Monday night was a pretty quiet one in the world of sports.

With the NBA and NHL both wrapping up a round of the playoffs a bit earlier than television networks would have preferred, the pickings for sports fans were rather slim. ESPN was airing re-runs of Welcome to Wrexham, which, sure good show, but is not standard programming for primetime on a Monday night in May.

Thankfully, one Baltimore Orioles fan had enough fun on television for the rest of the sports world to ride in the lovely wake he left behind.

The moment started out like any other—a baseball broadcast shuffling through shots of the crowd between pitches. But one fan who was apparently also following the action on their phone realized that another fan in their row had caught the attention of the cameras, and delightedly passed that information on to our new star.

He delivered on all counts, hamming it up for a camera he struggled to find and sending the broadcast team into hysterics. Credit to the production crew who knew where there money was on this night—as soon as they found they had struck gold, they kept the cameras rolling.

Cheers to Awful Announcing for sharing the moment on social channels.

Despite howling with laughter, the broadcast team was as professional as ever, working in several promotions for the MLB.TV app.

“We see! We gotcha buddy!” they said. “You’re America’s Orioles fan!”

The broadcast went on to investigate which particular jersey the fan was wearing as they continued to play his role.

“This inning feels like we’re in a remake of The Truman Show,” said the broadcast team. They ultimately got the fan into a picture and picture display. Absolute cinema.

In the panopticon of modern social media, any fan can at any time unsuspectingly become an internet phenomenon for a brief period—those 15 minutes of fame that always get talked about.

By most counts, I would consider this “a bad deal,” but then there are moments like this where it feels like 'Hey as long as everyone is having fun and we’re all cool about it, sure, why not, we’re here anyways.'

If the camera is on you, and you’re into it, you might as well dance.

The Orioles would ultimately fall to the Brewers, 5–4.

More MLB on Sports Illustrated


This article was originally published on www.si.com as No One Had More Fun on Monday Night Than This Orioles Fan Who Got on TV.

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