They say that sports bring people together.

That may be true a lot of the time, but even so, take a look at some stadiums or arenas and the difference between the cheapest seat and the most expensive seat, and you’ll start thinking about some RMS Titanic-level social class distinction.

Yes, sports in general might gather people from different places in the same general vicinity, but no actual sporting event really unites tens of thousands of fans down to their common human core.

There is something associated with sports, though, that does: free T-shirts.

It might be the 98-percent cotton, two-percent polyester makeup of the things. It could be the fresh hope of a neck that fits just right and doesn’t stretch past the collarbone. Maybe it’s the feeling of somehow being part of an elite group — a select assemblage that gets to own a brand new shirt without also having to make the pivotal choice between getting scissors to detach the price tag or just ripping it off with no regard for the washer/dryer instructions.

Regardless of the reason, the prospect of getting your hands on a free T-shirt turns us civilized sports fans into attendees at Oprah’s show where she gives everybody cars and talking cook books and designer bath bubbles.

I feel like Bud Light marketing people should, if they haven’t already, put together a new Real Men of Genius ad saluting the guy who reaches over three seats to snatch a T-shirt out of mid air, crushing the hopes of some 7-year-old girl.

It isn’t what happens on the court, on the ice or on the field at minor league ballparks, therefore, that acts as an equilibrium among fans of varying backgrounds, interests and economic situations. Instead it’s the random XL tees, which more often than not have poorly screen-printed lettering on them, that stand out as the champions of egalitarianism. (Why is the standard free T-shirt size XL and not large? I guess America really is obese.)

Of course, before T-shirt-launching technology reached its current stage, some may have argued that the practice of giving out free shirts to fans only benefited those sitting in the good seats. You might have thought something like, “no way in hell does that cheerleader have the arm to reach beyond the 10th row.” Or, “that mascot definitely does not have full range of motion with his throwing shoulder.”

A very valid point, especially considering fans sitting in the upper deck could only watch and wonder longingly about what it might be like to feel time slow down around them as a T-shirt formed a perfect arc destined for their outstretched hands.

But now more than ever, with high-powered T-shirt guns spreading throughout the nation, the free T-shirt movement is literally reaching new heights. It sounds like something out of a health care bill, but more fans than ever have access to free T-shirts thanks to new equipment, like Verizon Center’s massive T-shirt cannon thing that can fire the magical pieces of cloth into the second and third decks of arenas and stadiums.

Unfortunately, as with all things involving human nature, there is a downside — when the fight for the T-shirt gets ugly.

Consider the case of one White Sox fan. David Babusiak from St. John, Ind., sued the organization after a 2007 incident in which he sustained a permanent back injury when he was shoved to the ground during a scuffle for an already-launched free T-shirt.

“The defendants [the White Sox] are liable for more than $75,000 in damages,” NBCChicago.com reported in April 2009, “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.'”

Other than being hilarious, this lawsuit also indicates just how seriously people take the opportunity to secure possession of a free T-shirt. And yes, I googled “free T-shirt injury” to find that story.

Whether free T-shirts are the cause of majesty, misery or malady, they are indiscriminate about whose lives they change, for better or for worse. In that sense, their direct involvement in the fan experience is kind of like what people call the American dream — all you have to do is buy a ticket to the game, and through perseverance and some luck, you have the chance to walk out with a new piece of clothing, sewn with memories, as you hold your head high. This time, the T-shirt chose you.

Dave Finn is a senior in the College and a former sports editor at The Hoya. Couch Talk appears in every other Tuesday edition of Hoya Sports.