As a boy, Bryce Harper loved watching the All-Star Game, with the game’s best players taking the field in their team’s uniform.
“If we could change back to that,” Harper said on the day before this year’s All-Star Game, “I think it would be really cool.”
The next day, commissioner Rob Manfred said he would think about it. On Monday, the league surrendered: After four years of annual Nike-designed All-Star uniforms, the league confirmed it would scrap the special All-Star outfits and reclaim one of the sport’s most picturesque traditions.
The league did not issue a news release announcing the change, instead disclosing it in two sentences of a five-paragraph story on the MLB website.
In 2025, assuming Shohei Ohtani makes the All-Star Game, he will wear a Dodgers jersey — not the navy blue National League jersey with light blue sleeves he wore this year, and not the dark blue jerseys with floral trim and letters running up and down rather than right to left that he wore in 2021, as an American League All-Star.
In 1933, in the inaugural All-Star Game, NL players wore league jerseys. AL players did not. From 1934 through 2019, All-Stars all wore team jerseys.
In 2021, after a pandemic-shortened season without an All-Star Game, the league unveiled its first All-Star uniforms.
“I don’t know if I’m necessarily in love with that,” the Dodgers’ Justin Turner said then. “To wear a Dodger uniform on the field for an All-Star game, it’s something to be proud of.”
When MLB signed a billion-dollar contract with Nike in 2019, the league did more than cash in. The league asked for help resolving its persistent problem in attracting newer and younger audiences.
The City Connect uniforms resulted from that partnership. So did the All-Star uniforms.
“If you look at those jerseys, they are a total departure from where teams have traditionally gone with their jerseys,” MLB chief revenue officer Noah Garden said then. “We put our trust in our partner and work collaboratively with them to come up with these designs that, fortunately, have resonated with our fan base.”
While MLB reported merchandising success — in 2021, those new All-Star uniforms were “essentially sold out,” a league official said then — the league now has acknowleged the annual wave of criticism from fans and players.
And not for the first time. In 2003, MLB floated the concept of dressing the All-Stars in AL and NL uniforms. The league backed off, but not before New York Yankees slugger Jason Giambi ripped the idea.
“Stupid,” Giambi told Gannett News Service. “It’s just stupid. It’s just another stupid idea. Fans want to see the players in their own uniforms.”
