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In the eyes of Natalia Molina and longtime Mexican American, the most memorable moment of the World Series didn't happen during the nail-biting finale last Saturday, when her team executed one dramatic comeback act after another before prevailing in overtime over the opposing team.

It happened a game earlier, when two second-tier athletes, Kike Hernández and the Venezuelan infielder, pulled off a thrilling, game-winning sequence that at the same time upended many negative misconceptions promoted about Hispanic people in recent decades.

The play in itself was stunning: the outfielder raced in from left field to catch a ball he at first lost in the bright lights, then threw it to the infield to secure another, game-winning play. Rojas, positioned nearby, received the ball just a split second before a opposing player barreled into him, sending him backwards.

This was not merely a great athletic moment, perhaps the decisive turn in momentum in the Dodgers' direction after looking for much of the games like the underdog team. For Molina, it was thrilling, on multiple levels, a badly needed morale boost for the community and for Los Angeles after months of immigration raids, troops monitoring the neighborhoods, and a steady stream of negativity from official sources.

"The players put forth this counter-narrative," said the professor. "Everyone witnessed Latinos displaying an contagious pride and joy in what they do, being key figures on the team, having a distinct kind of confidence. They are energetic, they're cheering, they're removing their shirts."

"It was such a juxtaposition with what we observe on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos detained and pursued. It's so simple to be demoralized right now."

Not that it's exactly straightforward to be a team supporter these days – for her or for the legions of other Latinos who show up regularly to home games and occupy as many as half of the venue's 50,000 seats per game.

The Mixed Relationship with the Organization

After aggressive enforcement operations started in the city in June, and military troops were deployed into the city to react to ensuing demonstrations, two of the local sports teams promptly issued messages of solidarity with immigrant families – but not the Dodgers.

Management has said the organization want to steer clear of politics – a stance influenced, possibly, by the reality that a significant portion of the fans, including some Hispanic fans, are supporters of current political figures. After significant public pressure, the team later pledged $1m in support for families personally affected by the raids but issued no public condemnation of the administration.

Official Visit and Historical Heritage

Months earlier, the team did not delay in agreeing to an invitation to celebrate their previous World Series victory at the official residence – a move that local writers labeled as "disappointing … weak … and hypocritical", given the Dodgers' pride in having been the first major league team to end the color barrier in the 1940s and the regular invocations of that legacy and the values it represents by officials and current and past athletes. Several players such as the coach had expressed reluctance to travel to the event during the initial period but then changed their minds or gave in to demands from team management.

Business Ownership and Supporter Dilemmas

A further complication for supporters is that the Dodgers are owned by a corporate behemoth, Guggenheim Partners, whose equity holdings, according to media reports and its own published financial documents, involve a share in a private prison company that operates enforcement facilities. The group's leadership has said repeatedly that it wants to stay out of politics, but its critics say the inaction – and the investment – are their own form of compliance to current agendas.

All of that add up to considerable conflicted emotions among Latino fans in particular – sentiments that surfaced even in the euphoria of this season's hard-fought World Series triumph and the ensuing explosion of Dodgers support across Los Angeles.

"Can one to support the team?" area columnist Erick Galindo agonized at the start of the postseason in an elegant article ruminating on "Dodger blue in our blood, but doubt in our hearts". Galindo was unable to ultimately bring himself to watch the World Series, but he still felt deeply, to the point that he decided his personal boycott must have brought the team the fortune it required to succeed.

Distinguishing the Team from the Owners

Many fans who have Galindo's misgivings seem to have concluded that they can keep to support the players and its roster of international players, featuring the Asian megastar a key player, while expressing disdain on the team's business leadership. At no place was this more evident than at the championship parade at Dodger Stadium on Monday, when the capacity crowd roared in approval of the manager and his athletes but jeered the team president and the chief executive of the investors.

"The executives in suits don't get to claim our players from us," the fan said. "We have been with the team longer than they have."

Historical Context and Neighborhood Effect

The problem, though, goes further than only the team's current proprietors. The deal that moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles in the late 1950s involved the city razing three low-income Hispanic neighborhoods on a elevated area above downtown and then transferring the property to the team for a small part of its actual worth. A track on a mid-2000s record that documents the events has an low-income worker at the stadium revealing that the home he lost to removal is now third base.

Gustavo Arellano, possibly the region's most widely followed Latino columnist and media personality, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, dysfunctional relationship between the team and its fanbase. He calls the team the popular snack of baseball, "a business organization with an undue, even unhealthy devotion by too many Latinos" that has been shortchanging its supporters for decades.

"They have acted around Hispanic followers while picking their pockets with the other hand for so much time because they have been able to avoid consequences," the writer noted over the summer, when calls to boycott the organization over its lack of response to the enforcement actions were upended by the uncomfortable reality that turnout at home games remained steady, even at the peak of the demonstrations when the city center was under to a evening restriction.

International Players and Fan Connections

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