Since I was the team captain,
I’ll speak for George and Ross and the rest
Heinie Sand was right to be skeptical:
it was Cozy who put Jimmy up to it,
but all of us were in on it
and not as a practical joke,
though we all had convenient memory lapses
when Landis interviewed us about it
I think he knew better,
but banning half the team and some higher-ups
would reflect badly on the job he was doing
I’m sometimes sorry that Cozy and Jimmy
had to be the sacrificial lambs,
but that was the way it had to be
THE POETRY OF THE GAME