The Curse of Colonel Sanders - JapanUp! magazine

The Colonel’s Angry Spirit Keeps the Hanshin Tigers from Japan’s Baseball Championship

This tiger is cursed by Colonel Sanders. Photo by Author.

Since 1985, Osaka’s Hanshin Tigers (阪神タイガース) baseball team has not won the Japan Series. Hanshin fans believe this is due to curse put on the team by Colonel Sanders.

The Hanshin Tigers are the baseball team of Osaka, the 2nd largest city in Japan. They play in the Central League at the hallowed grounds of Koshien Stadium. The Tigers are so loved across the entire Kansai region (Osaka/Kyoto/Kobe and surrounding areas), there’s even a word in Japanese, torakichi 虎キチ, to describe the team’s raucous fans.

Tora 虎 is, of course, the Japanese word for tiger, and kichi キチ is short for kichigai 気違い which means “lunatic.” It’s easy to find torakichi fans bedecked in the team’s gold and black, chanting the team’s fight song, Rokko Oroshi 六甲おろし, on the trains after every game.

The Tigers started playing in 1936, but in the modern two-league era, the team has only won the Japan Series once.

In 1985, to send the team off to win, crazed fans lined the Dotonbori River that runs through downtown Osaka. As the fans called out the name of each players, the fan who most resembled the player had to jump off the Ebisu Bridge into the river.

But when they call out the star of the team, the American slugger Randy Bass, there were no Americans in the crowd. Someone had the brilliant idea of grabbing the plastic statue of Colonel Sanders from the front of the nearby Kentucky Fried Chicken and tossing it into the river in Randy’s place.

Big mistake. The Colonel couldn’t swim. He sunk to the bottom. His spirit angered, he vowed revenge on the team.

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Colonel Sanders in Japan

For Americans, or at least this American, KFC brings the image of greasy, cheap fast food. But in Osaka, a world-class street food destination filled with delectable takoyaki, okonomiyaki, and a million other treats, KFC retains an honored place in the pantheon of fast food.

KFC was the second major fast-food chain after McDonald’s to open in the 1970’s as the country was entering a new era as a modernized, semi-Westernized country recovering from the devastation of the war. The Colonel was a kindly American, delivering fried chicken to the masses.

KFC was introduced to Japan at the Osaka World’s fair. Stores spread across country out of the Osaka Kansai region. Even now, KFC remains the most popular meal for Christmas dinner in Japan.

The real Colonel, Harlan Sanders, visited Japan 3 times and left his spirit behind. In front of every one of the more than 1000 KFCs across the country is a white plastic statue of him.

In the Shinto religion where there are gods for every niche and need, it’s easy to imagine the statue of Colonel Sanders as a kind of supernatural, supernational spirit. Maybe not a big, important god like Ebisu who can cure gout or deliver passing marks on the college entrance exam, but a minor spirit whose belly you rub in thanks for a delicious snack.

The Resurrection of Colonel Sanders’ Statue. Photo By Ogiyoshisan — Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22333037.

The Curse of the Colonel

After the fans drowned Colonel Sanders in the Dotonbori River, the team started an 18-year losing streak, coming in last place 10 of those years. In 2003, they finally won the Central League to return to the Japan Series but lost. The same result in 2005, and then again in 2014. In the 36 years since the Colonel was tossed into the drink, the team has never won it all.

This is known as the Curse of the Colonel, or in Japanese カーネルサンダースの呪い (Kāneru Sandāsu no Noroi).

The curse is often compared to the Boston Red Sox’s Curse of the Bambino, which was finally obliterated in 2004, and the Cubs’ Curse of the Billygoat which lasted until 2016. But the Curse of the Colonel is still going strong.

In an attempt to placate the Colonel’s spirit, for many years, divers searched the river for the statue, finally recovering it in 2009. Unfortunately, the particular KFC in Osaka he blessed couldn’t survive without him. The resurrected statue was placed at a KFC close to Koshien Stadium. Apparently, the Colonel’s spirit remains indignant.