By Jon Laging

The future is fascinating and seems to grow more fascinating as time moves on. Therefore, I decided to look up the futurist profession on the Internet. (Isn&8217;t the Internet a marvelous achievement. It saves hours of research.) I ran across a number of futurists thoughts including the speculation that if baby boomers can hang on another 15 years, they will be very pleasantly surprised.

I found that the philosophy of many of the futurists lies not so much in predicting coming events, but in creating insights about the future which will impact on how we behave today. Sounds like the environmentalists could use a few futurists in their camp.

All this started with me wondering how you could take a slice of time and predict the future. Of course, I was thinking about the Minnesota Twins. They are barely 1/10th of the way into the 2007 season and it seems a little presumptuous to try and project their finish. It sure wouldn&8217;t have worked last year.

It&8217;s a little like looking at the first day of the Normandy invasion&8217;s Omaha Beach and projecting the end of WWII. If you had used that small slice of time to predict the future, we would still be looking at Hitler&8217;s &8220;Fortress Europe.&8221; (If you get a chance read the Boys of Bedford, which describes the horror of Omaha Beach).

Still it&8217;s interesting to try and sometimes through good guesses and luck you can come close to being right. For example, if you&8217;d have flown against conventional wisdom and projected the Detroit Tigers playing in the World Series after their early success, you&8217;d have been hailed as a genius.

Let&8217;s take the Twins, juggle a few crystal balls and if not determine the exact order of finish, try for a projection of their success or failure. As I write this, they have a winning record and while not playing at the top of their game, are near the top of the Central Division. If they keep the same pace through the season, they will have a winning record.

It&8217;s remarkable how similar their play has been to last year&8217;s both the good and bad.

The Twins&8217; relief pitching has been solid, as it was last year. Dennys Reyes has faltered, but the rest of &8220;pen&8221; has done well with Matt Guerrier in particular picking up the slack. Joe Nathan continues to scare Twins fans every other appearance, but normally gets the job done. The relief corps looks good. How many teams would send a side-arming lefty that did not allow a run during spring training to the minors? The Twins did, sending Mike Venefro to Rochester.

The starting pitching has gotten off to a good start. Even Sidney Ponson has won a game.

Terry Ryan continues to look brilliant and if not brilliant, at least very smart. The New York Yankees, instead of paying Alex Rodriguez $25 million next year, should hire Ryan for a tenth of that.

One disappointment has been the &8220;piranhas,&8221; but they show signs of a resurgence. Manager Ron Gardenhire deserves some credit for this. They are not natural hitters and Gardy has used them effectively.

The middle of the lineup has looked good with Cuddyer, Morneau and Hunter supplying the power and RBI. The only teams in the American League to match them are the Yankees and White Sox.

The sluggers look formidable.

If, and this is a big if, the Twins continue the same pitching and hitting, not necessarily from the same players, they should finish, if not in first place, certainly in the playoffs.

Jon Laging writes a regional commentary from his home in Preston.