It’s time for another installment of “Shorter Baseball Columnists,” in which we read mainstream baseball columnists and marginalized bloggers like Murray Chass so you don’t have to! Let us begin!

Mike Lupica: I’m not sure if you realize this, but the Mets haven’t always been terrible.

Filip Bondy: I’m not sure if you realize this, but David Wright has an injured back.

Nick Cafardo: I got some sources on the horn and talked to them about passion.

Bruce Jenkins: Buster Posey made the Royals lose.

Jon Heyman: There’s a Moneyball movie coming out, which makes me wonder what Billy Beane will do about Bob Geren.

Paul Daugherty: I have a number of suggestions, most not very serious, that should help the Reds’ pitchers throw more strikes.

Dayn Perry: You might find this hard to believe, but sometimes roster decisions don’t entirely work out.

The “Shorter” approach to Internetty commentary traces back, as best as one can tell, to Daniel Davies.

That’s Indians catcher Carlos Santana pictured above. At first blush, you might think that Mr. Santana is looking a little forlorn and world-weary. However, that’s highly unlikely. That’s because, as the unimpeachable Wikipedia tells us …

Carlos Santana (born April 8, 1986) is a Dominican Republic professional baseball player, who is currently a catcher and first baseman with the Cleveland Indians of Major League Baseball’s American League. His best friend is Hayden Clarence.

It’s good to have friends. It’s even better to have best friends. And even better than that is when your besty is the inestimable Hayden Clarence. But who is Hayden Clarence?

The NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team answered the call and, as is their indolent wont, did just enough to meet the bare-minimum standards of contractually obligated duty before giving up and mumbling something about it being time for mid-morning tea and having problems with their magnifying glasses and not being able to stand the smell of computers. In other words, a Google Image search turned up nothing illuminating, and a review of the Wikipedia editing logs turned up nothing that made sense.

But the takeaway is that Carlos Santana and Hayden Clarence like to giggle at the same things, and isn’t that what it’s really all about?

Hosannas to NotGraphs reader Sean R., who took a break from his daily routine of sex/one-arm push-ups/physics problems/sex to pass along this bit of eureka.

Aspiring Mets minority owner David Einhorn once looked like this …

As the WSJ explains, Einhorn, as a doe-eyed tike, was an admirer of Dave Kingman, and once he took a marker one of his dad’s Beefy-T’s and transformed it — cadabra, but first abra — into a Kingman jersey. And a fine number 26 it was!

That’s a cute, humanizing story and all, but if I’m Lord New York Media, I’m asking Mr. Einhorn why he tacitly supports possibly exposing innocent sportswriters to the deadly and rodent-borne Hantavirus.

As you may be aware, the Nationals, because of a searing antipathy for all things Bull-Moose, have conspired never to allow Teddy Roosevelt to win the Presidents’ Race. I can think of plenty of injustices in the world, but few measure up to this one.

Well, recently the enterprising Mr. Roosevelt, taking his cues from Great Men of History like Gob Bluth and Jim Bowden, showed the plucky boldness that has allowed this fine republic of his to vanquish anything, save for morbid obesity and a bunch of other stuff …

As you can see, the fix was in. As for Screech the Eagle, who is clearly an asshole, a few words of grave warning … First, I know the Great Ejector, and you, sir, are no Great Ejector. Second, are you aware what Prez Roos does to lower-evolved varmints who get between him and what’s his? Let us remind you:

Your move, cuckoo bird.

Patriot’s gratitude to Dave Brown and the barrel o’ monkeys that is his Twitter feed.

Wander over to the Boston Globe’s Columnists and Critics page, and you’ll notice that they have animated head shots of almost everyone who marches, swords brandished, under the banner “Boston Globe Columnist and or Critic.” I assume they do this in an effort to appeal to the younger generation and its pompadours and ghetto-blasters and unpressed blue-jean pants. I also assume this initiative has been successful beyond anyone’s hopes.

But that’s not my concern. No, my delight and privilege is to introduce you to what appears when you scroll down just a bit …

There’s hail-fellow-well-met Dan Shaughnessy. But whereas most of the Globe opinion-shapers could be troubled to mug a bit for the artist and his sketchbook, Shaughnessy, who hates everything more than you hate anything, could not. But is that a look of … diffidence? Resignation? Wearied apathy? A half-smile of the decomposed?

