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Home > Listing Index > Athletes > Baseball Hall of Fame balloting, 1945 |
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Athletes - Baseball Hall of Fame balloting, 1945 |
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| The 1945 elections to select inductees to the Baseball Hall of Fame included the first regular election to be conducted in three years, and only the second since 1939; in that year, the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) had moved to hold elections every three years rather than annually. 1945 also witnessed the first attempt to elect figures from 19th century baseball since the Hall had opened in 1939. In response to increasing complaints that the stars of the 19th century were being ignored, commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis had in August 1944 enlarged the Hall of Fame Committee from four members to seven, and had instructed them to elect a minimum of 10 players from the 1876-1900 period when they met as the Old-Timers Committee in early 1945 - a goal the committee members believed would be relatively easy to meet, as some among them stated that the number of qualified candidates was likely over two dozen. After Landis' death in November 1944, the committee met briefly to elect Landis to membership in the Hall, and also suggested that if the January 1945 election by the BBWAA failed to select any players whose careers extended into the initial years of the 20th century, some would be selected by the committee when they met in February. The BBWAA electionMembers of the BBWAA again had the authority to select any players active in the 20th century (after 1900), provided they had not appeared in a major league game in 1944. Voters were instructed to cast votes for 10 candidates; any candidate receiving votes on at least 75% of the ballots would be honored with induction to the Hall.A total of 247 ballots were cast, with 2495 individual votes for 94 specific candidates; 186 votes were required for election. The results were announced on January 28, 1945. The emphasis on the players of the 1900s and 1910s, who many voters felt should be given priority, again continued to increase beyond the levels seen in 1939 and 1942. Only 5 of the top 22 candidates in the voting, and none of the top 6, had seen any substantial play since 1917; only 3 of the top 36, and none of the top 22, had played their final season anytime between 1918 and 1933. 8 of the top 13 candidates were deceased. Players who had been retired over 27 years - 48 of the 94 named - received 72% of the votes. For the first time in the six BBWAA elections, no candidate received at least 75% of the vote. Particularly in view of the fact that the next election was not scheduled to be held until 1948, that a new generation of players was quickly becoming eligible, and that increasingly fractured voting patterns would make selections more improbable, criticism became widespread that the election system needed to be reviewed and quickly revised; it was suggested that the Old-Timers Committee might select some of the earliest popular candidates to help clear the top of the ballot. At its September 1945 meeting, the Hall of Fame Committee ordered that the three-year wait between elections be abolished, and that annual elections resume under a revised format. Candidates who have since been selected in subsequent elections are indicated in italics:
[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Baseball Hall of Fame balloting, 1945 ] Some related entries: Jimmie Schaffer | Bill McCartney | Doug Atkins | Chris Duffy | Terrell Suggs | Doug Jolley | Pittsburgh Pirates/Players of note | Oliver Perry-Smith | Bill Hoffman | Brett Jungblut | Kip Wells This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Baseball Hall of Fame balloting, 1945; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL. | Searches on eBay
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