Los Angeles Dodgers Claim the World Series, Yet for Hispanic Fans, It's Not So Simple

For Natalia Molina and third-generation Mexican American, the most memorable highlight of the World Series didn't occur during the tense final game last Saturday, when her team executed one death-defying comeback feat after another before winning in extra innings against the opposing team.

It happened in the previous game, when two second-tier players, Kike Hernández and the Venezuelan infielder, executed a electrifying, decisive sequence that simultaneously upended many harmful misconceptions touted about Hispanic people in the past years.

The moment in itself was stunning: the outfielder charged in from the outfield to catch a ball he initially lost in the bright lights, then fired it to second base to secure another, decisive play. Rojas, at second base, received the ball moments before a runner barreled into him, sending him to the ground.

This wasn't merely a great sporting achievement, possibly the decisive shift in the series in the team's direction after appearing for much of the games like the underdog side. To her, it was thrilling, on multiple levels, a much-required morale boost for the community and for Los Angeles after months of enforcement actions, troops patrolling the streets, and a constant stream of negativity from national leaders.

"The players put forth this alternative story," explained the professor. "The world saw Latinos showing an infectious enthusiasm in what they do, acting as key figures on the team, exhibiting a distinct kind of confidence. They're energetic, they're cheering, they're removing 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 disheartened these days."

Not that it's entirely straightforward to be a Dodgers fan these days – for Molina or for the legions of other fans who show up faithfully to home games and fill up as many as 50% of the stadium's fifty thousand spots per game.

The Mixed Connection with the Organization

After intensified immigration raids began in Los Angeles in early June, and national guard units were deployed into the city to react to ensuing protests, two of the local soccer clubs quickly released statements of solidarity with affected communities – while the Dodgers.

Management stated the Dodgers want to steer clear of politics – a stance colored, perhaps, by the reality that a sizable minority of the fans, including some Hispanic fans, are supporters of current leaders. After significant public pressure, the team later committed $1m in support for individuals personally impacted by the raids but issued no public condemnation of the government.

Official Visit and Historical Heritage

Three months before, the team did not hesitate in agreeing to an offer to mark their previous World Series win at the White House – a move that local writers labeled as "pathetic … spineless … and contradictory", given the Dodgers' boast in having been the pioneering major league team to break the color barrier in the 1940s and the frequent invocations of that history and the values it embodies by officials and present and former players. A number of players including the coach had voiced unwillingness to travel to the event during the initial period but either reconsidered or succumbed to pressure from the organization.

Corporate Ownership and Supporter Conflicts

A further complication for fans is that the team are owned by a large investment group, Guggenheim Partners, whose investments, according to sources and its own released balance sheets, involve a stake in a private prison company that operates enforcement facilities. The group's leadership has stated repeatedly that it wants to remain neutral of politics, but its detractors say the inaction – and the financial stake – are their own form of compliance to certain policies.

These factors contribute to considerable mixed feelings among Latino fans in especial – sentiments that surfaced even in the euphoria of this year's hard-won championship victory and the ensuing outpouring of team support across the city.

"Is it okay to root for the Dodgers?" area columnist one observer agonized at the beginning of the postseason in an thoughtful article pondering on "team loyalty in our veins, but uncertainty in our minds". Galindo couldn't ultimately bring himself to view the championship, but he still felt strongly, to the point that he decided his personal protest must have given the squad the fortune it required to succeed.

Separating the Players from the Owners

Many fans who share Galindo's misgivings appear to have decided that they can continue to back the players and its lineup of global players, including the Japanese megastar a key player, while pouring scorn on the organization's corporate leadership. At no place was this more clear than at the victory celebration at Dodger Stadium on the following day, when the packed audience cheered in approval of the manager and his athletes but jeered the team president and the chief executive of the ownership group.

"These men in formal attire do not get to claim our players from us," the fan said. "We have been with the team longer than they have."

Past Background and Neighborhood Impact

The problem, though, goes further than just the organization's current owners. The agreement that brought the former franchise to the city in the 1950s required the municipality demolishing three working-class Latino communities on a elevated area overlooking the city center and then transferring the property to the organization for a fraction of its market value. A track on a mid-2000s record that documents the story has an low-income parking attendant at the venue revealing that the home he lost to eviction is now a part of the field.

Gustavo Arellano, possibly the region's most widely followed Latino columnist and broadcaster, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, dysfunctional relationship between the franchise and its audience. He describes the team the popular snack of baseball, "a corporate entity with an excessive, even harmful devotion by too many Latinos" that has been shortchanging its fans for years.

"They've acted around Latino fans while profiting from them with the other hand for so long because they have been able to avoid consequences," the writer wrote over the warmer months, when demands to boycott the team over its absence of response to the raids were contradicted by the uncomfortable reality that turnout at matches did not dip, even at the peak of the protests when the city center was under to a evening curfew.

Global Players and Fan Bonds

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