Four years after the 1994 MLB lockout hinted at baseball’s impending financial death, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa resuscitated the game with an electrifying race past Roger Maris’ single season homerun record. The 1998 season marked a rebirth for baseball, but a revival underscored by rampant, unsupervised, and unpunished steroid use.
Search Results for author "Weiyu Dang"
Twenty years later: The 1996 Yankees and the Rebirth of the Evil Empire
In 1996, the New York Yankees barely resembled the blockbuster, overpowering teams of the half century from 1920 to 1970. The team was a squad of role-players and promising rookies—a puzzling but seminal group of players that brimmed with tenacity and cohesion for a franchise more known for pomp, fame,[Read More…]
2016-2017 NBA Season Preview
Winning back-to-back championships is one of the greatest achievements in sports. However, the Cavaliers shouldn’t have any issues with the pressure. They didn’t make any flashy moves like Golden State, but they remain the class of the Eastern Conference…
2016-2017 NBA Season Preview
MLB Awards
American League Awards Weiyu Dang MVP: Mike Trout ( Centre fielder, Los Angeles Angels) Logically, Trout must win the MVP. He’s been the best player in the MLB for five years; however, the voters are largely establishment cronies and it’s possible he’ll lose because the Angels had a bad season. While[Read More…]
The end of an era: A tribute to the great Vin Scully
When Vin Scully first started broadcasting Dodgers games in 1950, baseball had just desegregated. Mickey Mantle and Hank Aaron were the league’s MVPs and New York had three baseball teams. Dodgers games took place in Brooklyn, far from the current swashbuckling, free-spending Los Angeles iteration of the team. In those[Read More…]
Alex Rodriguez’s exit and flawed idealism
Of all superstar retirements, Alex “A-Rod” Rodriguez’s exit was one of the strangest and most understated; the career of the imperfect baseball icon came to an end in the middle of a mediocre New York Yankee season. Rodriguez, the most intriguing and unique—if not the most talented—Yankee, never received the[Read More…]
Black lights over America: How Black Power is transforming pop culture
Between Beyoncé’s Super Bowl show, Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy performance, and Kanye West’s assault on reason, Black Power is igniting every pop culture barricade in sight in defiance of convention. When Beyoncé released “Formation,” fans expecting another version of the club-ready recycled trap hit “7/11” were left distraught. Gone was the[Read More…]
Pop Rhetoric: Respectability politics in “Fresh Off the Boat”
A year in, Fresh Off the Boat (FOTB) is still much of the same: An occasionally poignant portrayal of the immigrant experience tempered by whitewashed sinophilia. Take last week’s episode for example. Right before Chinese New Year, FOTB aired the first depiction of Mandarin Chinese New Year on American primetime[Read More…]
Album Review: Anderson .Paak — Malibu
Anderson .Paak represents a new wave of artists that don’t fit neatly into one genre. Rather, he stands in the hazy divide between them. Featured on Dr Dre’s Compton, The Game’s The Documentary 2.5, and Goldlink’s And After that, We Didn’t Talk, .Paak seemed to be everywhere in 2015, primed[Read More…]
