Colonel Sanders welcomed by Hanshin Tigers Fans!

September 10, 2009 by Toonleap
Filed under Japan, News

The Colonel is back and it seems the curse is over for the Tigers.

Fans of the Hanshin Tigers professional baseball team celebrated Wednesday the return of a long-lost statute of Kentucky Fried Chicken founder Colonel Sanders, which was recovered in March some 24 years after it was thrown into an Osaka river, at Koshien Stadium in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture.

It is the first time the statue has appeared to the public since frenzied Tigers fans threw it into the Dotombori River when the baseball team won the Central League championship in 1985.

“I think the curse (of the statue) should be broken today,” said Manabu Inoue, a 41-year-old company employee from Toda, Saitama Prefecture, referring to a tale that the team’s drought in league titles since that incident has been due to the statute’s “curse.”

The statue was unveiled in a square outside the team’s home stadium before a game against the Chunichi Dragons, while fans of the two teams and others who went to the ballpark just to see the statue lined up to take pictures with it.

The life-size figure of the founder of the fried chicken restaurant chain was found and recovered during a riverside construction project.

Sept. 9 is the birthday of Colonel Sanders.

Source: Mainichi / Breibart