Curse of the Colonel
1985 Japanese urban legend / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Curse of the Colonel?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
The Curse of the Colonel (Japanese: カーネルサンダースの呪い, romanisation: Kāneru Sandāsu no Noroi) is a 1985 Japanese urban legend. According to the legend, a sports curse was placed on the Japanese Hanshin Tigers baseball team by the ghost of the KFC founder and mascot Colonel Sanders.
The curse was said to be placed on the team because of the Colonel's anger over treatment of one of his store-front statues,[1] which was thrown into the Dōtonbori River by Hanshin fans before their team's 1985 Central League pennant.[2] As is common with sports curses, the Curse of the Colonel was used to explain the team's lack of success in subsequent years.[2] Some fans believed the team would never win another Japan Series until the statue was recovered.[3] They appeared in the Japan Series three more times and lost in 2003, 2005 and 2014 before winning in 2023.[4]
Comparisons are often made between the Hanshin Tigers and the Boston Red Sox, who were said to be under the Curse of the Bambino until they won the World Series in 2004.[2] The Curse of the Colonel has also been used as a bogeyman threat to those who would divulge the KFC recipe.[5]