5 Things: Non-U.S. Countries Who Frequent Wiffler's Digest

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.

3. Taiwan - Although they belong to the Republic of China, Taiwan seems to have developed it's own autonomy in a sense (it was it's own country for a while...loooong story) so much that people from Taiwan, not China, visit this website. To date, there has not been a single recorded person from mainland China to visit this website. I am not sure if Taiwan has more liberal internet censorship than mainland China. I don't see how this site would not make the cut for China. Must be all that anti-communist propaganda we spread? The most logical reason there is a Taiwanese presence in our audience is because there is a league in Taiwan. Unfortunately we do not know much about them since they do not know sufficient English to establish any dialogue. It seems only fair that since we import so much from Taiwan that we export something fun to them.

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.

5. Germany - The only thing more shocking than Germany being among the top 5 non-U.S. countries to visit the site is the fact that they visit more than the United Kingdom and France. Interest in baseball is higher in Germany than it is in France but it's not much. Germany has Baseball-Bundesliga, a 15-team "elite" (professional?) baseball league but the interest in bat and ball sports there is pitiful when compared to sports such as football (or what we call "soccer"). I am skeptical that Germany has enough interest in wiffleball to develop any leagues or tournaments. But then again - you never can be too sure about these things.



*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.

Status Update On Canada's Only Wiffleball League

In the month or so since we found out about the Crofton Wiffleball Association, they have been improving. They started out with only a couple of players and have since grown to be an organization of around 12, proving that there is some interest in the sport in Canada (well at least in Vancouver). The videos are coming along quite nicely with a scoreboard in the lower right corner and non-rap music in the background. So all-in-all this league has made remarkable progress in such a short timeline, growing to three teams with video footage of their games...a tall order for most new leagues. Hopefully they'll stick around and continue to play for years to come.

Canadian League Playing Through Cold

A league has finally been spotted in Canada. It's a curious discovery, considering there has been no other known leagues to exist above our northern border. The Crofton Wiffleball League is located in Crofton on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. They look as if they just got started. They only have a Twitter account right now and no other form of online presence. It appears that there are only a few of them for now, but all leagues have had similar humble origins. Hopefully these guys stick it out and we'll hear more from them as things thaw out in the spring. Crofton is the fourth league, that we know of, that has developed outside of the United States in the past year. Other places include Japan, Taiwan, and the Dominican Republic.