Staying on the sports page, Bill Handleman of the Asbury Park Press of Neptune, N.J., filed this haunting lead after the New York Giants fell to the visiting Minnesota Vikings:

"The ghosts returned to Giants Stadium yesterday. They had a parade. ... They were all out there in the rain and the cold, these gremlins who surface now and then to torment the Giants."

A lead from the You’re-Not-Kidding Department:

"It was about the time a large alligator swam by a stranded Glenn Gardner that he realized he was in serious trouble."

By Nanette Woitas, The Tampa (Fla.) Tribune, recounting the story of a boater who was rescued 26 hours after his storm-tossed antique powerboat sank in a ’gator-filled Florida lake.

Mike Lonsford of the Houston Chronicle wasn’t hot-dogging it when he produced this headline over a compilation of readers’ comments on area restaurants:

Wieners and losers: new Coney disappoints

The Wall Street Journal consistently publishes some of the best headlines in newspapering. The editors highlight the best of their best in the in-house newsletter, "Style & Substance." Here are some recent examples:

Restaurants Bring In da Noise to Keep Out da Nerds

By Melinda Beck and Jesse Lewis.

For Bagel Chains, Investment May Be Money in the Hole

By Sheila Courter.

In Chimp Sell-Off, Military Finds It Has Monkey on Its Back

By Ken Wells.

Open and Closed: Genuine Competition In Local Phone Service Is a Long Distance Off

By John Bracer

Inside the Cell: Innovative DNA Test Is an ID Whose Time Has Come for the FBI

By Steve Alder

When ‘Chainsaw Al’ Puts Pen to Paper, It Can Be a Massacre

By John Blanton, on an article about Sunbeam’s Al Dunlop’s tirade against Waste Management’s Steve Smith.

Turning from one of the nation’s largest newspapers to a smaller publication, here’s a headline from The Index-Journal of Greenwood, S.C.:

In the garden of good and medieval

By Joe Sitarz, on a feature about the development of what could be the first garden of its type in the United States.

Company touts TNT tenderizing

Blowing up beef may make waves in meatpacking

By Dave Sowders, Houston Chronicle, on a report on the Hydrodyne process, which uses a small amount of dynamite to tenderize beef.

Don’t you blow it. Remember to send in your staff’s best headlines and leads to The Write Stuff!

Cooper is executive editor of the Telegraph Herald, Dubuque, Iowa. Contact him at P.O. Box 688, Dubuque IA 52004-0688 or bcooper@wcinet.com