Yesterday I received an email from Hasbro announcing Starting Lineup figures are returning on September 22, 2022. I don't picture myself collecting them. Storage space is the biggest obstacle. Plus my hobby budget is much better spent on dime boxes, flea market finds, and the occasional blaster box.
That being said, I was very excited about the news. Hopefully a new generation of SLU collectors will emerge and bring more attention to the figures of yesteryear.
There's a huge part of my hobby timeline that was dedicated to collecting Kenner Starting Lineups from the 80's and 90's. Like my old card collection, a large percentage of those figures were sold off in the early 2000's. But when I returned to the hobby later in the decade, I loved picking up dollar SLU's at the flea market and card shows.
A few years ago, I opened up most of them to conserve space which inspired me to start collecting the trading cards that accompanied the figures. These days I have two binders dedicated to Kenner SLU cards and several banker's boxes filled with unopened figures. I also have several Ziploc bags filled with opened figures and a few on display in my office.
Today, I figured I'd show off six of these figures (and their cards) in celebration of the big news.
#1: 1988 Tony Gwynn
This is Gwynn's rookie piece which was released in the inaugural year of Kenner SLU's. Although the face sculpt isn't perfect, it did feature him with that late 80's 'stache.
The 1988 Kenner baseball card design was used for football and basketball too. The only difference is that the red border was replaced with white in football and blue for basketball. After all of these years, it's still my favorite Kenner SLU card design.
#2: 1989 Curt Warner
#3: 1991 Rickey Henderson
The first two featured him with the New York Yankees, while the next three were with the Oakland A's. I really like this particular figure as he's doing what he did best: running. As for the card, I know some people aren't a fan of bright yellow borders, but I like it. And the action photo paired with the portrait is reminiscent of 1983 Topps... which happens to be one of my all-time favorite designs.
Rickey Henderson has a ton of Kenner SLU's. Not sure how many he has in all, but he had at least one figure each year from 1988 to 1992.
#4: 1998 Muhammad Ali
I'm not a huge boxing fan, but I do love this figure. By the time 1998 rolled around, Kenner was starting to produce higher quality sculpts where you could actually recognize the athlete.
However the Timeless Legends card design that year was a little boring. Plus I'm not a fan of the zoomed in crop job.
#5: 1998 Kobe Bryant
Yikes. I spoke too soon. No idea whose head sculpt this is, but this isn't Kobe. The face is wrong... and at the very least they could have given him his afro.
On the other hand, the card is pretty cool. It utilizes a variation of Kobe's 1997-98 Upper Deck card with the players in the background blurred out.
Here's what his pack pulled base card looks like:
Sorry about the COMC image, but I was surprised to see that I don't have this card in my Kobe binder.
#6: 1999 Brett Favre
Like Rickey, Favre has a ton of Kenner SLU's to collect. I'm 99% positive he has at least one regular issue figure from 1994 to 2000, plus a bunch of special releases like Classic Doubles and Gridiron Greats.
The 1999 design features a simple yet attractive borderless design, but the highlight for me is the well-cropped action shot of Favre rolling out and getting ready to sling the ball to someone. Although the figure didn't capture the white towel, it did feature his white wristbands which is pretty cool.
#6: 1999 Brett Favre
So there you have it... a decade's worth of plastic figurines and the cards that accompanied them. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the 2022 collaboration between Hasbro and Fanatics is a success. At the very least, they better make sure the figures include trading cards.
Okay... it's time for today's question of the day. I'm sure I've asked this question before, but...
Did you ever collect Kenner SLU's?
And...
Are you excited they're coming back?
Looking forward to reading and responding to your comments... especially since they'll be SLU related.
Happy Tuesday and sayonara!
24 comments:
No. Not really.
Why is there a base for one foot but not the other one?
Starting Lineup coming out coincided with a low point in my life. I was 12 and the 16 year olds that I hung out with turn me into a shoplifter. Starting Lineup figures from Wal Mart were one of my favorite targets. As a matter of fact, I think I swiped one of those Gwynn figures. Luckily I got caught before it got too bad, but I can't ever think of collecting those figures just because they remind me of a bad version of myself.
No,they were always to small for me as far as figurines I preferred bobbleheads,mcfarlanes and danbury mints.
I loved SLUs as a kid, and still do. That Warner figure was one I would have loved to find - out of market team, not a 'big' name. In fact before the announcement of their return I was thinking of starting up a collection of all the old SLU figures I could never find back in the day.
As for the new figures, I'll have to see how they look, price, point, checklist.. but I'm definitely more excited about that than whatever Topps or Upper Deck product is being released a year+ too late :/
Absolutely. Still have a few of the Tigers in a box somewhere.
I wouldn't say collected. I had two of the original 1988s. Candy Maldonado and Will Clark. The Maldonado was actually a stadium giveaway and I colored the bat black because that's what Candy used that year. I totally should look up the cards and fill in the Giants and Stanford guys I'm missing since I only have the two 1988 cards. I gave the figures to my kids. They like them and I can totally see them liking this new iteration (as a parent I'm not looking forward to more clutter though)
FWIW I love that yours are not in their boxes. I understand the BNIB thing but really hate it. This stuff is supposed to be used.
I never collected them. I saw your headline and honestly confused it with SKUs.
Not sure what the deal is with my comment box, but people (including myself) are having trouble viewing it. I've decided to switch over to a pop-up comment box for the time being. This should temporarily fix the problem. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.
johnnystradingspot - thanks for the email letting me know about the comment issue.
elliptical man - i'm guessing kenner thought less was more.
hiflew - thanks for sharing that story. i also dealt with theft when i was younger. but my story involves getting a friend to steal for me. long story short... we got caught, i lost a friend, and a life lesson was learned
sg488 - i definitely went through a bobblehead and mcfarlane phase. danbury mints were a bit out of my price range though
chris - i'm not even how i was able to find a seahawks figure in the bay area, but i did. would have figured that was a regional issue for sure. i'm pretty interested in seeing what hasbro and fanatics will produce too.
john sharp - maybe one day you'll pull them from that box and blog about them. i love reading slu posts
nick vossbrink - they had a kenner slu stadium giveaway figure? that's awesome. had no idea. as for sealed figures... i collect them too. i only opened a bunch of them due to lack of space. i have a select few i kept sealed (like key rookie pieces).
brett alan - lol. sorry about the confusion. do people collect those bar codes?
crocodile - thanks for pointing that out. i've created the pop up window as a temporary fix.
As I mentioned in the Run-Fore!-Kellogg's blog, I was never interested in Starting Lineup figurines/cards. But at the Rose Bowl flea market in March, I came across a sealed '95 Derek Jeter SLU and a sealed '96 Cal Ripken Jr. SLU. On eBay, the Jeter SLU has sold for between $7 and $40 recently. The Ripken has sold for between $2 and $7. The flea market vendor sold them to me for $2 each. Right now, they're just trade bait.
I never collected SLUs for the reason you touched on - storage. I'm already short of space and these things take up so much room. Never been an "action figure" type of guy, either. (I *do* love collecting the accompanying SLU cards, though!)
The popup box is better.
I've never really liked SLU's simply because I thought they lacked details. When McFarlane's came out I thought those looked much, much better but like everyone else pointed out storage is a major concern. Which really is an excuse to not collect these as I collect just about anything else. I have tons of bobbleheads so I guess you've got to pick your battles in what you're collecting.
As a kid I loved Star Wars figures. When I started getting into baseball I thought it would be so cool to have baseball figures. Then Starting Lineup came out and I was quite excited. But then I was disappointed, the figures weren't very posable and there wasn't much "play value" to them. I did have the original Rickey Henderson with the Yankees. Also Willie Randolph, Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry - I think they were distributed regionally by team at first?
Pop up box definitely easier. Not so keen on the script font now though. :p
FWIW the stadium giveaway was the regular SLU. Nothing special aside from them being Giants. My guess is that SLU did it to get kids excited and it worked well enough on me to get me to buy another before I realized that storage/display was going to be an issue.
I don't know of anyone who collects bar codes. I suppose I thought the headline meant you bought six different types of product. Entirely my own brainfog.
I love collecting the Starting Lineup figures! If I see them at a decent price at a flea market, yard sale, etc, then I usually nab them and display them in my cubicle at work. I try to keep them in the packaging if at all possible as well. And yes...I'm very excited they are coming back but, knowing the outrageous price of collectibles right now, I'm a bit worried that they'll be priced well beyond my budget or the resellers will get them first and charge double the price for them.
There should be a nice interest increase so everyone can start unloading their current supply. Storage definitely an issue I imagine.
bbcardz - 1996 was the jeter rookie piece, so that's a great find for $2. when i go down to los angeles this summer, i'm gonna try and walk around the rose bowl flea market again.
nick - if i had to pick between the cards or the figures, i'd go with the cards too.
crocodile - maybe i'll end up keeping the popup then. i used to buy bobbleheads too, but stopped... unless they're a buck or two. at that price, i'll snag them and bring them into my classroom
bo - yeah, i thought they were regional too. although i think some of the bigger names might have been distributed on a national level. i wish i could afford to collect the original star wars figures. from 5 to 8 years of age, they were #1 on my christmas wishlist
nick vossbrink - lol. i was playing around with setting last night and switched it. can't remember what font i originally had, but i changed it to something non-script. that's still pretty cool that they passed them out at games. i know the a's and sj sharks recently gave slus away at games within the past 5 years
brett alan - sorry i mislead you, but glad you stopped by and left a comment (actually two) :D
adam - based on what i see some action figures sell for, i'm guessing they'll be in the $15 to $20 price range. hopefully i'm wrong though. i have a few slus at work too. mostly duplicates that i already have in my office. but i also have a few unopened figures hanging on the wall
sumomenkoman - one of these days i'll set up at my buddy's local comic con and try to dump a bunch of toys (including slus).
I had a bunch of baseball ones as a kid that I would play with. Now I have a couple that are in boxes (Tino from 1997 and 1999).
I never had a football one, but always thought it was cool they came with the helmet you could remove.
I was doing card shows in the early 90's and had cases of Starting Lineups. I couldn't give them away...nobody wanted them.
Only exciting if they include players i collect. I prefer cards by far more. No room to store figures
I am likely to get some of these but the card is a must.
the lost collector - yeah, the football and hockey goalie figures offered the best bang for your buck, because they had accessories (helmets and goalie sticks).
swing and a pop-up - wow. back in the early 90's, i would have loved to stumble across you at a show. i was scouring toys r us and kaybee toys looking for slus
matt - the figures make nice display pieces, but yeah, they take up space
runforekelloggs - i'm thinking they will include cards, since it's a collaboration with fanatics. fingers crossed.
I used to have a ton of them. When I collected Marino I had all of his and I had every single boxing SLU that they ever made. I sold them all off when I moved from MO to AZ.
Way late, sorry, but yes I collected them when they were first released. All but maybe the last few I bought are out of the box. My early ones were played with a lot, enough where part of the name has been rubbed off. I'll have to see if these new ones are any good and catch my interest.
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