On Sunday night, at the end of Game 4 of the World Series, the St. Louis Cardinals' rookie, Kolten Wong, may have entered the Pantheon of all-time goats along with Bill Buckner, Fred Merkle, Ralph Branca, and Mickey Owen. The Cards were up two games to one but, with the score 4-2 in the bottom of the ninth, it sure looked like Boston would even up the Series. Wong was inserted as a pinch runner for the hobbled Allen Craig, who had gotten on base via one of the hardest hit singles in recent memory.

With two away and St. Louis's best hitter, right fielder Carlos Beltrán, at the plate, Wong inched a little too far off the base and got picked off by Red Sox closer Koji Uehara, ending the game.

For St. Louis, it was a setback that was compounded by a 3-1 Game 5 loss that has the team on the brink of losing the Series tonight [NB: Game 6 Wednesday night]. Perhaps sadder, it was a potentially devastating moment for a young player, who, hopefully, will overcome it and go on to a long, productive big league career.

That's the thing with the goats. Most of the players we associate with the term were really good. If not actually Hall-of-Fame caliber, then close.

If Wong wants an example of how to effectively shuck off the effects, he need only look at the guy at the plate when he got picked off.

When Beltrán was a New York Met in 2006, he faced his future teammate, Adam Wainwright of the Cardinals, at the end of Game 7 of the 2006 National League Championship Series. The Mets were down by two runs and the bases were loaded with two out in the bottom of the ninth. Then he watched a Wainwright curve oil past; it was called for strike three.

"For me, I saw it as one at-bat," Beltrán told the New York Times. "I mean, I know it was a strikeout. If I would have hit the ball in the air, it could have been a fly ball and an out, or a ground ball could have been an out. I just couldn't swing the bat."

Every season—and every postseason appearance—since, Beltrán has been wiping away that memory from our collective consciousness. Now 36 and showing very little sign of decline, the pride of Manatí, Puerto Rico, can look back at a career spanning 16 years, 358 home runs, 308 stolen bases—by almost any measure, Hall of Fame-worthy numbers.

Perhaps the most impressive part of Beltrán's résumé is his postseason stats: In 215 plate appearances, he has hit .335 with 16 homers and 39 RBI. His 1.142 OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage) is the third highest for any batter with more than 100 postseason plate appearances behind a couple of fellows named Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

Wong could do a lot worse than to take a page out of his book.

Bill Vourvoulias is a writer and editor, and a self-described "pocho" from Guatemala, living in New York City. He has worked and/or written for The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Playboy, Men's Vogue, Radar, ESPN The Magazine, the New York Times, and Interview, among other publications. Read more of his columns about Latinos in sports at v.asinvictor.com. Follow him on Twitter: @bvourvoulias.