Obama sells ... can he inspire kids to start ripping open packages of baseball cards, too?

Upper Deck hopes so.

As newspaper sales benefitted from President Barack Obama's inauguration this week, baseball cards could be pushing foward with anything related to this piece of history.

In the upcoming Upper Deck baseball card set, it will insert "Historic Firsts" cards from events that took place in 2008 -- most notably, the Obama card that commemorates his being the first African-American elected to the U.S. presidency.

"Despite the country's economic woes, the past year included an incredible amount of unique firsts," said Kerri Stockholm, Upper Deck's director of Sports Marketing, in a press release. "So in an effort to help restore enthusiasm and hope across this great land of ours, Upper Deck decided to acknowledge many of these noteworthy achievements by way of this special card set. And with President Obama's moving inauguration ceremony on Tuesday, the timing couldn't be better."

The "Historic Firsts" cards are included at a rate of one for every six packs sold in the Series One baseball cards that hit stores on Feb. 3.

Other "firsts" cards included are:
== First Asian-American MLB manager named (Don Wakamatsu)
== First NHL Winter Classic (Buffalo-Pittsburgh)
== First Indian Players sign MLB contracts (Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel, with the Pittsburgh Pirates)
== First World Series game to be continues" (Game 5, Oct. 27-29)
== First female candidate on the GOP presidental ticket (Sarah Palin)
== First female promoted to four-star general (Army general Ann E. Dunwoody)