The Hall of Fame was established in 1939 by Stephen Carlton Clark, an heir to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune.

The mythology that future Civil War hero Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown in the 1830s was instrumental in the placement and early marketing of the Hall.

[5] In 2002, the Hall launched Baseball as America, a traveling exhibit that toured ten American museums over six years.

The Hall of Fame also presents an annual exhibit at FanFest at the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

The first five men elected were Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson, chosen in 1936; roughly 20 more were selected before the entire group was inducted at the Hall's 1939 opening.

As of January 2025[update], 351 people had been elected to the Hall of Fame, including 278 former professional players, 23 managers, 10 umpires, and 40 pioneers, executives, and organizers.

Of the 39 members primarily recognized for their contributions to Negro league baseball, 31 were inducted posthumously, including all 26 selected since the 1990s.

[6] The newest members of the Hall of Fame as of January 21, 2025, are Dick Allen, Dave Parker, CC Sabathia, Ichiro Suzuki, and Billy Wagner.

A 2001 change in the election procedures restored the eligibility of these dropped players; while their names will not appear on future BBWAA ballots, they may be considered by the Veterans Committee.

Since there was no formal rule preventing a writer from casting a ballot for an active player, the scribes did not always comply with the informal guideline; Joe DiMaggio received a vote in 1945, for example.

These changes also established three separate committees to select other figures: Players of the Negro leagues have also been considered at various times, beginning in 1971.

Jackson and Rose were both banned from MLB for life for actions related to gambling on games involving their own teams.

Rose voluntarily accepted a permanent spot on the ineligible list in return for MLB's promise to make no official finding in relation to alleged betting on the Cincinnati Reds when he was their manager in the 1980s.

Baseball fans are deeply split on the issue of whether Rose and/or Jackson (now both deceased) should remain banned or have their punishments posthumously revoked.

Separate committees, including sportswriters and broadcasters, would select umpires, managers and executives, as well as players from earlier eras.

Per the latest changes, announced on April 22, 2022, the multiple eras previously utilized were collapsed to three, to be voted on in an annual rotation (one per year):[25] A one-year waiting period beyond potential BBWAA eligibility (which had been abolished in 2016) was reintroduced, thus restricting the committee to considering players retired for at least 16 seasons.

Newly elected members affected by the change include the following: Sam Crane (who had played a decade in 19th century baseball before becoming a manager and sportswriter) had first approached the idea of making a memorial to the great players of the past in what was believed to have been the birthplace of baseball: Cooperstown, New York, but the idea did not muster much momentum until after his death in 1925.

In 1934, the idea for establishing a Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum was devised by several individuals, such as Ford C. Frick (president of the National League) and Alexander Cleland, a Scottish immigrant who decided to serve as the first executive secretary for the Museum for the next seven years that worked with the interests of the Village and Major League Baseball.

Stephen Carlton Clark (a Cooperstown native) paid for the construction of the museum, which was planned to open in 1939 to mark the "Centennial of Baseball", which included renovations to Doubleday Field.

[46][47][48] According to the Hall of Fame, approximately 260,000 visitors enter the museum each year,[49] and the running total has surpassed 17 million.

[2] These visitors see only a fraction of its 40,000 artifacts, 3 million library items (such as newspaper clippings and photos) and 140,000 baseball cards.

While there are other contributing factors (the recession and high gas prices among them), the Hall's attendance has tumbled since Dreams Park opened.

[56] In 2012, Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed a law ordering the United States Mint to produce and sell commemorative, non-circulating coins to benefit the private, non-profit Hall.

The Hall receives money from surcharges included in the sale price: a total of $9.5 million if all the coins are sold.