Starting Lineup (SLU) figurines have a fascinating history, especially for sports-card collectors because they sit right at the intersection of action figures, sports memorabilia, and trading cards.
7
The Beginning — 1986–1988
The story begins with Pat McInally, a former NFL player who played for the Cincinnati Bengals.
In 1986, McInally visited a toy store and noticed something interesting: there were action figures for characters from Star Wars, G.I. Joe, and other franchises, but there weren’t really action figures representing the professional athletes that kids watched on television.
McInally approached Kenner Products with the idea of creating realistic sports figures. Kenner eventually turned that idea into Starting Lineup.
And in 1988, Starting Lineup officially debuted.
The initial launch was enormous:
- ⚾ MLB — 124 figures
- 🏈 NFL — 137 figures
- 🏀 NBA — 85 figures
- 346 total figures in the original launch across the three major sports.
That’s remarkable when you consider that the figures were generally only around 4 inches tall.
The Brilliant Idea: A Figure AND a Card
This is one of the reasons Starting Lineup is particularly interesting to sports-card collectors.
Most of the original figures came packaged with a small collectible trading card featuring the same player.
For example, you could buy a Kenner Starting Lineup figure of a player and receive:
Player Figurine + Player Card
The cards had player photography on the front and biographical/statistical information on the back. Beckett catalogs the 1988 MLB set as 124 cards, corresponding to the figures.
That made Starting Lineup almost a hybrid product:
Sports card + action figure + memorabilia
And that combination was extremely unusual for the period.
Why the 1988 Figures Are So Important
The 1988 Kenner releases are the foundation of the entire SLU hobby.
The MLB figures were generally distributed regionally, and Kenner didn’t necessarily put every player in every part of the country.
That created an interesting collecting problem.
If you wanted to complete a team, you sometimes had to hunt for figures distributed in other regions.
This is one reason early SLUs can be considerably more interesting than someone might initially assume.
And there’s another important factor:
They weren’t necessarily produced in huge quantities.
Starting Lineup became much more popular as the 1990s progressed, but the earliest releases came before the hobby fully exploded.
Collectors today often consider pre-1992 SLUs particularly desirable, especially when they are still in their original packaging.
Kenner → Hasbro
In 1991, Hasbro acquired Kenner.
Starting Lineup continued under Hasbro, and the product line expanded dramatically throughout the 1990s.
This is when SLU really became a major collecting hobby.
You could find figures representing:
Baseball
- MLB stars
- Hall of Famers
- Rookie players
- All-Stars
- Team sets
- Special editions
- Stadium Stars
Football
- NFL stars
- Quarterbacks
- Running backs
- Wide receivers
- Hall of Famers
- Team collections
Basketball
- Michael Jordan
- Magic Johnson
- Larry Bird
- Charles Barkley
- Shaquille O’Neal
- Hakeem Olajuwon
- Kobe Bryant and many others
Hockey
- Wayne Gretzky
- Mario Lemieux
- Patrick Roy
- Eric Lindros
- and many other NHL stars
The company also experimented with boxing, golf, auto racing, Olympic sports, soccer and other specialty lines.
Starting Lineup Became a Collectible Hobby
This is where things get really interesting.
Starting Lineup wasn’t simply a toy anymore.
By the mid-to-late 1990s, there were:
- Collector clubs
- Collector newsletters
- Exclusive figures
- Special poses
- Multi-player sets
- Different uniforms
- Limited releases
- Prototypes
- Stadium displays
- Special event figures
Hasbro even produced unusual products such as 12-inch figures and the larger Stadium Stars baseball figures.
One particularly interesting example was the 1995 Nolan Ryan Freeze Frame set, which included Ryan in four different uniforms and four different stages of his pitching motion.
The “Rare SLU” Phenomenon
This is probably the area that would interest you most from an investment/collecting perspective.
Not every Starting Lineup figure is rare.
In fact, there are plenty of common 1990s figures that can be purchased relatively inexpensively.
But certain categories can become very desirable:
1. Early 1988–1991 figures
These are generally the first place I’d look.
2. Hall of Famers
Think:
- Michael Jordan
- Ken Griffey Jr.
- Nolan Ryan
- Cal Ripken Jr.
- Barry Bonds
- Bo Jackson
- Wayne Gretzky
- Magic Johnson
- Larry Bird
- Joe Montana
- Walter Payton
- etc.
3. Star players in unusual uniforms
A player appearing in a particular uniform for only a short period can create collector demand.
4. Short-produced figures
Some figures had extremely small production runs.
There are even documented examples of recalled or unreleased figures.
For example, a 1996 Dallas Cowboys Troy Aikman figure in a particular paint scheme is believed by collectors to have had only 200–300 examples produced.
That’s a completely different collecting proposition from a common Starting Lineup.
Prototypes Are a Whole Different World
Starting Lineup also has a fascinating prototype collecting hobby.
Kenner created prototype figures and production samples before figures went into mass production.
Some players had:
- Different poses
- Different uniforms
- Different paint schemes
- Unreleased versions
- Unproduced players
These can be extremely scarce.
There are collectors who specialize almost exclusively in Starting Lineup prototypes and production samples.
That’s similar to the world of prototype trading cards, test issues, and unreleased sports memorabilia.
The End of the Original Era
After roughly 14 years, the original Starting Lineup run came to an end.
The last regular releases were produced around 2001, ending the classic Kenner/Hasbro era that began in 1988.
By that point, the sports-figure market had changed substantially.
Collectors had more options, including increasingly sophisticated figures from companies such as McFarlane.
Starting Lineup’s relatively simple 4-inch figures no longer looked as impressive compared with newer, highly detailed collectibles.
But Starting Lineup Came Back
Here’s an interesting twist.
Starting Lineup didn’t completely disappear.
Beginning in the 2010s, the brand began appearing again as special promotional/stadium giveaway figures.
Teams such as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, San Jose Sharks and Charlotte Hornets distributed special Starting Lineup figures in 2016, and additional MLB, NBA and NHL giveaways followed.
And Hasbro eventually brought the brand back again in a modern form.
The newer Starting Lineup figures are 6 inches tall, have substantially more articulation and detail, and include an exclusive Panini trading card.
So the brand has effectively gone through three eras:
| Era | Approx. Years | Manufacturer | Importance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Classic Kenner | 1988–1991 | Kenner | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Hasbro Classic | 1991–2001 | Hasbro | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Modern Revival | 2010s–present | Various/Hasbro | ⭐⭐⭐ |
Why I Think Starting Lineup Is Interesting for Sports Card Collectors
This is where I think there is an underappreciated connection to the sports-card hobby.
A Starting Lineup isn’t simply a toy.
The original product combined:
Athlete + Figure + Card + Uniform + Era + Packaging
And that gives collectors several things to chase.
For example, consider a 1988 Kenner Starting Lineup Ken Griffey Jr. versus a common 1997 figure of a relatively obscure player.
They’re both “Starting Lineup figures,” but they’re completely different collectibles.
The Griffey has:
- Hall of Fame significance
- Rookie-era appeal
- Early SLU history
- Baseball-card crossover appeal
- Nostalgia
- Strong collector recognition
That’s the kind of SLU I’d pay attention to.
💡 The Big Investment Question
If you’re looking at Starting Lineups from a sports-card investment perspective, I wouldn’t approach the hobby as:
“Which Starting Lineup figures are valuable?”
I’d approach it as:
“Which Starting Lineups have the same characteristics that make vintage sports cards valuable?”
That means looking for:
Scarcity + Player Significance + Early Issue + Condition + Packaging + Historical Importance.
And that’s where things get really interesting.
There are thousands of Starting Lineup figures that aren’t particularly valuable, but there are also some genuinely scarce pieces that can command serious collector money.
If you’re thinking about buying collections or lots of these for D&D Sports Cards, I can also put together a “Starting Lineup Investment Guide” showing the 25–50 SLU figures I’d specifically look for, which ones are common, which are scarce, which players are the best targets, and which figures are worth buying sealed versus loose.
