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For a lifelong Dodgers fan and longtime Mexican American, the crowning moment of the baseball championship did not happen during the tense finale last Saturday, when her team executed one death-defying escape feat after another before prevailing in overtime over the Toronto Blue Jays.

It happened a game earlier, when two supporting players, the Puerto Rican player and Miguel Rojas, pulled off a electrifying, decisive sequence that at the same time upended numerous negative stereotypes touted about Hispanic people in the past years.

The play itself was stunning: the outfielder raced in from the outfield to snag a ball he at first lost in the bright lights, then threw it to second base to record another, decisive play. Rojas, at second base, received the ball moments before a runner barreled into him, sending him backwards.

This was not just a great athletic achievement, possibly the key shift in the series in the Dodgers' direction after appearing for most of the games like the weaker team. For Molina, it was exhilarating, on multiple levels, a badly needed morale boost for the community and for the city after a period of immigration raids, security forces patrolling the neighborhoods, and a steady drumbeat of negativity from national leaders.

"The players put forth this alternative story," said Molina. "The world witnessed Latinos showing an contagious pride and joy in what they do, being leaders on the team, having a distinct kind of masculinity. They are energetic, they're cheering, they're taking off their shirts."

"It was such a juxtaposition with what we see on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos thrown to the ground and pursued. It's so simple to be demoralized right now."

Not that it's exactly straightforward to be a Dodgers supporter nowadays – for her or for the many of other fans who show up faithfully to matches and fill up as many as half of the venue's 50,000 seats per game.

The Complicated Relationship with the Team

When intensified immigration raids started in the city in June, and military troops were deployed into the area to respond to resulting demonstrations, two of the local soccer clubs quickly released messages of solidarity with affected communities – but not the Dodgers.

The team president stated the organization want to steer clear of political issues – a stance colored, possibly, by the reality that a significant portion of the fans, including some Hispanic fans, are supporters of current political figures. After considerable external demands, the organization subsequently committed $1m in aid for individuals personally affected by the operations but made no official condemnation of the administration.

White House Event and Past Heritage

Three months earlier, the team did not delay in accepting an invitation to celebrate their previous championship win at the official residence – a decision that local writers labeled as "disappointing … weak … and hypocritical", considering the team's boast in having been the first major league team to break the color barrier in the mid-20th century and the frequent invocations of that legacy and the principles it embodies by officials and current and former athletes. Several players such as the manager had voiced unwillingness to travel to the White House during the first term but either reconsidered or gave in to pressure from team management.

Corporate Ownership and Supporter Dilemmas

An additional complication for fans is that the Dodgers are controlled by a large investment group, Guggenheim Partners, whose investments, as per sources and its own released financial documents, involve a share in a detention company that runs detention facilities. Guggenheim's executives has stated repeatedly that it aims to remain neutral of political matters, but its detractors say the inaction – and the financial stake – are their own type of acquiescence to certain policies.

These factors contribute to considerable mixed feelings among Latino fans in especial – sentiments that emerged even in the excitement of this year's hard-won World Series triumph and the ensuing explosion of Dodgers pride across the city.

"Can one to support the team?" area writer Erick Galindo reflected at the start of the playoffs in an thoughtful article ruminating on "Dodger blue in our blood, but uncertainty in our minds". He couldn't ultimately bring himself to watch the championship, but he still cared deeply, to the point that he decided his one-man boycott must have given the squad the luck it needed to succeed.

Separating the Team from the Owners

Many supporters who have similar reservations seem to have concluded that they can keep to support the players and its lineup of global stars, featuring the Asian megastar a key player, while pouring scorn on the organization's business overlords. At no place was this more clear than at the victory celebration at the home venue on the following day, when the packed audience cheered in support of the manager and his players but jeered the team president and the chief executive of the investors.

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

Historical Context and Community Effect

The problem, however, goes further than only the team's current proprietors. The agreement that moved the former franchise to the city in the late 1950s required the municipality razing three working-class Hispanic neighborhoods on a elevated area above the city center and then transferring the property to the team for a small part of its market value. A track on a 2005 album that documents the events has an impoverished parking attendant at the venue revealing that the home he lost to removal is now a part of the field.

Gustavo Arellano, possibly southern California most influential Latino columnist and broadcaster, sees a darker side to the long, dysfunctional dynamic between the franchise and its audience. He calls the Dodgers the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a corporate entity with an undue, even unhealthy following by numerous Latinos" that has been shortchanging its fans for years.

"They've acted around Hispanic 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 calls to avoid the team over its absence of response to the raids were upended by the awkward reality that turnout at home games remained steady, even at the height of the demonstrations when downtown LA was under to a evening restriction.

Global Players and Fan Connections

Distinguishing the team from its corporate owners is not a simple matter, {