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In the eyes of Natalia Molina and longtime Mexican American, the crowning moment of the baseball championship didn't happen during the nail-biting final game last Saturday, when her squad pulled off one dramatic escape feat after another and then winning in extra innings over the Toronto Blue Jays.

It happened in the previous game, when two second-tier athletes, the Puerto Rican player and the Venezuelan infielder, pulled off a electrifying, game-winning sequence that simultaneously upended numerous negative stereotypes touted about Hispanic people in the past years.

The moment in itself was stunning: Hernández raced in from left field to snag a ball he initially lost in the bright lights, then fired it to the infield to secure another, decisive play. Rojas, at second base, caught the ball moments before a runner collided with him, knocking him backwards.

This wasn't just a great athletic moment, perhaps the decisive shift in momentum in the team's direction after appearing for much of the games like the underdog team. To her, it was thrilling, on multiple levels, a much-required uplift for the community and for the city after a period of immigration raids, troops patrolling the neighborhoods, and a constant drumbeat of negativity from official sources.

"The players presented this counter-narrative," explained Molina. "The world saw Latinos showing an infectious enthusiasm in what they do, being leaders on the team, having a distinct kind of confidence. They're energetic, they're cheering, they're removing their shirts."

"This represented such a juxtaposition with what we see on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos thrown to the ground and chased down. It's so simple to be demoralized these days."

Not that it's entirely simple to be a Dodgers fan these days – for her or for the many of other Latinos who show up faithfully to matches and occupy as many as half of the venue's 50,000 seats each time.

The Mixed Relationship with the Team

When intensified immigration raids began in Los Angeles in June, and military units were sent into the area to react to resulting demonstrations, two of the city's sports clubs quickly released statements of support with immigrant families – but not the baseball team.

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

White House Visit and Past Legacy

Three months earlier, the organization did not delay in agreeing to an invitation to celebrate their previous World Series win at the official residence – a decision that local writers described as "pathetic … weak … and hypocritical", given the Dodgers' pride in having been the first major league team to break the racial segregation in the mid-20th century and the regular references of that history and the principles it represents by executives and current and former players. A number of players such as the coach had expressed unwillingness to go to the event during the first term but either reconsidered or gave in to pressure from team management.

Business Control and Fan Dilemmas

An additional issue for supporters is that the team are owned by a corporate behemoth, Guggenheim Partners, whose equity holdings, according to sources and its own published financial documents, include a share in a private prison corporation that operates detention centers. Guggenheim's executives has said repeatedly that it wants to stay out of politics, but its detractors say the silence – and the investment – are their own form of acquiescence to certain agendas.

All of that add up to significant mixed feelings among Hispanic fans in particular – feelings that surfaced even in the euphoria of this year's hard-won championship triumph and the following outpouring of Dodgers pride across the city.

"Is it okay to support the Dodgers?" area writer one observer reflected at the start of the playoffs in an elegant article ruminating on "Dodger blue in our blood, but doubt in our minds". He was unable to ultimately bring himself to watch the World Series, but he still felt strongly, to the extent that he believed his personal protest must have brought the team the fortune it required to succeed.

Separating the Players from the Owners

Many fans who share Galindo's misgivings seem to have concluded that they can keep to support the players and its lineup of global stars, featuring the Asian megastar a key player, while expressing disdain on the organization's corporate overlords. 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 coach and his athletes but jeered the team president and the top official of the ownership group.

"These men in suits do not get to claim our boys in blue from us," Molina said. "We've been with the team for more time than they have."

Past Context and Neighborhood Impact

The issue, however, runs deeper than only the organization's present proprietors. The deal that brought the former franchise to Los Angeles in the late 1950s involved the municipality demolishing three low-income Latino communities on a elevated area overlooking downtown and then transferring the land to the organization for a fraction of its actual worth. A track on a 2005 record that chronicles the story has an impoverished worker at the venue stating that the home he forfeited to eviction is now third base.

A prominent commentator, possibly southern California most widely followed Mexican American columnist and broadcaster, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, problematic dynamic between the franchise and its audience. He describes the Dodgers the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a corporate entity with an excessive, even harmful devotion by too many Latinos" that has been exploiting its fans for decades.

"They've acted around Latino fans 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 demands to boycott the team over its lack of reaction to the enforcement actions were upended by the awkward reality that attendance at matches remained steady, even at the peak of the demonstrations when downtown LA was subject to a nightly restriction.

International Players and Fan Bonds

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