There is an ongoing discussion about baseball’s place in America’s soul, but something to keep in mind about the game is that if somebody says, “I went to the Hall of Fame last summer," nobody asks which one.

Take the annual Hall of Fame debate. For whatever reason, there is no similar public outcry over the choices, or rejections, of players going into the hockey, football or basketball halls.

Take this columnist’s decision to abstain from this year’s Hall of Fame voting because I was not convinced that Mariano Rivera deserved election. I was equally convinced there were strong reasons to vote for him, and I did not want deny him the chance to be elected unanimously.

There was a lot of feedback, some of it from writers and observers whose voices are important, almost all of it saying I was wrong.

There were a couple of recurring themes:

• Not voting was worse than submitting a ballot without an “X” next to Rivera’s name because it was unfair to the other candidates.

• If you are not voting for Rivera this year, what about David Ortiz when he is eligible?

• How much of a factor is longevity?

• How does postseason performance figure in?

• Could you imagine writing a book about the history of baseball and not including a serious mention of Rivera in it?

All good points, and after sorting it through, I decided to vote after all and put an “X” next to five names — Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Roy Halladay, Manny Ramirez and Mariano Rivera.

Lost a little bit in the internet outrage was that despite the fact I distrust the save as an indicator of greatness, I could not bring myself to vote against the Yankees closer. So if I were going to vote, the ballot had to include his name.

The window of opportunity for election to the Hall is 10 years now, not 15, which makes every ballot more important. That is especially true for Bonds and Clemens, whose impact on the game has been overwhelming.

And, yes, I will vote for Ortiz when he is eligible. That is probably the biggest reason for deciding to vote for Rivera this year.

There are differences between the two, but similarities as well. They are not “positions like every other.” Pitcher is a position. Closer is not a position, nor is setup man or lefty specialist. DH is a position, but only in one league, and who was the American League Gold Glove winner at DH last year?

They are unique roles and have to evaluated differently, but in terms of how important Ortiz and Rivera were to their team’s success — they were similar.

Baseball is evolving beyond the traditional standards of measurement. In 20 years, will closers be considered the CB radios of baseball? In 20 years, will we be debating the best “opener” ever, and if so, how do you evaluate someone who makes 40-plus starts a year with a 2.25 ERA but has a record of 0-12 since he won’t be able to record either a win or a save?

What about shifts? There are a significant number of plays now in which there is no third baseman. A 5-3 grounder is a ball hit to the right of second base. There are, instead, what softball would call short fielders, and in 20 years, will we say that he was the best short fielder of his time, so he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame?

Longevity matters — durability is a better term, actually — although Tommy John, Jesse Orosco, Rick Dempsey, Jim Kaat, etc. are not in the Hall of Fame. In Rivera’s case, while closers are pretty easy to find, the Red Sox had 10 of them in the span of Rivera’s career as the Yankees saves leader, and that counts for something.

In major league sports, there really are only two places to finish — first and tied for last. Just ask the Buffalo Bills, or Red Sox fans who remember the franchise pre-2004, about being the second-best team. Postseasons are defining moments for players and teams, which is unfair for baseball’s smaller market teams, but a reality. Rivera — Ortiz as well — were exceptional postseason players, and that counts for something.

No baseball history would be complete without a serious mention of Rivera, of course, even if that mention is based upon a flawed statistic, the save.

The traditional parameters of excellence are changing rapidly in baseball, and it can be hard to keep up with them. The introduction of the expanded disabled list in 1990 and the 10-day DL in 2017 have allowed the game to become almost footballized in its use of specialists. OPS has become the defining number for a batter, and I’m not sure anymore how to best evaluate pitchers.

Perhaps the best way to decide on how to vote in Hall of Fame elections is gut instinct. It is Potter Stewart and pornography — “I know it when I see it.” That’s the difference between Rivera and Trevor Hoffman, Ortiz and Edgar Martinez, Ozzie Smith and Omar Vizquel.

It was gut instinct that convinced me to not cast a vote against Rivera originally, since he was a “know when I see it” performer. However, logic said his greatness was based on baseball’s most useless statistic, the save.

But with baseball, it is easy to get caught up in a logic trap, to worry too much about fairness. It is, after all, a game in which a batter can reach first base safely because he swings at a pitch so bad even the catcher can’t catch it.

Maybe that’s why we love it so much that “Hall of Fame” needs no further explanation. Maybe that’s why voting for that “Hall of Fame” can be at the same time the best, and worst, experience of a baseball writer’s life.