Favorite lede you've written

Actually, it is supposed to end with a loss for all but one of the teams with a legitimate shot at the state title. Them's just the odds. "It wasn't supposed to be/happen this way" is on my list of phrases never to use, because who actually knows what is supposed to happen?

 

Well, yeah. If you take the literal meaning. But in this case I was trying to convey the mindset of that team, after that loss, and what it seemed was running through their heads. From standing on the sideline and observing, there was definitely a sense of shock. If they had lost in the second or third round, yeah, it's cliched. But the first round, at home? That's not supposed to happen to good teams.
Sometimes, I believe, cliches and tired phrases do fit.

And not to turn this into writer's workshop, but what would've been a better way to phrase that?

 

Batman, your writing isn't nearly as good as you think. In fact, that stuff just isn't good. It's trite and overdone, which is not a good combo. You don't have the talent to carry off that attitude.

 

Sometimes editors, God love 'em, give you plenty of rope to hang yourself. I know, nothing is more cliche that quoting Caddyshack on a golf course, but walking the course with Bill Murray for a charity tournament, I couldn't be stopped. My apologies to the board and reading public. The lede ...

----

A friend bet me that I couldn't make it through an entire piece about Bill Murray playing in Fuzzy Zoeller's Wolf Challenge at Covered Bridge Golf Club without splicing in references to a certain golf film Murray made in 1980.

I told him that was ridiculous. Gambling is illegal in Sellersburg, and I never splice.

 

Sorry, Batman, I didn't like either one of your leads either.

I did like Slappy's and JRoyal's, though.

 

It's not about the phrasing. Well, it is in the sense that it's a bad phrase, but you can't think of it in terms of "the better my phrase is, the better the story will be." Your lede did not, in fact, convey any of the shock that the players were feeling, if indeed they were feeling it. It just told me that they were feeling it. Why not show me what was "going through their heads" rather than tell me? Maybe a player was crying, the tears forming grimy streaks down his face; maybe another one was laid out on the ground in disbelief, a blank stare on his face; maybe the coach had his arm around a senior, consoling him after his last chance at glory was cut short. It's about what happened more than it's about how clever you are.

 

Post in haste, repent at leisure.

 

FirstDown, that story was from 2002. I have gotten better about painting scenes like that since then.
But I won't "repent."
As Batman sat crying at the keyboard, with grimy tears streaming down his face and eyes as wide as Reche Caldwell's after witnessing the brutal beating he had taken today at SportsJournalists.com Stadium, he tried to stand proud.
Proud in the knowledge that someone, somewhere, liked that video game lede enough to reward him with a first-place plaque.
Proud that his editor gave him a pat on the back once upon a time on a job well done.
Proud, and relieved, that none of the critics were his editors way back then and he didn't get fired.
Even after reading the savage critiques, Batman could not bring himself to accept the fact that the ledes in question were abysmal. Could they just hate him? Was it his feeble attempts at humor? Or was it the cliches that sent them into a tizzy? Only the football gods knew for sure.
Editors always were a prickly sort. The wrong word, at the wrong place and time, could set them off like a grenade. Red pen marks and rewrites were their shrapnel, tossed with curse words and frustrated sighs.
"I still don't think they're as bad as everybody's making them out to be. I've certainly read worse. Personally, I think it's a lot easier to overdo it and write something crappy when you're trying to paint a scene and be dramatic," Batman said. "Maybe mine could've been tightened up a bit. Lord knows I'm no Red Smith. But my god. It's not like I started it with 'It was a tale of two halves' and threw it out there as something to be proud of."
Batman then paused a moment, before adding, "You know, that might be fun to do. Just to see if I can hear the steam coming from spnited's ears. Bet it sounds like a train whistle!"
Slowly, though, doubt crept into Batman's mind. Were these people right? Was he truly a no-talent hack who had been sprinkling cliches throughout his stories for years, like rainbow sprinkles on an ice cream cone? Or was he forcing too many phrases, like trying to shove a cherry, sprinkles, and peanuts onto the top of that very same ice cream cone?
Suddenly, he wanted ice cream.
Maybe the story he was working on this afternoon had more of the same. He tried to force a phrase. It was a cliche, but it fit. Something about the ball being in State U.'s court at its conference basketball tournament.
"To cliche, or not to cliche. That is the question," Batman said to an emptying newsroom. The humming sound of the fluorescent lights was the only response. Off in the distance, a dog barked.
"God, this story sucks," he added.
Still, he trudged through the day and tried to push the doubt out of his mind. Can't let it affect you, he told himself. Those stories are practically from a past life. Long ago, tucked away in the dusty bound volumes of the morgue. No one remembers them. No one will see them. It's just a message board. They can't hurt you. Let it go.
Worst comes to worst, you can just stop posting for a while and hope no one figures out you're really Rick Reilly.
And with that, a smile slowly crossed the pasty sports writer's rapidly aging face. He thought of his wife at home and longed to feel her embrace. He thought of the dog that would jump spastically, like a laxative-laced colon, when he walked through the door. The dog's breath tasted like feces, but he'd let her lick his cheek anyway.
He finished his story, picked up his coat and headed for the door. As he walked out into the late afternoon sunshine, the smile grew wider. Talent or no, he had a pretty good thing going here in Podunk. A little job security, decent enough paycheck, a great wife and a house with a picket fence.
No, it would not be a dark and stormy night. Even if he was headed east, away from the sunset, and there was a chance of rain in the forecast. In this life, the sun was always shining. He whistled as he strolled to the car, confident everything would be all right.

 

I think I've read some of these examples on the "worst ledes" thread.

To each his or her own, I guess.

 

"It was a dark and stormy night."

Story just flowed from there. Like a river I tells ya. A river!