「シカゴ・カブスのビリー・ゴートの呪いを解くために、道頓堀から引き上げられたカーネル・サンダースおじさんを開幕戦当日に貸してあげましょう」@KFC

ネタかと思ったら、マジですか。
NBCより。

Colonel Sanders Wants to Break Cubs' CurseKFC: "It can't hurt!"

By EAMONN BRENNAN and ZACH CHRISTMAN

Updated 1:38 PM CDT, Thu, Mar 12, 2009

AFP/Getty Images
Colonel Sanders, fresh off a 24-year swim. If this guy can't scare away a curse, who can?

In Chicago, it's a goat. In Boston, it was Babe Ruth. In Osaka, Japan, it's something entirely weirder and therefore more entertaining: Colonel Sanders, Kentucky Fried Chicken's ubiquitous mascot.

Through an odd turn of events, the folks in Japan think they've broken their curse, and KFC now wants to share the luck with the Windy City.

First, a little much-needed background. Ever since rowdy fans of the Hanshin Tigers celebrated their team's championship in 1985 by throwing the Colonel into the Dotonbori River, the Colonel has been "cursed," and the Tigers haven't won since. For 24 years, people attempted to find the Colonel and pull him out of the water, thereby lifting the curse, but no one ever found him. Until Tuesday night:

The upper body of the statue was discovered at around 4 p.m. about 200 meters away from where it plunged into the water in 1985. When the figure was being pulled up by the crane on a salvage barge, construction workers could be heard to say, "It looks like a corpse." However, when Tigers fans such as the riverside project foreman saw the statue, they exclaimed, "It's the Colonel!"
Yes, yes, the Colonel is back, ready to give us delicious, brutally unhealthy chicken. In the meantime, if his recovery lifts the curse and helps the Hanshin Tigers win a league championship again, well, that's just a pleasant side effect. Why did Tigers fans throw the statue in the river in the first place? Apparently, they thought it bore a resemblance to then-Tigers slugger Randy Bass, and after doing a little Googling, we have to disagree: Randy Bass did not look like the Colonel in 1985. All those years of needless curse -- at least pick a better lookalike, right?

KFC sees this as an opportunity to help the greasy-chicken loving fans back home. On Thursday, the chicken king wrote an open letter to the new owners of the Cubs offering up the Colonel statue for Opening Day. But their choice of words makes this a bittersweet curse-breaking offer.

"Dear new owners of the 100-plus year championship drought," the letter begins. Ouch.

"Seeing as your 'recent acquisition' is in the midst of the longest championship drought in U.S. professional sports history ... we – at Kentucky Fried Chicken – want to help.
"We are working desperately with our Japanese colleagues to bring the curse-breaking Colonel Sanders statue to your field by opening day. While we can’t promise the statue will snap curses of billy goats, black cats or even a foul-ball-interfering fan, we figure it can’t hurt."

Never was an invitation so sweetly offered. Whether the Ricketts family or the Tribune Co. will take the king of fried chicken up on its offer remains to be seen -- we reached out to the Cubs, but they didn't want to comment.

Eamonn Brennan is a writer, editor and blogger who is suddenly hungry for greasy chicken. You can also read him at Yahoo! Sports, FanHouse, Mouthpiece Sports Blog, and Inside The Hall, or at his personal site, eamonnbrennan.com. Follow him on Twitter.

昨日は「侍ジャパン」に負けたシカゴ・カブス。
日本、カブスも倒す／ＷＢＣ強化試合経過
カブスはMLB屈指の古豪チームなのだが、
　ビリー・ゴートの呪い
のせいで勝てない、と言われて久しい。1908年のワールドシリーズ優勝以来、カブスは、ワールドシリーズの栄冠からは見放されている。長い低迷期があって、最近は、たとえば去年は地区優勝は出来たけど、ドジャースに3タテ食らって、敗退している。

ビリー・ゴートの呪いって、こんな話。R25より。

ビリー・ゴートの呪い

第二次世界大戦が始まる1940年代に入ると、勝率5割を切るシーズンが続いたが、戦争が終わった1945年にはグリムが監督に復帰し、16回目となるリーグ優勝を果たす。しかし、タイガースとのワールドシリーズでは3勝4敗で惜しくも敗れ去った。なお、このシリーズの第4戦では「ビリー・ゴートの呪い」の元となった出来事が起こっている。これは2勝1敗とカブスがリードして迎えた第4戦。地元バーの店主であるビリー・シアニスはカブスの熱狂的なファンで、可愛がっていた山羊と共にいつも試合観戦に訪れていた。しかし、この試合に限って球団側は山羊の入場を禁止し、シアニスと山羊は球場から連れ出されてしまった。これに激怒したシアニスは「2度とここ（リグレー・フィールド）でワールドシリーズが開催されることはないだろう」と言い放って球場を後にしたという。そして皮肉にもシアニスの予言どおり、これ以降チームはワールドチャンピオンはおろかリーグ優勝にさえ遠ざかることとなり、長い低迷期を迎えることとなる。