🔗 Share this article

In the eyes of a lifelong Dodgers fan and longtime Mexican American, the crowning highlight of the baseball championship didn't occur during the nail-biting finale last Saturday, when her squad pulled off one death-defying comeback act after another and then prevailing in extra innings against the opposing team.

It happened 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 numerous negative stereotypes promoted about Hispanic people in recent years.

The moment in itself was stunning: the outfielder raced in from left field to catch a ball he initially lost in the stadium lights, then fired it to the infield to record another, game-winning out. Rojas, at second base, caught the ball just a split second before a runner collided with him, knocking him backwards.

This was not merely a great sporting moment, perhaps the decisive shift in the series in the Dodgers' favor after looking for most of the games like the underdog team. To her, it was exhilarating, politically and culturally, a much-required morale boost for Latinos and for Los Angeles after a period of enforcement actions, security forces patrolling the streets, and a steady stream of negativity from national leaders.

"The players put forth this alternative story," explained the professor. "Everyone saw Latinos showing an infectious enthusiasm in what they do, acting as leaders on the team, exhibiting a distinct kind of masculinity. They're bombastic, they're cheering, they're removing 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 right now."

However, it's entirely straightforward to be a Dodgers fan these days – for Molina or for the legions of other fans who attend regularly to matches and occupy as many as 50% of the venue's fifty thousand spots per game.

The Mixed Relationship with the Team

When intensified enforcement operations began in the city in June, and military troops were sent into the area to respond to resulting demonstrations, two of the local sports teams quickly issued statements of support with affected communities – while the Dodgers.

The team president stated the Dodgers prefer to steer clear of politics – a stance influenced, possibly, by the fact that a significant minority of the supporters, even some Hispanic fans, are supporters of current leaders. Under considerable external demands, the organization subsequently pledged $one million in aid for individuals personally impacted by the raids but made no official condemnation of the government.

White House Visit and Historical Legacy

Months before, the organization did not delay in accepting an offer to celebrate their 2024 World Series win at the official residence – a move that local writers labeled as "pathetic … weak … and contradictory", considering the Dodgers' boast in having been the first professional team to break the racial segregation in the mid-20th century and the regular invocations of that legacy and the principles it represents by executives and current and past players. A number of players including the coach had expressed unwillingness to go to the White House during the first term but either reconsidered or gave in to pressure from team management.

Corporate Control and Fan Conflicts

A further complication for fans is that the team are owned by a large investment group, the ownership group, whose equity holdings, as per media reports and its own released financial documents, include a stake in a private prison company that runs enforcement centers. Guggenheim's leadership has stated many times that it wants to remain neutral of political matters, but its critics say the silence – and the investment – are their own form of acquiescence to current policies.

These factors contribute to significant conflicted emotions among Latino supporters in particular – feelings that emerged even in the excitement of this season's hard-won championship victory and the ensuing outpouring of team support across Los Angeles.

"Is it okay to support the Dodgers?" local writer Erick Galindo reflected at the beginning of the postseason in an thoughtful article pondering on "team loyalty in our blood, but uncertainty in our minds". Galindo couldn't finally bring himself to watch the championship, but he still felt deeply, to the extent that he decided his personal protest must have brought the team the luck it required to win.

Distinguishing the Players from the Owners

Numerous supporters who have Galindo's misgivings appear to have concluded that they can continue to support the team and its roster of international players, featuring the Asian megastar a key player, while pouring scorn on the team's business leadership. Nowhere was this more clear than at the victory celebration at the home venue on Monday, when the packed audience cheered in support of the coach and his athletes but jeered the executive and the top official of the investors.

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

Historical Background and Neighborhood Impact

The issue, though, runs deeper than just the team's present owners. The deal that brought the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles in the 1950s required the municipality demolishing three low-income Hispanic communities on a elevated area overlooking the city center and then transferring the property to the organization for a fraction of its actual worth. A track on a mid-2000s album that documents the events has an impoverished parking attendant at the stadium stating that the house he forfeited to removal is now a part of the field.

A prominent commentator, perhaps the region's most influential Mexican American columnist and broadcaster, sees a darker side to the lengthy, problematic dynamic between the team and its audience. He describes the team the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a corporate entity with an excessive, even unhealthy devotion by numerous Latinos" that has been exploiting its fans for decades.

"They have put one arm around Latino fans while picking their pockets with the other hand for so much time because they have been able to get away with it," Arellano wrote over the warmer months, when demands to avoid the team over its absence of reaction to the enforcement actions were upended by the uncomfortable fact that attendance at home games did not dip, even at the height of the demonstrations when the city center was under to a evening curfew.

Global Players and Community Connections

Separating the team from its corporate owners is not a easy task, {