This has nothing to do with wine, but it's a great story you won't see in the U.S. media.
The Hanshin Tigers are the Cubs of Japan -- a team with a great fan base but a long history of failure. Despite having a good budget as the main team from Osaka, Japan's second largest city, the Tigers have only won the Japan Series once, in 1985.
Celebrating that achievement, the crazed fans had a lookalike of each player jump in the Dotonbori River near the stadium. But they had a problem: none of the locals looked like their leading hitter, American slugger Randy Bass.
A Bartman-like fan decided that the Colonel Sanders statue outside a nearby KFC looked a lot like Bass -- also bearded, and a foreigner. So fans tossed the statue in the river.
Since then, Hanshin has had nothing but failure. As the legend of the Curse of Colonel Sanders grew, Tigers fans mounted dive expeditions into the river to find the statue, but always without success.
The Tigers have the coolest theme song (I like the Denki Groove version), the best logo and the most loyal fans, but the Curse of Colonel Sanders has continued to bedevil them, fans believe.
Until today. At long last, divers found the Colonel and winched him to the surface. He had drifted 250m, and his legs are still missing, but more divers are searching.
Look out Yomiuri, the curse is on its last legs.
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