Let them all in. Or keep them all out. Build a special wing. Make them wear embarrassing little letters. How about costumes for the induction ceremony! How about big fluffy costumes, in all kinds of delightful colors?

Barry Bonds in 2007 Getty Images

Do you care if tainted players make the Baseball Hall of Fame? Does the whole discussion make you uncomfortable? Not me. Bring on the awkward! The whole debate is self-inflicted and more than a little hilarious—the comical boom of an exploding cigar that baseball lit for itself long ago.

Baseball's HOF eligibility list was released Wednesday, and on it are some entertaining headaches, among them Barry Bonds, who hit 762 home runs, some of which still circle the planet, and Roger Clemens, who won 354 games, seven Cy Young Awards and often led the league in frosted hair. Both men have been dogged by allegations that they used performance-enhancing drugs in their careers, though neither tested positive. Bonds, who denied ever knowingly using steroids, was convicted in 2011 on an obstruction of justice charge—prosecutors alleged he lied under oath to a grand jury about PED use—and received a two-months probation sentence and 30 days of home confinement. Clemens, who has denied ever using PEDs, was acquitted in June of charges that he lied to Congress about the subject.

Roger Clemens in 2007 WireImage/Getty Images

They're not the only HOF hassles. But Bar and Rog are your high-profile headliners.

The whole thing is a long-simmering fiasco, neglected in real time, now arriving at baseball's most prestigious gate. Historically, the Hall of Fame process involved statistical and playing-era comparisons—with occasional attention to "integrity" and "character." Today it needs a lab coat and a B sample. Baseball dragged forever before administering to its PED problem—willfully looking away as it happily profited from the thrills propelled by pharmacology—now its chroniclers are tasked with sorting the clean from the dirty. It's as if someone walked up to the Cooperstown doorstep and dumped a fat bag of laundry.

Hall of Fame voters have tried to take symbolic steps—keeping out Mark McGwire, an admitted user who hit 583 home runs; and Rafael Palmeiro, who hit 569 homers and had a positive test in 2005. But big names continue to roll in. Once more, voters will use their own personal compasses to make a call. Standards get offered: some empirical, some based on gut, none foolproof. Keep out admitted users. Admit the guys who never flunked a test. Keep out the ones who accumulated big records on the stuff. Admit the ones who seemed to be Hall of Famers before they seemed to begin using. Admit everyone. Hold the line. On and on it goes.

It's a ridiculous assignment, one that's more than a little smothered in baseball's self-regard. To be clear: Using PEDs is cheating, and players who were indeed cheaters. But every sport is rife with cheating, and baseball's problem was pervasive enough that no solution can satisfy everyone or keep every bad apple out. Suggestions of asterisks or a special steroid class for the Hall—perhaps an XXL department?—seem unsatisfactory or unmanageable.

And it seems foolish to make baseball's PED era a museum exhibit, as if it's some narrow '90s history, a dark chapter closed. Advantages were taken in baseball long before this Hall of Fame class laced on its pair of cleats, and advantages will continue to be taken. In August, National League batting leader Melky Cabrera was busted for a positive testosterone test and suspended 50 games. Cabrera admitted guilt, and recently signed a two-year, $16 million deal with the Toronto Blue Jays. Oakland pitcher Bartolo Colon also got a 50 game-suspension for a testosterone positive. Oakland re-signed Colon for 2013. There's no zero tolerance in baseball. They're making this up as they go along. That conflict is what truly lies beneath this Hall of Fame discomfort: Baseball's vision of itself, colliding against what baseball really is.

This is not shocking. A sport will talk out of both sides of its mouth on PED use, but so does the rest of society. In the coming weeks, you might see analysts on sports TV debating the merits of this year's HOF candidates. Maybe you'll hear an argument for an outright ban on someone suspected of using drugs. And during a commercial break, a handsome middle-aged man might walk on the screen and tout the abundant benefits of using a prescription testosterone gel. Performance enhancement is a cultural conversation, a far bigger and slippery subject than numbers on a stat sheet. This dilemma is not confined to some cabinetry in Cooperstown. A cheating superstar may not deserve a place in the Hall of Fame, but neither does denial.

Write to Jason Gay at Jason.Gay@wsj.com