That is simply factually incorrect. In 1996 the All Star backup catchers were Kendall and Todd Hundley. Hundley was a better hitter that year by a pretty good margin, but let's not forget that he was also an awful defensive catcher, much worse than the mostly mediocre Kendall was. In 1998 Javy Lopez was the other backup catcher and not withstanding his superior power, Kendall was still more offensively valuable that season. And it's not like Lopez was some top notch fielder either. And then in 2000 Kendall started. The backups were Mike Piazza (who started the other two years), who is a Hall of Famer. Yeah, no shyte, Kendall wasn't as good as him. There were two other catchers picked that season, Mike Lieberthal, who didn't have as good a season as Kendall that year, and Joe Girardi, who had a much worse season than the other three and wasn't even close to the player that Kendall was that year. And Kendall wasn't the only Pirate who made it that year, because Brian Giles had a great year that year and he was on the All Star team as well.