If this is the future of higher education, we’re in big trouble (A Bookshelf review)

Making my regular Amazon run for new baseball e-books, I came across The History of Baseball: The Definitive Learning Guide, published by an outfit called Course Hero and via Charles River Editors. There is no single author or group of authors credited with this title.

I have no knowledge of Course Hero, nor have I seen any of their other products. But if they’re anything like this, I fear for our young people.

Before the actual baseball material even starts, we have this from Charles River, which claims it was “founded by Harvard and MIT alumni to provide superior editing and original writing services with the expertise to create digital content for publishers across a vast range of subject matter.” They encourage readers to “signup [sic] to receive up-dates about new books as they are published…”

There is no table of contents per se, so navigation, at least through my Kindle, is somewhat unwieldy; I had to jump back to the beginning of the book to skip over the brief lessons, which are divided into basically chronological “modules.”

A few outtakes, reproduced exactly as it appears in the original:

“Cobb described himself as a steel spring with a dangerous flaw, sure to un-spring without a seconds notice.”
“In fact, he once stated that he preferred to lose so that he could keep fanfare high without having to pay his players for winning.”
“Cobb Continues his Reign as Advertisers Cash-in”
“Like the Meckle Boner, four years earlier, Snodgrass’s mistake cost the Giants the game and the title.”
“To try and appease players and keep them, the American and National league agreed to many of the players demands, including salary bumps and free uniforms.”

Again, I emphasize that these are not my usual typos. I guess part of the revolutionary approach by Course Hero is to skip such quaint ideas as punctuation, accuracy, and good writing. Factual errors compound the problems. Snodgrass’ muff came in a World Series, so technically, yes, it cost the Giants a world championship title. Merkle‘s Boner costs them the NL title; not quite the same level of achievement.

I stopped reading at this point but I;m willing to bet my house that there are more typos, editorial errors, missing punctuation, and so on.

Each chapter includes a group of questions, purportedly based on the contents of the lesson. Here’s one taken at random:

Question 2: Why did the reserve clause remain after Federal League and Fraternity of professional Base Ball Players disbanded?

A) The players decided they needed the clause

B) Apple Sauce

C) Without a threat, the league presidents saw no reason to give in.

D) The reserve clause was destroyed after the Federal League folded.

“C” is the correct answer, but “Apple Sauce?” Is this an attempt at humor? Maybe I missed the whole thing and this is a project of The Onion or some such organization.

You know the “Infinite Monkey” theory? Put a group of monkeys together with a bunch of typewriters and they’ll eventually come out with the works of Shakespeare? All due respect to the supposedly earnest writers behind The History of Baseball: The Definitive Learning Guide, but I think we’ve proven the concept.

Young people, if you really want to learn about the national pastime, there is plenty of great material out there. Make an effort. Don’t be an Eloi.