While most of the West is meditating on the centennial of World War I, I (Evander) have been preoccupied with the upcoming centennial (2015) of W. C. Fields’s entry into the film world. But more relevant than both anniversaries to our project at Right off the Bat, this delightful article by Chris Dufresne, which describes (among its other virtues) the July 11, 1914, debut of a pitcher not long out of reform school, who would turn not only baseball but a fair chunk of the Western Hemisphere on its head. Certainly the sports world. How true: When Babe Ruth died a mere thirty-four years later (August 16, the date Elvis left the building for good twenty-nine years following), the lights assuredly did go out.