Curse of the Colonel

The dreaded Curse of the Colonel was thought to be the reason the Hanshin Tigers couldn’t win a championship, not since their 1985 Japan Series win. As the story goes, to celebrate the win, unwitting fans jumped into the Dōtonbori Canal and pushed a life-sized statue of Colonel Sanders – yes, the face of Kentucky Fried Chicken – in with them. 

The Colonel was meant to represent the then-first baseman Randy Bass, an American who played for the Tigers at that time. The Tigers were thought to be doomed never to win another series until the Colonel could be rescued from the river (it was, in fact, fully recovered by divers in 2009 – the Tigers have yet to win another of the Japan Series).

Source: https://theculturetrip.com/