As a boy, Bryce Harper loved watching the All-Star Game, where the game's best players took the field in their team's uniform.

“If we could go back to that,” Harper said the day before this year’s All-Star Game, “I think that would be really cool.”

The next day, Commissioner Rob Manfred said he would think about it. On Monday, the league capitulated: After four years of annual Nike-designed All-Star jerseys, the league confirmed it would do away with the special All-Star outfits and reclaim one of the sport's most picturesque traditions.

The league did not issue a press release announcing the change, but instead published it in two sentences of a five-part story on the MLB website.

Assuming Shohei Ohtani makes it to the All-Star Game, he will wear a Dodgers jersey in 2025 – not the navy blue National League jersey with light blue sleeves that he wore this year, and not the navy blue jerseys with floral trim and letters running upward instead of right to left, which he wore as an American League All-Star in 2021.

In 1933, at the first All-Star Game, NL players wore league jerseys. AL players did not. From 1934 to 2019, all All-Stars wore team jerseys.

In 2021, after a pandemic-shortened season without an All-Star Game, the league introduced its first All-Star jerseys.

“I don’t know that I’m necessarily in love with it,” the Dodgers’ Justin Turner said at the time. “Wearing a Dodger uniform on the field at an All-Star Game is something to be proud of.”

When MLB signed a multi-billion dollar deal with Nike in 2019, the league made more than just money. The league asked for help solving its ongoing problem of attracting younger and younger viewers.

The City Connect uniforms are the result of this partnership. This also applies to the All-Star uniforms.

“When you look at these jerseys, they are a complete departure from what teams have traditionally done with their jerseys,” said MLB Chief Revenue Officer Noah Garden. “We trust our partner and work with them to develop these designs, which fortunately have resonated with our fan base.”

While MLB reported merchandising success — in 2021, these new All-Star jerseys were “essentially sold out,” a league official said at the time — the league has now acknowledged the annual wave of criticism from fans and players.

And not for the first time. In 2003, MLB introduced the concept of dressing the All-Stars in AL and NL jerseys. The league backed down, but not before New York Yankees slugger Jason Giambi took up 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.”