I'm going to try and explain this to you

Did you get it from the title? Okay, this seriously bugs me. So fix it. Right now.

Brooks Conrad is going to try and make the team this year.

If you know who Brooks Conrad is, you know this sentence is improbable anyway. But aside from meaning, what's the deal with saying "try and make"? What you're effectively saying is:

Brooks Conrad is going to try the team this year, and Brooks Conrad is going to make the team this year.

See how that makes no sense? He's going to try the team? (Okay, it totally makes sense in this case because he likely will make the team, and his presence will likely be trying. But ignore that part.) That's not what we're trying to say. What we want to say is:

Brooks Conrad is going to attempt to make the team this year.

He will try to do it. Why have we replaced "to" with "and"? Can we stop doing this already? Think for a minute about why you would say "try and make." See how dumb that seems when you think about it? Let's not do this anymore. It will never be "try and" anything. It will always be "try to." I don't care how you say it, but in writing, get it right.

Of course, if we listen to Yoda, we wouldn't even need to have this conversation.