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For a lifelong Dodgers fan and third-generation Mexican American, the most memorable moment of the World Series didn't occur during the tense finale on Saturday, when her squad pulled off one dramatic escape act after another and then prevailing in overtime against the Toronto Blue Jays.

It came a game earlier, when two second-tier athletes, the Puerto Rican player and the Venezuelan infielder, pulled off a electrifying, game-winning play that at the same time upended many negative misconceptions touted about Latinos in the past decades.

The play itself was stunning: the outfielder raced in from the outfield to catch a ball he at first misjudged in the bright lights, then threw it to second base to secure another, game-winning out. Rojas, positioned nearby, caught the ball just a split second before a runner barreled into him, knocking him to the ground.

This was not merely a great sporting moment, perhaps the decisive shift in momentum in the team's favor after appearing for most of the series like the weaker team. For Molina, it was exhilarating, politically and culturally, a much-required morale boost for the community and for the city after a period of enforcement actions, troops monitoring the streets, and a steady drumbeat of negativity from official sources.

"Kike and Miggy presented this alternative story," explained Molina. "Everyone witnessed Latinos displaying an infectious pride and joy in what they do, being leaders on the team, having a distinct kind of confidence. They are energetic, they're yelling, 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 chased down. It is so easy to be demoralized these days."

However, it's entirely simple to be a team fan nowadays – for her or for the many of other fans who show up regularly to matches and occupy as many as 50% of the stadium's 50,000 spots per game.

A Complicated Relationship with the Team

After aggressive immigration raids started in the city in June, and military units were sent into the city to react to ensuing demonstrations, two of the city's sports teams quickly released messages of solidarity with immigrant families – while the Dodgers.

Management has said the Dodgers want to stay away of politics – a view colored, perhaps, by the reality that a significant portion of the supporters, even some Hispanic fans, are followers of current political figures. Under significant public pressure, the organization later pledged $1m in aid for individuals personally impacted by the operations but made no official criticism of the administration.

White House Event and Historical Heritage

Months before, the team did not delay in agreeing to an invitation to mark their previous championship win at the White House – a move that sports columnists described as "disappointing … weak … and hypocritical", given the Dodgers' pride in having been the first major league team to break the racial segregation in the mid-20th century and the regular references of that history and the principles it represents by executives and current and former players. Several team members such as the coach had expressed reluctance to go to the event during the initial period but either reconsidered or succumbed to demands from team management.

Corporate Ownership and Fan Dilemmas

A further issue for supporters is that the Dodgers are owned by a corporate behemoth, Guggenheim Partners, whose investments, according to media reports and its own published balance sheets, involve a stake in a detention company that runs detention facilities. Guggenheim's leadership has said repeatedly that it aims to remain neutral of political matters, but its detractors say the silence – and the financial stake – are their own type of compliance to current agendas.

All of that add up to considerable mixed feelings among Latino fans in particular – feelings that surfaced even in the excitement of this year's hard-won championship victory and the ensuing explosion of team pride across Los Angeles.

"Is it okay to root for the team?" area writer Erick Galindo agonized at the beginning of the playoffs in an elegant article pondering on "Dodger blue in our blood, but uncertainty in our hearts". Galindo was unable to ultimately bring himself to view the championship, but he still felt deeply, to the point that he decided his personal boycott must have brought the team the fortune it needed to succeed.

Distinguishing the Players from the Management

Numerous fans who share similar misgivings appear to have decided that they can keep to support the players and its roster of international stars, featuring the Asian superstar a key player, while expressing disdain on the organization's corporate overlords. At no place was this more clear than at the victory celebration at the home venue on Monday, when the packed audience roared in approval of the manager and his players but jeered the team president and the chief executive of the ownership group.

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

Past Background and Community Effect

The issue, however, runs deeper than only the team's present owners. The deal that brought the former franchise to Los Angeles in the 1950s required the city razing three low-income Latino neighborhoods on a elevated area above downtown and then transferring the land to the team for a small part of its actual worth. A song on a mid-2000s album that chronicles the events has an low-income worker at the stadium stating that the home he forfeited to eviction is now third base.

A prominent commentator, perhaps southern California most influential Latino writer and media personality, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, problematic dynamic between the franchise and its audience. He describes the team the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a business organization with an excessive, even harmful following by numerous Latinos" that has been shortchanging its fans for decades.

"They've acted around Latino fans while picking their pockets with the other for so long because they have been able to get away with it," the writer wrote over the warmer months, when demands to boycott the organization over its absence of reaction to the raids were contradicted by the uncomfortable fact that turnout at matches remained steady, even at the peak of the demonstrations when downtown LA was subject to a evening restriction.

Global Players and Fan Bonds

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