2011 Baseball Hall of Fame balloting

L-R: 2011 inductees Roberto Alomar, Bert Blyleven, and Pat Gillick

Elections to the National Baseball Hall of Fame for 2011 proceeded according to the rules 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. The new Expansion Era Committee, which replaced the Veterans Committee, convened in December 2010 to select from an Expansion Era ballot of long-retired players and non-playing personnel who made their greatest contributions to the sport from 1973 to the present time, called the "Expansion Era" by the Hall of Fame.^[1]

The Hall of Fame induction class of 2011 consisted of players Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven, elected by the BBWAA, and executive Pat Gillick, elected by the Committee, who formally entered the Hall on July 24, 2011, at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.^[2]

For the first time, the Hall of Fame extended its induction festivities over a weekend. On the day before the main induction ceremony, the Hall of Fame hosted the first Hall of Fame Awards Presentation. Two annual awards for media excellence, the Hall's own Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasters and the BBWAA's J. G. Taylor Spink Award for writers, were presented at this ceremony. The irregularly presented Buck O'Neil Lifetime Achievement Award was also included in the ceremony.^[3] Previously, these awards were presented at the actual induction ceremony.^[4]