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For Natalia Molina and longtime Mexican American, the most memorable moment of the World Series did not occur during the tense finale on Saturday, when her squad pulled off multiple death-defying comeback act after another before winning in overtime against the Toronto Blue Jays.

It came a game earlier, when two supporting players, the Puerto Rican player and the Venezuelan infielder, pulled off a electrifying, decisive play that simultaneously challenged numerous harmful stereotypes promoted about Latinos in recent years.

The moment in itself was breathtaking: Hernández charged in from the outfield to snag a ball he initially lost in the stadium lights, then threw it to the infield to secure another, game-winning play. the second baseman, at second base, received the ball moments before a opposing player collided with him, sending him backwards.

This was not merely a remarkable athletic achievement, possibly the decisive shift in momentum in the team's direction after appearing for most of the series like the weaker side. To her, it was thrilling, on multiple levels, a much-required uplift for Latinos and for the city after months of enforcement actions, troops patrolling the streets, and a steady drumbeat of criticism from national leaders.

"The players put forth this alternative story," explained the professor. "The world saw Latinos showing an contagious enthusiasm in what they do, being leaders on the team, having a different kind of masculinity. They're energetic, they're yelling, they're taking off their shirts."

"This represented such a contrast 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 entirely straightforward to be a Dodgers supporter nowadays – for her or for the many of other Latinos who attend faithfully to home games and occupy as many as half of the stadium's fifty thousand seats per game.

A Mixed Relationship with the Organization

After intensified immigration raids started in Los Angeles in June, and national guard troops were sent into the city to react to resulting protests, two of the city's sports clubs promptly issued statements of solidarity with immigrant families – but not the baseball team.

Management has said the Dodgers prefer to stay away of political issues – a view influenced, possibly, by the reality that a significant portion of the fans, even some Hispanic fans, are supporters of current political figures. After considerable public pressure, the team subsequently committed $1m in aid for individuals directly affected by the operations but made no official condemnation of the administration.

White House Event and Historical Heritage

Months before, the team did not hesitate in accepting an offer to celebrate their previous World Series win at the White House – a decision that sports columnists labeled as "pathetic … weak … and contradictory", given the Dodgers' boast in having been the first professional franchise to break the color barrier in the mid-20th century and the frequent invocations of that history and the principles it embodies by executives and current and former athletes. A number of players including the manager had voiced reluctance to travel to the event during the first term but then changed their minds or gave in to pressure from the organization.

Corporate Ownership and Supporter Conflicts

A further issue for supporters is that the Dodgers are controlled by a corporate behemoth, Guggenheim Partners, whose equity holdings, according to media reports and its own published financial documents, involve a stake in a private prison corporation that runs enforcement centers. Guggenheim's executives has stated many times that it aims to stay out of politics, but its critics say the inaction – and the investment – are their own type of compliance to current policies.

These factors contribute to significant conflicted emotions among Latino fans in particular – feelings that surfaced even in the excitement of this year's hard-fought World Series victory and the following outpouring of team support across Los Angeles.

"Can one to support the Dodgers?" area writer Erick Galindo agonized at the start of the playoffs in an elegant essay pondering on "Dodger blue in our veins, but doubt in our hearts". He couldn't ultimately bring himself to watch the World Series, but he still felt deeply, to the extent that he believed his one-man boycott must have brought the squad the fortune it needed to succeed.

Separating the Team from the Management

Many supporters who have similar reservations seem to have concluded 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. Nowhere was this more clear than at the championship parade at the home venue on Monday, when the packed audience roared in support of the manager and his players but booed the team president and the chief executive of the ownership group.

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

Past Background and Neighborhood Effect

The issue, though, goes further than just the organization's current proprietors. The deal that brought the former franchise to Los Angeles in the late 1950s required the city demolishing three low-income Latino communities on a hill overlooking the city center and then selling the land to the team for a small part of its actual worth. A track on a 2005 album that documents the events has an low-income parking attendant at the stadium stating that the home he forfeited to eviction is now third base.

A prominent commentator, perhaps the region's most widely followed Mexican American writer and broadcaster, sees a darker side to the lengthy, dysfunctional relationship between the team and its fanbase. He calls the Dodgers the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a corporate entity with an undue, even unhealthy devotion by too many Latinos" that has been shortchanging its supporters for decades.

"They have acted around Hispanic followers while profiting from them with the other for so long because they have been able to get away with it," Arellano wrote over the summer, when calls to boycott the team over its lack of reaction to the enforcement actions were upended by the uncomfortable fact that turnout at matches did not dip, even at the height of the protests when the city center was under to a nightly curfew.

Global Stars and Fan Bonds

Distinguishing the squad from its business leadership is not a easy task, {