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. Custom Tom Seaver Jersey . Listen to the game live on TSN Radio 1050 at 7pm et. 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"It is still taking a little time to sink in what Ive achieved this week as was the case when I won the FedEx Cup but then it just kept getting better and better as the days went on and I am sure this will be the same," he said. Same place. Same number. Even the same pregame restaurant.But 21 months later, everythings different for Briana Holman, the espnW player of the week, after appearing in her first game for top-ranked Nebraska since transferring from LSU.Holmans efficient debut -- hitting .471 with 10 kills and a match-high seven blocks against No. 10 Florida, followed by a .727 effort with eight kills against No. 2 Texas -- helped the defending national volleyball champions go undefeated in the VERT Challenge in Oregons Matthew Knight Arena last weekend.The Ducks home gym is the same place where Holman played her last game for LSU, a second-round NCAA tournament loss in December 2014. The Cornhuskers even ate at the same restaurant, the Oregon Electric Station, where Holman had dined with the Tigers back then.I even sat in the same exact room, but I got the salmon then, said the 6-foot-1 middle blocker. This time -- lobster mac and cheese. Better choice.The same goes for her selection of schools, Holman said, calling Nebraska a better fit overall after two seasons as a Tiger when she collected All-America honors. The junior expected to play immediately in Lincoln. But LSU did not grant her release, even after an appeals process. That forced Holman to sit on the bench and watch as Nebraska won the 2015 national championship.Dont tell Holman that the stakes werent as high this time around against Texas.Being out there was just an amazing feeling. Thats the only word I can use, she said. I didnt get to play in the national championship, and this was a rematch. I was just so fired up.Adding more fuel: Her former AAU rival Ebony Nwanebu stars for the Longhorns. The Texas natives played for dueling clubs in high school.We were two of the best in the area and we always seemed to match up against each other, said Holman, whose hometown is DeSoto.Admittedly, coach John CCook didnt know what to expect from Holman, whose athleticism and court vision are superb.dddddddddddd He knew how motivated she was -- she was voted lifter of the year by her teammates coming into the season.I was really worried she might be too worked up instead of just going out to play, said Cook, who has coached the Cornhuskers to three national titles. I thought there might be a lot of nerves and expectations and pressure and trying to be perfect. Shes been working with our sports psychologist for this past weekend and was really amped up.Holman gives kudos to teammate Kelly Hunter for the smooth transition.Shes the best setter Ive ever worked with, she said. Shes just so effective and gives really good feedback. We have really good communication. She made things easy for me.Wearing No. 13 again, Holman said she has learned to appreciate being a true team player. I understand what it means to give your team your all, she said. I couldnt play last year, so my words and my actions were all I could give. You could say Ive grown into a leadership role.The top goal for Holman this season is to experience a national championship on the court instead of on the bench. Last years sweep of Texas was bittersweet, she said.I was super excited we won, but I would have loved to have been out there. Seeing how hard my teammates worked and having it all pay off is something Ill always cherish, even though I wasnt out there.But now the mindset is to dream bigger. No Huskers team has repeated as national champ.Were off to do the whole back-to-back thing, Holman said. I think we can.The Cornhuskers (2-0) host their own tournament this weekend, meeting Iowa State on Friday and Oregon State on Saturday in the Nebraska Invitational. ' ' '