CLEVELAND - A main characteristic of 21st century sports is a volume of statistics and factoids so enormous that it requires the mind-numbing gymnastics of parsing what matters and what ridiculously does not.Game 1 will be the first time the Cleveland Indians have hosted a World Series opener in their 116-year history ... The Cubs are 8-1 when scoring first on days ending with y ... Terry Francona owns a 66-10 record as manager when he leans 7 degrees to his left, when both starting pitchers are right-handed, but only 44-20 when he leans to his right. To the surprise of no one paying attention during ninth-grade physics, it only stands to reason that a ball hit hard enough to travel 385 feet for a home run would travel faster than the speed with which it was pitched, yet exit velocity is a thing.There then, within this framework of numbers and history both meaningful and ephemeral, sat Dexter Fowler, the 30-year old Chicago Cubs outfielder, born in 1986, 41 years after the Cubs were last in the World Series, laughing that his parents werent born in 1945 when the Cubs lost to the Tigers, and his grandparents were really, really young. As the Chicago leadoff hitter, Fowler was enjoying his expected place in history when he steps into the batters box Tuesday night as the first African-American to take the field for the Cubs in a World Series game in their 140-year history. But nevertheless, like most of the people asking him questions, he was unable to say for certain whether his place in history is significant or simply cool.The cool factors are apparent. As much as baseball has an industry-wide complex about the NFL, the lineage of the game, its ability to reach back and tie history together is baseballs power; its magic lines of dead ball eras and integration link families as much as history. That baseball, football, basketball, the military and hundreds of school districts were segregated and World War II had ended only 38 days earlier is a social studies class by itself. That the Cubs still play in the same ballpark where they lost 9-3 in Game 7 to Hal Newhouser on Oct. 10, 1945 certainly qualifies as cool.Through the innocence of Fowlers smile, happy and proud to be a pioneer -- a word he mentioned more than a dozen times Monday -- the cruelty of the game was also obvious: Ernie Banks, the greatest of the Cubs, never played in the Series. Banks was 14 years old in 1945, died in 2015, and never got to see any Cub of any stripe, black or white, play in the Series once he joined the organization. Neither did Buck ONeil, who was the first black scout in major league baseball history. ONeil was hired by, yes, the Cubs, in 1961. Leon Durham could have been first, but in 1984 the Cubs -- oh, never mind. Dusty Bakers 2003 team had its shot, too. The picture is clear. The game creates its own river of time.Yet Fowler stepping to the plate Tuesday night does not only represent celebratory trivia, a chance to remind ourselves that Velcro did not exist in 1945. There is more than a cool factor to his presence. It matters because this is a broken and heartbroken country, fractured by the rhetoric of the bitterest election cycle most Americans have ever witnessed, where African-Americans have been essentially told to shut up about racial conditions. Yet there are still so many basic things that black people have yet to experience. Fowlers groundbreaking moment will be more a result of mediocrity than racism. And on scale, a black person playing baseball in a Cubs uniform is at its core a first-world problem. Nevertheless, its part of a list that has never happened before. And it matters.It matters because of the impatience and rage of so much of the white public, so often offended by the mere mention of a racial component in American culture. The white response to the black request -- no, the demand -- for equality has been to insist that the existence of these historical barriers is merely coincidental and not designed. The Red Sox, Phillies, Cardinals, Yankees, Braves, As, Tigers and Twins, all of which, in one city or another, have been around since at least 1901, have never had a black manager. And the Dodgers, established in 1884, hired its first in 2016. The insistence of fairness and the nonexistence of racism is loud and hostile and whites feel aggrieved, yet in addition to those eight teams, four more -- the Diamondbacks, Padres, Angels and Marlins -- have also never hired a black manager. As tired as people may be of hearing about race, African-Americans are equally tired of talking about it, but the facts cannot be shouted away: 12 of 30 teams have never lifted the barrier.It matters because baseball is not only talking about its past through Fowler but tacitly, its future. Fowler was once accepted to attend Harvard but chose to play baseball, an interesting intersection in a sport that has, through its demand of Ivy League credentials as the pathway to the front office, virtually guaranteed a racial disparity in hiring. Only in baseball, with its winnowing of black participation, is it entirely possible for the Cubs to make the World Series five years from now, and the group of Fowler, Carl Edwards Jr., Jason Heyward and Addison Russell to still have been the only blacks on a Cubs World Series roster.It matters because Fowlers pride of being a nice answer to a trivia question has often been met by a white response not of shared pride but of telling African-Americans to not make such a big deal out of everything, even as the black presence is being erased in the game. That Dexter Fowler, in 2016, refers to himself as a pioneer speaks to a different truth. While baseball celebrates a cool linkage of the past and present with the Cubs, it also knows the underbelly of the celebration is quite serious -- a permanent seat at the table for African-Americans in baseball has never felt less secure.Cheap Marlins Jerseys . 