As usual, Bonds was way off base

? Anything in the way of modesty coming from Barry Bonds would, by this time, seem startlingly false and be too much to expect. Barry and humility have not met. He doesn’t do humble. He leads the majors in homers and arrogance, and there are people who think one forgives the other, as if great talent mandates preening ego.

But dissing The Babe?

Our prince of petulance has discovered his latest new low.

Bonds bashing Babe Ruth during the All-Star break is sort of like a cardinal (not Albert Pujols, the other kind) choosing Easter at the Vatican to knock the pope.

You don’t disrespect The Bambino; deference to him is baseball law. If America’s Pastime has a deity, it’s Babe Ruth.

Oh, sure, you are officially permitted to poke gentle fun at his girth, or at the mincing gait seen in black and white newsreels, or at the idea his off-the-field nickname might well have been the Sultan of Swig.

But you do not — ever — suggest that any conversation about home run hitters should start with any name other than Babe Ruth. Let alone your own name!

Unless you are Barry Bonds.

“As a left-handed hitter, I wiped him out. That’s it,” Bonds brayed Monday. “And in the baseball world, Babe Ruth’s everything, right? I got his slugging percentage, and I’ll take his home runs and that’s it. Don’t talk about him no more.”

It’s a marvel how Bonds can be so impressively athletic yet have so little grace.

What he has accomplished speaks for itself: the season record of 73 homers, the five MVP awards, the reservation in Cooperstown.

But how unbecoming that Bonds would trumpet himself by knocking American sports’ all-time icon, a slugger dead nearly 55 years now but vitally alive as the rarest of legitimate legends.

Did Michael Jordan boast how he “wiped out” Magic Johnson? Did Dan Marino denigrate Johnny U? Did Hank Aaron, in eventually surpassing Ruth in career homers if not historical esteem, display anything but class in earning the record?

Perhaps Bonds’ comments were part of a grand scheme, an orchestration by baseball to divert attention from the fact Tuesday’s All-Star game in Chicago was dominated by semi-stars, with so many first-time selections and a matchup of starting pitchers (Jason Schmidt-Esteban Loaiza) meriting not a marquee but a sandwich board.

Yeah, that’s it. A master plan.

First you leave Sammy Sosa off the team so the soundtrack of the game won’t be Chisox fans riding Sosa like a found mule while bombing the field with wine corks.

Then you create a media diversion by originally snubbing Marlins wunderkind Dontrelle Lewis (knowing full well he will eventually get on) while including a Pirates reliever with an ERA that looks like a professional bowler’s three-game series.

Then you create more controversy by sacrificing Oakland pitcher Barry Veto, oops, Zito, to make a last-minute roster spot for retiring Roger Clemens.

Then you top it off by having Barry Bonds rip The Babe.

The thing that’s so bad about Bonds’ comments, beside the gall, is that he’s wrong. His career numbers do not surpass Ruth’s.

Hey, Bonds is the greatest slugger of his generation. Give him credit.

But Babe Ruth invented the genre, and remains the standard.

Give him respect.