Baseball is a sport rooted in eccentric traditions and arcane rituals, and that includes the highly individualistic vendors hawking beer in the stands during games. Since 1993, baseball fans in Denver have come to know and love Brent “Captain Earthman” Doeden, a 60-year-old self-described “stranded intergalactic space hippie” who slings suds at Colorado Rockies home games at Coors Field every summer. With his flair-encrusted ball cap, purple beard, cosmic rhetoric, and vocal distaste for “sissy sippin‘” (He prefers that customers drink “like they meant it.”), Doeden has become an integral part of the baseball experience in Colorado for many fans. But this space traveler, who has also plied his trade at Red Rocks Amphitheatre and during Denver Broncos home games, has been grounded since August by a cancer diagnosis. Not only is Doeden unable to work or travel to Widespread Panic and String Cheese Incident concerts, but his medical bills are piling up. Over at Mashable, writer Sam Laird tells Doeden’s strange saga in a bittersweet article called “The Ballad Of ‘Captain Earthman,’ Baseball Fans’ Most Beloved Beer Vendor.”