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One of my favorite minifigures of all time. Currently Ranking in at #42 is the one and only official MLB figure ever produced by Lego. http://www.minifigpriceguide.com/detailPages/BASEBALL_redsox.html
Back somewhere in between April and August of 1999 Lego and the Boston Red Sox got together for a kids day promotion and decided to give away Minifigures and Duplo Bricks. Based on my research below, I now believe that this date is either in May or July of 1999.
Front Image – It is a plain Minifig with just red and blue printing on the front showing the team name “Red Sox”.
Here is the full list of the top 100+ so that you can see where it falls in the ranking. Again, this list is based on the price that the figures are currently selling for in n”new” condition. I do not look for used figures unless they are so old that new ones no longer exist. For example Castle minifigures or Classic space minifigures.
http://www.minifigpriceguide.com/Top100LegoMinifigures.html
Back Image. The back image is plain with nothing on it. I have heard some people claim that it has the words lego on the back, but this is not true. It is just a plan white torso on the back.
Bits and Pieces. I took it apart so that you can see the individual parts. It has the black strip on the neck, so that you can see that it is not made in China. (That is a joke as this figure predates the lego group using China production facilities.)
If you are interested in picking one of these up, you can get them on eBay usually. He currently has two available at this auction here.
Here is the Duplo brick courtesy of Bricklink.
I emailed someone that worked at Fenway park in the promotional department at the time and this is what he had to say in response to my question.
Question:
“Do you have any idea of how many of these were originally made? Also, do you have a pic of the box that they came in?”
Answer:
“In those days, gate promotions for kids were usually between 5,000-12,000 pieces (amazing considering the ballpark held about 34,000 then, it was pretty unlikely the audience would be 1/3 kids). I don’t recall exactly how many were made because we also gave out Red Sox Duplo blocks for smaller kids, which may have changed the overall numbers. These did not come in individual boxes. They were actually packed loose inside bigger boxes, which were placed at the gates for distribution by volunteers.”
Someone found a hord of these a few years back. It appears his aunt worked at the park and stashed them away. See http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=39443
image courtesy of Eurobricks.com
Additionally, a few people have mentioned that these were part of a cancelled promotion. I have verified with a few sources that this promotion did happen one time. So it is very possible that it was supposed to happen a second time and that the second one was cancelled. That may explain why we have a bulk lot of these in the picture above. They may have taken the box(s) of the figures for the second promotion home when the second one was cancelled.
If you are interested in picking one of thee up, you should still be able to find one for about $100 at Bricklink or eBay if you look around for a few weeks. You can find the link to Bricklink here. http://www.minifigpriceguide.com/detailPages/BASEBALL_redsox.html
I have found a few other articles about these figures and it appears that they were at Fenway park and the game was against the Yankees.
Based on this article. http://news.lugnet.com/general/?n=6955
They were given out before August 24th 1999.
Based on this, the figure must have been given out at one of these six games. See http://www.baseball-almanac.com/teamstats/schedule.php?y=1999&t=BOS for a full listing.
| 38 | 05-18-1999 | vs New York Yankees | 6-3 | W | 22-16 |
| 39 | 05-19-1999 | vs New York Yankees | 6-0 | W | 23-16 |
| 40 | 05-20-1999 | vs New York Yankees | 1-3 | L | 23-17 |
or
| 102 | 07-30-1999 | vs New York Yankees | 3-13 | L | 55-47 |
| 103 | 07-31-1999 | vs New York Yankees | 6-5 | W | 56-47 |
| 104 | 08-01-1999 | vs New York Yankees | 5-4 | W | 57-47 |