Baseball's Losers Live It Up

The gods of baseball work in mysterious—and intercontinental—ways. In Japan, where baseball is considered only slightly less important than breathing, Osaka's famously hapless Hanshin Tigers (one Series title in 68 years) cruised to a pennant this year and will face the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks in the Japan Series this week. Across the pond, the Boston Red Sox, who haven't won a title since the end of World War I, are alive in the post-season, just one step away from the World Series. There are other similarities: each team plays second fiddle to an imperial rival: the Tokyo Giants for the Tigers, the New York Yankees for the Red Sox. The teams' supporters celebrate key victories in quirky ways. Tigers fans like to jump into Osaka's toxic Dotonbori River, while Boston fans rejoice in the time-honored American manner of rioting and destroying property.

But if either team is going to bring home a title, they will have to defeat a pair of curses. In 1919, the Red Sox decided to sell Babe Ruth, who turned out to be a pretty good ballplayer, to the New York Yankees for $125,000. They haven't won a title since, hence the Curse of the Bambino. Osaka has the Curse of Colonel Sanders. After the Tigers won their last championship in 1985, fans who resembled Tigers stars leaped one by one into the Dotonbori to resounding cheers. One problem: few Osakans were look-alikes for the team's 1.85 m, 95 kg American star Randy Bass. So they purloined a statue of portly Colonel Sanders from a nearby KFC and tossed that in the river. The Tigers have been cellar-dwellers ever since. If championships are awarded on the basis of deserving fans, the Tigers and the Red Sox should stand atop their respective baseball worlds. And then pigs will fly.

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