Dylan Hernandez:
I mean, we have to kind of go back decades here probably starting with Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier, right? He was a Dodger. Sandy Koufax, the great pitcher, Jewish pitcher, refused to pitch on Yom Kippur. The team supported that.
And kind of in more recent decades, the Dodgers have really helped expand baseball’s borders by bringing in Fernando Valenzuela from Mexico, Hideo Nomo from Japan, Chan Ho Park from South Korea. Now players from those countries are regulars in Major League Baseball now.
And now the thing is, with Valenzuela, that was particularly important in Los Angeles because of how Dodger Stadium was built, right? There was a Mexican-American community there in Chavez Ravine that were basically kind of like forced out of their homes. There are famous pictures of people literally being dragged out because — to clear homes for some eminent domain thing.
Initially, I believe there was supposed to become — there was supposed to be like a housing project built there. That thing kind of stalled, and eventually the Dodgers took over that land. So, for a very long time the Mexican-American community in Los Angeles viewed the Dodgers with a lot of suspicion.
And Fernando Valenzuela kind of single-handedly changed all of that, when all of a sudden you had this Mexican pitcher that was kind of beloved by everybody. And all of a sudden this team that was once viewed as being very decisive — divisive now became this thing that like, hey, like everybody could like, right?
And the Dodgers really became like the city’s team in that way, right? And it became — Dodger Stadium became a place that everybody felt welcome at. And the Dodgers estimate that more than 40 percent, probably close to 50 percent of their fans are Latino, right? So there’s this real special bond between the Dodgers and the Latino community.
And when all these raids started happening, right, the fact that the Dodgers of all teams wouldn’t put out any kind of statement, I think, again, the community felt very betrayed, right, I mean, because they’re looking at this like, hey, look, we have been supporting you all these years. The team’s good, the team’s bad, we kept showing up, right?
And now when we’re kind of in this moment of need, why won’t you say anything?
