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Dad’s Boy (Referee 7/93) — One of the most emotional stories ever covered in Referee, “Dad’s Boy” told the life story of eight-year-old John Drew Hirschbeck, the son of major league umpire John Hirschbeck. Born with a rare degenerative disease called adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), young John died March 7, 1993, a year after his diagnosis, leaving behind his parents, brother Michael and two sisters, Erin and Megan, to cope with the loss. There is no cure for ALD. It is a hereditary condition afflicting only boys that is passed from the mother. Through the course of little John’s diagnosis, the Hirschbecks were stricken with even more grave news: Michael also has ALD and Erin and Megan are carriers. |