2013 Baseball Hall of Fame balloting

L-R: Deacon White, Hank O'Day, and Jacob Ruppert were elected by the Pre-Integration Era Committee.

Elections to the Baseball Hall of Fame for 2013 took place according to rules most recently revised in July 2010. As in the past, the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) voted by mail to select from a ballot of recently retired players, with results announced on January 9, 2013. The Pre-Integration Era Committee, the last of three new voting committees established during the July 2010 rules change to replace the more broadly defined Veterans Committee, convened early in December 2012 to select from a ballot of players and non-playing personnel who made their greatest contributions to the sport prior to 1947, called the "Pre-Integration Era" by the Hall of Fame.^[1][2]

For the first time since 1996, and just the third time since 1960, the BBWAA election resulted in no selections.^[3] As the ballot featured numerous strong candidates, the result was widely viewed as a reflection of the deep controversy over players who were primarily active during a period when the sport was riddled with rumored use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), and candidates appeared to have suffered in the voting regardless of whether they had been closely tied to any such rumors. The controversy's first major impact on the Hall of Fame ballot was seen in 2007,^[4] and the arrival in future years of additional candidates with either alleged or actual links to PED use suggested that the issue would be significant in Hall voting for at least several more years.

For the first time since 1965, there were no living inductees.^[5] The induction class of 2013 consisted of the three deceased individuals elected by the new Pre-Integration Era Committee: player Deacon White, umpire Hank O'Day, and executive Jacob Ruppert,^[6] all of whom died in the 1930s.^[7] As was the case following the 1965 election–which also resulted only in the induction of a member deceased for over 60 years, and led to the resumption of annual BBWAA elections–the voting results led to calls for revision of the voting rules.^[8]

The induction ceremonies were held on July 28, 2013, at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.^[2] On July 27, the Hall of Fame presented two annual awards for media excellence—its own Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasters and the BBWAA's J. G. Taylor Spink Award for writers,^[9] and also honored sports medicine pioneer Dr. Frank Jobe and filmmaker Thomas Tull, producer of the 2013 film 42.^[10]