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In the eyes of a lifelong Dodgers fan and longtime Mexican American, the crowning moment of the baseball championship didn't happen during the tense final game on Saturday, when her squad executed one dramatic escape act after another and then winning in overtime over the Toronto Blue Jays.

It came in the previous game, when two second-tier athletes, Kike Hernández and the Venezuelan infielder, pulled off a electrifying, game-winning sequence that simultaneously upended many harmful misconceptions promoted about Latinos in the past years.

The moment itself was stunning: the outfielder charged in from left field to snag a ball he initially lost in the bright lights, then fired it to the infield to record another, decisive out. Rojas, at second base, caught the ball just a split second before a runner barreled into him, knocking him backwards.

This was not just a great athletic achievement, possibly the key shift in momentum in the team's direction after looking for much of the series like the underdog side. For Molina, it was exhilarating, politically and culturally, a much-required uplift for Latinos and for Los Angeles after months of immigration raids, troops patrolling the neighborhoods, and a constant stream of negativity from national leaders.

"Kike and Miggy presented this alternative story," 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 masculinity. They are bombastic, they're yelling, they're removing their shirts."

"It was such a juxtaposition with what we observe on the news – raids, Latinos thrown to the ground and chased down. It's so simple to be demoralized right now."

Not that it's exactly straightforward to be a Dodgers supporter these days – for Molina or for the many of other Latinos who attend faithfully to matches and fill up as many as 50% of the stadium's 50,000 seats each time.

The Complicated Relationship with the Team

After aggressive enforcement operations began in Los Angeles in June, and military troops were deployed into the city to respond to ensuing protests, two of the local sports teams quickly released statements of solidarity with affected communities – but not the baseball team.

Management has said the organization prefer to steer clear of political issues – a view influenced, possibly, by the reality that a sizable portion of the supporters, even some Hispanic fans, are supporters of current leaders. After significant public pressure, the organization subsequently committed $1m in support for families personally affected by the raids but issued no public criticism of the government.

White House Visit and Past Heritage

Three months earlier, the organization did not hesitate in accepting an offer to mark their previous World Series win at the official residence – a decision that sports writers labeled as "pathetic … weak … and contradictory", considering the Dodgers' boast in having been the first major league franchise to end the color barrier in the 1940s and the frequent references of that history and the principles it embodies by executives and present and past athletes. Several players including the manager had voiced reluctance to go to the event during the initial period but either reconsidered or gave in to pressure from team management.

Corporate Control and Fan Dilemmas

A further complication for supporters is that the Dodgers are owned by a large investment group, the ownership group, whose equity holdings, as per sources and its own published balance sheets, include a share in a detention corporation that operates enforcement facilities. Guggenheim's executives has stated repeatedly that it wants to remain neutral of political matters, but its critics say the inaction – and the investment – are their own type of acquiescence to certain policies.

All of that add up to significant mixed feelings among Hispanic fans in especial – feelings that surfaced even in the euphoria of this year's hard-fought World Series triumph and the following explosion of Dodgers support across Los Angeles.

"Can one to support the team?" area writer one observer reflected at the beginning of the playoffs in an elegant article ruminating on "Dodger blue in our blood, but uncertainty in our minds". Galindo couldn't ultimately bring himself to watch the World Series, but he still cared strongly, to the point that he believed his one-man protest must have given the squad the luck it needed to win.

Separating the Team from the Owners

Many supporters who have Galindo's misgivings seem to have decided that they can keep to support the players and its lineup of global stars, featuring the Japanese megastar a key player, while expressing disdain on the organization's business overlords. Nowhere was this more evident than at the victory celebration at the home venue on the following day, when the packed audience roared in approval of the manager and his players but booed the executive and the chief executive of the ownership group.

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

Historical Context and Neighborhood Impact

The issue, however, goes further than only the team's present proprietors. The agreement that moved the former franchise to the city in the 1950s required the city demolishing three working-class Hispanic communities on a elevated area above downtown and then transferring the land to the team for a small part of its actual worth. A track on a 2005 album that chronicles the events has an impoverished worker at the venue stating that the house he lost to removal is now third base.

A prominent commentator, possibly the region's most widely followed Latino writer and broadcaster, sees a more troubling side to the long, dysfunctional relationship between the team and its audience. He describes the team the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a business organization with an excessive, even harmful devotion by numerous Latinos" that has been exploiting its fans for years.

"They've acted around Hispanic fans while profiting from them with the other hand for so long because they have been able to get away with it," Arellano wrote over the summer, when calls to boycott the organization over its absence of reaction to the enforcement actions were upended by the uncomfortable reality that attendance at home games remained steady, even at the peak of the demonstrations when downtown LA was subject to a evening restriction.

International Stars and Fan Connections

Separating the squad from its business leadership is not a easy task, {