor. "The world witnessed Latinos showing an infectious pride and joy in what they do, being key figures on the team, having a different kind of confidence. They are bombastic, they're cheering, they're taking off their shirts."

"It was such a contrast with what we observe on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos thrown to the ground and chased down. It's so easy to be demoralized these days."

Not that it's exactly straightforward to be a team supporter nowadays – for her or for the many of other fans who attend faithfully to home games and fill up as many as 50% of the stadium's 50,000 seats each time.

A Mixed Connection with the Organization

When intensified enforcement operations began in Los Angeles in June, and national guard troops were sent into the area to respond to resulting protests, two of the city's sports teams promptly issued messages of solidarity with affected communities – but not the baseball team.

The team president has said the organization prefer to steer clear of political issues – a view colored, perhaps, by the fact that a sizable portion of the supporters, including Latinos, are supporters of certain leaders. Under considerable external demands, the team subsequently committed $one million in support for individuals directly affected by the operations but made no official condemnation of the administration.

Official Event and Past Legacy

Months earlier, the team did not delay in agreeing to an offer to celebrate their previous championship win at the White House – a decision that local columnists labeled as "pathetic … weak … and hypocritical", given the team's pride in having been the first major league franchise to end the color barrier in the mid-20th century and the regular invocations of that history and the values it embodies by officials and current and past players. A number of players including the manager had expressed unwillingness to travel to the White House during the initial period but then reconsidered or gave in to demands from the organization.

Corporate Control and Fan Dilemmas

An additional complication for fans is that the team are controlled by a large investment group, the ownership group, whose investments, according to media reports and its own released financial documents, include a stake in a private prison company that operates enforcement centers. The group's leadership has said repeatedly that it aims to remain neutral of political matters, but its detractors say the inaction – and the financial stake – are their own form of compliance to current policies.

All of that add up to significant mixed feelings among Hispanic supporters in especial – sentiments that surfaced even in the euphoria of this year's hard-fought World Series triumph and the ensuing explosion of team support across the city.

"Can one to root for the team?" local writer Erick Galindo agonized at the beginning of the postseason in an thoughtful article ruminating on "team loyalty in our veins, but doubt in our hearts". Galindo couldn't finally bring himself to view the championship, but he still felt deeply, to the point that he decided his one-man boycott must have brought the team the fortune it required to succeed.

Distinguishing the Team from the Owners

Numerous supporters who share similar reservations seem to have concluded that they can continue to back the players and its lineup of international players, including the Japanese megastar Shohei Ohtani, while pouring scorn on the organization's corporate leadership. At no place was this more evident than at the championship parade at the home venue on Monday, when the packed audience roared in approval of the manager and his athletes but jeered the team president and the chief executive of the ownership group.

"The executives in formal attire do not get to claim our players from us," the fan said. "We've been with the Dodgers for more time than they have."

Past Context and Neighborhood Effect

The problem, however, goes further than only the organization's current owners. The deal that moved the former franchise to Los Angeles in the late 1950s involved the municipality demolishing three low-income Hispanic communities on a elevated area overlooking downtown and then transferring the property to the organization for a fraction of its market value. A song on a 2005 album that documents the story has an impoverished worker at the stadium revealing that the home he forfeited to removal is now a part of the field.

Gustavo Arellano, possibly southern California most influential Latino writer and broadcaster, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, dysfunctional relationship between the team and its fanbase. He calls the Dodgers the popular snack of baseball, "a business organization with an excessive, even unhealthy following by too many Latinos" that has been exploiting its fans for decades.

"They've put one arm around Hispanic followers while profiting from them with the other hand for so much time because they have been able to avoid consequences," the writer wrote over the summer, when demands to avoid the organization over its lack of response to the enforcement actions were upended by the uncomfortable fact that turnout at home games remained steady, even at the height of the protests when downtown LA was subject to a nightly curfew.

Global Players and Fan Bonds

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