colonel sanders, randy bass and a japanese fairy tale

( Please scroll down for video )

This one is going to require some background, but I assure you it is worth it. It involves an American baseball star, a drunken celebration, and a centuries old folk tale.

Randy Bass, now a member of the Oklahoma State Senate, was signed by the Hanshin Tigers of the Nippon Professional Baseball league in 1982, after spending several seasons bouncing around the US Major Leagues. The slugger first baseman soon became a offensive sensation in Japan, going on to lead the league in home runs, batting average, and RBIs for consecutive seasons. He is credited for turning around a struggling Tigers franchise and leading them to their only Japan Series championship in 1985. 

Hanshin Tigers supporters have a reputation for being the most enthusiastic baseball fans in Japan, and the home base of Osaka makes them the perpetual underdog in their rivalry with the Tokyo Giants, the traditional powerhouse based in the nation's capital. In the excitement after the Tigers storybook chump to champ victory in the Japan Series in early November 1985, ecstatic fans gathered on the Ebisubashi bridge over the Dotobori River in the center of Osaka to celebrate. In the midst of the revelry a Colonel Sanders statue, said to resemble Randy Bass, was taken from a nearby Kentucky Fried Chicken, and jubilantly hurled over the bridge into the river.

This reckless act led to the infamous "Curse of the Colonel", which had supposedly hexed the Tigers, preventing them from winning another national championship ever since.

However, in March 2009 workers constructing a riverside walkway discovered the submerged statue, bringing hopes that the curse would be lifted. The news of the statue's recovery captivated the Japanese imagination, with many commenters comparing it to the ancient tale of Urashima Taro, about a fisherman who after showing compassion to a sea turtle, was brought to an undersea palace to be rewarded.People had fun with the notion that the colonel, like Urashima Taro, who emerged from the depths of the sea centuries later to find the world a different place, had also returned to this world with a message. 

My interview with Senator Bass begins at 7:33 in the below video. Preceding that is a report from my colleagues in Japan from the discovery scene, including an interview with the construction foreman. The current CEO of KFC Japan, Masao Watanabe, also appears, suggesting that despite many previous unsuccessful attempts to locate the statue, the accidental discovery now must have some deeper meaning. "This is a once in a century discovery. I recognize that saying this is a bit far-fetched, but I believe the fact that he emerged now must mean that the Colonel is trying to tell us something". Eyewitnesses then describe that raucus night on the bridge, and the building owner where the since moved KFC outlet was in 1985, 80 year old Kiyoko Araki, shared photos and her recollections from that crazy night. "People were everywhere screaming 'we won, we won', as they carried the statue away on their shoulders. I said to myself what the heck are these people doing ? " 

We then see file footage of past attempts to find the statue in the polluted river, including a dive in 2002 that yielded 57 discarded bicycles, but no colonel. 

I was asked to get the slugger's take on the discovery, and the great sport that he is, Randy Bass accommodated. In his Oklahoma State Capitol office, Senator Bass shared with me what the colonel's message might be after returning to this world. "I'm sure the colonel would be shocked to see me as a state senator", Bass quipped. " Thinking about how loud Koshien (stadium) is, he was probably sleeping very quietly in the river. Now he has to go back, and he is probably mad at me because it was my fault he was thrown in the river !"