Favorite lede you've ever written or read?

A forgotten profile on a forgotten person, but I have enjoyed this for all these years:

http://www.si.com/vault/1979/08/27/264297/youre-a-great-handicapper-foto-thank-you-but-sometimes-you-screw-up-not-to-hear-foto-lewis-race-track-character-and-strip-joint-barker-tell-it-when-he-bets-according-to-his-system-hes-always-right-its-just-that-most-times-someone-or-thing-does-him-wrong

Foto Lewis is 71 years old, looks 50 ("See, no fat on my neck"), acts 30, has a girl friend 23, and is--arguably, of course--the nation's No. 1 Race Track Character. Anything anybody else can do, Foto is sure he can do better. He dreams exclusively of faster horses and younger women--in that order. When he talks of himself, he speaks only in superlatives. At the moment, he is standing in the Bowie (Md.) Race Course grandstand, going berserk better than anybody.

 

I believe it was Joe Trimble who also had a really memorable lead on Larsen: "The imperfect man pitched a perfect game"

 

Contrast that with Roy Halladay's playoff no-hitter. The WSJ's gamer didn't even mention it in the lede, thinking his pitch count was the more newsworthy information: "On Wednesday evening, Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia Phillies needed only 104 pitches to finish off the Cincinnati Reds, 4-0, in Game 1 of the National League Division Series."

 

From John Lardner: Stanley Ketchel was 24 years old when he was fatally shot in the back by the common-law husband of the lady who was cooking his breakfast.

 

If I'm not mistaken, I believe the story goes that Trimble was having writer's block and Dick Young reached over and typed that lead.

 

Another Jimmy Bryan classic, his lede on the Auburn-Appalachian State game to open the 1999 season, which Auburn won 22-15 in a sloppy affair. Auburn wsa supposed to open against Florida Staet, but paid the buyout rather than face Bobby Bowden in their first game after firing his son, Terry.

Jimmy wrote, and forgive me if I don't get it 100 percent correct because I'm going from memory:

It's a good thing the Auburn Tigers didn't play Florida State on Saturday. They would have lost 974-0.

 

For TV... right before Super Bowl 33.

"Former Packer free safety Eugene Robinson was arrested last night in Miami for something not very free and not very safe..."

 

Tim Sullivan beat me to it. It was Dick Schapp's all-time fave, too.

 

speaking of keegan, one of the great presences and a helluva writer: during valentine's mets rampage, at one point bobby v. told the world that he should be fired if the amazin's didn't make the playoffs.

the headline on keegan's next day column: "Why Wait? Can the Phony Now!"

might be my favorite sports headline ever....

 

Vincent Mulchrone of the Daily Mail on July 30, 1966:

"If the Germans beat us at our national game today, we can always console ourselves with the fact that we have twice beaten them at theirs."

 

Tommy Tomlinson's lede to his Jared Lorenzen profile is just fantastic:

http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/11382220/ex-nfl-qb-jared-lorenzen-lifelong-battle-weight

"Jared Lorenzen and I are in love with the same woman. Her name is Little Debbie, and she makes delicious snack cakes."

 

"I just sold my dream girl to a homeless man."

After selling an original oil painting last Thanksgiving.