Baseball Hall of Fame balloting, 1953

Elections to the Baseball Hall of Fame for 1953 followed a radically new procedure. The institution appointed its Committee on Baseball Veterans, the famous "Veterans Committee", to meet in person and consider pioneers and executives, managers, umpires, and earlier major league players. Committees in the 1930s and 1940s had chosen several pioneers and executives, but this was the first direction of anyone's attention to field personnel other than players, the managers and umpires.

The first Veterans Committee met in closed sessions and elected six people: Ed Barrow, Chief Bender, Tommy Connolly, Bill Klem, Bobby Wallace, and Harry Wright.

The Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) voted by mail to select from recent players (no change) and elected two, Dizzy Dean and Al Simmons.

BBWAA election

The 10-year members of the BBWAA had the authority to select any players active in 1928 or later, provided they had not been active in 1952. 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 264 ballots were cast in the Baseball Writers Election, with 2,493 individual votes for 82 specific candidates, an average of 9.44 per ballot; 198 votes were required for election. The two candidates who received at least 75% of the vote and were elected are indicated in bold italics; those candidates who were selected in subsequent elections are indicated in italics. The rules at the time indicated that players were eligible if they had been out of baseball for at least one season, so this was Joe DiMaggio's first season of eligibility (he had retired after the 1951 season).

Sources

• 1953 Election at www.baseballhalloffame.org