Hailey Dawson, a 7-year-old from Las Vegas, NV, has a congenital disease that caused her to be born without three fingers on her right hand — but that's not stopping her from pursuing her baseball dreams.
According to Sport Techie, Dawson was born with Poland Syndrome, a disorder in which those affected are born with missing or underdeveloped muscles on their bodies. The extent and severity of the abnormalities can vary from person to person, but many are missing part of their chest muscle, or part of their hand.
Dawson currently has a 3D printed hand, created by University of Nevada Las Vegas’s engineering program, which allows her to write and play ball. It's also allowed her to throw the first pitch at two Major League Baseball games — for the Baltimore Orioles in August of 2015 and a Washington Nationals game this past June.
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Dawson isn't stopping there. She's aspiring to hold the Guinness World Record for the most number of first pitches, and it looks like the MLB is on board to make that happen.
Her story went viral after Bleacher Report posted a video of her on their Twitter page, and several major league baseball teams, as well as minor teams and college teams, began replying to invite her to their games.
Sounds great! Can you DM us Hailey's info, so we can reach out?
— Detroit Tigers (@tigers) September 7, 2017
We would love to have Hailey at AT&T Park! Please DM us her info.
— San Francisco Giants (@SFGiants) September 7, 2017
We would love to have Hailey visit us! Please DM us her info!
— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) September 7, 2017
Absolutely! Please DM us Hailey's info. so we can get in touch with her.
— New York Mets (@Mets) September 7, 2017
As it turns out, Twitter really can make good things happen — hopefully. If these tweets are any indication (plenty more teams replied than we could fit in this article), Dawson should be well on her way to making that world record sometime soon.
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