Beer aficionado pays the ultimate price

Few traditions are more intimately associated with baseball than beerswilling. Not the seventh-inning stretch. Not the national anthem. Not the World Series.

Each of these hallmarks of the treasured American pastime emerged after 1882, when Chris von der Ahe purchased the bankrupt St. Louis baseball club and shepherded fans to his nearby beer garden. It was at that moment, still in the sport’s infancy, that baseball and beer were bound. The profits reaped by the German immigrant and entrepreneur confirmed that it was a match made in heaven.

Fast-forward 136 years to a modern-day prophet of the marriage between baseball and beer: Todd Keeling. Like von der Ahe, a denizen of America’s Midwest. Like von der Ahe, an entrepreneur.

Keeling had developed a beer tap, the ‘Quick Draw’ faucet that was expected to make beer flow three times faster at SunTrust Park, the major league home of the Atlanta Braves. Within five seconds, Budweiser or Coors would brim from the cups of Braves diehards, as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

The 48-year-old worked an overnight shift Monday installing the new technology. At some point, he went into a beer cooler behind a concession area. The walk-in cooler was large enough to hold plenty of beer, and the temperature inside never fell below 5 C.

Keeling ’s body was dragged lifeless from the cooler on Tuesday afternoon, hours before the Braves faced off against the Cincinnati Reds. CPR failed to revive him.

His aunt, Fran Kuchta, told local media that he had been trapped inside the insulated container.

“The Atlanta Braves are deeply saddened by the passing of Todd Keeling,” the team said in a statement. “We admired the passion he had for both his company and his product. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.”