One Hit Wonders

Shank writes a decent column reflecting on one-time memorable performances of professional athletes.

I’M NOT SURE MALCOLM BUTLER OR DAVE ROBERTS DRINK BEER, but I am sure of this one thing . . . 

They’ll never have to buy another beer in this town.

It’s what we always say. A guy makes a great catch, hits a big homer, or steals a series-saving base, and we say the same thing.

He’ll never have to buy a beer in this town again.

Bernie Carbo stopped drinking alcoholic beverages back in the 1990s, but he’s never going to have to a buy a beer in Boston because he hit one of the biggest homers in Red Sox history when, while pinch-hitting with two outs in the eighth, he drove a Rawley Eastwick cut fastball into the center-field bleachers to tie the sixth game of the epic 1975 World Series. Carbo’s blast set up the Carlton Fisk foul-pole shot — the Good Will Hunting moment that guaranteed that Pudge also would never again have to buy another beer in this town.