There's no crying in baseball, but Hailey Dawson's ceremonial first pitch at the Baltimore Orioles game might make you tear up just a little bit.
This 5-year-old sports fan was born with Poland syndrome, a rare congenital birth effecting hand development. As her mom Yong Dawson told MASNSports.com, Hailey's "special hand" has "tiny pinky and thumb and little nubbins for middle fingers," but it isn't able to grab onto things.
Yong wanted to help her daughter achieve her dream of playing baseball by getting her a prosthetic hand, but they can be very expensive (especially when fitted for children who will likely outgrow them several times). To counter the cost, Hailey's mom looked into 3-D printing a prosthetic limb for her daughter. The first version was stiff and uncomfortable for Hailey, so her mom reached out to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas' engineering department, who happily accepted the challenge of creating a different version.
And now, thanks to some cleaver UNLV students and staff and a 3-D printer, Hailey has a functional Robohand! As her mom tells MASNSports.com, the hand "is operated by wrist movement," and costs anywhere from "$20 up to a few hundred."
Hailey even has a special, Orioles-themed Robohand, and she showed just how well it works when she threw that ceremonial first pitch Monday. As you can see in the MLB.com video above, it was a fun and emotional experience for Hailey and her entire family.
Using her Robohand, Hailey pitched the ball to her favorite player, "Manny" Machado. The professional athlete himself was impressed and congratulated Hailey with a fist bump and a hug.