No, it’s the look that Shaughnessy has on his face at all times, from upon waking until the soft death of sleep takes him each night — a look that implies a vague desire, yet an equally vague inability, to vomit. The look is called, “A Quiet and Frosty Disgust.”

The righteous blog-folk over at i09.com have assembled a scientifically rigorous ranking of “10 scenes from the most ridiculous sports comic ever published,” and it should surprise no one that our fair game comes out on top! Congrats, cowhide and maple, and roll tape …

Indeed, why did Satan challenge a World Series team to a game of baseball? Considering his obvious mechanical flaws, could this possibly be wise? Given his stride length toward the plate, he’s surely overloading his shoulder muscles. Is it a cloven-hoof thing? Does having creepy beast feet lead to an unnatural landing point when airing out the four-seamer? In any event, I worry about our archfiend.

Still and yet, mechanical concerns will not stop me from giving the Angel of Darkness a doughty heckling!

Huzzah, black-hearted belly itcher, huzzah!

Introducing “Shorter Baseball Columnists,” in which we read mainstream baseball columnists and marginalized bloggers like Murray Chass so you don’t have to! Let us begin!

Shorter Jon Heyman: The Giants are upset about Buster Posey’s injury and would like to see some rule changes. That won’t happen. Also, Pablo Sandoval is on The Twitter.

Shorter Murray Chass: In some ways, Carlos Santana — the guitarist, not the catcher — is like Pete Rose. In other ways, they’re really not that similar.

Shorter Dan Shaughnessy: It occurs to me that there are some random, unconnected and perhaps meaningless connections between the Red Sox and Cubs. Fortunately, these connections are sufficient in number to last an entire column.

Shorter Wallace Matthews: Bartolo Colon has been good this season. But when he sits around the house, he really sits around the house. Know what I mean?

Shorter Bill Conlin: I recently received some stupid emails about the Phillies.

Shorter Bill Plaschke: I refuse to stop talking about the Lakers.

Shorter T.J. Simers: Don Mattingly sucks.

The “Shorter” approach to Internetty commentary traces back, as best as one can tell, to Daniel Davies.

Read Yves Montand’s private journals, and you’ll quickly learn that he dreamed — desperately, lustily — of walking around the streets of Marseilles looking like a Fathead Wall Graphic. Monsieur Montand is no longer with us, but the force of his vision has given us this, which is a thing that you can purchase via MLB’s Internet computer page …

Gentlemen, start your coin purses.

“I’m looking for pythons.”
“Right this way, sir.”
“No, I don’t think you understand. I’m looking for the kind of pythons you can’t buy in a pet store.”
“Then you’ll need to see Ted Kluszewski.”

Image, which, upon being clicked, embiggens, swiped directly from the Internet web site pages of the Cable News Network.

The New Yorker’s most excellent Jeffrey Toobin is astride the current baseball news cycle because of his lucid piece on falling but not yet quite fallen Mets owner Fred Wilpon. Indeed, when, in the course of the same dispatch, you get Sandy Koufax to go on record, have an email conversation with the incarcerated Bernie Madoff and do such a masterly job of teasing out Wilpon’s insecurities that he plaints, “We’re snakebitten, baby!” you’ve got reportorial chops. But as great a scribe as Toobin is, let us recall that he’s also a baseball fan in outstanding standing …

That, readers glistening from hard-won sweat, is an image of Toobin’s laptop when he was on set and empaneled by CNN during the tedious run-up to the 2008 presidential election. Yes, Toobin — rather than listening, in rapt admiration, to Anderson Cooper’s handsome ruminations — was checking in on postseason base and ball. Since politics is a lodestone for all that is miserable about the stinking human animal, we should praise Toobin for this most righteous decision.

History teaches us that Paul Bunyan skipped out on the Constitutional Convention of 1787 because he had Marlins tickets, so it should be no surprise that Toobin, a distant cousin of Bunyan’s, is similarly inclined. Accruals of power helped along by vacant stares and scripted outrage or green, grassy baseball? Toobin chose correctly, and may all the gods bless him for having done so.