Worst lede ever

From a part-timer, who went on to become a bank manager:

"The Jonestown and Springfield baseball teams played with each other for three hours Monday night."

 

Well hell, they could barely last over 25 minutes in the preseason. That just goes to show you how far hard work and dedication can take you.

 

our obits are usually great but this lede slipped through not long ago:


The first thing people noticed about Jane Doe was her appearance.

 

We have a guy in the area who, on near-weekly basis, begins a feature:

Jimmy Pimples always dreamed of playing for Local High in the Bumfuck District tennis tournament.
Saturday, he did just that.
"I always dreamed of playing for Local in the Bumfuck District tournament," Pimples said.

It inspires a great deal of newsroom imitation:

Greg Sportswriter always dreamed of getting a Diet Pepsi from the company vending machine.
Friday, he did just that.
"I always dreamed of getting a Diet Pepsi from the company vending machine," Sportswriter said...

 

8/17/1995

"Emotional lava spewed from the O.J. Simpson courtroom Wednesday, as raw-nerved participants heatedly attacked each other in this exhausting marathon of a trial."

also in the same era...

"It was an hour before dawn and still relatively dark."

 

BYH didn't make it through the first at-bat.

 

This was submitted to me by a high school stringer about two years ago. I still have it saved to my desktop.
Not one word has been changed, aside from Podunk.


On the first day of school when I discovered that three cookies no longer cost one dollar, I was shocked and appalled. I’d even go as far as distraught. Yet, instead of dwelling on the hardships of the present, I chose to reminisce about the good times I had with my three gooey circles of heaven in the past. If I had learned anything, it was that all good things eventually come to an end. Somehow, this relates to the Podunk High boys’ basketball team.

 

how 'bout them red devils.


ya, no shit. a real lede that took place this past weekend.

 

I came across this one at one of my recent stops as I was looking through the previous year's papers for some background on a football game.

"How good was Generic Team's defense in Friday's win against Other Team? As the high school kids would say, 'Sick, dog. Real sick.'"

That one left me literally speechless.

 

I'm hungry all of a sudden.

 

First sentence of a prep gamer at my paper a while back:

"Podunk quarterback Bill Williams played like he was wearing a red cape, but Small County proved to have the kryptonite, as the Eagles prevailed 18-15 over the visiting Buccaneers in a matchup of unbeaten Class 2A teams."

 

Same guy:

"In a game that couldn't have been any closer, Podunk beat Hooterville 44-41."

At my current shop:

"The road to Hell is literally paved with good intentions." Hell being a wide spot in the road the camera trucks come to when it's really hot or really cold. The good intentions came in the form of potholes.