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Rivers threw a 22-yard touchdown pass to rookie Keenan Allen and Nick Novak kicked four field goals to give the Chargers a 19-9 victory against the Colts on Monday night. Custom Miami Marlins Jerseys . -- Quarterback Will Finch threw for 252 yards and three touchdowns, and Yannick Harou rushed in two scores as the No.DETROIT -- Raul Mondesi hit 271 home runs in 13 major league seasons.Eleven years after his career ended, his son is on the board.The younger Raul Mondesi broke open a scoreless tie with a home run off Justin Verlander and the Kansas City Royals went on to a 6-1 victory over the Detroit Tigers on Tuesday night.When Mondesi came up in the third inning, Verlander had retired all eight batters he had faced and appeared to be in dominant form once again.Verlanders first pitch was a 94 mph fastball for a called strike, but the second was a hanging slider and Mondesi drove it just inside the right-field foul pole for his first career homer.As soon as I hit it, I knew it was going to stay fair, so I just started running, he said. Im sure everyone could see me smiling when it went over the fence. That was a great feeling.Hitting it off Verlander made things even better.It makes it more special that I hit it in my first at-bat against that guy, he said. Hes a great, great pitcher, and I hit my first homer against him.Mondesi is listed as 6-foot-1 and a very generous 185 pounds, but Royals manager Ned Yost wasnt shocked by him going deep.Hes a skinny kid who we know is going to fill out over the next few years, but we knew he had some pop, Yost said. He can do more than people realize.Mondesis homer was the first of four solo shots by the Royals, three off Verlander. Alex Gordon and Eric Hosmer also homered off Verlander (12-7), while Kendrys Morales went deep off Mark Lowe.Most of the time, Ill take my chances with giving up four hits, but tonight, every mistake I made got hit into the seats, Verlander said. They say solo homers dont hurt you, but that obviously wasnt the case today. It was just one of those games.Danny Duffy (10-1) outdueled Verlander, allowing three hits and two walks in 7 2/3 innings. He struck out five.Youd expect a pitchers duel from those two, and thats really what it was, Yost said. Danny was great, and Verlander threw the ball really well. We only got four hits off him, but somehow, three of them were homers. You dont expect that.Jarrod Saltalamacchia homered for Detroits only run. The Tigers have lost seven of nine.We just need to win, Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said. Our offense is cold right now, and the opposing pitching has a lot to do with that, but sometimes you just go cold as a group.Verlander gave up five runs -- three earned -- four hits and a walk in seven-plus innings. He struck out six.Kansas Citys second hit came in the fifth inning, when Gordon hit another slider into nearly the same spot as Mondesi. Gordon came into the game with a .205 career average against the Tigers ace.Duffy only needed 41 pitches over the first four innings, but Saltalamacchia put thhe Tigers on the board with a fifth-inning homer into the shrubs above the centerfield fence.ddddddddddddHosmer restored Kansas Citys two-run lead with a seventh-inning homer to center field that was estimated at 443 feet. It was the fifth hit of the game -- four solo homers and a double by Detroits J.D. Martinez.Victor Martinez got the games first single in the seventh. J.D. Martinez hit into a force at second, but moved to third on a wild pitch and a fly ball. Duffy, though, struck out James McCann to end the inning.Detroits defense fell apart at the start of the eighth. Gordon hit a routine grounder to third, but ended up on second when Saltalamacchia missed Casey McGehees throw. Alcides Escobar singled to left with Gordon taking third, then moved to second when Justin Upton lobbed the ball into the infield.Verlander walked Mondesi on his 112th and final pitch, loading the bases. Bruce Rondon came in from the bullpen and struck out Paolo Orlando, but Cheslor Cuthbert hit a blooper to shallow center that Ian Kinsler got under, but dropped.Kinsler recovered in time to force Escobar at third, but Gordon scored to make to it 4-1. Lorenzo Cain doubled to give the Royals a four-run lead.TRAINERS ROOMRoyals: Three pitchers with long-term injuries are scheduled to make rehab performances this week. Kris Medlen, out since May with a rotator cuff problem, started Tuesday night for Surprise in the Arizona League, while Jason Vargas (Tommy John surgery) is scheduled to start for Double-A Northwest Arizona on Wednesday. Mike Minor (shoulder) is supposed to pitch for Triple-A Omaha on Friday. Vargas and Minor have both missed the entire season.Tigers: 1B Miguel Cabrera was out of the starting lineup Tuesday with a strained left biceps. The injury, sustained in Mondays loss to the Royals, is not considered serious. Cabrera said after the game that he hopes to play on Wednesday. ... Jordan Zimmermann (neck) threw a 20-pitch bullpen session on Tuesday, and is scheduled to throw another on Thursday.TIGERS TRADEThe Tigers announced shortly before the first pitch that they had traded utilityman Mike Aviles and minor-league catcher Kade Scivicque to Atlanta for infielder Erick Aybar. General manager Al Avila said the move was designed to give the Tigers more offense off the bench. Aybar is hitting .242 this season as opposed to Aviles .210.UP NEXTThe teams finish their three-game series on Wednesday evening, with Kansas Citys Yordano Ventura (8-9, 4.60) facing Anibal Sanchez (6-12, 6.31). Sanchez has allowed 23 homers in 19 starts and only lasted four innings in his last outing. 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