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:
“This is the curse of our age, even the strangest aberrations are no cure for boredom.”
—Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)
“The besetting sin of able men is impatience of contradiction and of criticism. Even those who do their best to resist the temptation, yield to it almost unconsciously and become the tools of toadies and flatterers. “Authorities,” “disciples,” and “schools” are the curse of science and do more to interfere with the work of the scientific spirit than all its enemies.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“Swan/Mary Rutledge: Oh no, no. I’m not running away. I came here to get something, and I’m going to get it.
Col. Cobb: Yes, but San Francisco is no place for a woman.
Swan: Why not? I’m not afraid. I like the fog. I like this new world. I like the noise of something happening.... I’m tired of dreaming, Colonel Cobb. I’m staying. I’m staying and holding out my hands for gold—bright, yellow gold.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)