If you've been to a White Sox or a Bulls game in Chicago at any time over the last ten years or so, you've no doubt seen team employees firing free t-shirts into the crowd for fans. These events happen between innings at U.S. Cellular, and during television timeouts at the United Center.
It's nothing but the team's way of saying, "We'd like to thank you for no doubt spending upwards of $150 to be here tonight, not to mention the $7 you've been dropping on each beer, and the $5 for those nachos, so to show you how much we appreciate your patronage we're going to give you a chance to out wrestle those next to you for this t-shirt that's probably not going to fit you."
How generous and kind!
Though some people don't see it that way at all. Including a man from northwest Indiana who is actually suing the White Sox because he hurt himself going for one of those shirts.
David Babusiak of St. John, Ind., suffered a permanent back injury when he was shoved to the ground at a June 8, 2007 game, when members of the Chevrolet Pride Team fired a T-shirt from a "launcher cannon" into Babusiak's section of the stands between innings, his attorney, David Holub, said.
The suit filed in federal court in Hammond, Ind. this week also names U.S. Cellular Field and the Pride Team as defendants.
The defendants are liable for more than $75,000 in damages because they were "engaging in an abnormally dangerous activity, namely, shooting free T-shirts as projectiles into an unsupervised crowd of spectators, some of whom may not have been sober."
Yes, some of whom, like David Babusiak, may not have been sober.
For some reason we don't see Babusiak's lawsuit working out for him, but if it does, we hope he's happy. He'll have ruined the fun for the rest of us with good balance and the sense to know that a free shirt isn't exactly worth fighting over.
Along with writing for NBCCHICAGO.com, Tom Fornelli can also be found contributing at FanHouse, SPORTSbyBROOKS, and his own Chicago sports blog Foul Balls. He's suing the White Sox for the emotional damages suffered by the team losing both games he's attended this season.
