Remembering our Dodgers Digest swashbuckler

The definition of community and social interaction has changed so much over the last 25 years. We, as people, can feel a deep connection with someone we’ve never actually met in real life. Some leave lasting reminders and adopt personas.

So, when we lose in our Dodgers/Dodgers Digest community, it stings. This obituary is about one of our beloved commenters Capnsparrow23, written by one of our most dedicated commenters LA_Woman.

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“O Capn, Our Capn.

I had a feeling something was wrong. He last tweeted on Opening Day 2023, and he hadn’t commented at this website since the end of that season. Tym did some nosing around the other night and, since I had met Capn in real life, he came to me with some info/pics for verification, and then I nosed around some more. I am so very sorry to relay the information that Capnsparrow, as he was known here, passed on in February this year.

Sadly, he didn’t even make it to Spring Training. He would’ve enjoyed the hell out of this year (and been salty as hell too), and I am heartbroken that he’s missing this playoff run of gutty pitchers (he’d been a catcher and loved him his pitchers) and the fact it may end up being Dodgers vs. “Yankmees.” [OMG, it did! And they won for you, Capn!] On the other hand, it may just have been the crap his beloved Raiders turned into that killed him.

From the MSTI Wiki (which for some unknown reason is now closed; Blah is looking into it):

Capnsparrow is known for using the vernacular of a pirate. He is primarily noted for his addiction to GIFs. Capnsparrow was born in 1959. Sometime shortly thereafter his skin is reported to have fallen off leaving just his bones. Later some of his teeth were removed by a dentist, having been loosened in brawls.

Yes, he was some kind of character, that one, and full of contradictions. Bursting with piss and vinegar online, and a real sweetheart of a teddy bear in person. A classic male chauvinist pig, and a champion of women who were being abused or who were in need. He could rebuild an engine and renovate a house, and he could cook up an elaborate Thanksgiving feast. A crusty shit-talking grump who shed tears when we won it all in 2020.

Reading that he died in Riverside saddened me immensely. He always wanted to get back to the Bay Area where he could fish to his heart’s content. He was so misplaced in landlocked Riverside, but he moved there because his wife needed to take care of her mother, and then, well, by the time she passed, the kids were established in schools, so the sea would have to wait.

This was Capn’s last tweet:

hooray hooray its opening day! time to go back to work bets are in soon my income quadruples.(not that anybody but me cares) give us our fucking sun back in california before 7:10

And his last words here:

ill just survive for another 6 years and then go to the station ive created for meself in hell and not regret any of what i did in the past cus i fuckin meant that shit like it or not

There was a phrase Capn used whenever someone he loved or respected died, and I searched through years of his comments trying to find it (What a trip down memory lane! I could fill a post just with memorable nuggets of Capn-speak), but I was going cross-eyed from skimming through it all, plus it was almost time for NLCS Game 2 to start.

So hoist the Jolly Roger and lift a glass of rum. The powers that be broke the mold when they created Lloyd Dean Barkley (April 21, 1959 to February 23, 2024).