‘Japan’s Red Sox’ Just Broke Funniest Curse In Sports

Star-crossed baseball franchises aren’t unique to Boston. Across the Pacific Ocean, there’s another team with its own history of ineptitude stemming from a paunchy man with a penchant for fast food.

Meet “The Curse of the Colonel,” Japan’s version of “The Curse of the Bambino.” Or, actually, bid it farewell.

The Hanshin Tigers defeated the Orix Buffaloes (current Red Sox outfielder Masataka Yoshida’s old team and the defending champions) in Game 7 of the Japan Series on Sunday to snap a 38-year title drought. It was the second-longest in Nippon Professional Baseball and, like any good stretch of futility, came with its own urban legend.

The story goes that in 1985, while celebrating their team’s only championship, Tigers fans amassed at a bridge in Osaka’s city center. One by one, they chanted the name of each Tigers player, while a fan who apparently looked like said player would jump into the river.

When they got to Randy Bass, the slugging American first baseman, they ran into a problem: Bass was white, and there were no white fans in the crowd. So they stormed to a nearby Kentucky Fried Chicken, grabbed the statue of Colonel Sanders that stood out front, and tossed it into the river.

Thus, the Curse of the Colonel was born.

For the next 18 years, the Tigers were the worst team in the NPB. The fact that they are one of the oldest franchises in Japan and have among the most passionate fanbases, matched only by the far richer and far more successful Yomiuri Giants, invited many comparisons over the decades with the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry in the U.S.

Much as a newbie Major League Baseball fan who identifies with the underdog might choose to root for the Red Sox, an NPB neophyte might gravitate toward the Tigers.

Suffice to say, then, that Hanshin winning the title this year is kind of a big deal. Fans flocked to the same river Sunday night, according to Japan Today, and hurled themselves into the filthy waterway, which authorities reportedly described as “toilet water.”

Fear of waste-borne diseases didn’t deter the Tigers fans, though, who rinsed themselves clean of almost four decades of heartbreak. One fan who jumped into the river was even dressed as Colonel Sanders.

Uh oh.