Nicknamed the Midsummer Classic, the date of MLB’s All-Star Game changes from year to year.

The last time the game was played on the same date in two consecutive years was the fourth and fifth editions of the game back in 1936 and 1937. The date usually doesn’t hold much significance.

But this year is different.

The 2025 Home Run Derby and All-Star Game will be held on July 14 and July 15, respectively, in Atlanta. If baseball fans write those dates numerically (7/14 and 7/15), they might quickly see a pair of numbers that hold a notable place in the sport’s lore. Babe Ruth’s career home run total (714) stood for decades as the MLB record — before Hank Aaron surpassed him with his historic 715th.

Realizing this, Hall of Fame pitcher — and current MLB special assistant to the commissioner — CC Sabathia had an idea.

In recent years, standard fare for the Home Run Derby has been players simply competing in their traditional team uniforms. That won’t be the case this summer.

In a return to pre-2018 tradition, competitors will don All-Star weekend-specific uniforms that center around the leagues they play in. More notably, though, uniforms will also pay homage to Ruth and Aaron in the city where Aaron played for nine years and broke the home run record. Ruth also hit No. 714 while playing for the Braves in his final games, albeit when the club was based in Boston.

“I just saw the date of the Home Run Derby, and knew that the game was in Atlanta again, and thought it would be special to honor not only Hank, but Babe, in that way,” Sabathia told ESPN. “Everything [in baseball] is about numbers. Who you can pass. You need to get this number to get in the Hall of Fame. Seven-hundred-fifteen is such a huge number, and that actually being the date in the Derby was the inspiration behind the guys wearing the uniforms.

“We’d be doing ourselves a disservice to not do the storytelling. Especially behind Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Atlanta. The history of our game, you know, we have so many opportunities to tell stories and just with the date and the number I thought it would be so cool to tell this one.”

The tribute is simple in nature, but easily noticeable. National League participants will wear No. 44 on their jerseys instead of their traditional club numbers, paying homage to Aaron’s jersey number. Competitors who play for American League teams will wear Ruth’s No. 3.

For Sabathia, the chance to pitch a tribute to Aaron — a legendary player with such rich history in the host city — was a no-brainer.

“Everything he meant to that city, to that organization, not only from being a player, to being an executive and all the guys he helped mentor through that organization,” Sabathia said about honoring Aaron’s legacy in Atlanta. “I think he should always be honored … the guys that I stand on the back of, I’m going to always make sure they’re getting honored.”

The Ruth tribute wasn’t a small matter to Sabathia, either. Ruth became one of the game’s icons with the New York Yankees, where he won seven World Series titles. For Sabathia, a six-time All-Star and former Yankees World Series winner himself, honoring Ruth was a matter of offering respect to one of the sport’s first legends.

“It was such a huge thing for Hank to be able to pass Babe, and to be able to pass that number, but up until then, and even still now, people consider Babe the home run king,” Sabathia said. “He did so much for the game, and to still have his name ring the way it does, I think it would be cool to be able to have jerseys with his [number] on the back, representing this All-Star game.”

An even broader impetus of Sabathia’s idea was helping put baseball’s lore in front of a national audience.

The sport doesn’t lack for famous tales, and Aaron becoming the new home run king in Atlanta in 1974 is one of the many iconic stories that make up baseball’s history. With Aaron’s and Ruth’s numbers honored on the backs of some of the game’s modern stars at the Derby, fans around the country will be encouraged to learn more about the superstars of previous eras.

“This new generation, you don’t get a chance to wear something new with Ruth on the back, right? Or Aaron on the back,” Sabathia said. “So I think it’s pretty cool to have another cool piece to wear that represents this All-Star game.”