HRL TWIN CITIES
Wiffleball has been around for nearly 60 years. Organized leagues have been known of as early as the late 1970s and some tournaments stem back into the 1980s. This game, although young in comparison to baseball, has developed roots. Although wiffleball is not a televised sport with a large national fan base or lucrative endorsement deals – BUT the game has developed a cult following…a counter-culture, if you will. Despite the fact that there are several thousand people who play the game of wiffleball, there really isn’t much community in this sport. Ask a random wiffleball player where they could go to get informed on the game, learn of its past, its present, and it’s future. Most won’t know what to tell you. Where are all the organized leagues? Where’s the nearest tournament? It’s an issue that’s plagued this sport for too long. Today people can find growing organizations such as the National Wiffleball League Association or Golden Stick Wiffleball that are bringing players and leagues together. Isn’t it time that we all just group together and have a few places that all of us can go to know what everyone else is doing with the game? We have to get the word out!
Perhaps I should introduce myself. My name is Josh Smith and I’m Editor-in-Chief of the Wiffler’s Digest magazine. That’s right, a magazine about wiffleball. I know it sounds a bit far-fetched but I think that the time is now for the game to have a magazine(s) that shares what all is going on in the game of wiffleball. Let’s face it – there isn’t enough time to learn everything that is going on in the sport on your own. Let’s all work together to give this game what it deserves – a community. This magazine started out as a blog which I began this past February. From there more and more readers started visiting my blog but I wasn’t satisfied. I started the blog as a “next best thing” for what I really wanted to do, which was have a wiffleball magazine. Luckily, some of my readers were willing to pitch in to help make it a reality. In early July we released the first issue of Wiffler’s Digest magazine. It’s short and a little rough, but it’s a start. We are currently working on the second issue which is due out at the end of the month. It’s going to blow the first issue out of the water.
The magazine is published bi-monthly. It’s 100% online, which means that you don’t have to fill out one of those goofy prepaid postage cards and send it in. You just go online and read. It’s also 100% free. It’s a beautiful thing. You can either read the magazine on the internet or you can “subscribe” to our mailing list and we’ll email it to you with the .pdf file attached. How do you subscribe? Just send us an email at wifflersdigest@gmail.com and say “I want the magazine” and we’ll send you a file of the current issue and sent you every future issue thenceforth. It’s that simple. So now your knowledge of the game can extend beyond what your friend does down the block. You can read about leagues and tournaments across the country…and the world. Did you know they play wiffleball in Japan and Taiwan now? Seriously!
If a bi-monthly online magazine doesn’t give you your fix then you can visit our blog, which is updated EVERY day. You can also “like” us on Facebook and/or “follow” us on Twitter. If reading and following along aren’t enough then we are open to other people writing articles as well. You don’t have to be an English professor to write for us. I look forward to hearing from some of you about your thoughts on the game, the magazine, or what you are doing with the sport. So join me in our effort to give the game another place to call home.
Thanks,
Josh Smith
Editor-in-Chief
Wiffler’s Digest
