From the Daily Sports Online column / デイリースポーツオンラインの連載コラムから
The Hanshin Tigers have won the Japan Series for the first time in 38 years, ending the second-longest drought in NPB. (The Carp have now gone 39 seasons without a championship, and will be playing for their first in 40 years next season.) Thanks in large part to the Tigers’ success, I have been in high demand these past two months, both in Japan and with overseas media. And through this, I have come to realize something: non-Japanese Tigers fans LOVE the Curse of the Colonel a LOT more than the locals do! Allow me to explain how I have seen this unfold, plus give my theory as to why this is the case.
November 2, 2023: I find myself in Kyoto at a kimono shop run by a lifelong Tigers fan. An American documentary filmmaker is asking her all about her love of the team, focusing on two related topics: Randy Bass (the actual topic of the documentary film) and the Curse of the Colonel. She is somewhat stupefied when talking about the Colonel but does her best to give a valid explanation: “It is not right to vandalize and destroy private property like that. Fans were not respectful enough.” No talk of a bogeyman or spirit that haunted the team. Not even an awareness of how or when the curse came about.
November 3, 2023: I receive an email from overseas that says this: “I’m a writer for MLB.com and am interested in learning more about the Colonel Sanders curse (especially with Hanshin on the brink of possibly winning a title).” We talk for 30-40 minutes, and from it comes a full-length article on the official MLB website.
November 8, 2023: I find myself sitting at a desk in my home in the evening, podcasting mic in front of me, as I talk through the curse with the hosts of an Irish sports podcast. (The Irish are known for cursing, are they not? Sorry, couldn’t resist.) They are tickled pink about all of the details that go into this urban legend.
I could go on and on, but all of the requests from overseas media outlets resembled each other in one way: the Hanshin Tigers and their fabled curse.
On the flip side, I also received a fair amount of media attention from Japanese press…
September 14, 2023: Sankei Newspaper interviews me on the day of the Tigers’ pennant clinch. We talk about my history and love of the Tigers, but also my thoughts on how it will feel for the team and its fans to finally be done with this drought – 18 years without a Central League pennant, that is.
September 28-October 6, 2023: Yomiuri Newspaper talks to me about the overseas fan reaction to the Tigers and their push for the 2023 pennant, with hopes of an end to the 38-year span with no Japan Series championship. Again, nothing related to the Dotonbori Canal or the statue that suffered down there for 24 long years.
October 24-30, 2023: Kyodo News Service interviews me about the impending Japan Series and my role in disseminating the news to the non-Japanese world. The article ends with a quote from yours truly: “We talk of 1985 and its legendary players all the time. It’s time for new legends to emerge in 2023.” I purposely avoided mentioning anything connected to fried chicken.
November 23, 2023: Yomiuri TV talks to me at the Hanshin Tigers’ victory parade in Kobe. Also, the next day, they visited my home to continue the interview, during which I said it was my dream to turn the Tigers into a global juggernaut. They asked how I felt about the excitement in the air at the parade, and how I plan on sharing this atmosphere with the world.
None of the Japanese coverage uttered a word about the Colonel or the curse. And believe me, it was not just superstition or fear of breathing words that might hex the team for another four decades. It is simply that the curse story truly is urban legend, and really only faintly known by even the most arduous Japanese fans.
I repeat: the rest of the world seems to care a whole lot more about this angle on the Tigers than the nation from which the tale was birthed. Why might that be? To be honest, I do not have a solid answer (other than the fact that the whole thing is a hoax, which vanished into thin air in either 2003 or 2009). But my guess is that the mystifying connection between a relatively unknown (outside of Japan, that is) American baseball player in Randy Bass and an iconic figure in American fast food history in Colonel Harland Sanders, married with baseball, in Japan (which is a notoriously peaceful, serene nation), is simply too much to resist. The story is just TOO juicy, like a perfectly deep-fried chicken leg.
The things that Japan take for granted – KFC being popular and having statues of the Colonel outside their stores, the Tigers being extremely popular but losing all the time, the people of Osaka being a rambunctious bunch, and foreigners being so rare (back in the day, anyways) that statues bear a closer resemblance to legendary players than any local person – well, they don’t make for a very compelling story. If anything, the episode brings a bit of shame to the people who acted out of sorts and threw the statue in the river, and perhaps it is best to let them live quietly with their past than to constantly remind them of it in the present.
And so, these past two months have seen me wearing two hats and catering to two audiences that have two very different interests in the same Hanshin Tigers narrative: one about a drought ending, the other about a fast food guru having his soul appeased.
It’s been a wild ride, everyone. Thank you for embarking on the journey with me. Now let’s start thinking ahead to Christmas… when KFC will be back on the menu! (True story!)
That was really interesting…I’ve never really talked with family or friends about the Curse before; curious now to ask around.
Thanks for more great content!
And I’m going to assume that you live in Japan, correct?