THE BUZZ Managers Jerry Manuel of the White Sox, Grady Little of the Red Sox and Jim Tracy of the Dodgers will each be fired if their teams don't make the playoffs. The White Sox, in fact, may have to reach the World Series for Manuel to be retained. ... Frank Wren, assistant general manager of the Braves, has emerged as one of the leading candidates to fill the Reds' GM vacancy. ... The Yankees regard Braves right fielder Gary Sheffield as the top prize in the free-agent market, and are expected to vie for his services along with the Braves, Orioles, Mets and Padres. ... Former Mariners owner Jeff Smulyan and White Sox executive Dennis Gilbert's group have become the front-runners to purchase the Dodgers, according to two major league owners. ... The Orioles have made Expos outfielder Vladimir Guerrero their top offseason free-agent priority. ... The Expos now appear more likely to stay in Montreal than move to Puerto Rico, according to one major league executive. ... The Red Sox are interested in Angels infielder Scott Spiezio. ... Royals pitcher Kevin Appier and manager Mike Scioscia's dislike for one another led to Appier's release, which cost the Angels $15.79 million. ... Expos stars Guerrero, Javier Vazquez and Jose Vidro were all claimed on waivers. ... The Cardinals, frustrated with outfielder J.D. Drew, privately say they will trade him this winter. -- Bob Nightengale Today's Top Sports Stories • Prosecutors allege sports players got steroids from online ring - • Steelers say no evidence doctor gave hormones - • Matthews apologizes, says little else - • Steroids are just a click away - • '08 Olympics offer chance to help Chinese workers - • Add USATODAY.com RSS feeds What's this?

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The Colonel's curse runs deep OSAKA, Japan  They give us Ichiro and Matsui, Sasaki and Hasegawa. All they ask in return are the likes of Kevin Beirne and Tuffy Rhodes, George Arias and Colonel Sanders. Those Japanese are polite to a fault, even when it comes to baseball. Randy Bass of the Hanshin Tigers holds the trophy and a key to a prize car after being chosen the MVP of the 1985 Japan Series. Kyodo News Service via AP And that's why good ol' Colonel Sanders is the most significant American in Japanese baseball this season. Ever honorable, ever respectful, the fans of the Hanshin Tigers are holding their collective breath in hopes the Curse of the Colonel will finally be broken. It's not as longstanding as the Curse of the Bambino but those Tigers are the closest Japan can come to the Boston Red Sox. The Tigers play in the same league with the Yomiuri Giants, who are more than Yankees wannabes. This is a team so powerful it can do things George Steinbrenner wouldn't dare dream of — like tweak the draft rules long ago to ensure getting the one player they want every year. In Japan, the Giants win and the Tigers find new and creative ways not to. That's why, this year, even with an 16½-game lead with 36 games remaining, nobody's getting cocky. Sound familiar, Red Sox nation? The Tigers play in ancient Koshien Stadium, a baseball shrine in Japan built in 1924. The outside walls are covered with ivy and have a plaque marking Babe Ruth's appearance there in a 1934 exhibition game. The entire infield is dirt, a deep chocolate color dirt, including the mound, the bases and everything in between, plus the Oakland-esque foul territory. Fans camp out overnight for general admission tickets. Gates often open at 11 a.m. for a 6 p.m. start so the several thousand waiting fans can claim their spots in the bleachers. Many enter, tape a newspaper page on their desired spot and write their name on the tape, then go into stairwells or concourses and sleep off the previous night's waiting-in-line refreshments. And nobody takes a marked seat. Honesty, you know. Others just sit in their seats, singing and chanting like a European soccer crowd with manners, killing the three hours until their heroes appear for batting practice. "Georg-ie, Georg-ie," they chant when Arias, the former Angels and Padres third baseman appears. We knew him as George, but the Japanese generally pronounce the vowel at the end of a word. Georgie is a favorite and so is Hideki Irabu, having a big year for the Tigers. And don't necessarily assume Japanese players going home after playing in the U.S. have success. A few weeks ago, the Orix Blue Wave allowed 25 runs in a game, then five days later a Japanese-record 29. The Blue Wave starters in those games were Mac Suzuki and Masato Yoshii. But the Tigers are on an 18-year losing streak, and it's all linked to the Colonel and the last time Hanshin won. That was in 1985 and fans in downtown Osaka (the Tigers' home) did what they always do to celebrate a major sporting achievement. They began diving into the Dotonbori River, which cuts through the shopping district and is