April is the time of the year when we discover how few sports fans truly understand major-league ball. You think the guy who wears a Red Sox hat to work knows the game, and then you run into him at the office coffee machine and he starts flapping his jaws about Luis Gonzalez's chances of hitting 60 home runs. In the last few days, three different people have told me of their amazement at the Twins' fast start, and two more remarked that it doesn't look like the Indians are going to have to worry about those slumping White Sox this year. Another guy even told me that he thought it looks like this year was finally going to bring a World Series to the 12-6 Cubs. It puts them there until you realize that 17 games is just a fraction over 10 percent of the 162-game schedule.
Baseball is a lot different.
Heck, I'll bet a guy like Richie Allen didn't even wake up for the first 17 games. Ten percent isn't even enough to get a lot of guys over that spring training hangover. Do the math. Ten percent of the NFL's 16-game schedule is 1.6 games. In other words, if the Twins were in the NFL, right now, they would be 2-0.