Elections to the Baseball Hall of Fame for 1970 followed the system of annual elections in place since 1968. The Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) voted by mail to select from recent major league players and elected Lou Boudreau. The Veterans Committee met in closed sessions to consider executives, managers, umpires, and earlier major league players. It selected three people: Earle Combs, Ford Frick, and Jesse Haines.
The BBWAA was authorized to elect players active in 1950 or later, but not after 1964; the ballot included candidates from the 1969 ballot who received at least 5% of the vote but were not elected, along with selected players, chosen by a screening committee, whose last appearance was in 1964. All 10-year members of the BBWAA were eligible to vote.
Voters were instructed to cast votes for up to 10 candidates; any candidate receiving votes on at least 75% of the ballots would be honored with induction to the Hall. The ballot consisted of 46 players; a total of 300 ballots were cast, with 225 votes required for election. A total of 2,302 individual votes were cast, an average of 7.67 per ballot. Those candidates receiving less than 5% of the vote will not appear on future BBWAA ballots but may eventually be considered by the Veterans Committee.
Candidates who were eligible for the first time are indicated here with a †. The one candidate who received at least 75% of the vote and was elected is indicated in bold italics; candidates who have since been elected in subsequent elections are indicated in italics.
Joe Gordon, Tommy Henrich and Bucky Walters were on the ballot for the final time.