Here's the real reason why Colonel Sanders lookalike was at the Blue Jays-Dodgers World Series game in Toronto

The Los Angeles Dodgers evened up the seven-game series with a 5-1 win over the Toronto Blue Jays on Saturday night.

Among the crowd in Toronto was a man dressed as Colonel Sanders, the late entrepreneur who founded Kentucky Fried Chicken.

The fan sat behind home plate in a white suit and black bow tie. He also sported a white goatee and it seems his costume was no coincidence.

MLB fans and other news outlets speculated that it was an attempt to throw some Dodgers stars off their game because Colonel Sanders is a mythical figure in Japanese baseball.

Before we get to the real reason why the Sanders lookalike was there, here is some backstory for context:

The 'Curse of the Colonel' is a Japanese legend that claims the ghost of Sanders cursed the Hanshin Tigers - one of the country's oldest professional clubs - as revenge for throwing his statue in a canal.

Los Angeles has three Japanese players on its roster: two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto - the starting pitcher in Game 2 - and Roki Sasaki.

None played for the Tigers but the 'curse' dates back to 1985, when Hanshin made its first Japan Series in 1985.

Celebrations on the streets of Osaka culminated in fans grabbing a statue of Sanders and throwing it into the canal.

Hanshin went on to win the Japan Series in 1985 but the Tigers then endured a 38-year championship drought which only ended in 2023.

After speaking with a season ticket holder in the TD lounge (who wishes to remain anonymous), I learned that KFC Canada's marketing team is quite aware of this Japanese curse and made sure that the Colonel Sanders lookalike was in the right place at the right time.

It looks like KFC Canada was trying to kill two birds will one stone by attempting to throw Japanese players on the Dodgers off their game while subliminally promoting Kentucky Fried Chicken at the same time.

While KFC didn't succeed with initial part of their gameplan, as the Jays lost 5-1, their marketing ploy sure got people talking about Colonel Sanders and KFC again, which is the biggest reason the Sanders lookalike was behind home plate for game 2 of the World Series at Rogers Centre.

In 1965, Harland Sanders and his wife and his wife Claudia moved to in Mississauga, Ontario, to oversee the Canadian Kentucky Fried Chicken operations.

He bought a modest, split-level bungalow at 1337 Melton Drive in the Lakeview area of south Mississauga, not the kind of house that one might expect a millionaire to own.

Harland and Claudia lived part of the year in this house pictured below until his death in 1980 at age 90.

Instead of living an extravagant lifestyle, Sanders used most of his wealth from his growing Canadian business to fund the Harland Sanders Charitable Organization.

One of the recipients Colonel Sander's philanthropy is Trillium Health Partners, which opened the Colonel Harland Sanders Family Care Centre at the Mississauga Hospital in 1998.

That's a great legacy for a charismatic southern gentleman with a silver goatee, who simply wanted to serve high-quality fried chicken.