Darrel is a grandson of Janis Akerfelds and Anna Ziverts (a cousin of my mother) who I’ve never personally me (blame WWII for scattering the Akerfelds family across Germany, Canada and the USA in the 1950′s). Nonetheless, he and his family have been in my thoughts since I first heard news of his battle.
Normally I’d try to write something up about this, but this article does a better job detailing Darrel’s inspirational life’s story than I could hope to:
http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/7318959/san-diego-padres-bullpen-coach-darrel-akerfelds-too-b
