Man, time sure does fly. It seems like just yesterday I was praising Drew Brees. Actually, it was just yesterday, but I was referring to when I named Brees and the New Orleans Saints winning Super Bowl XLIV the top Sports Moment of 2010. And you know what? That was a boring, predictable pick and it left nothing to the imagination of you, our beloved readers. You deserve more than just the run-of-the-mill year end list, because With Leatherites are smarter than the average sports blog reader, and I know that because I was called an idiot by you guys plenty this year.

You also have a better sense of humor than the average sports blog reader, so when I was entering the qualifications for this year’s Best Sports Moments into my sophisticated super computer (read: old yellow notepad) I wanted to kick the sentimental crap to the curb and really focus on what makes us all tick – namely, poop jokes and hot models. But mostly fun sports moments. As always, I don’t expect everyone to agree, and I’m sure that I left out a few moments here and there (sorry hockey). So feel free to school us on your biggest moments of the year, and let’s all hope that 2012 is a little more sex scandal free…

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What should have been a celebration between two teams with the worst quarterbacks in the NFL turned into a day of utter embarrassment to the league, the teams, and sports fans in general. On Saturday, the San Francisco 49ers defeated the Oakland Raiders 17-3, thanks to two running backs that we’ve never heard of and some field goals. Both Alex Smith and Jason Campbell were as underwhelming as we’ve grown to know them, and their backups were also terribly unimpressive. Thankfully, nobody in the stands noticed, because they were busy beating the crap out of each other.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, there were multiple assaults reported at the game, including but not limited to:

• A man wearing a “F*ck the 49ers” shirt was shot “two to four times” in the stomach in the parking lot and was only discovered after he fell out of his truck as he tried to drive away. San Francisco police have a suspect in custody, and it was reported that he was wearing a Raiders shirt. That means that Raiders fans were attacking Raiders fans, either over something unrelated or, quite possibly, through a misinterpretation of apparel.
• Another man was found shot in a parking lot after the game, and he also had some wounds on his face. It wasn’t reported if he was wearing any specific team apparel and it shouldn’t matter.
• A 26-year old man was found beaten and unconscious in a Candlestick Park bathroom, with “life-threatening injuries.”

After the jump, we have a video of another fight in the stands, including fans of both teams fighting each other.

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Normally when you hear about an eye witness of a violent crime being killed, the story involves a hitman and mob justice. In the case of Matthew Lee, a friend who attended that fateful Los Angeles Dodgers game with Bryan Stow, the only assassin was food allergies. According to the police, Lee died after ingesting nuts in a salad.

Stow, of course, is the Giants fan who was brutally beaten by a pair of gang bangers at Dodgers Stadium on March 31, and has since been in a coma and only recently opened his eyes. Two men are currently in police custody, as they have been fingered by their lady friends.

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San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow was brutally beaten into a coma outside of Dodger Stadium, and his story has been a circus of tributes and accusations. He’s a single father with two children currently in elementary school, and he can’t do much about that now. Ex-Giant Barry Bonds has offered to pay for the college education of Stow’s kids.

Where can you read about this story? ESPN? No. Sports Illustrated? CBS has the story buried under the fold on their homepage. Yahoo Sports has it somewhere in the middle of the page, but not under their headlines. The most informative version of the story I’ve found so far is from the Business Insider sports page, and they spell Stow’s name as “Brian” instead of “Bryan.” THAT story links to “nbcbayarea.com.” Not MLB.com.

There’s a bigger point I’m trying to make here, and I’m not sure I’ve got enough gravitas as a sports writer for it to matter. I’ll let Jimmy Traina give it a try.

Bottom line: If Tebow donated the [money], how do you think these sites would play the story?

They certainly wouldn’t be waiting for comedy blogs to write about it. I’d already have a 1200 x 800 high-definition image of Tebow handing an oversized check to Stow’s kids. The fact that Barry Bonds did steroids, or lied about doing steroids, or is a jerk has nothing to do with a story like this. He’s doing a kind thing, because he’s able to, and because it should be done. If we have to bash him for it anyway, so be it, I guess. Just report it. It’s got to be more important than Kim Kardashian.

John Steigerwald, the grumpy old man that questioned the fashion sense of a father of two in a coma (whose name he misspelled) in a recent column, apologized for any perceived insensitivity on his part. And then he went on to suggest that we just don’t get him.

The audience I had in mind when I wrote my Sunday column apparently wasn’t surprised or shocked when I went on a rant about adults wearing replica team jerseys to games. They apparently didn’t consider it insensitive for me to talk about something so trivial in a column that also included the story about Bryan Stow because they had heard or read my rant before. They knew I was pointing to the tragedy as evidence of what I had been saying for years about over-the-top behavior.

How do I know that there was very little negative reaction? Because through Tuesday morning, not one of the three newspapers that carry this column received one negative e-mail. Not one.

Deadspin vet David Matthews suggested that guys like Steigerwald–old, grumpy farts that don’t realize the power of social media–are clogging up jobs for new wave of folks that are making better sense of it all. You’ll have to read the whole piece, but here’s the slam on Steigerwald:

Steigerwald’s column is not as egregiously stupid as far as egregiously stupid conceits go—Whicker’s is still the worst—but it is another example of that “Everything Is a Freighted, Symbolic Event to the Grumpy Old Man Who Imposes His Dumb Worldview on Anything That Moves” school of writing. That’s the sort of out-of-touchness we associate more with a parody of a sports column one would expect to find on The Onion.

–Matthews/Good Men Project.

So, it looks like Steigerwald will keep his job after all. I’m not necessarily opposed to that, but it does illustrate how rare it can be for a lot of writing jobs in the mainstream to open up. So does someone really have to be thoughtful or creative to have a job in traditional media? Or just be around for a really long time?

And yes, that Whicker column was the worst.