This website has been operational for a little over a year now and as the hits have been racking up there have been more and more people visiting the site that live outside the United States. Surprisingly few of these foreign visitors are from this hemisphere. Seriously Mexico, what's the deal? Here are the five countries that visit this site the most:
1. Canada - It is far too often Americans forget about our friends north of the border. While jokes and snide remarks toward Canadians seem never-ending -- Canada has just as much potential to host many wiffleball leagues as the United States. Their winters may be harsher than ours but they have an advantage that many other countries outside the U.S. does not have: open access to American products such as Wiffle Inc. I suspect that this website has been detecting significant traffic from Canada because of the Crofton Wiffleball League. But it's not out of the question to imagine that there's some guy in the Yukon, huddled in a cabin on a dial-up modem, that has developed a sudden interest in this sport.
2. Russia - Whereas Canada has been recently spiking our international audience tracker, Russia has always appeared among the various countries on the tracker. The reasons for interest in this sport in Russia are unknown. I can think of no realistic reason how a Russian would even know anything about wiffleball. Perhaps there is a U.S. citizen (possibly of Russian ancestry) studying or living abroad in Russia. But since there has been a steady number coming from that country for months there could be a few people there who are searching for interest and starting the very first Slavic wiffleball league. If that is the case I just hope they have some way of contacting us to let us know that such an event has taken place so that the league tracker can better reflect the growing international influence the game has.
4. Japan - Ah yes, the land of the rising sun. Our friend, Tadashi Onizuka has been showing improvement with each pitching video he posts. He could become known as the Asian wiffleboy if the sport takes off in Japan. Japan is really the only non-U.S. country I could see wiffleball really taking off. They have built a thriving baseball community and seem to really be interested in bat and ball sports. Wiffleball seems like a perfect match for urban youths crowded into cramped areas of Tokyo and various other large metropolitan cities.
*Here is a brief list of other countries that are visiting the site nearly as often as the five countries previously mentioned: Brazil, India, France, United Kingdom, Ukraine, and Australia.
