Is it because Barry Bonds is Black?
Everyone has a theory about why U.S. federal prosecutors never let Barry Bonds out of their sights for four years as the Giants slugger hit 104 home runs and broke the records of Willie Mays, Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron.

The day after baseball's newly crowned home run king was indicted for allegedly lying about using steroids, historians and legal experts say Bonds was targeted because he shrugged off the accusations, while pursuing the game's most cherished title.

"There is not a minute that goes by that some federal agent or federal prosecutor or law enforcement figure somewhere is not being lied to by someone," said Jean Rosenbluth, a former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles who teaches law at the University of Southern California.

"What the government tends to do is not prosecute perjury unless it's a high-profile case," Rosenbluth said. "You can send the message out worldwide saying, 'Do not lie to us.' Barry Bonds is a perfect example."

Whether his petulant behaviour and singular success were enough to explain the government's drawn-out investigation remained a source of disagreement. Some scholars agreed with Bonds, insisting that given how widespread doping is in sports and the U.S.'s uneasy relationship with Black superstars, race cannot be ignored as a factor.

"This is the latest in a long litany of America's near-obsession with the troublesome Black athlete. Whether it's Terrell Owens, Michael Vick or now Barry Bonds, Black athletes who don't toe the line are going to be held accountable," said Steven Millner, chairman of the African American Studies Department at San Jose State University.

Richard Lapchick, director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida, said that regardless of whether racial bias made Bonds subject to disparate treatment, it remains an important issue for professional sports and society because the perception is there.

"If you are a kid trying to decide what sport to play and look at Major League Baseball, and then see the person who is arguably the greatest player of his generation not being a favourite of the media even before the steroids story became as pronounced, you are going to be less likely to choose baseball," Lapchick said.

An Associated Press-Ipsos poll conducted this summer, while Bonds was chasing Aaron's historic record revealed a wide divide in the way Black and white fans viewed his achievements and the accusations of steroid use.

More than three-quarters of the poll's non-white respondents thought Bonds was being treated unfairly with the doping allegations, compared to just 38 per cent of non-Hispanic white fans. About two-thirds of minority fans said Bonds belonged in the Baseball Hall of Fame, while 49 per cent of non-Hispanic whites did.

Critics of the race argument point to homemaking diva Martha Stewart and U.S. presidential adviser I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby - both of whom served time for perjury - as evidence that if Bonds has been singled out unfairly it's because of the size of his paycheque, not the colour of his skin.

They also note the multiracial makeup of the other figures swept up in the steroids scandal linked to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative.

Like Bonds, New York Yankees first baseman Jason Giambi, who is white, was given immunity from criminal prosecution when he testified before the BALCO grand jury. Unlike Bonds, Giambi acknowledged taking steroids and weathered the fallout.

In Millner's view, a face-by-face analysis of athletes tarnished by steroids allegations misses the larger point about selective enforcement, as does the suggestion that Bonds would fare better if he had a more pleasant public persona.

"Black people may not embrace Barry Bonds, but they look with a jaundiced eye at why Barry and not Karl Rove, why Barry and not the remaining Enron engineers," Millner said. "He epitomizes the insular Black athlete, and that rubs some wrong."

The ongoing investigation of doping in baseball might dispel some of the suspicion that prosecutors reserved a special bulls-eye for Bonds if other current players, especially white pitchers, are implicated and punished, Lapchick said.

"How long it took them is a sad statement for baseball. They portrayed their whole don't-ask, don't-tell policy about steroids, when a large part of (Bonds') generation of players probably did the same thing," Lapchick said. "He wasn't doing it himself."