🔗 Share this article

In the eyes of a lifelong Dodgers fan and third-generation Mexican American, the most memorable highlight of the baseball championship didn't occur during the tense final game last Saturday, when her team pulled off multiple dramatic escape feat after another and then prevailing in overtime over the opposing team.

It came in the previous game, when two supporting players, the Puerto Rican player and the Venezuelan infielder, pulled off a thrilling, decisive play that simultaneously challenged numerous negative stereotypes touted about Hispanic people in recent years.

The play in itself was breathtaking: the outfielder raced in from the outfield to snag a ball he at first lost in the bright lights, then fired it to second base to secure another, game-winning out. Rojas, positioned nearby, received the ball just a split second before a runner collided with him, knocking him backwards.

This was not merely a great athletic achievement, perhaps the key turn in the series in the team's direction after looking for most of the games like the underdog side. To her, it was exhilarating, politically and culturally, a badly needed morale boost for Latinos and for Los Angeles after a period of immigration raids, troops monitoring the neighborhoods, and a steady drumbeat of criticism from national leaders.

"Kike and Miggy put forth this alternative story," said Molina. "Everyone saw Latinos displaying an contagious enthusiasm in what they do, acting as leaders on the team, exhibiting a distinct kind of masculinity. They are bombastic, they're yelling, they're removing their shirts."

"It was such a juxtaposition with what we observe on the news – raids, Latinos thrown to the ground and chased down. It's so easy to be demoralized right now."

However, it's exactly simple to be a team supporter nowadays – for Molina or for the legions of other fans who show up regularly to matches and occupy as many as half of the stadium's fifty thousand seats each time.

A Complicated Relationship with the Team

When aggressive enforcement operations began in Los Angeles in early June, and national guard troops were deployed into the city to respond to ensuing demonstrations, two of the local soccer clubs promptly released statements of support with affected communities – but not the baseball team.

The team president stated the Dodgers prefer to stay away of politics – a stance colored, perhaps, by the reality that a significant portion of the fans, including some Hispanic fans, are supporters of current political figures. Under considerable public pressure, the team subsequently pledged $1m in aid for individuals personally impacted by the operations but issued no public criticism of the administration.

White House Visit and Past Legacy

Three months before, the team did not delay in accepting an invitation to mark their previous championship victory at the White House – a move that sports columnists described as "disappointing … weak … and hypocritical", given the team's boast in having been the first major league franchise to end the color barrier in the 1940s and the frequent invocations of that history and the values it represents by officials and present and former players. Several players such as the manager had voiced reluctance to go to the White House during the initial period but then reconsidered or gave in to pressure from the organization.

Business Ownership and Supporter Conflicts

An additional issue for supporters is that the team are owned by a corporate behemoth, the ownership group, whose investments, as per media reports and its own released balance sheets, include a stake in a detention corporation that runs detention centers. The group's executives has stated repeatedly that it wants to stay out of political matters, but its detractors say the silence – and the investment – are their own form of compliance to current agendas.

These factors add up to considerable mixed feelings among Latino supporters in especial – feelings that surfaced even in the excitement of this season's hard-won championship triumph and the ensuing explosion of team pride across Los Angeles.

"Can one to support the Dodgers?" local columnist Erick Galindo reflected at the beginning of the postseason in an thoughtful essay pondering on "Dodger blue in our blood, but doubt in our hearts". He couldn't finally bring himself to view the World Series, but he still cared deeply, to the point that he believed his one-man protest must have brought the squad the luck it needed to win.

Distinguishing the Team from the Owners

Numerous supporters who have Galindo's reservations appear to have decided that they can continue to support the players and its roster of international stars, including the Japanese megastar a key player, while expressing disdain on the team's business overlords. Nowhere was this more evident than at the victory celebration at the home venue on the following day, when the packed audience cheered in approval of the manager and his players but jeered the executive and the top official of the investors.

"These men in suits do not get to claim our boys in blue from us," Molina said. "We have been with the Dodgers for more time than they have."

Past Context and Community Impact

The issue, however, goes further than only the organization's present proprietors. The agreement that moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to the city in the late 1950s required the municipality demolishing three working-class Hispanic communities on a hill above the city center and then selling the property to the team for a fraction of its market value. A song on a 2005 album that documents the events has an impoverished parking attendant at the venue revealing that the home he forfeited to eviction is now third base.

A prominent commentator, perhaps southern California most widely followed Latino writer and media personality, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, dysfunctional dynamic between the team and its audience. He calls the team the popular snack of baseball, "a corporate entity with an undue, even harmful devotion by numerous Latinos" that has been shortchanging its supporters 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," Arellano noted over the warmer months, when demands to boycott the team over its absence of reaction to the raids were upended by the awkward reality that turnout at matches did not dip, even at the height of the demonstrations when downtown LA was subject to a nightly restriction.

Global Stars and Community Connections

Separating the team from its business leadership is not a easy task, {