Evan Meagher grew up in Reading, headed out to the Left Coast for college some 20 years ago and eventually settled in San Francisco.

Now, San Fran is a great town, and that part of California can be a little bit of heaven, but Meagher missed the Boston teams he left behind: the Patriots, the Bruins, the Celtics, and especially the Red Sox.

Like other Boston transplants scattered across the country, Meagher got his Red Sox fix by logging in to the Sons of Sam Horn message board. (If you don’t know who Sam Horn is, that’s why they invented Google.)

The Sons of Sam Horn are an unusually articulate group, funny and profane. You can hear the Bawston accents in their sarcasm and snark.

“It’s a weirdly goofy baseball nerd Internet paradise,’’ Meagher says.

Last year, it became increasingly clear that Meagher’s 3-year-old godson Harrison Hume needed a kidney transplant. The transplant would be only partly covered by insurance, and Harrison’s parents, Rory and Travis Hume, turned to the Children’s Organ Transplant Association to help make up the difference.

Harrison and his parents live in Oregon and have no Boston connections, other than Boston being the hometown of Harrison’s godfather, but Meagher decided to turn to his fellow Red Sox fans to help Harrison.

Meagher knew there is a considerable confluence of Sons of Sam Horn nerds and beer nerds, and his wife, Rebecca, had an idea.

There is a beer called Pliny the Elder that is brewed in small batches north of San Francisco and is distributed like vaccine. Only a handful of stores in San Francisco sell the stuff, and even then it’s a single bottle, maybe two, at a time. It’s virtually impossible to find.

Meagher put a pitch out to his virtual community that was titled, “Want Pliny? Help My Godson Get a Kidney.’’

“I figured, what the hell, maybe it’ll raise $500 and I’ll have to go to all the stores in San Francisco that get Pliny once or twice and ship it out,’’ Meagher said.

Never underestimate that confluence of baseball and beer nerds. The response was overwhelming. More than 100 Red Sox fans who didn’t know Harrison Hume from Julio Lugo donated something like $35,000 to Harrison’s fund.

It suddenly dawned on Meagher that he was going to have to spend every Wednesday, when the beer is delivered each week, running all over San Francisco, then hours shipping the bottles out. And even then it would be impossible to fill the demand, one bottle at a time.

Two things happened. A lot of those who donated money said keep the beer. They just wanted to help a little kid who was sick.

Then a bunch of Sons of Sam Horn members who live in the San Francisco area volunteered to drive up to the brewery in Santa Rosa, where they were allowed a 12-bottle allotment instead of the single bottle at retail stores. Those Sons of Sam Horn nuts who bond with each other watching Red Sox games at the Connecticut Yankee in Potrero Hill and the Buccaneer in Russian Hill spent three to four hours in the car, more than once, all for a sick boy they never met.

Meagher’s local beer store, the Jug Shop, helped him get the shipments out.

Harrison’s mom Rory was the donor and the transplant was a success and Harrison is doing well.

The Humes are planning a trip to Fenway Park this season, where they can meet and thank some of the Sons of Sam Horn crowd.

Meagher still can’t get over that a community that he lovingly refers to as “basement dwelling Internet baseball nerds, united only by their love of the Red Sox’’ could mobilize to help a family they didn’t know.

Families come in all different shapes and sizes. So do communities, even virtual ones. The thing that unites them is they care for each other, even amid the swearing, the arguments and the put-downs. Virtual love is still love.

Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cullen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeCullen.