A New York hedge fund manager testified in court today at the bizarre assault case in which he was the victim.  Stuart Sugarman, 48, was attacked by 44-year-old stockbroker Christopher Carter during a spinning class at an Equinox gym on Manhattan's Upper East Side.  The reason: Sugarman grunted loudly and yelled things like "Good burn!" and "You go, girl!" throughout the class. From the New York Post:

Both sides agree that Sugarman was loud – even [the instructor] testified that Sugarman is the loudest "spinner" he's ever heard in some 1,700 workouts. But opinions differed yesterday on what happened as the hedge-funder's howling drove the berserk broker off his bike.

"He yelled at me to shut the 'F' up," Sugarman told jurors… "Like, at that point, my reaction was, like, 'You're kidding me, right?' " Sugarman [said], insisting that he himself never cursed, never flipped the broker the bird, and did absolutely nothing provocative.

This, despite cop testimony that Sugarman admitted giving Carter the finger and cursing, and testimony by another "spinner" that when Carter shouted, "Shut up," Sugarman taunted, "Make me."

This was a long story, so let me sum it up for you: Asshole hedge fund manager in asshole neighborhood acts like asshole in asshole gym, so asshole stockbroker kicks his ass.  I'm going to go out on a limb and guess the jury won't have to worry about sympathy getting in the way of their verdict.

(thanks to Upstate Underdog) 

David Fulton is a retired professional cricketer who, according to Wikipedia, is now a cricket journalist.  Wiki also says:

Whilst preparing for the 2003 season, Fulton was hit in the eye by a ball from a bowling machine, whilst practising the hook shot. The injury ruled him out for the first eight weeks of the season, and Fulton admitted upon standing down from the captaincy three seasons later that his eye was still troubling him.

According to all-star commenter Angel Eyes Van Cleef, "He's made the clip available to warn about the dangers of getting hit in the eye with a hard ball at 90mph. I think that's the lesson to be learned here."  I agree.  We should definitely only use this video for learning purposes.  And if you're anything like me, what you learned is that slo-mo replays of injuries are still totally fucking awesome.

Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, long known for both his mythical gyroball and sharing the same home country as top-heavy Yoko Matsugane, is going to do some charitable work by… um, having dinner?  Yes, there is an eBay auction to have dinner with Dice-K, with proceeds going to Good Sports.

Japanese sensation and Red Sox ace Dice-K and his wife, Tomoyo, will join you and three friends for dinner at the renowned Japanese restaurant, HARU, in Boston.

You'll enjoy the company of one of the world's greatest sports stars along with the finest food and service – all in your own private dining room. (A translator will be provided)

Get out your chopsticks for this once in a lifetime opportunity!

I'm not gonna lie to you: this story is as exciting as a box of dried shit.  But with baseball boring the shit out of the With Leather staff, we haven't featured Dice-K in ages.  I wanted to find a picture of Yoko eating so it would be semi-relevant to the story, so I looked through all these galleries of her, but I couldn't find one.  So I kept looking.  Then I looked some more.  And looked.  And continued looking after that.

Long story short, I'm a little sweaty and need a cigarette.

SEXY UPDATE: One intrepid Internet explorer found this delightful photo of Miss Yoko eating.  I suppose this one also kinda counts, assuming that's milk on her.  Umm, that IS milk, right?  Maybe you shouldn't click on that if you're at work.

[Boston's Tenth via Deadspin] 

Japanese sumo wrestler Toyozakura Toshiaki has been punished with a 30% pay cut for three months after officials learned that he had beaten an apprentice with a ladle, resulting in eight stitches for the 18-year-old victim.  Yes, a ladle.  I imagine it's never far from his reach.  Because he eats with it.  He's fat, you see.

Toyozakura, 34, apologized after admitting he used a ladle to hit the apprentice on the head.

"I asked him to do something, which I don't remember exactly, but he couldn't do it," Toyozakura said.

Naomi Campbell, is that you? 

Violent hazing, or beating during training, has long been seen as customary [in sumo], contributing to the sport's struggle to attract new recruits. But there was a public outcry over the death last year of a teenage apprentice who was beaten with a beer bottle and a baseball bat.

Ah, jeez.  First they come for your bats and bottles, next thing you know your ladles are gone.  Pretty soon they'll have to punish apprentices with video of the Japanese version of We Are The World.

[FanHaus] 

Somewhere in the great abandoned athletic fields of Ohio was staged this epic lunkhead brawl to end them all, with knee-high socks guy squaring off with no socks guy. Usually boxers are differentiated by the color of their trunks but these guys obviously swiped whatever was available from the school's athletic department.

Nice of the camera doof to volunteer the fact that "if anyone asks, we go to Westerville," which, of course, is a suburb of Columbus. It's a little-known admission requirement that Ohio State ask for three videotaped examples of public stupidity before they consider you for admission. You might have scored yourselves a scholarship, fellas. 

As print magazines die a slow death and blogs like this one lessen the impact of long-form sports journalism (sorry about that, Pat Jordan), Sports Illustrated keeps trying to re-package itself as a "brand" with an "online presence" and other corporate buzzwords.

What they need to do is just highlight all the stuff they used to write about.  -Women: Should They Be Allowed on Golf Courses?  -Are Negros the Future of Basketball? And of course the beauty pictured here, -Holy Fuck!  Fucking Bears!  Kill Them!  Killlllll Themmmmm!