I was reading the Holland Sentinel today at lunch, and I was struck by the utter uselessness of the writing. I only got through a bit of the sports page before I got too sick of reading it, but here are some of my favorite parts:

"This year, Tigers baseball is about playing like professionals," says Craig Monroe.
Now, this isn't the smartest statement ever. Yet it so poinantly paints a picture of the way the Tigers have played ball recently. Oh, you mean being in the Major Leagues means you have to play professionally? I never would have guessed...

Phil Mickelson had watched players take what had been preordained as his the way Ernie Els was trying to Sunday.
That putt completed a brilliant 31 on Augusta's back nine, a charge similar to that of the player Mickelson was once decreed to succeed and lifting him into the same select company.
These are just badly written sentences. Am I too tired to be reading them right or something? They are messy and long and don't really make too much sense to me. I'm distracted from Mickelson's great win by the bad writing.

"After we lost to Holland Christian, (assistant coach Kelli Shinabarger) and I felt like we needed Cort to make our doubles lineup stronger.
Shouldn't those parentheses be brackets?
They have an idea what it will take to reach their goal, so they are planning to take the steps to get there.
How's that again? I'm lost by this sentence.

I stopped reading after these couple painful articles. Maybe you weren't caught as offguard by them as I was, but really people, have someone who actually passed 12th grade English read your articles before you publish them. It will save people like me minutes of agony at least.