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For Natalia Molina and longtime Mexican American, the crowning moment of the World Series did not happen during the nail-biting finale last Saturday, when her team pulled off one dramatic comeback feat after another before winning in overtime over the Toronto Blue Jays.

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

The play itself was stunning: the outfielder raced in from left field to snag a ball he initially misjudged in the bright lights, then threw it to the infield to record another, game-winning out. Rojas, positioned nearby, received the ball just a split second before a runner barreled into him, knocking him backwards.

This was not merely a remarkable sporting moment, perhaps the key turn in momentum in the Dodgers' favor after looking for most of the series like the underdog team. To her, it was exhilarating, politically and culturally, a badly needed morale boost for Latinos and for Los Angeles after months of enforcement actions, security forces patrolling the neighborhoods, and a steady drumbeat of criticism from official sources.

"Kike and Miggy presented this counter-narrative," said Molina. "The world saw Latinos displaying an infectious enthusiasm in what they do, acting as key figures on the team, exhibiting a different kind of masculinity. They are energetic, they're cheering, they're taking off their shirts."

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

However, it's exactly simple to be a team fan these days – for her or for the many of other Latinos who attend regularly to home games and fill up as many as 50% of the venue's 50,000 spots each time.

The Mixed Connection with the Team

When intensified immigration raids started in Los Angeles in early June, and military troops were sent into the city to respond to resulting protests, two of the local soccer clubs quickly issued statements of support with affected communities – but not the Dodgers.

The team president stated the organization want to steer clear of politics – a view influenced, perhaps, by the reality that a sizable minority of the supporters, even some Hispanic fans, are supporters of current leaders. Under considerable public pressure, the team subsequently pledged $1m in aid for individuals directly impacted by the raids but issued no official condemnation of the administration.

White House Event and Past Legacy

Months before, the team did not hesitate in accepting an invitation to mark their previous championship victory at the White House – a move that local writers labeled as "disappointing … weak … and contradictory", given the team's pride in having been the pioneering professional team to break the color barrier in the 1940s and the regular invocations of that legacy and the principles it represents by officials and current and former athletes. Several players such as the coach had voiced unwillingness to travel to the event during the initial period but then changed their minds or gave in to demands from the organization.

Corporate Ownership and Supporter Conflicts

A further complication for fans is that the Dodgers are owned by a large investment group, the ownership group, whose equity holdings, according to sources and its own released balance sheets, involve a share in a private prison company that runs enforcement facilities. The group's executives has said many times that it wants to remain neutral of political matters, but its detractors say the inaction – and the investment – are their own type of acquiescence to current agendas.

These factors contribute to considerable conflicted emotions among Latino fans in especial – sentiments that emerged even in the euphoria of this season's hard-won World Series triumph and the following explosion of Dodgers pride across the city.

"Is it okay to root for the team?" area columnist one observer reflected at the start of the playoffs in an thoughtful article pondering on "team loyalty in our veins, but doubt in our minds". Galindo was unable to ultimately bring himself to watch the championship, but he still felt strongly, to the extent that he decided his personal protest must have brought the team the fortune it required to succeed.

Distinguishing the Players from the Management

Many fans who have similar misgivings appear to have decided that they can continue to support the players and its roster of international players, featuring the Japanese megastar a key player, while expressing disdain on the team's business leadership. At no place was this more clear 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 jeered the executive and the chief executive of the ownership group.

"The executives in formal attire don't get to take our players from us," Molina said. "We've been with the Dodgers longer than they have."

Past Context and Community Impact

The issue, though, goes further than only the team's present proprietors. The agreement that brought the former franchise to the city in the 1950s involved the city razing three low-income Latino neighborhoods on a elevated area above downtown and then transferring the land to the team for a fraction of its actual worth. A song on a 2005 album that documents the events has an impoverished parking attendant at the stadium revealing that the home he lost to eviction is now a part of the field.

Gustavo Arellano, perhaps the region's most widely followed Latino columnist and media personality, sees a more troubling side to the lengthy, dysfunctional dynamic between the franchise and its audience. He describes the Dodgers the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of baseball, "a business organization with an excessive, even unhealthy devotion by too many Latinos" that has been exploiting its supporters for decades.

"They have put one arm around Hispanic 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 summer, when demands to boycott the organization over its lack of response to the enforcement actions were upended by the awkward reality that turnout at home games remained steady, even at the height of the demonstrations when downtown LA was subject to a nightly curfew.

Global Stars and Fan Bonds

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