Baseball will provide enough distraction until the Jay Cutler Era begins

ESPN has finally stopped showing replays of Santonio Holmes' show-stopping Super Bowl catch. CBS just showed its One Shining Moment. And we already have our first Carl Yasztrzsemski reference of the season.

Yep, baseball is back.

Alfonso Soriano started the Chicago Cubs year with a lead-off home run on the second pitch he saw from Roy Oswalt. Immediately sparking thoughts of moving him lower in the order.

Soriano followed up his 2-for-5 performance by going 0-for-3 with three strikeouts ... before of course hitting a solo home run off LaTroy Hawkins to tie last night's game at 2-2. Let the record show that if Soriano was moved down in the line-up, he would not been in the position to hit that game-tying homer because it would not have been his turn at bat.

Of course, the Cubs found a way to lose 3-2 in extra innings on a broken-bat jam shot.

More proof baseball is back:

- Hearing ESPN analyst Steve Phillips' name me cringe. It's hard to take anything the former Mets GM who overpayed an underperforming team seriously. That would be like taking love advice from the single guy who gets his dating tips from reality TV shows like The Bachelor.

- Derrek Lee is already flexing his warning track power. Remember a .335/.418/.662/1.080 line with 46 homers and 107 runs batted in in 2005? Nah, you probably remember .291/.361/.462/.863 with 20 HR and 90 RBIs. A drop of 100 points in slugging percentage in three years isn't good.

- Joe Morgan mentioned OPS (on-base plus slugging) in a telecast. Who are you and what have you done with the real Joe Morgan?

- After an awesome Opening Day showing 5 million fantasy baseball players added Emilio Bonofacio.

- Hawk Harrelson did his home run call without D.J. butting in. YESSSSSSSS!

- Dick Vitale already anointed the Kansas Jayhawks as the 2010 college basketball national champs.

- After watching Kosuke Fukudome strike out looking at a pitch right down the middle, I came to the conclusion that I did not want to see him bat second in the order. I later concluded I didn't want to see him bat at all.

- Seeing the following Cubs in pressure situations scares the bejesus out of me: Kosuke, Aaron Miles, Kevin Gregg, Neil Cotts ... anyone in the bullpen not named Carlos Marmol.