How about some more wonderful ledes? (Here’s part one and part two.)

Here’s Gary Cartwright, one of the great Texas sports writers, rising to the occasion after Don Meredith failed to do so for the Dallas Cowboys:

Outlined against a blue-gray November sky, the Four Horsemenn rode again: Pestilence, Death, Famine, and Meredith.

The great Jim Murray on the Indy 500:

Gentlemen, start your coffins.

Vic Ziegel, on the facts of life:

The game is never over until the last man is out, the New York Post learned late last night.

John Updike on Ted Williams’ final game:

Fenway Park, in Boston, is a lyric little bandbox of a ballpark.

How about another John Lardner classic:

When Ezzard Charles won the heavyweight championship by licking J.J. Walcott, two years ago, Ezzard’s manager, Jake (Madman) Mintz, passed out in the ring. Last July when Walcott won the title, it was Charles who fell, while Jake remained on his feet throughout That is my idea of a perfect partnership — always one man conscious, to count the house.

Dig Murray Kempton on Willie Mays:

There was this moment when Willie Mays caught the last ball hit in the National League in 1962 and turned and laughed and threw it at the right-field foul pole. It was his ball and he could do what he pleased with it.

All of a sudden, you remembered all the promises the rich have made to the poor for the last 13 years and the only one that was kept was the promise about Willie Mays. They told us then that he would be the greatest baseball player we would ever see, and he was.

Here’s how Jimmy Cannon said goodbye to Doc Kearns, who managed Jack Dempsey and broke four banks in Shelby, Montana, with a single fight:

It took him 80 years, but Doc Kearns, who died yesterday, finally proved he was right. Daytime’s for sleeping. Nights are for laughs. The working day is nine to five. Doc never played a hand in that game.

And here’s one of my absolute favorites, from WC Heinz’s classic story, The Brownsville Bum

It’s a funny thing about people. People will hate a guy all his life for what he is, but the minute he dies for it they make him out a hero and they go around saying that maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy after all because he sure was willing to go the distance for whatever he believed or whatever he was.

That’s the way it was with Bummy Davis. The night Bummy fought Fritzie Zivic in the Garden and Zivic started giving him the business and Bummy hit Zivic low maybe 30 times and kicked the referee, they wanted to hang him for it. The night those four guys came into Dudy’s bar and tried the same thing, only with rods, Bummy went nuts again. He flattened the first one and then they shot him, and when everybody read about it, and how Bummy fought guns with only his left hook and died lying in the rain in front of the place, they all said he was really something and you sure had to give him credit at that.

“So you’re Al Davis?” one of the hoods said. “Why you punch-drunk bum.”

And you can’t beat that with a stickball bat.

More memorable ledes…

This, perhaps the most famous of them, comes from Grantland Rice:

Outlined against a blue, gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again.

Dick Young on the Brooklyn Dodgers choking:

The tree that grows in Brooklyn is an apple tree and the apples are in the throats of the Dodgers.

Joe Trimble on Don Larson’s Perfecto:

The imperfect man pitched the perfect game.

Shirley Povich, on the same game:

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.

Roger Kahn, after the Yankees won Game Seven of the 1952 Serious:

Every year is next year for the Yankees.

Barbara Long on the second Ali-Liston fight:

I loved the minute of it.

Bob Considine on Louis-Schemling:

Listen to this, buddy, for it comes from a guy whose palms are still wet, whose throat is still dry, and whose jaw is still agape from the utter shock of watching Joe Louis knock out Max Schmeling.

Tom Keegan on the Mets collapsing during the 1998 season:

If Bobby Valentine knew his team one day would disgrace baseball as badly as it did last night at Turner Field he never would have invented the game in the first place.

Mark Kram on the Thrilla in Manilla:

It was only a moment, sliding past the eyes like the sudden shifting of light and shadow, but long years from now, it will remain a pure and moving glimpse of hard reality, and if Muhammad Ali could have turned his eyes upon himself, what first and final truth would he have seen? He had been led up the winding, red-carpeted staircase by Imelda Marcos, the First Lady of the Philippines, as the guest of honor at the Malacañang Palace. Soft music drifted in from the terrace as the beautiful Imelda guided the massive and still heavyweight champion of the world to the long buffet ornamented by huge candelabra. The two whispered, and then she stopped and filled his plate, and as he waited the candles threw an eerie light across the face of a man who only a few hours before had survived the ultimate inquisition of himself and his art.

Tomorrow…WC Heinz on Bummy Davis.