about the same unpalatable, un-potable color as the Koshien Stadium infield. Celebrating the Tigers' championship, fans went through the entire roster, singing the song for each player. Those songs, often more like a chant, are composed each year for every player and repeated constantly to the accompaniment of trumpets and small thunderstick-like implements whenever the player is batting. Plus, there is a team fight song that is among the regular fare at the local karaoke bars. That championship night, a fan who most resembled each player was pulled from the crowd and given the honor of the Dotonbori dive when that player's song was sung. Great stuff — until they got to Randy Bass. That's former major leaguer Randy Bass, 6-1, 220-pound, bearded Randy Bass. You can compute the chances of a look-alike in this crowd. But there could be no skipping Randy, no missing this river's only chance of sustaining any kind of bass. He won the Triple Crown and was Japan Series MVP. Alas, a few doors up the street, a bearded, American-looking chap was spotted. So what if it was a statue of Harlan Sanders beckoning passersby into the local KFC. The life-size Colonel was tossed in the river. Quickly though, those honest and responsible fans realized what a heinous act they had committed. They apologized to the store manager and promised to pull the chicken magnate from among the fish. But, when they returned the next morning to search the river bottom, the Colonel was gone. No explanation, even to this day. And the fans collectively carry that guilt. But maybe, just maybe, this is the year. It looks so much so that KFCs in Osaka already have their plastic Colonels in hiding. And just about every other business in town is ecstatic. "You can't believe what a good year for the Tigers does to the economy around here," says Tom O'Malley, the American now coaching for Hanshin after playing six years in Japan. And the Osaka economy can use the boost. You can believe it if you visit Osaka's largest department store, the Hanshin store, or take the Hanshin Railway train to the game as the vast majority of the fans do. (Yes, it's all the same Hanshin company. And you thought the Tribune Company had its fingers in a lot of pieces of the Cubs pie.) Half a floor in the store has been turned into a Tigers store, where on a normal weekday nine cashiers are busy trying to keep the line moving. And fans on the railway platforms gobble up balloons, sold four to a pack for the equivalent of about $1.50. At every home game, everyone in the 50,000-plus crowd sends from two to four of the colorful balloons into the sky as part of the seventh-inning stretch ritual. O'Malley says we'll never see anything like this fanaticism in the U.S. "We're too fickle," he says. And here, someone probably would have stolen the Colonel long ago — or leaving him standing out there not chained down never would have been an option in the first place. Hear Paul White on MLB Radio every Monday during the season at 3:30 p.m. ET on MLB.com Baseball in Japan Some things you might notice at pro games in Japan: • Batting practice usually has two cages, with a catcher in each sitting on a box. And for part of BP, the umpires come in and practice, too, bellowing out ball and strike calls. "It's doesn't help," says former major league pitcher Julio Santana. "They still stink." But just once, we'd like to see Joe West doing this. • Most stadiums' bullpens are out of sight, even under the stands, and managers usually don't know who the other team has warming up. • Pitchers are allowed five warm-up pitches, not eight, at the beginning of an inning or when they enter the game. So, pitchers often play catch in front of their dugout while their team is batting. • If a starting pitcher is not scheduled to pitch in a road series, he doesn't make the trip. He stays home and works out. • Players bow as they enter the field for the first time each day, a gesture of respect for the field. Some players still take deep bows but others now do something akin to a rolling stop. • Ushers blow whistles to warn fans when balls head into the stands during the game and batting practice. • Dugouts aren't as long but usually have three tiered rows of seats. • Coaches on the bench often use small megaphones to be heard over the constant din of the crowd, especially in domed stadiums. • Managers can take a translator to the mound. • Managers or pitching coaches usually stay next to the mound and watch a new pitcher's warm-up pitches. • Pitching rotations vary from four- to six-man with the order changed often to have pitchers face teams they've had success against. • The Pacific League has the designated hitter, the Central League doesn't. The Pacific League plays the national anthem before games, the Central League doesn't. But even where it is played, only about half the fans stand or even pay attention.