Just like any other 13-year-old baseball fan in America, Nick LeGrande had dreams of one day making it to the Major Leagues, but a rare, life-threatening blood disorder took the promising superstar away from the game he loved. So we brought together Google Fiber and Major League Baseball to bring the game to Nick.
With the help of Google Fiber's speed and bandwidth, Nick seamlessly threw out the first pitch at an Oakland A's-New York Yankees game "at" the Oakland Coliseum in California from a custom-built miniature indoor baseball field near his home in Kansas City - more than 1800 miles away.
The result was the first tele-robotic first pitch in Major League Baseball history. Nick's moment on the mound was picked up by almost every leading national media outlet. But, more importantly, it raised awareness of Nick's plight and spawned blood drives. After a global search, Nick was connected with a bone marrow donor match just months after his historic pitch.
Today, just a year after Nick's ordeal began, he's on the road to getting his big league dream back on track. His father reports, "Nick most likely will never need another transfusion. It seems as though we've been in a bad dream and now we're awakening."