🔗 Share this article

In the eyes of a lifelong Dodgers fan and longtime Mexican American, the most memorable highlight of the baseball championship did not occur during the tense final game last Saturday, when her squad pulled off one death-defying escape feat after another and then prevailing in extra innings over the Toronto Blue Jays.

It came a game earlier, when two second-tier players, the Puerto Rican player and the Venezuelan infielder, executed a electrifying, game-winning sequence that at the same time challenged many harmful misconceptions promoted about Latinos in recent years.

The moment in itself was breathtaking: Hernández raced in from the outfield to catch a ball he initially lost in the stadium lights, then fired it to the infield to record another, decisive play. the second baseman, positioned nearby, received the ball moments before a runner barreled into him, knocking him to the ground.

This was not just a remarkable sporting moment, perhaps the key turn in momentum in the Dodgers' direction after appearing for much of the series like the weaker side. For Molina, it was exhilarating, on multiple levels, a badly needed morale boost for the community and for the city after a period of immigration raids, security forces patrolling the neighborhoods, and a steady drumbeat of criticism from official sources.

"The players presented this alternative story," explained Molina. "The world saw Latinos showing an contagious pride and joy 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."

"It was such a juxtaposition with what we observe on the news – enforcement actions, Latinos thrown to the ground and chased down. It is so easy to be demoralized right now."

Not that it's entirely simple to be a team 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 fifty thousand seats each time.

The Mixed Relationship with the Organization

When aggressive immigration raids started in Los Angeles in June, and national guard troops were sent into the city to respond to resulting protests, two of the city's soccer clubs quickly released statements of support with immigrant families – while the Dodgers.

Management stated the organization want to steer clear of political issues – a stance colored, perhaps, by the fact that a sizable portion of the fans, including some Hispanic fans, are supporters of certain political figures. Under significant external demands, the team later committed $one million in support for families personally affected by the operations but issued no public condemnation of the administration.

White House Event and Past Legacy

Months earlier, the organization did not delay in agreeing to an invitation to celebrate their 2024 World Series victory at the official residence – a move that local writers labeled as "pathetic … spineless … and hypocritical", given the Dodgers' boast in having been the pioneering major league team to end the racial segregation in the 1940s and the frequent invocations of that history and the principles it embodies by officials and current and former players. A number of players such as the manager had expressed unwillingness to go to the White House during the first term but either changed their minds or gave in to demands from the organization.

Corporate Control and Supporter Conflicts

An additional complication for fans is that the team are controlled by a corporate behemoth, Guggenheim Partners, whose investments, according to media reports and its own released balance sheets, include a stake in a private prison corporation that operates detention centers. The group's executives has stated many times that it wants to remain neutral of political matters, but its critics say the inaction – and the investment – are their own type of compliance to certain policies.

These factors add up to considerable conflicted emotions among Latino fans in particular – feelings that surfaced even in the euphoria of this year's hard-fought championship triumph and the ensuing explosion of team support across the city.

"Is it okay to support the Dodgers?" area columnist one observer agonized at the beginning of the playoffs in an thoughtful article pondering on "Dodger blue in our veins, but doubt in our hearts". He was unable to ultimately bring himself to watch the World Series, but he still felt strongly, to the point that he believed his personal protest must have given the team the fortune it needed to win.

Separating the Players from the Owners

Many fans who have Galindo's reservations appear to have concluded that they can continue to support the players and its lineup of international stars, featuring the Asian superstar a key player, while pouring scorn on the team's corporate leadership. At no place was this more evident than at the championship parade at the home venue on Monday, when the packed audience roared in support of the manager and his athletes but booed the team president and the top official of the ownership group.

"The executives in formal attire do not get to take our boys in blue from us," Molina said. "We have been with the Dodgers for more time than they have."

Past Background and Neighborhood Impact

The problem, however, goes further than just the team's current proprietors. The agreement that moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to the city in the 1950s involved the municipality demolishing three low-income Hispanic neighborhoods on a hill above the city center and then selling the land to the organization for a fraction of its actual worth. A song on a mid-2000s record that documents the events has an low-income parking attendant at the stadium stating that the house he lost to eviction is now third base.

Gustavo Arellano, possibly southern California most influential Mexican American columnist and media personality, sees a more troubling side to the long, problematic dynamic between the franchise and its audience. He describes the Dodgers the popular snack of baseball, "a business organization with an excessive, even harmful following by too many Latinos" that has been exploiting its supporters for years.

"They've acted around Hispanic followers while picking their pockets with the other hand for so long because they have been able to get away with it," the writer noted over the warmer months, when calls to boycott the organization over its lack of reaction to the raids were upended by the uncomfortable reality that turnout at home games did not dip, even at the height of the protests when downtown LA was subject to a nightly restriction.

Global Players and Fan Bonds

Separating the team from its business leadership is not a simple matter, {