Yes, please do the starting lineup figures guide.
Absolutely. I’d approach Starting Lineups very differently from a traditional toy collector. For D&D Sports Cards, I’d treat them as a hybrid of vintage sports memorabilia + oddball cards + action figures, and I’d concentrate heavily on player, year, scarcity, packaging, and variations.
One important correction from my previous answer: published checklists differ on the exact 1988 baseball count—some sources list 124, while other collector databases list 132. The safest approach is to identify the actual figure/packaging rather than rely on a single checklist.
🏆 D&D Sports Cards — Starting Lineup Investment Guide
My 5-Tier Buying System
| Tier | What I Would Do | Investment Level |
|---|---|---|
| 🔥 Tier 1 | Buy aggressively | Highest priority |
| ⭐ Tier 2 | Buy when priced right | Strong |
| 💎 Tier 3 | Buy selectively | Player/condition dependent |
| 📦 Tier 4 | Buy in cheap lots | Resell/lot material |
| ❌ Tier 5 | Usually pass | Low demand |
The single biggest rule:
Don’t buy “Starting Lineups.” Buy specific Starting Lineups.
There are thousands of relatively inexpensive 1990s SLUs, while certain early, scarce or high-demand examples can bring dramatically more.
🔥 TIER 1 — My “STOP AND LOOK” List
These are the pieces I’d want to identify immediately when going through a collection.
Baseball
1988–early 1990s
- Bo Jackson — Royals
- Ken Griffey Jr. — Mariners/early releases
- Barry Bonds — Pirates
- Mark McGwire — Athletics
- Jose Canseco — Athletics
- Nolan Ryan — Astros/Rangers
- Cal Ripken Jr. — Orioles
- Don Mattingly — Yankees
- Kirby Puckett — Twins
- Darryl Strawberry — Mets
- Dwight Gooden — Mets
- Ozzie Smith — Cardinals
- Roger Clemens — Red Sox
- Wade Boggs — Red Sox
- Mike Schmidt — Phillies
- Andre Dawson — Cubs
- Rickey Henderson — Athletics
- Tony Gwynn — Padres
- Ryne Sandberg — Cubs
- George Brett — Royals
The early 1988 release is particularly important because it was the inaugural baseball series, and the figures were packaged with cards.
Basketball
- Michael Jordan — Bulls
- Magic Johnson — Lakers
- Larry Bird — Celtics
- Charles Barkley — 76ers/Suns
- Hakeem Olajuwon — Rockets
- Patrick Ewing — Knicks
- Karl Malone — Jazz
- John Stockton — Jazz
- David Robinson — Spurs
Football
- Bo Jackson — Raiders
- Joe Montana — 49ers
- Jerry Rice — 49ers
- Walter Payton — Bears
- Dan Marino — Dolphins
- John Elway — Broncos
- Barry Sanders — Lions
- Emmitt Smith — Cowboys
- Troy Aikman — Cowboys
- Deion Sanders — Falcons/49ers
- Eric Dickerson — Rams/Colts
Hockey
- Wayne Gretzky
- Mario Lemieux
- Brett Hull
- Patrick Roy
- Mark Messier
These aren’t all necessarily “rare” figures. That’s important. I’m calling them Tier 1 because they’re the names I’d immediately investigate when buying a collection.
💎 TIER 2 — The Sleeper Category
This is actually where I think there may be opportunities for you.
Don’t overlook players simply because they aren’t Jordan or Griffey.
Look for:
- Hall of Famers
- Rookie-era players
- Players in unusual uniforms
- Early Kenner issues
- Short-print figures
- Regional releases
- Promotional figures
- Unreleased/card-only examples
- Unusual poses
- Paint variations
- Double-player sets
- Special editions
The original 1988 product was produced well before collectors fully understood what SLUs would become. Kenner also had to manufacture figures well in advance, which resulted in players changing teams before the figures reached stores.
