Los Angeles Dodgers Claim the Championship, However for Latino Supporters, It's Complicated
For a lifelong Dodgers fan and third-generation Mexican American, the crowning moment of the World Series didn't happen during the tense final game last Saturday, when her squad pulled off multiple dramatic escape act after another and then winning in overtime against the Toronto Blue Jays.
It happened a game earlier, when two second-tier players, the Puerto Rican player and the Venezuelan infielder, executed a electrifying, game-winning sequence that simultaneously upended numerous harmful stereotypes touted about Hispanic people in recent decades.
The moment in itself was breathtaking: HernΓ‘ndez charged in from the outfield to catch a ball he at first misjudged in the bright lights, then threw it to the infield to secure another, game-winning play. Rojas, at second base, received the ball moments before a runner collided with him, sending him to the ground.
This was not just a great athletic moment, perhaps the decisive shift in the series in the Dodgers' direction after looking for much of the games like the underdog side. For Molina, it was thrilling, politically and culturally, a much-required morale boost for the community and for Los Angeles after a period of enforcement actions, troops monitoring the neighborhoods, and a steady drumbeat of negativity from official sources.
"Kike and Miggy presented this alternative story," explained the professor. "The world saw Latinos showing an infectious pride and joy in what they do, acting as key figures on the team, having a different kind of confidence. They are bombastic, they're cheering, they're removing their shirts."
"It was such a contrast with what we see on the news β enforcement actions, Latinos thrown to the ground and pursued. It is so easy to be demoralized right now."
However, it's entirely simple to be a Dodgers supporter these days β for her or for the many of other fans who show up regularly to matches and fill up as many as half of the venue's 50,000 seats each time.
A Mixed Connection with the Organization
When aggressive immigration raids started in the city in early June, and national guard units were deployed into the area to respond to resulting demonstrations, two of the local sports teams promptly issued messages of support with affected communities β but not the baseball team.
The team president has said the Dodgers prefer to steer clear of politics β a stance colored, possibly, by the fact that a sizable portion of the supporters, including Latinos, are supporters of certain leaders. After significant public pressure, the team subsequently pledged $1m in support for families personally affected by the operations but issued no public condemnation of the government.
White House Visit and Past Heritage
Three months earlier, the organization did not hesitate in accepting an invitation to celebrate their previous championship win at the official residence β a move that local columnists described as "pathetic β¦ weak β¦ and hypocritical", given the Dodgers' pride in having been the first major league team to break the color barrier in the mid-20th century and the frequent references of that history and the values it represents by officials and present and former players. Several players such as the coach had expressed unwillingness to travel to the event during the initial period but either changed their minds or gave in to demands from the organization.
Business Control and Supporter Conflicts
An additional complication for fans is that the Dodgers are owned by a corporate behemoth, the ownership group, whose equity holdings, as per sources and its own published financial documents, include a share in a detention corporation that operates enforcement centers. The group's executives has stated many times that it aims to stay out of politics, but its critics say the silence β and the investment β are their own form of acquiescence to certain agendas.
All of that add up to considerable conflicted emotions among Hispanic fans in especial β sentiments that surfaced even in the euphoria of this season's hard-fought championship victory and the following explosion of Dodgers pride across the city.
"Is it okay to root for the Dodgers?" local columnist one observer reflected at the start of the postseason in an thoughtful essay ruminating on "team loyalty in our veins, but uncertainty in our minds". He couldn't ultimately bring himself to watch the World Series, but he still felt deeply, to the point that he believed his personal protest must have given the team the fortune it needed to succeed.
Distinguishing the Players from the Owners
Many fans who share similar reservations appear to have decided that they can keep to back the players and its lineup of international players, including the Asian superstar a key player, while expressing disdain on the team's business overlords. Nowhere was this more evident than at the victory celebration at the home venue on the following day, when the capacity crowd roared in support of the coach and his players but jeered the team president and the top official of the investors.
"These men in suits do not get to claim our players from us," Molina said. "We have been with the Dodgers longer than they have."
Historical Background and Neighborhood Impact
The issue, though, runs deeper than just the team's present proprietors. The deal that brought the Brooklyn Dodgers to the city in the 1950s involved the municipality razing three working-class Hispanic communities on a elevated area overlooking the city center and then transferring the land to the organization for a small part of its actual worth. A song on a 2005 record that documents the events has an impoverished parking attendant at the stadium revealing that the house he lost to eviction is now a part of the field.
A prominent commentator, perhaps southern California most widely followed Latino columnist and media personality, sees a darker side to the long, problematic relationship between the team and its audience. He describes the Dodgers the popular snack of baseball, "a business organization with an undue, even unhealthy devotion by numerous Latinos" that has been exploiting its supporters for decades.
"They've acted around Latino followers while profiting from them with the other for so much time because they have been able to get away with it," Arellano noted over the warmer months, when calls to boycott the organization over its absence of reaction to the enforcement actions were contradicted by the uncomfortable fact that attendance at matches did not dip, even at the height of the protests when the city center was under to a nightly curfew.
Global Players and Fan Bonds
Separating the squad from its corporate owners is not a simple task, {
