Brian Kenny Credit: Awful Announcing Podcast MLB Network host Brian Kenny likes the idea of special All-Star Game uniforms, but thought this year’s uniforms were too “City Connect.”

MLB Network’s Brian Kenny spent a couple of weeks defending MLB’s All-Star Game uniforms.

He wasn’t such a fan when he saw the uniforms during Tuesday night’s game.

Many fans complained about the ASG uniforms and the MLB Now host felt their pain. In an appearance on the Awful Announcing Podcast this week, Kenny told host Brandon Contes that he likes the uniforms in theory, but what he saw Tuesday just didn’t work.

“A lot of chatter … about the MLB All-Star Game, which is a good thing,” host Brandon Contes said. “But a lot of the chatter is about the uniforms, oddly enough. Do you have a take on the All-Star Game uniforms, or whether players should just be wearing their regular team uniforms?”

“I was like the only guy defending them on my show for like two weeks. I kind of like the idea of ‘American’ and ‘National,'” Kenny said. “I wasn’t as big a fan seeing what they actually had on. It seemed more City Connect variety, but I like the idea.”

Kenny’s criticisms are mild compared to what was said on Tuesday. Nine-time All-Star Fred Lynn and college basketball analyst Dick Vitale were among the many people to criticize the uniforms, calling for a return to players wearing their team jerseys.

Kenny isn’t ready to give up on the idea of a special ASG uniform. Ironically, Kenny, who embraces the new era of analytics-driven baseball and Statcast as much as anyone, thinks the uniforms are a great throwback to baseball history.

“I like the idea,” Kenny said. “Being a student of history, I don’t know, maybe I have it in my head when these guys went barnstorming and maybe when they were, you know, the Bashing Babes and the Larrupin’ Lous, when it was Ruth and Gehrig, they’d have uniforms and I don’t know, I always seem to remember like, kind of an official Major League Baseball uniform.

“Maybe that didn’t happen, but I like the idea of American, National, that should work I think there’s a way of making it work.”

Kenny said he understands many fans don’t like that prospect, and he thinks part of the reason is MLB and its teams have done such a good job with branding, people don’t want to see change.

“There’s a ton of resistance to it,” Kenny said. “People say, ‘No, I want to see, you know, the colorful Major League uniforms that I’m used to,’ and maybe that speaks to the branding of Major League Baseball and its uniforms and that signifies to everyone, ‘That’s Major League.’

“Those are the bigs, that’s the rare air, that’s the big time. And we’re so used to that when you see anything else, your mind rebels.”

While Kenny is still a fan of the dedicated ASG uniforms, he admits the concept needs work.

“So I think there’s a way of making good All-Star uniforms that I think we’ll love,” Kenny said. “I don’t know if we’re there yet and certainly the reaction, people were not digging it and, you know, the commissioner said that maybe we move back, but I think there’s a way of making it work.”

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About Arthur Weinstein

Arthur spends his free time traveling around the U.S. to sporting events, state and national parks, and in search of great restaurants off the beaten path.