(Cue the violin. Bob is going to launch into his annual woe-is-me whine about the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot.)

Now it’s Joe Morgan weighing in. Well, it’s not as if his viewpoint on the subject of steroid users going into the Baseball Hall of Fame was exactly a secret, but now he’s really digging in. He has written a letter to the voting body beseeching them to ignore known steroid users from ever being elected to the Hall. Speaking on behalf of what he says is a substantial number of fellow Hall enshrinees, he says, “We hope the day never comes when known steroid users are voted into the Hall of Fame. They cheated. Steroid users don’t belong here.’’

For you young’uns, be advised that Joe Morgan was Jose Altuve before Jose Altuve, a mighty-mite (5 feet 7 inches) back-to-back MVP (1975-76) at second base for the Big Red Machine Cincinnati Reds. He hit homers. He walked. He stole bases. He made great play after great play with his itty-bitty glove. He famously pumped his left elbow before swinging. He was a joy to watch. And, of course, he had a long career as a broadcaster. He’s a very big deal in the history of 20th-century baseball. His opinion matters.

Here we go again. The man who hit the most home runs in baseball history and a man who is in the discussion as being the best righthanded starter in history are in Year 6 of their candidacies. A man who may very well have been the best righthanded hitter in the second half of the 20th century, a man with a career OPS of .996, received 24 percent of the vote in his first year on the ballot. We know why Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Manny Ramirez are on the outside looking in. They are all tainted by both assumed (Bonds, Clemens) or definite (Ramirez) association with performance-enhancing drugs.

Voters are stuck in the middle. We’ve all been raised to believe that sports should always be about Fair Play. Most people acknowledge that using PEDs can work to someone’s physical advantage. But it’s not an open-and-shut issue. Some people rationalize a vote for suspected PED people by saying that it was apparent that, if not “Everybody, then Many were doing it. So in that sense it was an even playing field. The truth is we really do not know which juiced pitchers pitched to which juiced batters, or, frankly, who will be doing same in 2018, so why bother trying to play judge and jury?’’Kevin Kernan of the New York Post summed up that viewpoint nicely on Friday. “Nothing has changed from the last vote when I voted for Bonds and Clemens,’’ he wrote. “Baseball couldn’t police itself. I’m not going to police them now.’’

He speaks for many. But it’s hardly a universal view, otherwise Messrs. Bonds and Clemens would have received more than 53.8 percent and 54.1 percent of the vote, respectively, in last year’s balloting. That, however, does represent an uptick from their early years on the ballot, and there is a clear indication that an increasingly younger voting body is changing its collective mind on the subject.

Many pro-juicers (hope they won’t take offense at that characterization) also cite baseball’s hypocrisy on the matter. They maintain that the elections of Bud Selig, Tony La Russa, and Joe Torre to the Hall are proof of baseball’s inconsistency. Selig was commissioner for the acknowledged Steroid Era. La Russa benefitted mightily from the talents of absolute users Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire. Torre managed Clemens.

Others attack Morgan himself because he played in the Greenie Era, when amphetamines were consumed like candy in every locker room. Lord knows his great friend and teammate Pete Rose gobbled them like M&Ms. They were an aid to getting through the 162-game season. But in no way did they contribute to the performance enhancement provided by the steroids that were distressingly prevalent in the next baseball era.

Another frequently cited argument by the Let-’Em-In voters: the Hall already contains some people of very dubious character, so how can we play the Morality Card? It’s about the history of baseball and about numbers, and there is no need to complicate the issue.

Me, I yearn for the days when all we had were knock-down, drag-out arguments about the baseball merits of Mr. X, Mr. Y, and Mr. Z. And we will have a few new ones, thanks to this year’s ballot. I plan on voting for, among others, Jim Thome, he of the 612 homers, a hundred/kajillion/zillion walks, an astounding number of opposite-field smashes, high socks, and a gentlemanly manner you wish every rookie would adopt. Yet I think it will be close, and I wouldn’t be shocked if he does not get the requisite 75 percent of the vote the first time out. I also plan on voting for Omar Vizquel, and if you want to say he’s no more than a latter-day Mark Belanger, be it known I voted for him, too, as long as I could. Thome and Vizquel represent two good, solid baseball arguments. That, and only that, is what it should be all about.

If you haven’t guessed by now, I have not yet voted for obvious steroid-tainted people. But just to show you how complicated this is, I did vote for Mike Piazza, Jeff Bagwell, and, yes, Pudge Rodriguez, a.k.a. The Incredible Shrinking Man. Don’t ask.

What really irks me is that, we, the voters, shouldn’t be in this position. The Hall of Fame should take charge and tell us either to vote for numbers and performance alone, or not. Toward that end, I really believe there should be a big sign at the entrance to the room where the plaques hang. The sign should say that many of the people honored herein played in a known steroid era. Some used them; some didn’t. You, the fan, are free to feel the way you choose about any given candidate. It if makes you feel better to give the finger to a plaque, why go ahead and do so.

I’ve been saying for years that some day I may wake up and say, “I surrender. No more agonizing. Let ’em all in.’’

The ballot is due by Dec. 31.

What would you do?

Bob Ryan’s column appears regularly in the Globe. He can be reached at ryan@globe.com.