Start with the uniforms, which look like something out of a closet in your local Halloween spook house.

How the designs for the 2024 MLB All-Star teams made it beyond the concept stage says that someone in the big league office was helping out a friend, or their spouse.

Not only are they not good, but that outfit makes you look fat, and your butt look big, too. If you turn out the lights, players wearing the uniforms could function as glow-in-the-dark cones to land a 747 at DFW Airport.

In an attempt to create more merchandise to sell, both MLB and the NBA have embraced the All-Star jersey rather than just allow the players to wear their team uniform during the All-Star event. This development was cute initially, but trend has worn thin, like the game itself.

The 2024 MLB All-Star Game on Tuesday night was not a sell out.

“It wasn’t?” Cleveland Guardians All-Star DH David Fry asked. “That surprises me. The crowds at the hotel and everywhere else have been great.”

The announced attendance for the All-Star Game was was 39,343, which MLB declared “a sellout” in a venue that seats 40,300. Someone call the IRS.

This was one of the smaller crowds in the history of the All-Star Game, due in part because Globe Life Mall is on the front end of the new stadium designs that will see a reduction in seating capacity.

It’s also one of the smaller crowds in All-Star history because the demand isn’t quite what it once was.

Well before the American League wrapped up their 5-3 win over the National League, fans were leaving. And this was a solid baseball game.

“I thought this was a pretty good game,” Fry said. “This felt like a Guardians game to me.”

Take that as a compliment.

This is not an Arlington problem. It’s not a DFW problem. This really isn’t a baseball problem. This is an All-Star problem.

If MLB doesn’t want to listen to a collection of whiny media hacks (who, me?), they should listen to the fans and specifically their wallets. A less than sellout for your All-Star Game tells you a lot.

It tells you that it’s not a marquee event. It also tells you that fans know it’s over-priced.

Shrewd fans were buying tickets for half the price of face value a few hours before first pitch.

Short of putting the Savannah Bananas on the field, which would be great, there may not be much else MLB can do to spruce up the Midsummer Classic.

“Baseball is always trying to fix things that I really don’t think need fixing,” Angels All-Star pitcher Tyler Anderson said after the game.

One thing it can fix, the price of a ticket. Tickets for this All-Star Game were going for $350. Those are World Series prices. World Series prices for a game that doesn’t count, and the players behave accordingly.

Other than the drunk girl singing the national anthem before the start of the Home Run Derby on Monday night, not much about the 2024 All-Star week/game at Globe Life Mall will be remembered. Watching Shohei Ohtani of the Dodgers hit a three-run home run in the third inning on Tuesday night was fun.

Watching Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes face Aaron Judge of the Yankees in the first inning should have been great, but the at-bat lasted but one pitch.

Watching hometown Rangers, like second baseman Marcus Semien and reliever Kirby Yates, contribute to the American League’s win and receive big ovations from the crowd was nice.

The Midsummer Classic is a sweet piece of Americana from a different time. Those games, and those memories, helped build MLB into the global property it is today. There was more media at the All-Star event at Globe Life than there were at the 2023 World Series.

But the current MLB All-Star Game is only slightly ahead of the NHL, NBA and whatever the NFL does that serves as an All-Star event. All of those games have become no-effort fests.

Fans are too often treated like trash, and their loyalty is abused and taken for granted. Give them some credit here. They know what they’re watching.

They’re watching great players go half speed.

“For us, it’s like any other game, but you aren’t maybe going to see guys running down to first base all out because they don’t want to risk getting injured,” Anderson said.

He probably didn’t recognize he was unintentionally calling out the core of the All-Star Game problem.

Blame the almighty dollar. The players make “too much,” if there is such a thing. The fear of injury during an exhibition game is so great pitchers don’t throw for more than an inning, and no player will take anything remotely perceived as a “chance” to make a play.

The All-Star Game will go to Atlanta in 2025, and don’t expect too many changes to MLB’s July showcase.

The least it can do is dump those awful uniforms.

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