Tagged: Baseball T-shirt
When Harry Met Sally: Harry’s Post-College Hoodie and Jeans
Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally (1989)
Vitals
Billy Crystal as Harry Burns, recent college graduate
Chicago to New York City, Spring 1977
Film: When Harry Met Sally…
Release Date: July 14, 1989
Director: Rob Reiner
Costume Designer: Gloria Gresham
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
I graduated from college fifteen years ago this week, and I’m still (slightly) younger than 40-year-old Billy Crystal was when he played recent University of Chicago graduate Harry Burns in the opening scenes of When Harry Met Sally. Directed by the late Rob Reiner (a qualifier which still hurts to say), When Harry Met Sally is considered by many—including yours truly—to be one of the best romantic comedies of all time.
Ironically scored to Louis Armstrong crooning “Our Love is Here to Stay”, the movie begins with Harry kissing a girlfriend whose name he wouldn’t even remember five years later. Amanda (Michelle Nicastro) introduces Harry to her friend Sally Albright (Meg Ryan), who has agreed to drive the stranger across the country to New York, which Sally has calculated should be “an 18-hour trip with six shifts of three hours each.” Continue reading
The Big Lebowski – The Dude’s Kaoru Betto T-shirt
Jeff Bridges as “The Dude” in The Big Lebowski (1998)
Vitals
Jeff Bridges as Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski, laidback stoner and bowler
Los Angeles, Fall 1991
Film: The Big Lebowski
Release Date: March 6, 1998
Director: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Costume Designer: Mary Zophres
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Today would have been the 100th birthday of Japanese baseball star Kaoru Betto who, despite his talents as one of the league’s earliest power hitters, may be most recognizable to many as his likeness graces the front of Jeff Bridges’ T-shirts in Cold Feet (1989), The Fisher King (1991), and most famously in The Big Lebowski (1998).
Born in Nishinomiya on August 23, 1920, Kaoru Betto made his Nippon Professional Baseball debut as an outfielder for the Ōsaka Tigers (now the Hanshin Tigers) in 1948. After two years with the Tigers, Betto moved to play for the Mainichi Orions (now the Chiba Lotte Marines) for the team’s inaugural season in 1950. Having attained a .335 batting average and 43 home runs during that first season with the Orions and leading them to victory in the first Japan Series, Betto was awarded the Pacific League’s first NPB Most Valuable Player. Betto finished playing after the 1957 season, focusing solely on managing. “The Gentleman of Baseball” died on April 16, 1999, a year after The Big Lebowski was released.
Kaoru Betto, playing for the Ōsaka Tigers in the late 1940s.
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