It shouldn’t be this difficult to vote for a hall of famer.

The National Baseball Hall of Fame announced three players will be inducted: Greg Maddux, Frank Thomas and Tom Glavine. Maddux, Thomas and Glavine were the inductees chosen by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. The writers have done a poor job of inducting players from the 1990s, largely due to the steroid issue that swept through baseball over the last 30 years.

Last year, baseball writers were unable to find any players worth inducting and this year they only found three. This is ridiculous. Of the 30 players who received a vote, more than half of them have strong hall of fame credentials. They’re simply not acceptable to the high-minded members of the association due to suspicion of steroid use. Maybe the veterans committee will undo the wrongs of the present, but it’s not an epic struggle to pick 10 great baseball players off a list.

The Hall of Fame voting process has become a story unto itself in ways no good journalist should become involved with. While steroid usage may be a major issue, the writers are abusing their voting privileges. They use their ballots to settle scores and hold onto personal grudges instead of choosing the 10 best players. Some writers only chose to vote for one or two players, which is absurd. The entire Hall of Fame voting process has become an embarrassment.

This was an absolutely loaded ballot that will only become more impressive as the years go by. Deserving players keep getting dropped from the ballot as writers use their ballots to make a point about cheating or even to slight other writers. While the voting process should be overhauled at some point, for now it’d be easier to just vote for the best player. The writers are making the Hall of Fame more important than it is. The members are treating their vote like they’re in charge of selecting saints instead of great baseball players.

The National Baseball Hall of Fame is a glorified museum where people can go to see shrine of the greatest players in the game’s history and moments significant to baseball. A visitor at the Hall of Fame won’t be perturbed to see Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa or Mark McGwire enshrined there. They’d be upset if they weren’t.

While the steroid era may be seen as a black mark on baseball’s history, it shouldn’t be. It saved the baseball, which looked doomed in the aftermath of the 1994 strike. The 1998 home run chase between Sosa and McGwire captured the nation’s attention like nothing else. People tuned into games to see these two men hit home runs and nothing else. It created fans that exist to this day, and it’s unlikely they’ll be able to see two of the game’s greatest sluggers in Cooperstown.

Many voters are using the integrity and character clauses in the hall’s requirements to justify leaving out steroid users, but there are far worse people enshrined in Cooperstown. Ty Cobb was a racist, but he’s enshrined because he was one of the greatest players in history. Pitchers throughout baseball were glorified for using the spitball. Steroids were just another way of cheating. Cheating in baseball is accepted unless steroids were involved.

Hank Aaron, the former, or if you ask some people the current, all-time home run leader was a cheater. Aaron, and plenty of his contemporaries, took amphetamines as their performance enhancer of choice. The Hall of Fame voters can’t differentiate between types of cheaters. It’s a shame all the controversy over voting will push Maddux, Thomas and Glavine off the stage they deserved, but that’s what happens when the Baseball Writers’ Association of America starts treating the Hall of Fame like a shrine to saints. It’s time to give up disapproval of steroid users or cheaters and just vote for the best baseball player, and maybe this will give Pete Rose the title of Hall of Famer instead of just the greatest hitter of all time. This isn’t rocket science, it’s only the Hall of Fame.  It can’t possibly be this hard.