Contrary to what many believe, the Curse of the Colonel, Japanese baseball’s most famous and enduring urban legend, was sparked when the Hanshin Tigers won the Central League pennant in 1985 — not the Japan Series.
As the story goes, after Hanshin clinched that season’s pennant on Oct. 16, a group of Tigers fans gathered at the Ebisu bridge in Osaka’s Dotonbori district to celebrate the team’s first title since 1964. As part of the celebrations, fans resembling the players jumped off the bridge into the river below. There was no suitable doppelganger, however, for bearded American slugger Randy Bass, Hanshin’s best player. The quick-thinking revelers solved the issue by instead hurling a statue of Kentucky Fried Chicken founder Col. Harland Sanders, “borrowed” from a nearby KFC, into the murky depths instead.
This was the beginning of the curse, similar to how the Boston Red Sox deciding to sell Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees in 1919 sparked the famous Curse of the Bambino in MLB. The Tigers won that season’s Japan Series, but the club’s fortunes soon sank as fast as the statue, with just two top-3 finishes and 10 last-place finishes in the ensuing 17 years. The Tigers did not win the pennant again until 2003.
So the curse is over, right? That depends on who you ask. For some, it ended with the 2003 title, and Hanshin has even won two pennants since then. However, the team has yet to win the Japan Series again after losses in 2003, 2005 and also in 2014, which came after the Colonel, minus a few pieces, was fished out of the river in 2009. So for some, the vengeful spirit of the American fried chicken mogul will loom over Hanshin until it wins the Japan Series again — putting aside the fact the Tigers had not won before 1985 either.
The team’s drought — the second longest in NPB — and the remnants of the curse, could be over as soon as Saturday.
The Tigers seemed anything but cursed in the last two games of this season’s Japan Series.
Hanshin beat the Orix Buffaloes in Game 4 on a sayonara single by Yusuke Oyama at Koshien Stadium on Wednesday night, and a two-run triple by rookie Shota Morishita in the eighth inning led to a dramatic 6-2 win in Game 5 on Thursday. The wins at home gave the Tigers a 3-2 series lead and left them one win away from the title.
“We fought until the end just like yesterday,” Tigers manager Akinobu Okada, who played on the ’85 team, said following Game 5 after his team took two of three at Koshien. “We did not give up and got the best possible results yesterday and today.”
The series moves to the Buffaloes’ home park, Kyocera Dome Osaka, for Game 6 on Saturday.
“I’m going to take a day off,” Okada said. “I’m going to get some rest. I want to see the results of our hard work this year at Kyocera Dome (on Saturday).”
Okada, though, later allowed that his team had earned a little wiggle room.
“We’ll have to at least win one out of the next two,” he said.
While Morishita and Oyama came through in the biggest moments for the Tigers, center fielder Koji Chikamoto has been a constant. Chikamoto has at least two hits in three of the five games and is 9-for-19 with four RBIs and seven runs scored.
The Tigers also got a big boost from the emotional return of reliever Atsuki Yuasa in Game 4. Yuasa, who had not pitched since June, earned a hold in the Game 4 victory and pitched a 1-2-3 eighth to earn the win in relief in Game 5. His return gives the Tigers another arm to use out of the bullpen.
The Orix bullpen, meanwhile, broke down for the first time in the series in Game 5. The Buffaloes went into the eighth with a 2-0 lead, but star relief pitchers Soichiro Yamazaki and Yuki Udagawa combined to allow five runs — four earned.
The Buffaloes now head home needing to regroup after two tough losses in order to force a Game 7.
“We’ve been driven into a corner,” manager Satoshi Nakajima said, according to Sports Nippon. “It’s not like we get to start over, but we’re going back to Kyocera and we have to win two games. We’ll do our best.”
The Buffaloes should have their two best pitchers ready to go with the season on the line.
Ace pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto may be preparing for his last game in Japan, with most expecting him to move to MLB this offseason. Yamamoto won his third consecutive Sawamura Award this season and is Japan’s best pitcher.
The right-hander, however, had the worst start of his career when he surrendered seven runs against the Tigers in Game 1. Yamamoto shut down Hanshin during the regular season and, if he pitches in Game 6, will be looking to avenge his loss in the opener.
Left-hander Hiroya Miyagi, expected to get the start if there is a Game 7, threw six scoreless innings in a win over the Tigers in Game 2.
The Buffaloes have experience on their side. Orix won last year’s Japan Series by going on the road and beating the Tokyo Yakult Swallows in Games 6 and 7 at Jingu Stadium, with Miyagi starting and getting the win in the clincher.
Orix is hoping history repeats itself this year, while Hanshin will be playing to finally turn the page on Japan Series past — three losses since 1985 — when the series resumes Saturday.