Jim Litke AP columnist

Federal prosecutors finally stuck a pin in Barry Bonds.

Satisfying as it might have been to see all that hot air leak out of the slugger before he carried off the most cherished record in baseball, there’s at least this consolation: Late is still better than never.

The perjury and obstruction of justice charges announced Thursday were four years and two grand juries in the making. Maybe it shouldn’t have taken that long to shred Bonds’ flimsy “flax seed oil” defense. But investigators couldn’t get his longtime flunky, convicted BALCO bag man Greg Anderson, to cooperate. And for all the help baseball kept promising on the drug-testing front, it never could lay a glove on Bonds.

So in a nice bit of serendipity, even with Anderson clammed up in a jail cell, they indicted Bonds by doing the same thing that made him the toughest out in the game. They never took their eye off the ball.

“I’m curious what evidence they have now, they didn’t have before,” said John Burris, one of Bonds’ attorneys.

Here’s the answer: Enough.

Take as much time as you need at the end of this sentence to unload all those suspicions and all that anger.

Done?

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Thought so.

Most of us made up our minds about Bonds long before the word “defendant” was formally attached to his name. Now Bonds’ faithful fans and even those who congratulated him with tightlipped smiles can begin climbing off the fence.

President George Bush, a former owner of the Texas Rangers, felt compelled to weigh in quickly, albeit cautiously. Even while warning to let justice run its course, his spokesman called it “a sad day for baseball.” No kidding.

Commissioner Bud Selig echoed those remarks.

“I have yet to see the details of this indictment and while everyone in America is considered innocent until proven guilty, I take this indictment very seriously and will follow its progress closely,” he said.

How much would you have paid to climb inside Selig’s head and follow the thought processes while he composed even that brief statement? Especially since he endured a lifetime of aggravation to say even that much.

Ten years ago, Bonds was only a blip on Bud’s radar screen. Back then, Selig was too busy celebrating the game’s recovery from the canceled 1994 season, about to bask in a renaissance launched by the home-run derby between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa four years later.

Then, just as people started asking tough questions, along came Bonds in 2001 with an inflated frame and an ego that knew no bounds. It didn’t matter how often or how many different ways Selig tried to explain away all those baseballs flying out of all those ballparks; Bonds made a mockery of every excuse.

Every one of his predecessors lost muscle and power as they aged? Not Barry.

Pitchers wouldn’t throw him anything to hit? Bonds was relentless and patient to a fault.

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Baseball made it tougher to cheat? Bonds passed every test they gave him with flying colors.

As his pursuit of Henry Aaron dragged out, Selig was forced to buy the book, “Game of Shadows” to find out what was missing. Even more galling than the extra homework was the way Bonds flouted not just baseball’s rules, but the law of the land.

Called before a federal grand jury investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative Bonds testified on Dec. 4, 2003, that he thought a substance given to him by Anderson was “flax seed oil.” When prosecutors showed him a doping calendar labeled with the initials “BB,” Bonds smoothly replied, “He could know other BBs.”

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He had answer for everything.

Now he’ll likely have to repeat them in court with more than his reputation hanging in the balance. If convicted on all charges, Bonds could be sentenced to a maximum of 30 years in prison. That’s about three times as long as it took Bonds to grow from a slender, sullen young man with the world at his feet to a surly eerily muscled, middle-aged man with the feds hot on his trail.

Here’s hoping it was worth the journey.