“The Real New York Giants”, by Sports Illustrated writer Rick Reilly follows the New York City Fire Department’s football team after losing many of its members on 9/11. In his somber-toned story, he interviews multiple firefighters on how it was to play in this situation. The intended audience was directed at sports fans and the people affected by the attacks. Reilly employed many rhetorical devices, including imagery. For example, he writes about how many firefighters had gotten “WTC Cough” after “digging week after week, up to 18 hours a day, and inhaling dust, smoke, glass particles.” This forms a very heavy image in reader’s minds. He also employs this imagery when he tells the story of Danny and Tommy Folley. Danny and Tommy had always pulled each other out of the pile in football. Writes Reilly; “After 10 straight days of digging in the rubble, Danny pulled Tommy out one last time.” Both examples are intended to evoke emotion and create pathos. Another rhetorical strategy the author applies is rhetorical questions. Reilly often asks powerful questions such as “How do you replace the men?”, and “How do you go on when so many guys are dead that you can’t even retire their jerseys because you wouldn’t have enough to dress the team?”. These questions not only evoke create pathos, but generate an emotional response. Reilly also employs figurative language, such as metaphors. He describes the towers in a line that says “steel and concrete sky”. This not only creates imagery, but pathos too. The author uses figurative language, personification and evokes emotion with one rhetoric question: “How do you play a game draped in sorrow?” In the passage statistics from previous games and numbers on men lost and new men joining are seen, creating logos. At the end of the selection, it becomes clear the Reilly’s purpose was not only to remember those who were lost, but to inspire.
I believe this is a good passage because it talks about the emotionally devastating topic of 9/11 from a completely different angle as many people forgot that the fire department suffered such heavy losses. I believe this article also serves to inspire many of those broken from these attacks, and provides a different viewpoint - a viewpoint of hope. Emotionally, this article hit me pretty hard, especially when the author was describing all those who passed and what they were like. I was first attracted by the title saying “New York Giants”, but this article was a lot more appealing then I expected. There was not much more the author could have done to make the story any better.
Reilly, Rick. "The Real New York Giants." Sports Illustrated