Hanshin Tigers legend Randy Bass, an Oklahoma native who’s bearded visage begat the infamous “Curse of the Colonel,” has been honored by the government of Japan with the Order of the Rising Sun.
Bass, 71, played parts of six Major League Baseball seasons with five different teams before signing with the Hanshin Tigers for the 1983 Nippon Professional Baseball season. It was with the Tigers, who play in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, near Osaka, that the first baseman found his greatest success on the diamond, winning the Triple Crown in 1985 and leading the Tigers to their only Japan Series title that year, a season in which he finished with 54 homers, one short of the record set by Sadaharu Oh in 1964.
Following the Tigers’ 1985 win in the Japan Series, delirious fans sang the cheer songs for each player until a fan resembling each player jumped in Osaka’s Dotonbori Canal. With no one resembling the bearded first baseman available, fans took a statue of Colonel Harland Sanders, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and tossed it in the canal as they sang Bass’s cheer song.
The sunken statue, combined with the Tigers’ failure to win another Japan Series until 2023, created the legendary “Curse of the Colonel,” the superstition that the Tigers would not win the Japan Series again until the statue was found. In the 17 seasons following the statue’s sinking, the team finished in the bottom half of the standings 15 times and in last place 10 times. While the Tigers appeared in the Japan Series in 2003, 2005, and 2017, it wasn’t 2025 — 16 years after the statue of Colonel Sanders was fished out of the canal, mostly intact, that the Tigers won the Japan Series, topping their Kansai Region rival Orix Buffaloes in 2023 for the second title in franchise history.
After the Tigers won the 1985 Japan Series, Bass returned to the club and again won the Triple Crown in 1986, setting a league record for batting average with a .389 mark that year. He left the team midway through the 1988 season to take care of his son Zach, who had been diagnosed with brain cancer.
After returning to Oklahoma, Bass was elected to the Oklahoma State Senate in 2004, and served through 2018, including a year as minority leader.
Bass is among 107 foreigners being honored with the Order of the Rising Sun for their contributions to Japan, that country’s government announced Tuesday. He will receive the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, which is the fourth of six degrees of the award. According to a report from The Mainichi, an English-language news outlet covering Japan, “some of the decorations will be conferred by Emperor Naruhito and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on May 9 at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.”
Photo: Randy Bass, first baseman for the Hanshin Tigers holds a trophy in his left hand and the key to a prize car in his right, Nov. 2, 1985, in Tokyo. Bass was named MVP following the Tigers’ victory in the Japan series by beating the Seibu Lions, 9-3. (AP Photo/Kyodo)
