That band was the MC5, whose admonition "Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!!!" on their first album, released in 1969, was ripped off for the name of this column. Like Bouton's sensitive umpires, retailers and conservative bluenoses across the nation were aghast at the use of such a foul word. The backlash ended up sending Detroit's punk pioneers on a downward spiral of commercial failure, heroin use and being overshadowed by "little brother" Iggy Pop. Me, I've merely gotten a few notes from bluenoses, although to show how times have changed, they've come from the liberal side, mainly from men who share e-mail addresses with their significant female others (for example, karensteve@prude.com). In an NPR world, sophistication and motherfucker no longer mix. I could change the name of the column to "Kick Out the Sports, Brothers and Sisters!!!" — the MC5's cleaned-up version of its obscene admonition, but that's getting kind of long, and I don't have a sister, so "Kick Out the Sports!!!" it is.

To commemorate dropping the evil mf from "Kick Out the Sports," I'd like to present the sacred of the profane, the seven most infamous uses of profanity in sports history. Seven, of course, is the number of dirty words George Carlin famously surmised you can't say on TV:

1. Pete Rose, the Michiko Kakutani of baseball, 1970

Before Bouton wrote "Ball Four," most fans had no idea baseball players cursed, much less drank like fish and chased skirts. The book incensed the baseball establishment, and on the establishment's side — though it's hard to believe now — was Rose. Whenever Bouton would take the mound for the Houston Astros, Rose would come to the top of the Cincinnati Reds' dugout and give his succinct review of Bouton's reportage: "Fuck you, Shakespeare!"

2. Bob Costas makes the first link between the hummers and basketball, 1974

Big-time sports anchor Bob Costas was fresh out of Syracuse University doing play-by-play of the ABA's Spirits of St. Louis when he, inadvertently, created one of the most memorable moments on legendary sports radio station KMOX. Late in an early-season game, the Spirits held the lead, and Costas wanted to reference how they frittered away an advantage on a previous night. So Costas turned to partner Bill Wilkerson and said, "Bill, it would seem that the Spirits have this one well in hand. But you can bet that the last thing Coach Bob MacKinnon wants to see is a repeat of Friday night's blow job."

3. Lee Elia goes berserk, 1983

If I were to rank these in order of entertainment and bulk, the then-Cubs manager's 463-word rant about the Wrigley faithful after another early-season loss would be No. 1 by a mile. Space and attention span limitations prevent me from reproducing Elia's tirade in full, except to say that if this went before the court that heard Lenny Bruce's Chicago obscenity case 20 years earlier, Elia would still be rotting in jail — there are more fucks and cocksuckers here than in the Vivid Video library. Sample line: "Eighty-five percent of the fuckin' world is working! The other 15 percent come here! A fuckin' playground for the cocksuckers!" I submit that Wrigley Field's nickname be changed from "The Friendly Confines" to "A Fuckin' Playground for the Cocksuckers."

4. A.J. Foyt's Manuremobile, 1980s

A.J. Foyt's salty tongue and lack of tact was no secret, but one particularly memorable line from late in his career is recited by drivers and fans at racetracks to this day to describe a car not performing up to snuff. After an Indianapolis 500 qualifying run that didn't go his liking, the race-car legend, over the house PA to 200,000 fans and to a national television audience, shared that his car ran like a "tub of shit." Is it any wonder that fellow Indy driver Emerson Fittapaldi, who spoke seven languages, claimed English was the best for cursing? (By the way, I'm hedging on the date because I can't confirm it — it's thought be sometime between 1983 and 1986.)

5. Bob Knight's pep talk, 1990

Knight had already retired the Lifetime Achievement Award for swearing, helped by John Feinstein's 1986 book "A Season on the Brink." Still, this speech to his team, distributed around the Internet in 1999 and 2000, still melted the ears of whoever heard it, as Knight laments the previous year's subpar team and his current team's similarity to it. To get the true effect of this, imagine R. Lee Ermey from Full Metal Jacket right in your ear in full Private Pyle mode, and that you get hit with spittle every time he says "fuck." "NOW I AM TIRED OF THIS SHIT! I AM SICK AND FUCKING TIRED OF AN 8-10 RECORD! I'M FUCKING TIRED OF LOSING TO PURDUE!" Knight later threatens a team with a regimen that could be called the Bob Knight Fucking Workout. "NOW I'M GOING TO FUCKING GUARANTEE YOU THAT IF WE DON'T PLAY MONDAY NIGHT, YOU AREN'T GONNA BELIEVE THE NEXT FOUR FUCKING DAYS … I MEAN, I'LL FUCKING RUN YOU, YOU'LL THINK LAST NIGHT WAS A FUCKING PICNIC! I HAD TO SIT AROUND FOR A FUCKING YEAR WITH AN 8-10 RECORD IN THIS LEAGUE, AND YOU WILL NOT PUT ME IN THAT FUCKING POSITION AGAIN, OR WILL GODDAMN PAY FOR IT LIKE YOU CAN'T FUCKING BELIEVE! NOW YOU BETTER GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS!" For what it's worth, Indiana finished better than 8-10 that season, and it didn't fucking lose to Purdue.

6. Derrick Coleman always looks on the bright side of life, 1994

"Whoop-de-damn do." That phrase, in response to a question regarding his feelings on teammate Kenny Anderson going AWOL from practice, literally made then-New Jersey Net Derrick Coleman the cover boy for petulant NBA stars — a month after he said it, Coleman appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated with a headline, "WAAAH!"

7. Allen Iverson, "Forty Bars," 2000

The best thing about the Philadelphia 76ers' star's crime against rhyme was that ever since this song, no NBA player has put out a rap album. (Thank God, no more Shaq-Fu.) Of course, what killed it was when the NBA heard the foul language, violent imagery, homophobia and misogyny in "Forty Bars." "Everybody stay fly get money kill and fuck bitches/ I'm hitting anything in plain view for my riches." Not only was the couplet "Come to me with faggot tendencies/ You'll be sleepin' where the maggots be" rank gay-bashing, it's the worst attempt at rhyme since Steve Miller's "taxes/facts is" in "Take the Money and Run." Iverson wanted to be Ludacris; instead he was ludicrous — some jokes just write themselves, don't they? Under league pressure, the single was pulled and planned album was never released.

E-mail Bob Cook at bobc@flakmag.com.