Now this made for some interesting reading.
Curse of the Colonel (カーãƒãƒ«ã‚µãƒ³ãƒ€ãƒ¼ã‚¹ã®å‘ªã„, KÄneru SandÄsu no noroi?) refers to an urban legend regarding a reputed curse placed on the Japanese Kansai-based Hanshin Tigers baseball team by deceased KFC founder and mascot Colonel Harland Sanders. The curse was said to be placed on the team because of the Colonel’s anger over treatment of one of his store-front statues.
In 1985, much to Japanese people’s surprise, the Hanshin Tigers faced the Seibu Lions and took their first and only victory in the Japan Series, largely due to star slugger Randy Bass, a gaijin (foreigner) player for the team.
The rabid fan base went wild, and a riotous celebration gathered at Ebisubashi Bridge in Dotonbori, Osaka. There, an assemblage of supporters yelled the players names, and with every name a fan resembling a member of the victorious team leapt from the bridge into the waiting canal. However, lacking someone to imitate MVP Randy Bass, the rabid crowd seized the Colonel Sanders (like Bass, the Colonel had a beard and was not Japanese) plastic statue from a nearby KFC and tossed it off the bridge as an effigy.
This impulsive maneuver was to cost the team greatly, beginning the Curse of the Colonel. Urban legend has it that the Tigers will not win the championship again until the statue is recovered.
I blame Randy Bass. Damn gaijin. But can you imagine the curse they’d have gotten if they’d tossed Ronald McDonald off the bridge?
I had to hit that article too after seeing it in Dom’s rant. I like how they’ve actually made several fail efforts to recover the original statue. It’s probably already been at the bottom of the Pacific for years.
I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I knew about the Curse before the article… but then, I’ve been spotted wearing a Hanshin Tigers cap recently, too.