I don’t have a Hall of Fame vote. Maybe that’s for the best. If I do ever get a vote it likely won’t be for another decade, by which point everyone currently on the ballot will have either gotten in or used up their eligibility.

That means if I’m lucky, the interminable steroid-era hand wringing should finally have run its course.

Personally, I find the steroid debate exhausting. It’s dominated the Hall of Fame discussion for as long as I’ve been a fan of baseball, and now the issue has come to a head. This year’s ballot features a who’s who of the most dominant players of the last 30 years, including several who were once considered shoo-in first ballot inductees.

I’ve often asked myself what I would do if I had a vote. Shut them all out? Yes for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, no for the “lesser” players or those who tested positive? Everyone seems to have drawn their line in the sand differently, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more arbitrary it all seems.

That’s why I say they should all be in.

The steroid era happened. It is a part of baseball history whether people like it or not. It’s no different than the spitball era of the early 20th century, or the decades where amphetamines ran rampant throughout clubhouses.

Trying to parse through who cheated and who didn’t is a subjective and pointless exercise. Steroid use was widespread. It affected all areas of the game in ways far too complex to untangle. There has also been a tendency to anoint certain players of the era as “clean” and others as “dirty,” whether or not there’s any actual evidence to support either conclusion.

Are we really sure all of the “clean” players of the steroid era never used performance-enhancing drugs?

The truth is there’s a high probability that players who used PEDs have already been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. And that’s ok. For all of the moralizing that steroid users don’t deserve to be in the Hall of Fame because they sought an unfair advantage, baseball has a long tradition of welcoming such players into the hall with open arms.

Over a century ago, baseball banned the spitball and subsequently saw an immediate rise in offensive production. Yet at the same time it also grandfathered in 17 pitchers who were allowed to continue using the now-illegal pitch, and three wound up later earning induction into the Hall of Fame.

As for amphetamines, you could make a strong case that those help improve performance over the long slog of a baseball season more than steroids. Yet greenies have never sparked the same kind of moral panic, and when guys like Willie Mays and Willie Stargell were among those implicated as amphetamine users during the 1985 drug trials in Pittsburgh, it didn’t so much as dent their legacies or reputations.

It’s also notable how differently PEDs are treated in baseball relative to other sports. Many of the same people who villainize users in baseball wouldn’t bat an eye if a prominent football player tested positive. I bet you when Julius Peppers is up for election to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2024, the fact that he served a four-game suspension as a rookie will be little more than a footnote.

The natural counterpoint is that steroid users broke the rules, so obviously they deserve to be punished. That is entirely reasonable, but the punishment should be fair and proportional. Using PEDs need not necessitate an automatic life sentence, nor should it disqualify an otherwise deserving candidate who shone in an era rife with abuse.

So how could that be applied to those on this year’s ballot? Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez are the most glaring offenders. Each failed drug tests as active players and were issued two of the longest suspensions in league history. They served that time, which cost each millions in forfeited salary, and have since been welcomed back into the game.

They paid a steep price, one I’d argue should be sufficient.

For Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, obvious first-ballot Hall of Famers absent any steroid questions, the damage to their reputations and fact that they’ve spent 10 years waiting for their call also strikes me as acceptable punishment for any potential PED use, the extent of which we can never truly know.

As for David Ortiz, he reportedly tested positive in a 2003 anonymous survey, but its not clear he tested positive for a performing-enhancing drug. Even MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has spoken out in his defense, saying that test shouldn’t be held against him by Hall of Fame voters.

And Sammy Sosa? For all the consensus that he was a steroid user, his only documented tie to performance-enhancing drugs is the same 2003 survey that implicated Ortiz. Other than that, his reputation as a cheat mostly stems from his association with admitted user Mark McGwire and his fitting the profile of being a muscular power-hitter in the 1990s.

Whether or not Ortiz and Sosa are worthy Hall of Famers is an excellent Hall of Fame debate even without the steroid discussion. Does Ortiz’s playoff heroics outweigh his lack of defensive contributions? Should Sosa’s surprisingly underwhelming advanced metrics cancel out his historic peak? These are the kinds of conversations that should dominate this time of year.

Enough is enough. Let all the steroid guys in, mention it in their Hall of Fame plaques if you have to, and let’s put a bow on the Steroid Era so we can finally move on.

Email: mcerullo@northofboston.com. Twitter: @MacCerullo.