Wallop

We're less than a week from the start of the MLB playoffs… Sign up for the free Wallop Postseason Classic, a home run-only playoff pool. It takes just a minute to select your 9 sluggers. Play solo or with a group, change picks til 9/29: wallop.app/postseason-classi…

Thirteen thousand miles. Thirty ballparks. Twenty-one bats placed, forty-two still in the wagon. The last stop is St. Louis. wallop.app/dispatches/050-th…

A line out the door at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, at 10am on a Friday in Kansas City. Asked who he played for, Tate says "they're in here somewhere." The name comes later, out on the ballfield at the back. wallop.app/dispatches/049-ev…

2 weeks of regular season left, which is a great time to build your Wallop Postseason Classic roster. 9 hitters. Every home run they hit in October scores, for as deep as their team goes. Later rounds count more. Free. No drafting. Picks lock Sep 29. wallop.app/postseason-classi…

"The throw was fine." Five months of ballparks before the two of them ever tossed a ball. wallop.app/dispatches/048-wo…

Twelve thousand four hundred miles. Twenty-eight major league ballparks. Twenty-one bats. Freely finally did that arithmetic out loud, on the phone, to the man had who sent him. wallop.app/dispatches/047-a-…

Milwaukee has the best record in baseball and the fewest home runs. Wallop drove up to sell them a bat that hits home runs. wallop.app/dispatches/046-ma…

He'd read both lab reports before he sat down. Said the wood looked good. Then he asked whether Wallop could turn a torpedo barrel. We're not set up for it right now and I told him so. wallop.app/dispatches/045-th…

"Bring some up when you come. Not a lot — three, four." A coach said that in Texas in May. In August, in Chicago, they brought four. wallop.app/dispatches/044-th…

August 15 in Louisville: the Bats wore Redbirds throwbacks and handed out 1,500 Terry Francona bobbleheads. Cecil Tate played four years in that uniform. He stayed at the motel. wallop.app/dispatches/043-an…

Admission to the Louisville Slugger factory is twenty-four dollars, and twenty-three for a senior. Freely buys one of each. Only one gets used. Dispatch #42 wallop.app/dispatches/042-il…

A major league hitting coach let slip he'd read up on the dispatches the night before. He got about halfway. Said the pieces run long. wallop.app/dispatches/041-on…

Three days before the trade deadline, an Arizona outfielder was walking around the grass at Progressive Field carrying a bat with the Wallop mark burned into it. No one out there said a word about Monday. wallop.app/dispatches/040-po…

Four minutes in a corridor at PNC Park with a man who had an eleven-thirty. The club is 54-52, a game out of the last wild card, five days from the trade deadline. The bag of bats never got opened. #MLB #TradeDeadline wallop.app/dispatches/039-hi…

They crossed into Detroit with a garbage bag where the back window should be, forty-six lengths of good fir in the blankets — and one bat that isn't wood at all. wallop.app/dispatches/038-ev…

Toronto under an orange sky — half of Canada on fire, the World Cup crowds gone. Two graying men, a '91 Buick wagon, and forty-six handmade bats nobody asked for. wallop.app/dispatches/037-to…

"Everybody's ash or maple. Nobody swings fir." The Boston equipment man gave Freely fifteen seconds, then turned to Cecil and forgot he was standing there. wallop.app/dispatches/036-bo…

Hunter Goodman hat trick scored more points than everyone at the World Cup finals combined. Follow every homer at: wallop.app/hr-tracker

Philadelphia booed every Home Run Derby hitter who wasn't theirs, and the kid from St. Louis won it anyway — four straight off the final ball. Freely and Tate watched from good company seats, Gary in the middle. Dispatch #35 from the All-Star Game. wallop.app/dispatches/035-sp…

Last place. Manager fired. Half the front office gone. And in the stands, the only man worth listening to all afternoon: "Sixty years," he said. "What am I gonna do, stop?" Dispatch #34, from Queens. wallop.app/dispatches/034-th…