The Sports Name that Will Never Be

American sports teams exist under a variety of sports names, from the Bears, to the Cornhuskers, to the Heat.  However, as one CNN contributor argues, the name Senators, the former title of Washington's baseball team and the current crest for Ottawa's hockey squad, will never appear again in American sports.  Bob Greene argues that the rating for Congress is so low that fans would not be able to rally around a team named the Senators, and that the name would be an excuse for player scrutiny.  Greene argues that it wouldn't be economically feasible for a team to be named this way.  In a larger sense, the author uses the sports team name argument, a rather random one, to express his disappointment with the government.

This article was written towards an American audience that shares the author's feelings.  Greene doesn't waste time describing how Congress has been ineffective; he is not trying to persuade anyone that Congress is bad.  This may also be because Congress already has an approval rating of less than 20% and arguing against them would be unnecessary.  However, Greene does focus on the effects that a bad Congress has had on American pride.  To emphasize the negativity with which Americans perceive Congress, the author uses anaphora within a periodic sentence to emphasize all of the different sports names in America.  When this is followed by the statement that the Senators cannot be a name, it portrays the extremity with which Americans look down on the Senate.  In addition, Greene quotes sports marketing experts that establish his point.  This establishes ethos and credibility for the author.  In a creative extended metaphor, the author is effective in showing the faults of Congress in the eye of an average American.

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