Arellano: Welcome to the deportation resistance, Dodgers. What's next?
For Dodgers fan, it's all about the moments on the field.
Kirk Gibson's Game 1-winning World Series home run in 1988. Freddie Freeman doing the same last year. Koufax's four no-hitters. Fernandomania. Shohei Ohtani anytime he's at the plate or on the mound.
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It's outside the baseball diamond where the team has usually stumbled. And right now, the team finds itself in the middle of an unforced error that they're trying to recover from.
That's the best way to describe how the Boys in Blue have acted as the city emblazoned on their hats and road jerseys battles Donald Trump's toxic alphabet soup of federal agencies that have conducted immigration sweeps across Los Angeles over the past two weeks.
Read more: Federal agents denied entry to Dodger Stadium parking lot: Here is what really happened
They stayed quiet as rumors circulated that la migra was using the Dodger Stadium parking lot as a staging and processing area for their raids. They ignored calls for days by some fans and community leaders to issue a statement, any statement, in defense of immigrants.
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After offering my my fellow Times columnist Dylan Hernández a "no comment," the team finally told our colleague Jack Harris on Wednesday that they planned to assist 'immigrant communities impacted by the recent events in Los Angeles' without offering details. Then they paused in light of Thursday's dramatic events, which saw the Dodgers dragged into a fight with the Trump administration over what actually happened when federal agents were spotted near the stadium that morning.
The team posted on social media that they denied a request by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to 'access the parking lots.' 'False,' ICE blared on social media. The Department of Homeland Security chimed in to claim Customs and Border Protection agents just happened to be near the stadium gates 'unrelated to any operation or enforcement' — this, even as local television news footage showed a U.S. citizen caught earlier that morning at a Home Depot just up the 101 freeway being transferred from one unmarked vehicle to another.
'We'll get back to you soon with the timing' about how the Dodgers will help immigrants, president Stan Kasten told Harris Thursday.
No, Stan. The moment is now.
Federal agents stage outside Gate E of Dodger Stadium on Thursday.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
For decades, the Dodgers have gotten away with being the Flamin' Hot Cheetos of Major League Baseball – a corporate entity with an undue, even unhealthy following by too many Latinos. Each brand does little more than offer quick thrills to fans while taking their money, yet both have turned into markers of latinidad in Southern California à la lowriders and guayaberas.
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The Dodgers have pulled this off even as they're the same franchise that refuses to put up any marker acknowledging that their home stands on the site where L.A. officials razed three barrios in the 1950s for a housing project that never materialized, then sold the land to the Dodgers for basically nothing. That didn't retire Fernando Valenzuela's number until the last years of his life. That will sell bland, overpriced tacos and micheladas at the stadium and not blink — hey, at least Flamin' Hot Cheetos are still cheap.
They've put one arm around Latino fans while picking their pockets with the other for so long because they have been able to get away with it. Talks of boycotts over the years never worried executives because they knew other fans would quickly fill in any new seats. Fans booed while stadium security recently booted out attendees who brought signs to games decrying ICE, but Kasten and his crew knew no one would walk out in solidarity. All the Dodgers have to do is keep winning, stage an occasional giveaway night — wow, look! Another Valenzuela bobblehead on July 19! — or have organist Dieter Ruehle play a few bars of 'La Chona' and all is forgiven by too many too often.
Sports teams have no obligation to take stances on the issues of the day and probably shouldn't. They're capitalist endeavors, not charity cases, whose stated mission is to provide bread and circuses to the masses while making as much profit as possible in the process. Social justice-minded followers too often willfully forget this.
But they and the rest of us deserve to hold the Dodgers to a higher standard because that's how they have always marketed themselves.
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They're the organization that broke baseball's color barrier with Jackie Robinson. That expanded the game's international reach with Valenzuela, Hideo Nomo and Chan Ho Park. That established baseball academies across Latin America and fostered a Latino fan base unlike any other in U.S. professional sports.
Read more: Granderson: For Dodgers, the fight against racial injustice is driven by the past and present
Besides, the Dodgers have waded into political morasses before. They played Robinson as Jim Crow still ruled the United States. They rightfully proclaimed 'Black Lives Matter' in the wake of George Floyd's murder in 2020. The team in 2023 bestowed a Community Hero award to a drag troupe in the face of protests from conservative Catholics, although the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were relegated a ceremony held hours before the start of a game when the stands were nearly empty.
Other immediate members of the Dodgers family heard the call to stand with L.A. early on. Valenzuela's daughter, Maria Valenzuela, told Fox 11 that her father 'would be really disappointed' with what's going on, adding, 'He pitched for every immigrant who believed they belonged.' Broadcasting Hall of Famer Jaime Jarrín decried on his Instagram account the 'injustices and heartbreak we've witnessed' and blessed all the peaceful protests that have sprung up in response, telling those who are taking to the streets: 'Do not be afraid. Stay strong. Keep showing up. Let your voice be heard.'
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But the only current player who has said anything about Trump's raids — this, in a squad whose roster is chockablock with visa holders — is Kiké Hernández. The Puerto Rican-born journeyman posted on Instagram that he 'cannot stand to see our community being violated, profiled, abused and ripped apart."
Guess his teammates are still too thrilled to have met Trump at the White House earlier this year to muster up the energy to say anything?
On Friday afternoon, the Dodgers finally announced something: They would coordinate with the city of Los Angeles to commit $1 million in financial assistance to families impacted by Trump's raids, and promised aid to trusted L.A. institutions like the California Community Foundation to help in the matter. "We have heard the calls for us to take a leading role on behalf of those affected," Kasten said in a statement.
That's a good start — but I hope the team sees it as just a start. Trump has already promised that the same rage he's inflicting on L.A. will soon come to Chicago and New York, cities with large immigrant populations and their own historic baseball teams. That's why the Dodgers need to summon the moral courage of their past even more and once again set an example others want to follow.
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The moment is now.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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