Los Angeles Dodgers Win the World Series, But for Hispanic Fans, It's Complex

In the eyes of a lifelong Dodgers fan and third-generation Mexican American, the crowning highlight of the World Series did not occur during the tense final game last Saturday, when her squad pulled off one death-defying comeback feat after another before prevailing in overtime against the Toronto Blue Jays.

It happened a game earlier, when two supporting athletes, Kike Hernández and Miguel Rojas, pulled off a electrifying, decisive play that at the same time upended many harmful misconceptions promoted about Hispanic people in the past years.

The play itself was stunning: the outfielder raced in from the outfield to catch a ball he initially lost in the stadium lights, then fired it to the infield to secure another, decisive out. the second baseman, at second base, received the ball just a split second before a runner barreled into him, sending him backwards.

This wasn't just a remarkable athletic achievement, perhaps the key shift in the series in the Dodgers' favor after appearing for most of the series like the weaker team. For Molina, it was exhilarating, politically and culturally, a badly needed morale boost for Latinos and for the city after a period of immigration raids, troops monitoring the neighborhoods, and a steady drumbeat of negativity from national leaders.

"Kike and Miggy put forth this alternative story," said the professor. "The world saw Latinos showing an infectious enthusiasm in what they do, acting as leaders on the team, exhibiting a distinct kind of masculinity. They are energetic, they're yelling, they're removing their shirts."

"It was such a juxtaposition with what we see on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos thrown to the ground and pursued. It is so easy to be disheartened these days."

Not that it's exactly straightforward to be a Dodgers fan nowadays – for Molina or for the legions of other Latinos who attend faithfully to home games and fill up as many as 50% of the stadium's 50,000 seats per game.

A Mixed Connection with the Organization

When aggressive immigration raids started in the city in early June, and military units were sent into the city to respond to ensuing protests, two of the local soccer clubs promptly issued messages of support with affected communities – but not the Dodgers.

The team president has said the organization prefer to stay away of political issues – a stance colored, perhaps, by the reality that a significant portion of the fans, including some Hispanic fans, are supporters of current leaders. Under significant public pressure, the organization later pledged $1m in support for families directly affected by the operations but issued no official condemnation of the government.

White House Visit and Historical Heritage

Months earlier, the organization did not delay in accepting an invitation to mark their previous championship win at the official residence – a move that sports writers labeled as "pathetic … spineless … and contradictory", considering the Dodgers' pride in having been the pioneering professional team to break the color barrier in the 1940s and the regular invocations of that history and the principles it represents by executives and present and past players. Several team members including the manager had voiced unwillingness to go to the event during the first term but either reconsidered or gave in to demands from team management.

Corporate Control and Fan Conflicts

An additional complication for supporters is that the Dodgers are controlled by a large investment group, Guggenheim Partners, whose investments, according to sources and its own released financial documents, include a stake in a detention company that runs enforcement centers. Guggenheim's executives has said 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 certain policies.

These factors add up to significant mixed feelings among Hispanic supporters in particular – sentiments that emerged even in the euphoria of this year's hard-won World Series triumph and the ensuing explosion of team support across Los Angeles.

"Is it okay to root for the Dodgers?" local columnist Erick Galindo agonized at the start of the playoffs in an thoughtful essay ruminating on "team loyalty in our blood, but uncertainty in our minds". He was unable to finally bring himself to view the championship, but he still cared strongly, to the extent that he believed his personal boycott must have given the squad the fortune it required to succeed.

Separating the Players from the Owners

Numerous fans who have similar misgivings seem to have concluded that they can continue to support the team and its roster of international players, including the Japanese megastar a key player, while expressing disdain on the organization's corporate overlords. At no place was this more evident than at the victory celebration at the home venue 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 investors.

"These men 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 Impact

The issue, though, runs deeper than only the team's current proprietors. The deal that moved the former franchise to Los Angeles in the late 1950s involved the municipality razing three low-income Hispanic communities on a elevated area above downtown and then selling the land to the organization for a fraction 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 third base.

Gustavo Arellano, possibly the region's most widely followed Latino columnist and broadcaster, sees a darker side to the lengthy, problematic dynamic between the team and its audience. He calls the team the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a corporate entity with an excessive, even harmful devotion by too many Latinos" that has been exploiting its fans for decades.

"They have put one arm around Hispanic followers while picking their pockets with the other for so much time because they have been able to avoid consequences," Arellano wrote over the warmer months, when demands to avoid the team over its absence of response to the enforcement actions were upended by the uncomfortable fact that attendance at matches remained steady, even at the height of the protests when downtown LA was subject to a evening curfew.

International Players and Fan Connections

Distinguishing the team from its business leadership is not a simple task, {