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For Natalia Molina and longtime Mexican American, the crowning moment of the World Series did not happen during the nail-biting final game last Saturday, when her team executed one dramatic comeback act after another before prevailing in extra innings over 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 thrilling, game-winning play that simultaneously challenged many harmful misconceptions promoted about Latinos in recent years.

The moment in itself was breathtaking: the outfielder raced in from the outfield to snag a ball he at first misjudged in the stadium lights, then threw it to second base to record another, game-winning play. Rojas, at second base, received the ball moments before a runner barreled into him, knocking him to the ground.

This was not merely a great sporting moment, possibly the key turn in the series in the team's direction after appearing for most of the games like the weaker team. For Molina, it was thrilling, on multiple levels, a badly needed morale boost for Latinos and for the city after a period of immigration raids, troops monitoring the neighborhoods, and a steady drumbeat of criticism from national leaders.

"The players put forth this alternative story," said Molina. "Everyone witnessed Latinos displaying an contagious pride and joy in what they do, being key figures on the team, exhibiting a distinct kind of masculinity. They are bombastic, they're cheering, they're removing their shirts."

"It was such a contrast with what we observe on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos detained and pursued. It's so simple to be disheartened these days."

However, it's entirely straightforward to be a team supporter these days – for Molina or for the legions of other fans who attend faithfully to home games and occupy as many as half of the venue's fifty thousand spots per game.

The Mixed Relationship with the Organization

When aggressive enforcement operations began in the city in June, and national guard units were sent into the city to react to ensuing demonstrations, two of the city's soccer clubs promptly issued statements of support with affected communities – but not the baseball team.

The team president has said the organization prefer to stay away of political issues – a view influenced, possibly, by the reality that a sizable minority of the fans, including some Hispanic fans, are supporters of certain leaders. After significant public pressure, the organization later committed $1m in support for individuals directly affected by the raids but made no public criticism of the government.

White House Event and Historical Heritage

Three months before, the organization did not delay in agreeing to an invitation to mark their previous championship victory at the official residence – a decision that local columnists labeled as "disappointing … weak … and hypocritical", considering the Dodgers' boast in having been the pioneering major league team to end the color barrier in the 1940s and the frequent references of that legacy and the principles it embodies by executives and present and former players. A number of team members such as the manager had expressed unwillingness to travel to the White House during the first term but either reconsidered or succumbed to pressure from team management.

Corporate Control and Fan Dilemmas

An additional issue for supporters is that the team are controlled by a large investment group, the ownership group, whose investments, according to sources and its own published financial documents, involve a stake in a private prison company that runs enforcement centers. The group's executives has said repeatedly that it aims to remain neutral of political matters, but its detractors say the inaction – and the financial stake – are their own form of acquiescence to certain policies.

All of that contribute to significant mixed feelings among Latino supporters in especial – feelings that emerged even in the euphoria of this year's hard-won World Series victory and the following outpouring of Dodgers support across Los Angeles.

"Can one to root for the Dodgers?" local writer Erick Galindo agonized at the start of the postseason in an thoughtful essay pondering on "team loyalty in our blood, but uncertainty in our hearts". Galindo couldn't ultimately bring himself to view the championship, but he still cared strongly, to the extent that he decided his one-man boycott must have brought the team the luck it needed to succeed.

Distinguishing the Team from the Management

Many fans who have Galindo's reservations appear to have concluded that they can continue to support the players and its roster of global players, featuring the Japanese megastar a key player, while pouring scorn on the organization's business overlords. At no place was this more clear than at the championship parade at Dodger Stadium on the following day, when the capacity crowd cheered in support of the coach and his players but booed the executive and the chief executive of the investors.

"The executives in suits do not get to take our players from us," the fan said. "We have been with the team longer than they have."

Past Background and Community Effect

The problem, however, goes further than just the organization's current proprietors. The deal that brought the former franchise to the city in the 1950s involved the municipality razing three low-income Hispanic communities on a hill above the city center and then transferring the property to the team for a small part of its market value. A song on a 2005 record that chronicles the events has an impoverished worker at the stadium revealing that the house he forfeited to removal is now third base.

A prominent commentator, perhaps the region's most widely followed Latino columnist and broadcaster, sees a darker side to the long, dysfunctional relationship between the franchise and its audience. He calls the Dodgers the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a corporate entity with an undue, even harmful following by numerous Latinos" that has been shortchanging its fans for decades.

"They have acted around Hispanic fans while profiting from them with the other for so much time because they have been able to get away with it," the writer wrote over the warmer months, when demands to avoid the team over its absence of reaction to the raids were upended by the awkward reality that attendance at matches did not dip, even at the height of the protests when downtown LA was under to a evening curfew.

Global Players and Community Connections

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