He was covered in mud when pulled from the river and had lost both legs and hands, not to mention his glasses. But Colonel Sanders still had his trademark smile, 24 years later.
A statue of the KFC mascot has been found in a river in Osaka, a city official said yesterday, nearly a quarter century after being tossed in by crazed baseball fans who felt the image of restaurant founder Harland Sanders resembled a key team member.
“He was apparently found standing upright, which is fitting, because although he was a nice man he could also be very strict and demanding,” said Sumeo Yokakawa, a spokeswoman at the chain’s Tokyo headquarters.
PHOTO: AP
She said the statue was taken from a nearby KFC restaurant and tossed in the river as part of a celebration by baseball fans in 1985, the year Osaka’s baseball team, the Hanshin Tigers, won the national championship.
Local fans thought the Colonel bore a resemblance to Randy Bass, a bearded power hitter and first baseman from the US who played for the team at the time.
Fans often jump into the murky river to celebrate the team’s successes, but there has been little to celebrate in recent years.
Many fans feel the team has been plagued by the “curse of Colonel Sanders” since his effigy was submerged in 1985.
It has failed to win a national championship since, although it did win its division in 2003.
The upper half of the statue was found on Tuesday in Osaka’s Dotonburi River during construction work to build a new walkway, city official Hideo Yuko said. His legs and right hand were found yesterday morning.
The colonel will be kept in police custody for the time being, but Yokakawa said KFC was considering donating him to the home stadium of the Tigers in Osaka. The store where he originally stood has since closed.
The KFC chain operates about 1,160 restaurants in Japan and has about 1,000 Colonel Sanders statues in the country.
Osaka, Japan’s second-largest city after Tokyo, is located about 420km west of the capital.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS