Rob and Andrew were paired up as roommates in an elite prep school - Rob as the wealthy school legacy; Andrew as the middle-class scholarship winner. Class warfare in Latin Class - the double entendre on the film title. The main arch of the story saw young Andrew picking up and bedding the unhappily married mother (Jacqueline Bisset) to Rob's character.
The minor arch - the pressure pushing everyone forward, was a school-wide investigation into cheating. The school's hired investigator calls in Rob and Andrew and a number of their classmates trying to weed out the suspected SAT cheater. At one point, the investigator gives Andrew a walk on the investigation. Telling Andrew, "You had a nearly perfect score on the SATs. Normally, I'd suspect you right away, but with your grades…" The irony revealed later of course is that Andrew did in fact cheat on his SATs. It was a risk he was willing to take to earn that scholarship.
Fast forward 20 years and move the drama to the baseball diamond and change the characters to Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds. Mark was juiced. Jose said as much, and it was revealed later by Mark himself. Barry was willing to risk his natural place in history and the record books to be the Single Season Homerun Leader - a feat he accomplished. But many suspect he was juiced too. It's not been proven beyond a doubt, but then this isn't a murder trial. In fact, it's not a trial at all.
Oh to
be sure, Barry was on trial recently; found guilty of lying; sentenced just
this past week to two years probation and a few months house arrest. The final chapter of that story may not be
written yet as it's still undetermined if Barry will appeal his conviction or
sentencing. But there's enough
circumstantial evidence that Barry was juiced to add another 30 pounds of
muscle to his 48 year old body. Which,
by the way, is about the amount of muscle he added after the age of 38. There's no way that happens in three
months. Not at 38. Not at 28.
Not without The Clear and The
Cream - the two designer steroids linked to Barry by his trainer.
But the
question that is looming now, ten years later: who gets in the Hall of
Fame? Ten years ago, many a sports
writer - the keepers of the keys to the Hall - suggested that Barry would get a
pass as he was a "Hall of Famer" before the supposed juicing. Mark, they said, was not. Barry then is like Andrew McCarthy's
character - perfect grades, but cheated on the final. But isn't cheating still wrong? Cheating is cheating. Had Andrew been caught in the movie, he
wouldn't have gotten a free pass. He'd
have been kicked out. Why do many sports
writers feel that Barry's cheating is any less a bad thing than Marks, or
Jose's or Sammy's?
Why
would Barry be willing to risk his legacy, his sure pass to the Hall, for a
single season record? (To be fair, he also
holds the career record which he accomplished after he was juiced.) The same thing that made him want the record:
ego. Massive ego. It's fueled is whole life. How he notoriously was never a team
player. How he cheated his non-lawyer,
barely English speaking, wife out of a pre-nup.
Barry thinks - and has always thought - that rules and laws are for mere
mortals, not the baseball God he thinks he is.
He's a legacy, just like Rob's character was in Class, only Barry's claim
was from his baseball father, Bobby Bonds, and his legendary baseball
god-father - Willy Mays.
Barry
grew up thinking he was better than everyone else partly because of the
baseball royalty he hung out with as a kid and partly because he was better
than most of the kids he played with.
And when someone else threatened to steal his limelight - someone who
wasn't as deserving as the Godly Barry - well, he couldn't let that
happen. He had to juice to take back
what was rightfully his: records and fame.
It took
the courts eight years and many millions of dollars just to convict Barry of
lying. Unless Barry admits he took
steroids, that ship of proof will have long sailed. But the baseball writers don't need evidence
beyond a reasonable doubt, they can see the ship loaded down, the water line
high on the hull, and rightly guess that it's full of steroids. Circumstantial evidence, when there's as much
as there is in Barry's case, is more than enough to keep him out of the
Hall. Unless you think the SATs aren't
important and cheating on them only a minor offence compared to one's legacy. Some people have no Class.