That’s a HUGE clue for collectors.
🚨 THE 1988 UNRELEASED FIGURE OPPORTUNITY
This is one of the areas I’d investigate hardest.
There were players whose cards existed even though the corresponding figure wasn’t ultimately produced.
Examples include:
- Goose Gossage
- Kirk Gibson
- Lee Smith
- Mike Davis
- Phil Bradley
- Bob Welch
- Glen Wilson
Collector references specifically document these as cards associated with unreleased figures.
That means if you run across something advertised as:
1988 Starting Lineup “unreleased,” prototype, card-only, test shot, or sample
STOP.
Don’t assume it’s just another $5 SLU.
Verify it.
🧨 PROTOTYPES — THE “HOLY GRAIL” CATEGORY
This is where things get really interesting.
There are documented Starting Lineup prototype/unreleased pieces involving players such as Barry Sanders, Bo Jackson, Al MacInnis, Bobby Orr, Bernie Kosar and others.
But this is an area where I would be extremely careful.
A seller saying:
“RARE PROTOTYPE!”
doesn’t make it a prototype.
For expensive purchases, I’d want:
- Provenance
- Known mold/pose
- Packaging evidence
- Comparison with production version
- Collector-community confirmation
- Previous sales
📦 SEALED vs. LOOSE
This is probably the most important thing for your business.
SEALED
Strong preference.
The original packaging is part of the collectible.
The 1988 figures came in blister packaging with the card, and collector references specifically note that mint-in-package examples command more interest than loose figures.
LOOSE
Not worthless.
But I’d generally want to pay a fraction of sealed value.
Loose examples are best for:
- Player collectors
- Team collectors
- Completing collections
- Cheap lots
- Whatnot sales
📊 An Example of Why CONDITION Matters
Recent eBay sales illustrate the huge spread.
A loose 1988 Michael Jordan Starting Lineup sold for about $25, while sealed examples have recently sold around $94–$141 depending on presentation and condition.
And here’s an even more extreme example:
A 1988 Bo Jackson “Talking Baseball” team set graded PSA 10 recently sold for $1,150.
That’s why I would never value a collection by saying:
“They’re all $5 figures.”
That can be a very expensive mistake.
🏀 MICHAEL JORDAN
Jordan deserves his own category.
If you’re buying a large collection and see:
1988 Jordan
pull it immediately.
The 1988 NBA release was the inaugural basketball SLU issue, and PSA specifically notes that the packaging makes high-grade examples difficult because these products were originally toys and were frequently damaged.
I’d prioritize:
Sealed + clean blister + clean card + strong centering/presentation.
⚾ BO JACKSON
Bo is another player I’d aggressively investigate.
Why?
Because he has:
Baseball + Football + 1980s nostalgia + short career + iconic status
And his Starting Lineup pieces cross two collecting communities.
A recent 1988 Bo Jackson Talking Baseball example sold for $89.99, while a much more premium graded example reached four figures.
That’s exactly the kind of spread that makes buying collections interesting.
⚾ KEN GRIFFEY JR.
For your particular business, I’d put Griffey extremely high on the list.
Look for:
🔥 1988
Especially anything unusual or early.
🔥 Early Mariners
Strong collector recognition.
🔥 Unusual poses
🔥 Sealed examples
🔥 Variations
And be especially careful about confusing a Ken Griffey Braves figure/card with Ken Griffey Jr. The 1988 checklist includes Ken Griffey, and this is exactly the kind of identification issue that can cause mistakes when buying lots.
🧠 MY “BUYING BOX” STRATEGY FOR YOU
If you’re buying a collection at a show, I’d literally mentally divide the table into:
BOX #1 — INVESTMENT
1988–1992 + major star + sealed
Buy aggressively when priced correctly.
BOX #2 — PLAYER COLLECTOR
Hall of Famers and major stars from the 1990s.
Good inventory.
