CL 1/21

Joel Stein Rhetorical

• The author is Joel Stein. He is a professional writer. His career has been successful due to his sarcastic demeanor and sometimes very uneducated opinions. I believe his intentions in this article was to shun the underdog because a lot of people in the United States root for the underdog for wrong reasons. He explained how successful teams are successful for a reason. The players are paid well and treated fairly, which is why these teams deserve more attraction.
• I do not believe he does treat the opposing side (underdog) fairly… which is interesting considering he explains how successful teams are rich, smart and treat each other fairly. He gives all of these examples for why successful teams should be rooted for and then kind of gives blunt, very uneducated opinions about the underdog teams.
• The rhetorical context relates to America in general and how the Yankees are kind of like a theoretical mixing pot, welcoming people in in order to be able to make immigrants successful in order to build a more dominant community.
• The intended reader would be someone that is a Yankee fan or possibly someone that always roots for the underdog. People that typically root for the underdog have a strong opinion about very successful teams so this article could really piss them off. He addresses this by comparing a very successful team to America dominating other countries. At the end of the day he is mocking people about their own opinions.