A young Oakland A’s fan suffering from a rare blood disorder called severe aplastic anemia threw out the ceremonial first pitch at last night’s A’s game thanks to the assistance of an on-field robot. Due to his rare disease, 13-year old Nick LeGrande can no longer attend baseball games, but that didn’t stop the A’s from bringing the game to him…all the way in Kansas City.
With the help of Google Fiber, the LeGrande family had a miniature baseball stadium constructed in their home, complete with a mound, bleachers, and real grass from Kaufmann Stadium. With LeGrande on the mound (and on the video board in Oakland) in his home almost 2,000 miles away, a robot on the mound in Oakland followed the teen’s movements and tossed the ball to A’s reliever Ryan Cook to complete the first-ever telerobotic first pitch.
Awesome stuff.
About Pete Blackburn