National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, memorial institution created in 1939 to honor baseball's greatest players and contributors, and which also chronicles the history of the sport. The Hall of Fame is located in Cooperstown, New York, where baseball was believed to have been invented by Abner Doubleday in 1839--although subsequent research has found little evidence to support this claim. The Baseball Hall of Fame houses a museum featuring thousands of artifacts, photographs of famous teams and players, paintings and lithographs of early games, and many other baseball souvenirs and items of interest. The Hall's library and archives contain the world's most extensive collection of material devoted exclusively to baseball. As a public facility, the library serves thousands of researchers and visitors each year. A librarian and a staff of researchers are available to assist patrons and to answer questions sent in by baseball enthusiasts from all over the world. The Hall of Fame gallery displays individual bronze plaques commemorating the "immortals" of baseball. Each year elections are held to select new members to add to this pantheon. Electees are mainly former players but also include those who have contributed to the advancement of the game in other ways. Each year, members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America vote on new players for the Hall of Fame, selecting from a pool of those who played at least ten seasons in the major leagues, were active during the preceding two decades, and have been retired from playing for at least five years. Every two years the Hall of Fame Committee on Baseball Veterans votes on players who have been retired from the major leagues for at least 21 years. The committee also votes on former managers, umpires, and executives, with special eligibility rules for each. In both elections, an individual must be named on 75 percent of all ballots cast to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. The veterans committee often draws from players who played in the Negro Leagues when baseball was a segregated sport. See also Segregation in the United States. For a complete list of the members of the Baseball Hall of Fame, see the table that accompanies this article. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.