Barry Bonds Should Hope A-Rod Takes 'Tainted' Home Run Record Away

"Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown..."

- William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2

Alex Rodriguez is gunning for Barry Bonds. And if Bonds knows what's good for him, he'll hope A-Rod's aim is true.

Backing up a bit: Last month, as was widely reported, Bonds and Rodriguez worked out together.

Rodriguez is preparing to come back from a season-long performance-enhancing drug suspension. Bonds is the most prolific, maligned slugger of the PED era. Cue the snickers and derisive Twitter jabs.

Then we got this quote from Bonds, per John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle:

"

[Rodriguez] was funny. He said, 'I want to take your record.' I said, 'That's OK. If that’s what you want to do, we've got a lot of work to do.' I was excited he wanted to do it.

"

Bonds is right about one thing: A-Rod has a lot of work to do.

Rodriguez has 654 career home runs, good for fifth all-time. Unless his 2015 campaign is a complete flame-out, he'll pass Bonds' godfather, Willie Mays (660 career home runs), in short order.

Eclipsing Babe Ruth (714), Hank Aaron (755) and, ultimately, Bonds (762)? That's another matter.

Elsa/Getty Images

A-Rod turns 40 in July. He hasn't reached 20 home runs in a season since 2010. And he'll (presumably) take the remainder of his at-bats without the (alleged) assistance of Biogenesis, the Florida anti-aging clinic that supplied steroids to multiple MLB players, according to a scathing Miami New Times expose. 

Rodriguez's contract with the Yankees runs through 2017, his age-42 season. To catch Bonds in that time frame, he'd have to average 36 home runs a season, a total he hasn't managed in seven years.

So it's a long shot at best. Probably a lost cause.

But let's get back to the original question: Should Bonds want A-Rod to take the record?

Yes.

Bonds hasn't stepped into a big league batter's box since 2007, yet he's still baseball's No. 1 heel—reviled everywhere but San Francisco, shunned by the Hall of Fame.

Partly, that's because of his surly reputation and the prickly relationship he developed with the media during his playing days.

But it's also because of his stunning success.

Even Bonds' harshest detractors admit he was one of many, many suspected PED users. He was by far the most successful, though, breaking the single-season home run record set just a few years earlier by Mark McGwire and eventually surpassing Hammerin' Hank.

Speaking of McGwire: His PED use was every bit as brazen. Why isn't he as hated?

One theory is that Bonds is black and McGwire is white. There may be some truth to that.

During Bonds' perjury and obstruction of justice trial in 2007, ESPN.com's Howard Bryant called the two men's skin color "a secondary, but still important, spool."

More essentially, however, McGwire doesn't own any significant records. Yes, the 70 home runs he crushed in 1998—and the 66 that Sammy Sosa smacked the same year—are eye-catching, almost literally unbelievable.

But thanks to Bonds, they're also superfluous—a historical footnote.

Another important difference between Bonds and McGwire is that Big Mac finally came clean about his PED past while Bonds remains vague and defiant.

Harry How/Getty Images

Mostly, though, people dislike Barry Bonds because he's the reigning home run king, the colossus of controversial clout. 

Now imagine A-Rod ascends to the throne. All that suspicion, all that disdain, all that anger would be aimed at him and away from Bonds.

Would it rehabilitate Bonds overnight? Of course not. He'll never be a widely popular figure even if he eventually earns a well-deserved bust in Cooperstown.

But removing the ill-gotten crown from his (now-proportionally sized) head wouldn't merely deflect scrutiny. It'd lift a heavy, uneasy burden.

All statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.