By Chris Olds | Beckett Baseball Editor

If you’ve been awaiting Panini America‘s first baseball cards, then your wait just got shorter.

Why? Black Friday will include a little bit extra this year — and it will include the first Panini baseball cards under the company’s new MLBPA license.

How? Panini will be sending Black Friday redemption packs to selected hobby shops around the country as bonuses for customers who purchase certain types and amounts of product on the biggest shopping day of the year, Nov. 25.

Inside those wrapper-redemption packs — well before the arrival of Donruss Elite Extra Edition on Dec. 21 — will be all kind of stuff from the company’s four major U.S. sports licenses — the NFL, the NBA, the NHL and members of the MLBPA. That includes autographs, too.

While details have not yet been revealed in full, you can expect there to be exclusive cards of St. Louis Cardinals slugger and World Series champion Albert Pujols as well as Texas Rangers star — and Panini spokesman — Josh Hamilton in the packs.

Among the non-baseball cards teased by the company? Well, there were Kobe Bryant, Ryan Nugent Hopkins, Marshall Faulk and Tim Tebow autographs for starters.

More details will be announced soon.

Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball magazine. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.

By Chris Olds | Beckett Baseball Editor

As the rumors continue to swirl regarding baseball licensing news — whether a card company will be awarded some type of license by the MLB Players Association — Panini America announced a little something on Tuesday night during the Midsummer Classic.

“Many collectors have asked us about Donruss EEE Baseball in 2011,” read a tweet from the company. “Well . . . yes, we are doing it!”

What that means to collectors — how that will be accomplished since any MLB/minor league logos would protected for Topps products as part of those exclusive deals and any college logos would be protected by Upper Deck‘s exclusive with the Collegiate Licensing Company — remains to be seen … at least under the current licensing deals.

Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball magazine. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.

Dean Smith‘s 2007 Elite Extra Edition Collegiate Patches autograph cards have been signed and are on the way to collectors.

“Smith battled some health issues late last year and it took him a little longer than he expected to finish all the signatures,” Donruss Marketing/PR Director Scott Prusha said. “He wanted to fulfill those redemptions for collectors and worked hard to get them done — we appreciate all those that have hung in there while we worked hard to complete the signing.”

The Hall of Famer won 879 games as a coach, which ranks second all time, and won a pair of national championships coaching North Carolina.

Chris Olds has collected sports cards and memorabilia since 1987. Before coming to Beckett Media, he wrote about the hobby for the Orlando Sentinel on his blog, SportsStuff, and for the San Antonio Express-News and The Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News. Do you have a comment, question or idea? Send e-mail to him at colds@beckett.com.