Best Ledes?

This hardly qualifies as "best."
But I was looking through the archives for something else the other day, and came across this one I wrote as a freelancer, barely out of school, not having much of a clue about what I was doing.
And I was thinking to myself, I'm not sure I could write it better if I were to see the same tennis match today (not sure if that's a good thing or not):

"When Pete Sampras's head drops down somewhere below his chest, when he leans over on his racquet in distress, when his face turns green, then yellow, then pasty white, you know he has the match under control."

As it happened, I was about 20 feet away from this when it occurred.

 

There's a book somewhere on the best golf writing, and it begins by anointing this -- justfiably so -- as the best lede in history: "Despite the abominable handling of the press luggage at the Zurich airport, the Swiss Open got off to a fine start Thursday."
Brilliant. If anyone knows the book, please refresh my memory.

 

Somewhere, I have a copy of Hal McCoy quoting Milton when writing about Eric Milton during another one of his nine-run four-homer performances a couple summers ago. It was such a brilliant lede I felt compelled to e-mail him and Hal, being gracious Hal, sent a prompt response back.

 

OK, what am I missing here?

 

I'm partial to that English soccer lede.

 

As am I, although every time I read it, it's phrased differently.

 

THAT is wonderful.

 

My favorite piece of writing besides "If You're Expecting One-liners" and Frank Sinatra has a cold...

For the whole version:


http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/digging-grave-an-honor.htm

 

This one doesn't have the gravitas of the British soccer lede or of Breslin on Clifton Pollard, but it struck me for how perfectly it captured the, uh, neighborhood:

Muhammad Ali made his first title defense after regaining the championship from George Foreman in Zaire by taking on a veteran club fighter, Bayonne's Chuck Wepner, whose day job was as a liquor salesman. A few weeks after that bout, in which Wepner lasted all but the final 19 seconds of the 15th round and inspired Sly Stallone to pen "Rocky," all the bars, liquor stores and restaurants in Bayonne threw a testimonial for Chuck at the Bayonne American Legion Post hall.

Barney Nagler of the Daily Racing Form wrote this (deliberately allowing the second graf to trail off ... )

BAYONNE, N.J. -- All of Bayonne's bars, liquor stores and restaurants chipped in to throw a testimonial dinner last night for liquor salesman-boxer Chuck Wepner, who earlier this month was TKO'd with 19 seconds left in his heavyweight championship bout with Muhammad Ali in Ohio.
Among the injured were ...

 

More Povich, from his gamer after the seventh game of the 1955 World Series:

"Please don't interrupt, because you haven't heard this one before. Brooklyn Dodgers, champions of the baseball world. Honest."

But my favorite has always been by Jimmy Bryan, who covered Alabama football (and other things) for the Birmingham News for about 40 years. One year during the 1970s, Alabama had once again crushed Vanderbilt.

Jimmy's lede invoked those tough economic times:

"Inflation killed Vanderbilt on Saturday. As soon as the football was inflated, the Commodores were dead."

Bee-you-tee-full.

 

Mind another one from my hero, Shirley Povich?:

"The million-to-one shot came in. Hell froze over. A month of Sundays hit the calendar. Don Larsen today pitched a no-hit, no-run, no-man-reach-first game in a World Series."

 

This thread raises an interesting question: Must the best ledes - at least in the world of sports - use humor?

I have no answer.