Ban words, not guns! ... X-Games 2013, Sports Center and the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame vote... Incredible... just incredible

Awesome image of Shaun White on fire by Doug Pensinger

After watching a week of X-Games 2013, I have something else I want to ban in addition to assault weapons, the sole purpose of which is clearly to kill a lot of people in a short period of time.

Words.

What? You want to ban words?

That's right. Five words to be exact. Not banned entirely. Just banned until the Second Coming or another Kansas City Royals' World Series victory, whichever comes first.

Incredible
Awesome
Amazing
Unbelievable
Epic

First, I want sportscasters and sports writers prohibited by law from using these words. We'll see how that goes. Then journalists, particularly political journalists and especially bloggers. (Tony Botello gets a pass for "awesome tipsters" as long as the tips really are awesome.) If that goes well and the republic still stands, then everyone.

The culprits are not just X-Games talkers. Apparently the word 'stoked' with that special southern California accent on the vowel, has already been banned by the ESPN brain trust, though it did sound funny when the translator translated it for a 14-year-old Japanese half-pipe prodigy.  I don't know... stoked seemed more authentic than incredible, awesome, or even 'big ole...' Stooooked was missed.

But X-Game analysts aren't the only incredible culprits. Just listen to Sports Center. Watch the Top Ten. You'll be surprised to learn that every day something amazing, incredible, awesome, unbelievable and epic happened. Three-hundred-sixty-five epic things a year is a lot of epic.

I was talking Saturday night with a gaggle of teammates from the 60-year-old-plus Relics about the Hall of Fame voting. One of the fellows suggested we should have known McGwire and Sosa were 'stoked' as they blasted epic blast after epic blast from underneath their ever expanding, incredibly big, hat sizes. Gives the phrase 'swell head' new meaning, doesn't it.

We were having such awesome fun, he said, we forgot to ask why? ... How? ...What's in the water?

Sometimes when a thing's unbelievable, it is.

--Lofflin

Shaun White on fire image by Doug Pensinger at SB-Nation. Go see it and enjoy the writing as well. Actually, this image deserves the 'awesome' designation.