Baseball Hall of Fame balloting, 1942

The 1942 election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum was the first conducted in three years. The Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) voted by mail to select from 20th century players and elected Rogers Hornsby.

This was the only election or committee meeting scheduled between 1939 and 1945. The only other activities were the special election of Lou Gehrig following his 1939 farewell and the prompt election of Commissioner Landis following his death late in 1944.

After the National Baseball Museum opened in 1939, it remained to be determined how the membership in its Hall of Fame would be determined in the future. The Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) had determined to vote every three years rather than annually, although it had voted in special election to consider Lou Gehrig. That move was a widely criticized, as observers generally agreed that it was a good pace to elect about three recent players annually, as from 1936 to 1939.

After the Centennial Committee made six selections in 1939 from the figures of the 19th century, baseball's Commissioner Landis completely revised the committee's membership, designating it the Hall of Fame Committee and establishing it as the institution's permanent governing body. From 1939 to 1944 its four members were Athletics owner and manager Connie Mack, Yankees president Ed Barrow, Braves president Bob Quinn, and sportswriter Sid Mercer. This committee was responsible, in its function as the Old-Timers Committee, for selecting additional worthy candidates from the 19th century, but it never convened during this 5-year period, and thereby selected no one. Inaction fostered greater complaints that the stars of the 1880s and 1890s were being ignored. The relative slight was tiny because the baseball writers voted only once between 1939 and 1945 and elected only one recent player.

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