Curse of The Colonel
As with many other underachieving baseball teams, a curse is believed to lurk over the Tigers. After their 1985 Japan Series win, fans celebrated by having people who looked like Tigers players jump into the Dotonbori Canal. According to legend, because none of the fans resembled first baseman Randy Bass, fans grabbed a life-sized statue of Kentucky Fried Chicken mascot Colonel Sanders and threw it into the river (like Bass, the Colonel had a beard and was not Japanese). After many series without a series win, the Tigers were said to be doomed never to win the season again until the Colonel was rescued from the river.
In 2003, when the Tigers returned to the Japan Series after 18 years with one of the worst records in the Central League, many KFC outlets in Kōbe and Ōsaka moved their Colonel Sanders statues inside until the series was over to protect them from Tigers fans.
The top half of the statue (excluding its left hand) was finally recovered on March 10, 2009, and the bottom half and right hand shortly after, in the canal by construction workers while constructing a new boardwalk area as part of a beautification project. The KFC outlet where this statue once stood has since closed.
Read more about this topic: Hanshin Tigers
Famous quotes containing the words curse of, curse and/or colonel:
“That’s why I’ve come to you, to seek release from a curse of misery and horror against which I’m powerless to fight alone.”
—Edward T. Lowe. Erle C. Kenton. Count Dracula (John Carradine)
“The day will come when thou shalt wish for me
To help thee curse this poisonous bunch-backed toad.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I am asked if I would not be gratified if my friends would procure me promotion to a brigadier-generalship. My feeling is that I would rather be one of the good colonels than one of the poor generals. The colonel of a regiment has one of the most agreeable positions in the service, and one of the most useful. “A good colonel makes a good regiment,” is an axiom.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)