For decades, baseball’s All-Star Game was the most colorful event of the sports calendar. The stars of the American and National Leagues wore their regular-season uniforms for the game, a visual delight that also gave viewers an instant clue to distinguish the players.
Yet this year’s game, to be held in Arlington, Texas, on July 16, will be the fourth in a row to feature All-Star jerseys instead. It’s part of MLB’s 10-year deal with Nike, which runs through 2029, and while there is said to be momentum toward a revival of the old tradition for 2025, for now, Nike gets what Nike wants.
Major League Baseball has released the uniforms for its upcoming 2024 MLB All-Star Game in Texas. Cream and coral for the AL, dark blue and light blue for the NL.
My story with pics of all 30 teams and some history here: https://t.co/rNnooCuM0C pic.twitter.com/JgkaBpXlGl
— SportsLogos.Net (@sportslogosnet) July 4, 2024
And what Nike wants is maximum exposure for the All-Star jerseys, which were worn for Workout Day and the Home Run Derby as far back as 1997 in Cleveland, but not for the game itself until 2021 in Denver.
The last three All-Star Games have featured one team in a solid-color jersey over solid-color pants, a look that evokes a superhero more than a traditional ballplayer. This year will be no exception, with the NL pairing dark navy blue pants with dark navy blue jerseys. The AL will wear beige pants with beige jerseys.
The lettering and sleeve colors are pastel light blue for the NL and pastel red (“coral,” officially) for the AL, with the ubiquitous Nike emblem on both jersey fronts. Spelling out “National League” and “American League,” one word stacked above the other, does resemble the NL uniforms for the first All-Star Game in 1933 — but it’s worth noting that the idea was quickly abandoned in favor of teams wearing their regular jerseys.
The league will surely sell plenty of the 2024 jerseys, but the reveal on X brought some frustrated responses:
Can’t they just wear their regular uniforms? Why does everything have to be like this? https://t.co/m501JjjyhO
— Wayne Randazzo (@WayneRandazzo) July 3, 2024
We used to be a proper country pic.twitter.com/hqsAmBEZCJ
— DraftKings (@DraftKings) July 3, 2024
Cool, but not as cool as the 1989 All-Star Game jerseys. pic.twitter.com/rd5KIvayZ9
— The Twins Almanac (@TwinsAlmanac) July 4, 2024
can’t we do better than this? pic.twitter.com/12IRLcgwJZ
— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) July 3, 2024
Commissioner Rob Manfred, officially, anyway, has said that he prefers the generic Nike look to the players wearing their team uniforms. Asked about the switch before the 2022 game in Los Angeles, he said, “I never thought that a baseball team wearing different jerseys in a game was a particularly appealing look for us.”
Two years later, to judge by the uniforms we’ll see on July 16, that stance remains unchanged.
(Photo courtesy of MLB)
