Baseball Hall of Fame ballots continue to roll in. We’ve had some weird ones so far, like that guy who, for the second-straight year, voted for a grand total of zero guys. Seems like a stupid flex, but who knows?

Speaking of things that are arbitrary, another ballot was submitted Thursday, from Jeff Blair at Sportsnet up in Canada. He voted for a handful of steroid guys but imposes a limitation of four selections only, explaining it this way:

Barry Bonds. Roger Clemens. David Ortiz. Alex Rodriguez.

That’s it.

That’s my baseball Hall of Fame ballot for this year and — yeah — thank god the ballot isn’t being tested for steroids. Or morality.

So, fire away. It’s four, not the permissible 10, permissible being the operative word compared to, say, required. As in “no more than 10.” I’ve voted for Manny Ramirez in the past, but decided against it this year because I’m one of those voters who casts a small ballot and I wanted to make room for A-Rod. Man, talk about Satan’s choice. The good news is it’s an election, a free choice, which means I’m not obligated to defend my ballot (none of us are) or, for that matter, explain it. But what the hell: it’s the one Hall of Fame people care about enough to threaten bodily harm so let me put on the hazmat suit and wade into this.

That makes no sense to me. Blair has decided, on past ballots, that Manny is good enough for the Hall of Fame. But his logic for removing him this year is because he has to keep to an arbitrary number, six units below the limit. If Manny and A-Rod are both good enough for the Hall, then why not break your sacred self-imposed rule for one season only, and make an exception?

The whole thing is so fucking weird. BBWAA guys are out here making it up as they go. This all suggests to me that the criteria and guidelines are just way too vague, and could use some narrowing. Then we wouldn’t have writers taking these goofy stances and can get back to focusing on why the Hall of Fame exists in the first place – to honor the greats of the game, and preserve their stories.