Goats don't eat tin cans – they eat the paper off them – but these animals do stink. For this reason, and no other, anything said to be like Hogan's goat (a play, a book, or whatever) is something that is very bad, that really “stinks.” Hogan is just a common name affixed to this Americanism that dates back to the turn of the century – no real person named Hogan has anything to do with it. Hogan's brickyard, for a rough-hewn baseball diamond – one usually in a vacant lot – is a similar expression.