BOX #3 — TEAM LOTS
Common players but strong teams:
- Yankees
- Cubs
- Braves
- Red Sox
- Dodgers
- Cardinals
- Cowboys
- Lakers
- Bulls
- Celtics
Excellent for Whatnot.
BOX #4 — $2–$5 INVENTORY
Common figures.
Don’t spend much time individually researching these.
Bundle them.
BOX #5 — RESEARCH
Anything marked:
Prototype
Unreleased
Test Shot
Sample
Variation
Error
Short Print
Promo
Exclusive
Regional
This box deserves your attention.
💰 My Buying Formula
Here’s how I’d approach a collection for D&D Sports Cards.
If the seller wants $5 per figure:
I’d be interested.
$2–$3 each?
Very interested, assuming there are stars mixed in.
$1 each?
I’d probably buy a lot of them.
$10+ each?
Now I want to identify the specific figures.
$25+?
I want comparable sales.
$100+?
I want strong evidence of rarity and demand.
⚠️ ONE BIG WARNING
Don’t believe the phrase:
“This is a rare Starting Lineup.”
The SLU market has a LOT of listings described as “rare.”
Current eBay listings show ordinary Troy Aikman figures offered around $7–$15 while certain claimed variations are listed at $150–$200+.
Listing price ≠ market value.
For your purposes, I’d use completed/sold transactions, not asking prices.
🏆 My Top 20 Starting Lineups to Watch
If you want a quick cheat sheet to save on your phone while you’re buying collections:
| Rank | Player | Sport | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Michael Jordan | NBA | 🔥🔥🔥 |
| 2 | Bo Jackson | MLB/NFL | 🔥🔥🔥 |
| 3 | Ken Griffey Jr. | MLB | 🔥🔥🔥 |
| 4 | Barry Bonds | MLB | 🔥🔥 |
| 5 | Nolan Ryan | MLB | 🔥🔥 |
| 6 | Cal Ripken Jr. | MLB | 🔥🔥 |
| 7 | Mark McGwire | MLB | 🔥🔥 |
| 8 | Jose Canseco | MLB | 🔥🔥 |
| 9 | Wayne Gretzky | NHL | 🔥🔥 |
| 10 | Barry Sanders | NFL | 🔥🔥 |
| 11 | Jerry Rice | NFL | 🔥🔥 |
| 12 | Joe Montana | NFL | 🔥🔥 |
| 13 | Deion Sanders | NFL/MLB | 🔥🔥 |
| 14 | Emmitt Smith | NFL | 🔥 |
| 15 | Troy Aikman | NFL | 🔥 |
| 16 | Rickey Henderson | MLB | 🔥 |
| 17 | Tony Gwynn | MLB | 🔥 |
| 18 | Don Mattingly | MLB | 🔥 |
| 19 | Kirby Puckett | MLB | 🔥 |
| 20 | Bo Jackson Raiders | NFL | 🔥🔥🔥 |
💡 And Here’s Where I Think There’s a Real Opportunity for You
Given your sports-card dealer/Whatnot business, I wouldn’t necessarily try to become a full-time SLU collector.
I’d use SLUs as an arbitrage category.
Someone walks into a card show with a box of 50 Starting Lineups and thinks:
“They’re old toys. I’ll take $2 each.”
You know to look for:
1988 + Jordan + Bo + Griffey + Bonds + McGwire + rare packaging + variations.
You buy the collection.
Then separate it into:
High-end individual listings → eBay
Mid-level stars → eBay/Whatnot
Common players → team/player lots
Cards → separate card inventory
Loose figures → Whatnot
That gives you multiple ways to monetize one purchase.
And because the original SLUs included cards, you’re potentially buying two collectible products in one package.
One thing I’d do next
If you’re serious about adding Starting Lineups to your buying strategy, I can build you a “Starting Lineup Dealer Cheat Sheet” with 50 specific figures/variations, estimated buy price, typical resale range, sealed vs. loose priority, and an “BUY / MAYBE / PASS” rating—something you could literally keep on your phone at card shows.
That would be much more useful than a general collector checklist.