The Bears had a rare off-day, so I wasn’t rushing to the ballpark after work tonight. Instead, I stopped at the baseball card shop to look for some Ramiro Mendoza cards and see if 2009 Allen & Ginter cards were in yet.

I was able to find a couple of Mendoza cards before I got sick of looking at old Yankees cards, but Allen & Ginter won’t arrive at the shop until tomorrow — no luck there.

That’s ok, though. I found something better. The shop owner refilled his bargain packs bin with some actual bargain packs! Gone were the 3/$5 2007 Upper Deck and 2008 Topps Updates & Highlights packs. They were replaced with 3/$1 packs from the early 1990s. I grabbed the lone 1991 Stadium Club pack and a couple 1990 CMC minor league packs, purely for nostalgia value.

I got a couple of Tidewater Tides players in the minor league packs, but I don’t really recall Ray Soff or Brian Givens. They never played for the Mets. I do remember Karl Rhodes, however. The highlight of his Major League career had to be hitting three home runs off Dwight Gooden on Opening Day in 1994. Two years later, Rhodes went to Japan and became a superstar. Through the 2008 season, Rhodes hit 452 home runs in the NPB — the most ever by a foreign-born player.

1991 Topps Stadium Club… Remember when this was a hot set? I couldn’t find packs anywhere at retail price that year. The cards I have in my collection were all bought as singles or found in various grab bags, repacks, etc. over the years. This could be the first pack I ever opened. I got a Met, a former Met and a guy who’s still playing in 2009. Pretty cool. I loved the tiny rookie card picture on the back of the early Stadium Club cards.

Then I walked around a little more and saw some other junk bargain wax. I was very tempted by the $5 1988 Fleer Star Stickers boxes, but I didn’t really feel like sorting that many cards tonight. I couldn’t pass up the chance to see what the 1999 premiere edition Upper Deck HoloGrFX cards looked like, though. I grabbed a retail box with 15+2 packs for $15.

I did well. I have 40/60 cards in the base set (a few of them are probably gold parallels, but I’m not of a mind to worry about that.) I got five insert cards, including a Mike Piazza one. And all the cards are shiny and sparkly.

I’m pretty sure I had more fun opening these than I would have if I spent my $15 on three packs of Allen & Ginter. I think there was another HoloGrFX box — I may go back Saturday to see if it’s still there. Maybe I can finish the set.