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Who is Bored MLB iPad Man and why do TV cameras keep showing him at ALDS games?

He doesn't seem that interesting, but the cameras just can't get enough of him.

By Rodger Sherman Updated

Friday afternoon during Game 2 of the ALDS between the Blue Jays and the Rangers in Toronto, the MLB Network's cameras caught a fan. That in of itself isn't uncommon, but this fan ... well, he was pretty uncommon:

This man apparently paid for tickets to a playoff baseball game, only to stand in the concourse and look at his iPad. I'd never shame somebody for using technology at a sporting event -- it's 2015! I look at my phone when I go to the game! -- but with tens of thousands of screaming Blue Jays fans, why did the camera focus on this man not cheering, not in his seat, not looking happy, just standing in the concourse looking at an iPad larger than his head? It was a peculiar directorial decision, for sure.

We would have forgotten about him... but then he showed up again Sunday night in Arlington. Hundreds of miles away, but same color shirt, same blank stare, same enormous iPad:

This time, he was more interested in his fried bacon on a stick than his iPad. (The man next to him seems somewhat curious about the iPad, though.) But he still clearly doesn't care at all about baseball.

He later put on a hat:

And he went back to Toronto:

And now he's at the ALCS:

It's already weird enough that this man who doesn't seem particularly invested in the outcome of the game would shell out the large sums of money to fly from Toronto to Dallas and pay for tickets to two playoff games. It's weirder still that he's been on TV twice. It's pretty clear that this man is a viral plant for some sort of marketing campaign...

But, like, what marketing campaign? Our guesses:

  • iPads. This seems unlikely, because normally Apple ads show cool young people doing cool young things like asking Siri to tell them the nearest organic record store to buy locally sourced vinyl for their cool young person party that night. They show you how Apple products allow you to do literally everything in the world, jamming your day filled with 27 hours of cool young person activities. They don't show you middle aged folks ignoring the outside world while feasting on fried bacon.
  • MLB's various tablet apps. Like, isn't it too late to advertise this stuff? And isn't the point to show people that they can look at tablets and EXPERIENCE THE GAME even when they're not there, rather than showing people they can use tablets to help them look bored at baseball games?
  • The upcoming film "Steve Jobs." iPad man shows us that Steve's innovations have so infiltrated modern life that even at sporting events where everybody is going nuts, somebody's calmly tuning everything out to use their iPad.
  • The NBA and NFL. They somehow planted this dude and paid off cameramen/producers to show everybody that baseball is boring.
  • The multibillion dollar Drab Green Dress Shirts lobby. You may not realize it, but they control the world.

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SB Nation presents: The wild 7th inning of Game 5 of the Blue Jays-Rangers series

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