Baseball bats are apparently popular in Russia. Though it's not known for its interest in our national pastime, a report says that 500,000 bats were sold in Russia last year, per Moscow's traffic police chief. The report also notes that only one pair of batting gloves were purchased.

OK, so it's a country full of Matt Carpenter and Wil Myers fans, right? Well, no ... (via tass.com):

"Road conflicts with drivers using weapons, bats and knives have become more frequent," Viktor Kovalenko said, adding that car salons have started selling baseball bats. "One hardly knows where to play baseball in Russia," he said. "The game is not popular in the country."

Well, yeah, that's disappointing. Here we were thinking that Rob Manfred's global initiative was working quicker than we could have ever imagined.

Then again, one pair of batting gloves and also one reported baseball are a step in the right direction, right? At least until we hear about people starting to buy balls to throw at passing-by automobiles, I guess.