The LA Dodgers Win the Championship, Yet for Latino Supporters, It's Complicated

In the eyes of Natalia Molina and longtime Mexican American, the crowning highlight of the baseball championship did not occur during the nail-biting finale last Saturday, when her team pulled off multiple death-defying comeback act after another before winning in extra innings against the Toronto Blue Jays.

It happened a game earlier, when two second-tier players, Kike Hernández and the Venezuelan infielder, pulled off a thrilling, game-winning play that at the same time upended many harmful misconceptions touted about Hispanic people in recent decades.

The moment in itself was stunning: the outfielder charged in from left field to snag a ball he at first lost in the bright lights, then threw it to second base to secure another, game-winning out. Rojas, at second base, caught the ball just a split second before a opposing player collided with him, knocking him backwards.

This wasn't just a remarkable sporting moment, perhaps the key shift in the series in the team's favor after appearing for most of the series like the underdog side. To her, it was exhilarating, politically and culturally, a much-required morale boost for the community and for the city after months of immigration raids, security forces patrolling the neighborhoods, and a steady stream of negativity from official sources.

"Kike and Miggy presented this counter-narrative," said Molina. "The world saw Latinos displaying an infectious pride and joy in what they do, acting as 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 juxtaposition with what we see on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos thrown to the ground and pursued. It's so simple to be demoralized these days."

Not that it's exactly simple to be a Dodgers supporter nowadays – for Molina or for the many of other fans who attend regularly to home games and occupy as many as 50% of the venue's 50,000 seats each time.

A Complicated Relationship with the Organization

After aggressive immigration raids began in Los Angeles in early June, and military troops were sent into the area to react to resulting demonstrations, two of the local sports teams promptly released messages of support with affected communities – but not the Dodgers.

Management stated the Dodgers prefer to steer clear of politics – a stance influenced, perhaps, by the fact that a sizable minority of the supporters, even Latinos, are followers of current political figures. Under considerable public pressure, the organization subsequently committed $1m in aid for families directly affected by the operations but made no official criticism of the government.

White House Event and Historical Heritage

Three months earlier, the organization did not hesitate in accepting an invitation to celebrate their previous World Series victory at the White House – a decision that local columnists described as "pathetic … spineless … and hypocritical", considering the team's pride in having been the first major league team to end the racial segregation in the mid-20th century and the regular references of that legacy and the values it embodies by officials and present and past players. Several players including the manager had expressed unwillingness to go to the event during the first term but either changed their minds or gave in to demands from team management.

Corporate Control and Fan Conflicts

An additional issue for fans is that the Dodgers are owned by a large investment group, Guggenheim Partners, whose investments, according to sources and its own published financial documents, involve a stake in a private prison corporation that operates enforcement centers. The group's leadership has said repeatedly that it wants to remain neutral of political matters, but its critics say the silence – and the financial stake – are their own form of acquiescence to certain agendas.

All of that contribute to considerable mixed feelings among Latino fans in particular – feelings that emerged even in the euphoria of this year's hard-won World Series victory and the ensuing outpouring of team pride across the city.

"Can one to support the team?" area columnist Erick Galindo reflected at the start of the playoffs in an elegant essay pondering on "Dodger blue in our blood, but uncertainty in our minds". He was unable to finally bring himself to watch the championship, but he still cared strongly, to the point that he decided his personal protest must have given the team the fortune it required to succeed.

Distinguishing the Team from the Owners

Many fans who have Galindo's misgivings appear to have concluded that they can keep to back the team and its roster of global stars, including the Japanese megastar Shohei Ohtani, while expressing disdain on the team's corporate leadership. At no place was this more clear than at the championship parade at Dodger Stadium on the following day, when the packed audience cheered in approval of the coach and his players but booed the executive and the top official of the ownership group.

"These men in formal attire do not get to claim our boys in blue from us," the fan said. "We've been with the Dodgers longer than they have."

Past Context and Community Impact

The issue, though, runs deeper than only the organization's present owners. The deal that brought the Brooklyn Dodgers to the city in the 1950s involved the city razing three low-income Latino neighborhoods on a hill overlooking the city center and then transferring the property to the team for a small part of its actual worth. A song on a mid-2000s album that documents the story has an impoverished parking attendant at the venue stating that the home he forfeited to eviction is now a part of the field.

A prominent commentator, possibly southern California most widely followed Latino columnist and broadcaster, sees a darker side to the long, problematic relationship between the franchise and its fanbase. He describes the team the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a business organization with an undue, even unhealthy devotion by too many Latinos" that has been shortchanging its fans for years.

"They have put one arm around Hispanic fans while picking their pockets with the other hand for so much time because they have been able to avoid consequences," Arellano wrote over the warmer months, when calls to boycott the team over its lack of reaction to the raids were upended by the uncomfortable fact that attendance at matches did not dip, even at the peak of the demonstrations when the city center was under to a nightly curfew.

International Players and Community Connections

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