Phil Hecken with Uni-Watch—
With MLB’s annual All-Star Game taking place tonight, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred held a question and answer session with writers and said that “there will be conversations” about the potential return of individual team jerseys at the All-Star Game.
That’s about the best news we’ve heard from MLB since the Nike uniform fiasco began back early in 2024.
Indeed. Yet Manfred has been a horrible caretaker of the sport. Maybe the worst ever? Phil, again—
It would also mark a change in thinking from Manfred, the worst commissioner since segregationist/racist Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis. As recently as 2022, Manfred is on record as saying, “I never thought that a baseball team wearing different jerseys in a game was a particularly appealing look for us.”
Never has one point of view explained so much. If you don’t understand why every team wearing their regular uniforms at the All-Star game is special—and appealing—then you shouldn’t be making decisions for the well-being of the sport. It explains the 2024 uniform debacle; it explains the ghost runner in extra innings; it explains the absolute dregs the sport has become.