An apparently slow-moving Japanese recovery team has rescued a statue of Colonel Sanders from watery doom. Twenty-four years ago, fans of the Honshin Tigers baseball team threw the statue into the Dotonburi River after concluding that the elderly Kentucky Colonel was a dead ringer for power-hitting first baseman Randy Bass.
Do you see the resemblance?
Bass, who hit .212 lifetime in Major League Baseball, was a superstar in Japan. There, he hit .337 over six seasons and, in 1985, nearly broke the legendary Sadaharu Oh's single-season home run record. One dinger short of immortality, Bass and his Tigers closed the season against the Tokyo Giants, managed by Oh. The Giants pitched around Bass, throwing everything low and outside to protect their hero's record. In the season's final game, after four intentional walks in a row, Bass lunged at a curveball in the dirt and managed only a bloop single.
Bass is now a state senator in Oklahoma. Colonel Sanders is dead.
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