That Ain't Beer, Son

Things that tell me it must be spring in Michigan: baseball, 12 days of straight rain and the release of frou-frou seasonal beers. Specifically Bell's Oberon and Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy both of which I will be griping about today.

Oberon

I don't know when this stuff was first released but it entered my consciousness circa 1997. In those days, sophisticated beer drinkers drank things like Michelob Light and Lowenbrau.  Then along came Oberon.  Poor college kids would pool their money to afford a six-pack for $4.50, split it five ways and leave one in the fridge as a conversation piece.  There was nothing else like it and everybody loved it.  A couple years later I found myself working in a restaurant that happened to have Oberon on tap.  Now, the restaurant was struggling big time and a busy night might net a server twenty bucks. As recompense, our understanding manager would let us do some damage to the bar after closing.  Naturally, we college kids went for the good stuff choosing to dull the indignity of working in a failing restaurant with a schooner of Oberon.  Or two schooners.  But not three.  You see, the Oberon of the late 90's is not the stuff we have today with its own annual release party and found on the fountain at Burger King.  The old stuff was sweet tasting rocket fuel with chunks of tree bark in it that if abused could take you out of the game for a night or two.  At some point between then and now they messed with the recipe either to produce it more cheaply or make sure people could drink their fill.  The present version, I am more likely to use for boiling noodles or putting out grass fires.

Summer Shandy

There's a great marketing case-study here somewhere.  Bartles & James, Zima, Mike's.  All of these wine-cooler products had their success but ultimately fell back into a niche and eventually obscurity.  What Leinie's did differently is they called their wine cooler beer, sold it in brown beer bottles next to real beer and then eventually in cans and on-tap.  Shandy let people say "I like beer too."  And it's good, not saying it isn't.  But you know what's better (besides actual beer)?  A real shandy.  Here's the recipe: pour real beer in a glass, pour real lemonade in the same glass with the beer.  You literally can't screw it up unless you miss the glass and it's 10 times better than  capital "S" Shandy.

Convenient Treatment of Vacated Wins

Like most of you that will read this, I have been following the 2013 NCAA basketball tournament and Michigan's run to the Final Four. Congratulations to those players and best of luck next week against Syracuse and beyond.

Now that that is out of the way, let me talk about what has interested me since long before this tournament- vacated wins, particularly as a penalty for rules violations.  The theory of this penalty makes sense to me but the gray area of its application has always been confusing.  I searched high and low for a good definition of what it means to vacate a win by the NCAA's standards without any luck.  The best definition I found (by what I imagine the NCAA implies) was from Merriam-Webster: "To give up incumbency or occupancy". In other words, when a team vacates a win, they no longer occupy the position that victory provided; they have vacated it, leaving the position empty or unclaimed.

The #2 image result for the search: Michigan Basketball

The gray area I referred to is most visible in the media's treatment of vacated wins.

1. Before the  tournament, I posted a link to a rivals.com blog post that tallied the Big Ten schools' historical tournament performances.  The article counted wins and achievements of Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio State with no mention that they had been vacated due to various infractions.  
2. As CBS televised Michigan's games this weekend, the references to the school's last Final Four run(s) were unsurprisingly a main storyline complete with images of Steve Fisher hugging various players.  
3. Last night mgoblue.com, THE official website of University of Michigan athletics, posted a write-up on the current team's run that couldn't get past the first sentence without referencing the schools last Final Four.

The only reason I can see for the inconsistencies is convenience.  It makes an easy storyline to sell. It's difficult to make allowances for people ignorant of the back-story.  It's easy to say how two things are the same. It's difficult to say how they are different.  It's easy to subtract wins on paper. It's difficult to reconcile that achievements were a benefit of those vacated wins.  Just to make a point on that, with all of the references to Michigan's Final Four appearances, when do you think you'll next hear Joe Paterno referred to as the winningest college football coach?

Vacating wins is obviously something the NCAA is serious about as evidenced by its actions.  Schools obviously don't want to vacate wins as evidenced by their appeals to the punishment.  Why then does the NCAA not enforce logical reporting and treatment of vacated games by its partners (CBS) and members (UofM)?

For further reading on vacated wins I recommend:

• The Theory and Practice of Vacating Games from the NCAA's own blog
• What does vacating wins really mean? from ESPN