In this History Blog post, I talked about the various “curses” in the baseball world, especially the “Curse of the Colonel”.
In a nutshell, Japan’s Hanshin Tigers baseball team always seemed to have the same “snakebit luck” as the Chicago Cubs. The Tigers just never seemed to be able to win it all, despite being a rich, major market team with many fans. Back in 1985, however, the team won the Japan Championship Series (Japan’s version of the World Series). In a fit of celebration, a swarm of fans ran to the nearest bridge. As the crowd screamed out the number of a player, a fan resembling him would jump off the bridge and into the river. But there was a problem: a big reason the Tigers won the Series was the bat work of an American player, Randy Bass. And there weren’t any Americans around to jump off the bridge when Randy’s number was called. A few fans took matters into their own hands and ran to the nearest Kentucky Fried Chicken. There they stole the fiberglass statue of Colonel Sanders that stands outside many Asian KFC restaurants. So when Bass’ number was called, the jubilant crowd heaved the statue off the bridge and into the water.
Since then, the Tigers have posted one of the worst records in Japanese baseball. Many were convinced that the Colonel had “cursed” the team. A few fans even pooled money to dredge the river in hopes of finding the statue. Alas, the statue was never found, and the Tigers continued to lose…
But now there’s hope! The statue has been found! You can read all about it at Yahoo! here, but the gist of it follows:
A diver checking for unexploded bombs from World War Two in the river as part of a clean-up found the Colonel’s top half on Tuesday, minus his hands and glasses but still sporting his trademark string tie and grin.
The Colonel’s smile might have widened if it could on Wednesday, when his bottom half was recovered and reunited with the top. “It’s only a statue, but I felt as if I was rescuing someone,” a worker told reporters after the lower half was found.
“When I heard the statue had been found, I felt that history had ended,” Yoshio Yoshida, 75, Hanshin manager at the time, was quoted by the Asahi newspaper as saying. “Recalling 1985, I’d like them to achieve the dream of being Japan No. 1 again.”
I’m glad Terrell Owens was the only thing going on in the NFL last week. 🙁