【Watch Young Wife Bai Jie】

Ever since the Colorado Rockies became a Major League Baseball team in 1993,Watch Young Wife Bai Jie fans in the left-field bleachers couldn't miss the beer vendor known as "Captain Earthman."

No way, no how. Not with his pin-encrusted cap, his purple-dyed beard, his earrings, his cutoff T-shirts, his tagline — "No sissy sippin'" — and his cell phone with the number he'd give out to regular fans to text him for beers on demand.

Nowadays, though, they sure miss Earthman out there in left field.

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To Rockies fans he may be Earthman, but to Becky Scharfenberg he's Brent Doeden.

Once upon a time, Brent and one of his daughters were looking for a place to live. They rented out Becky's basement after answering a newspaper classified ad. A year later, Brent and Becky began dating. A year after that, they married. That was 28 years ago and they've been together ever since.

To baseball fans and family alike — whether they know him by Earthman, Brent or any other name — he's beloved. And now he has cancer.

Doctors discovered a tumor on 60-year-old Brent's brain stem on the last day of August. They told Becky it's inoperable, but in a week Brent will start chemotherapy and radiation treatment. The idea is to stop the tumor's growth.

"If we can hinder the growth," Becky says, "I get to keep my husband past January."

It's a sad story, no doubt, a heartbreaker about the unfair randomness of life. But, improbably, it's a sweet tale, too, one about big love, unexpected connections and throat-swelling humanity amid bleak circumstance.

The fans to whom Earthman brought so much joy — and beer — for so many years are now paying him back with Becky's help.

* * * * *

Becky says Brent, aka Earthman, would tell Rockies fans in left field a common refrain: "No sissy sippin'! You gotta drink that beer so I can sell you another one."

One does not often see a beer vendor featured by ESPN. But Earthman wasn't just any suds-seller — he was a legend and a cult hero at Coors Field. Still is, in fact.

"Somebody told me something the other day that made me stop in my tracks," Earthman told ESPN.com at the start of the 2010 baseball season. "Out of the blue, I'm being hugged by a man and this woman, two humans. They looked at me and said, 'We weren't sure you were going to be here. Now that we see you, we know it's baseball time. Welcome back.'

"I'm thinking, 'Wow, that's really cool when somebody says it's just not baseball without you.'"

Captain Earthman working Rockies spring training in 2009. Credit: Cyrus McCrimmon/The Denver Post via Getty Images

Now, about that nickname — Brent didn't just tell baseball fans to drink their beers like they meant it.

He also told fans he was, as Becky says, "a space alien and just waiting for the space ship to come back and pick him up."

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And he didn't just tell fans his space story.

"Actually, our granddaughters believed that theywere part alien when they were a lot younger," Becky says.

Becky and Brent have what she calls a "blended" family. He has three daughters and she has three daughters; in total, they have eight grandkids, with a ninth on the way.

But Brent doesn't get to spin his alien story as much these days. Speaking is difficult because of the tumor, which impairs his ability to hold conversations as well as movement on the right side of his body.

Earthman, as Becky wrote recently, "has been contacted by the mothership."

* * * * *

Coloradans might also know Brent from slinging suds in his singular style at Denver Broncos home games and at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre, a venerated music venue located just west of town. But when the Rockies became a big-league team in 1993, Brent decided there was enough work to make selling beer his only job.

It's an example of the good-natured, positive thinking that first drew Brent and Becky together three decades back.

"He makes me laugh a lot," Becky says. "He has a really great outlook on life. He's always looking at the brighter side of things. I think that's why we get along so well, is that we're both positive people instead of negative people. We just really enjoy being together."

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Becky works full-time as a tech support specialist. Along with a daughter and son-in-law, she also owns a 3.5-acre vegetable garden. They sell their produce at local farmers' markets three times a week.

But Brent hasn't been able to vend beer since his diagnosis on Aug. 31. The upshot, Becky says, is "we just went down from two incomes to one income in the blink of an eye."

Becky's jobs cover household expenses, but that's about it. Now there are medical bills to consider, visit after visit to doctor after doctor as they try to extend Earthman's time on this planet. And there are adventures the couple wants to take while they still can.

Brent loves going to concerts as much as anything -- Widespread Panic, The String Cheese Incident and Yonder Mountain String Band are among his favorites. There are also several big-league ballparks he still wants to check off his list.

Becky had seen and donated to online crowdfunding campaigns before. So, about a week after Brent's diagnosis, she started a page called "Parts for Earthman's Spaceship" on the site GoFundMe in hopes of raising money to help with medical bills and adventures together.

But Becky never expected — well, she never expected this. The response from Earthman's former customers has blown the couple away.

* * * * *

"Thank you for the energy, enthusiasm and inspiration over the years," a fan named Jason Lippa wrote on the GoFundMe page Becky set up. "From afar you have been a model for how to have an open heart and how to treat a stranger as a friend."

"Every game, every concert I text you for my first beer," wrote someone else, who donated $32.

Wrote another fan, who donated $10: "Growing up at Coors Field would not have been the same without you, Earthman!! The whole family is devastated by this news."

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

At the time of this writing, 289 people had donated a total of $13,422 to Brent and Becky in 16 days. She hopes to reach $25,000 total, all of which will go toward medical expenses and, as she wrote on the GoFundMe page, "helping him do the things he wants" while he still can.

Widespread Panic is coming to town soon. The couple has looked into hitting the road to catch The String Cheese Incident and Yonder Mountain String Band. His upcoming radiation regimen will make traveling hard for a while, but when it's done perhaps they can fly out to watch post-season baseball at some of the ballparks Brent has long dreamed of visiting.

The outpouring of love, support and donations has been so overwhelming the couple can't even check the GoFundMe page all that often.

"We have to take it in little doses," Becky says. "We've been just absolutely amazed and very humbled by how many people have responded. Whenever we do look at it, we usually end up on the floor together sobbing because of the great response."

Some folks say the more love you put into the universe, the more you get back in return. It seems Captain Earthman — whether he is in fact from this planet or any other — proves that notion true.

For more information, you can visit the GoFundMe page here.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable