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.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
RSS