BAKER, Hobart Amory Hare ("Hobey")

(b. 15 January 1892 in Wissahickon, Pennsylvania; d. 21 December 1918 in Toul, France), hockey and football player who was not only the first American elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame but also the sole athlete ever enshrined both there and in the College Football Hall of Fame.

Baker was the second son of Alfred Thornton Baker, an aristocratic Philadelphian who manufactured upholstery, and Mary Augusta Pemberton, a Philadelphia socialite. The Bakers belonged to many prominent clubs and enjoyed considerable wealth. Thus, Hobey and his elder brother, Thornton, lived a privileged childhood. In 1903, at ages ten and eleven, respectively, the Baker boys entered the prestigious Saint Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. Thornton was a respected athlete there, and after graduating, he moved directly into a successful career at his father's manufacturing company. For Hobey, Saint Paul's marked the beginning of a legendary athletic life.

Even though he mastered every sport the school offered, Baker especially loved football and hockey. He routinely skated on the frozen pond at night learning to handle the puck in darkness. By his senior year, Baker's prep-school hockey team trounced powerful college squads. Still, Baker's legacy at Saint Paul's transcended mere success, as noted by his coach Malcolm Gordon, also a future member of the Hockey Hall of Fame. "[Baker] set a new standard for amateur sportsmanship and the game is better because of his leadership. No one could play with or against Hobey without being influenced by his spirit of fair play." Following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, Baker proceeded to Princeton University, whose fields showcased not only his unique talent but also his exemplary conduct and grace.

As if it were scripted, soon after Baker entered Princeton in 1910 he scored the winning touchdown in a freshman football game against Yale. He became one of the most versatile and popular college football players of the early 1900s. Excelling as punter, kicker, quarterback, halfback, and punt-returner, Baker set Princeton's single-season record for scoring in 1912 with a mark that lasted more than half a century. Although he was only five feet, nine inches tall and 160 pounds, his chiseled and handsome appearance drew attention to him on the field, where he was called "the blond Adonis of the gridiron." The Princeton Tigers achieved a 20–3–4 record over Baker's three varsity seasons and reached the nation's top ranking in 1911.

While an All-America selection in football, Baker dominated college hockey to an even greater extent. In the era of seven-man hockey, he played the rover position, allowing him to control games from any part of the ice. Lawrence Perry, a New York Post sportswriter, commented, "Men and women went hysterical when Baker flashed down the ice on one of his brilliant runs with the puck. I have never heard such spontaneous cheering for an athlete as greeted him a hundred times a night and never expect to again." More impressive than his appearance or even his 27–7 record at Princeton was Baker's ability to play so successfully while strictly adhering to his code of good sportsmanship. He was penalized only once in college, and always individually thanked the opposition for "a good game."

Moreover, Baker epitomized the well-rounded gentleman off the ice as well. He was a solid B student who participated on the Senior Council, organized his class prom, socialized at the exclusive Ivy Club, and treated everyone with kindness. Devoting his vacations to social work at the YMCA, Baker represented a rapidly dwindling breed of selfless athletes. His fellow Princetonian F. Scott Fitzgerald described him as "an ideal worthy of everything in my enthusiastic admiration, yet consummated and expressed in a human being who stood within ten feet of me." Fitzgerald found Baker's Princeton legacy so fascinating that he based the character Allenby in This Side of Paradise on him. Baker's legend also permeated the fiction of writers John Tunis, George Frazier, Mark Goodman, and Geoffrey Wolff.

Joining the J. P. Morgan banking firm in New York after his 1914 Princeton graduation, and soon moving on to his father's business, Baker remained nostalgic for his college days of glory. He told his friend James M. Beck, "I realize that my life is finished. No matter how long I live, I will never equal the excitement of playing on the football fields." He did find some enjoyment in playing for a talented amateur hockey team called Saint Nick's as well as in dating the attractive New York socialite Mimi Scott. Nevertheless, for all the attention he received in these activities, Baker craved the action of collegiate competition. In May 1917 he happily accepted the rank of lieutenant in the U.S. Army, hoping World War I would restore his enthusiasm for living.

By the end of 1917 Baker had earned distinction in marksmanship and later won the French croix de guerre and the American Distinguished Service Award. He loved to fly his Spad, a lightweight single-propeller aircraft, and used the same coordination skills that he had displayed as an athlete to shoot down three enemy airplanes. When the war ended and it was time for him to return to his less exhilarating life in America, Baker stubbornly decided to take "one last flight in the old Spad." On 21 December 1917, showing his usual audacity, sense of responsibility, and determination, Baker insisted that he be the pilot to test a previously faulty plane. Against the wishes of his worried friends, he took off for the test run. After a quarter of a mile the engine died, and the plane nosedived into the ground. Baker died in an ambulance shortly thereafter. He is buried in the West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.

Amid the sorrow and praise that followed Baker's death, some felt that the crash might not have been an accident. Perhaps he wished to die with drama and avoid returning to the business world that bored him. Others believed that by testing the plane himself, he simply died, daringly, in another man's place. In either case, Baker's death bears the marks of a classical tragedy, for his fearless spirit was partially responsible for his demise.

The death of this romantic American hero paralleled a post–World War I decline in American optimism and idealism. And yet, although Baker's life was lost and his chivalrous and nonchalant style fell out of fashion, his accomplishments were immortalized. Princeton dedicated the Hobey Baker Rink in 1923. The Hockey Hall of Fame elected him to charter membership in 1945, also making him its first American player. The College Football Hall of Fame enshrined him in 1977, giving him unique status as an athlete in both halls. The United States Hockey Hall of Fame made him a charter member in 1973. Appropriately, since 1981 the top player in American college hockey receives the Hobey Baker Award. Baker's greatest legacy, however, lies in the impression he left on his contemporaries, such as Lawrence Perry, in whose eyes "he was qualified to stand alone as the ultimate product of all that is worthy, not alone in American college athletics, but in American college life."

The Hobart A. H. Baker Papers are at the Seeley Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University. Other valuable Baker papers and data are available in the Saint Paul's School Library. The definitive biography of Baker is John Davies, The Legend of Hobey Baker (1966). Mark Goodman explores Baker's legacy in his novel Hurrah for the Next Man Who Dies (1985), while St. Paul 's School in the Great War (1926), provides an interesting perspective on Baker's earlier life and its significance. Ron Fimrite wrote an illuminating essay on Baker, "A Flame That Burned Too Brightly," Sports Illustrated (18 Mar. 1991). Baker's legendary hockey coach, Malcolm Gordon, considered the father of American hockey, wrote a tribute titled "Hobey" for the St. Paul ' s School Alumni Horae (1940).

Charles Scribner IV