Baseball Hall of Fame balloting, 1945

Elections to the Baseball Hall of Fame for 1945 included the first regular election conducted in three years and a strong response to criticism of the slow pace of honors. The Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) voted by mail to select from recent players and elected no one. The Old Timers Committee responded by electing the biggest class yet, ten people: Roger Bresnahan, Dan Brouthers, Fred Clarke, Jimmy Collins, Ed Delahanty, Hugh Duffy, Hughie Jennings, King Kelly, Jim O'Rourke, and Wilbert Robinson.

After the baseball centennial and grand opening of the Hall of Fame in 1939, the BBWAA had determined to vote only every third year. After elected three players that year, it elected one in 1942 and none in 1945. New rules now provided that the writers would return to voting on recent players annually.

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.

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