To commemorate the outstanding lineup of significant events that took place in ’08, Upper Deck is releasing a “Top 10” series of collectible insert cards titled “Historic Firsts,” which will be sprinkled inside its next baseball card set. Topping the list of historic firsts will be a beautifully designed card paying tribute to President Barack Obama.

“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. “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 Jan. 20, the timing couldn’t be better.”

The “Historic Firsts” cards, inserted at a rate of 1:6 packs in Upper Deck’s 2009 Series One Baseball release, will be hitting store shelves on Feb. 3. Other notable achievements in the collection include, from the political arena: the “First Female Candidate on GOP’s Presidential Ticket” (Sarah Palin); from the military sector, the “First Female to be Promoted to U.S. Four-Star General” (Army General Ann E. Dunwoody); and from the science-and-technology region, the “First Privately Developed Space Launch” (SpaceX Falcon 1).

Within the sports world, several historical firsts took place, not the least of which was witnessing the first athlete to win eight gold medals at a single Olympiad. Other notable sports-related “firsts” occurring within 2008 included: the “First NHL Winter Classic” (Sabres vs. Penguins, Jan. 1); the “First Asian-American MLB Manager is Named” (Don Wakamatsu); the “First Indian Players to Sign MLB Contracts” (Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel); the “First World Series Game to be Continued” (Game 5, Oct. 27 and 29); and last but not least, the “First Collector to Complete Upper Deck’s Historic Yankee Stadium Legacy Set” (Tommy Baxter).