If you’ve seen Hunter Pence taking practice cuts on deck, you were likely left agape and bewildered. The swollen eyes; the mimed, by-rote hatchet chops; the hint of mouth-breathing — some call this menu of liturgies “The Murderer at large.”

Mr. Jimmy Rollins — man about baseball and town — was also struck by Pence’s crudities. And so he mocked them, and his well-intentioned mocking provides you with not only boundless joy but also your Daguerreotype(s) of the Evening.

First comes the power (click and marvel):

And then comes the glory (click and marvel):

The whole world loves you, Mr. Rollins. And so do I.

(Hatchet-chop: I Left My Heart in Ben Francisco)

As the Senior Baseball Reporter for Sports Illustrated, Jon Heyman spends a lot of time on airplanes chasing scoops and so forth. Jon Heyman is also a quite prolific Tweeter. For what should be obvious reasons, this is an unfortunate combination. If there is anything worse than airline complaints, it is Jon Heyman airline complaints.

See, it would be one thing if Jon Heyman were to express his (frequently unlettered) thoughts to close friends and family. So long as we don’t have to hear it, it is not a problem. But the trouble with Jon Heyman being on Twitter is that it is quite literally the only medium in existence through which he can instantly broadcast his airline aggravations to 100,000 people.

For example:

Dare to see more? Click here.

And yesterday we were treated to this:

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Among the Great Orators of The West we count Isocrates, Cato, Cicero, Pericles. Could it be time to add another to the pantheon?

Goosebumps. Are you inspired?

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Throughout history there are countless examples of men becoming victims of their own, respective creations. There’s Dr. Frankenstein and his monster; there’s the Rick Moranis character from Little Shop of Horrors and that giant, soulful carnivorous plant; there’s… well, allow me rephrase: “Throughout history, there are at least two examples of men becoming victims of their own, respective creations.”

To which list, we can now add a third: NotGraphs and its celebration of the Peter Gammons mis-tweet. As the reader will know, NotGraphs has endeavored to become the leading voice in Gammons’ mis-tweet coverage, and I believe — if you’ll pardon the cursing — I believe we’ve covered the hell out of it.

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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!

Shorter Dan Shaughnessy: How dare John Henry’s wife update us on his recent medical crisis when the Red Sox aren’t in the playoffs!

Shorter Rick Reilly: Yuk, yuk, yuk!

Shorter Gerry Callahan: The Red Sox faltered down the stretch because the players are bad people.

Shorter Rob Parker: Jose Reyes lacks the integrity and personal courage of, say, a Rob Parker.

Shorter Rico Brogna: I have some opinions on Jose Reyes’s contract status, and, boy, those opinions are weird.

Shorter Murray Chass: Beer is stupid.

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

Four views. No view.

Staying with a friend who doesn’t have cable but does have an iPad, so it was time to see what post-season baseball on the ‘Pad would look like. It’s also been a long couple of weeks on the road, and my thoughts no longer come fully formed. Here, then, are my notes, which taken in sum can provide a review of MLB At Bat ’11, the iPad app from MBL.tv — or at least hopefully they will.

* Man this resolution is terrible. And I can’t figure out how to improve it. Is this my problem? Am I already this old? Am I fat-fingering ‘e-mail thingermerbobbers’ after my dial-up finishes screeching? I can’t be. Can I put this in the review?

* Chase Utley is so dreamy. How can he be so ruggedly handsome and yet finely coiffed at the same time? Is it the pomade? Is it the soul patch? And then his game is so saber-friendly. If only he weren’t a Phillie.

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Crabs are generally known to be zany, and that’s probably what the Giants were thinking back in 1984 when they were willingly represented before God and country by The Crazy Crab.

Unfortunately, the Giants hired not a zany, crazy crab but rather a disconsolate crustacean crippled by the unsparing demands of this, our stinking existence:

What you see is a crab among cardboard boxes. This suggests that he was recently a foreclosure victim or perhaps worked in thankless, stricken misery at a dank warehouse. Or perhaps he was freshly murdered and dumped onto a loading dock. Whatever the grim backstory, this crab is “crazy” only in the sense that this nihilistic journey into the abyss (some call it “life”) can easily drive one to the brink of madness.

If Crazy Crab is indeed dead, then no more does he feel pain.

This has been your Daguerreotype of the Evening.

Setup + Punchline = Comedy

While leading economists have found that, indeed, money (for the most part) can’t buy happiness, one thing it can buy is a Mets toilet seat from popular online auction house eBay. In fact, it can also buy toilet seats for six other teams: the Tampa Bay Rays, New York Yankees, Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, and Boston Red Sox.

Image (and everything else) stolen directly from Mets Police.

As we learned in a previous edition of Found Poetry(!), the good patriots at Reddit are fond of pondering the baseball bat and its utility for dispensing righteous justice. The reader — the handsome reader — will be pleased to know that Reddit Nation is once again musing on this subject dear to us all. This particular urgent matter? Whether a baseball bat or a knife is most desirable for vanquishing scoundrels in need of being vanquished. Let us now read poetry!

Are you military or a martial artist?

I was in a fight with a guy who had a bat once …

I’ve been beaten down with both, and shot.

I’m a professional knife thrower.

I’ve taken an interest in European sword fighting.

I study European Medieval martial arts.

I use both long sword (which is a two handed weapon, mind you) and a one-handed sword with a buckler.

I’m in the Mereenese fighting pits …

I’ve been trained in martial arts for years, including fighting an enemy who has a knife or a long stick/club/bat.

I’m 6’4″ @ 230lbs.

I like slitting things open …

I just started carrying a gun.

It’s 4 AM here and I can’t really think so clearly.

A moderate injury is an acceptable price to deal a debilitating blow to the enemy.

A grown man’s tibia will break with just 47 Joules of transferred kinetic energy.

Knives are fucking awesome …

The stakes are high here.

BEAR JEW!

Thank you for helping keep poetry alive.

You missed last Wednesday’s action, you say? Well, you, presumptive fan of the AL East, may cast your eyes on the following visual illustration for an instant “thousand words” recap:

LESSON LEARNED: Sometimes life gives you Wok bm ppppppppppppppppppppppppp and sometimes life gives you .po.