THE LEGEND OF HOBEY BAKER
by JOHN DAVIES
Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1966. First Edition, first printing. Very good hardcover, in good dustjacket. Tight binding, solid spine, clean unmarked text, edge-wear and small tears to dj have been repaired with archival tape. Illustrated, 4to, index, 118 pages. Aviation, Pilots, Fighter Pilot, WWI, World War I, Aviator, Football, Hockey, St. Paul's, Princeton, 103rd Aero Squadron, Military History.
Hobey Baker as a young man received the kind of adulation that only a few people ever get. He was the ideal male in the years before World War I: a star athlete, handsome, moneyed, aristocratic.
As an underclassman at Princeton, F. Scott Fitzgerald idolized Hobey Baker. He wrote him into two of his novels. Even as recently as 1984 a Boy’s Life profile described him breathlessly as a civilized sportsman, ‘thoroughly imbued with notions of fair play, decency, dignity, sacrifice and total dedication to the task at hand.’
But before he turned 30 it was all over for him. Gentlemen athletes in the early 20th century did not do the one thing Hobey Baker wanted to do: play sports professionally.
But Hobey was much more than the sum of his achievements. He was the beau ideal of American sport, a hero in every particular. He was, by our standards, a small man, only 5 ft. 9 in. and 160 pounds, but not so small at a time when the heaviest of football linemen weighed barely 200 pounds. And he was so flawlessly proportioned, so impossibly graceful in body and manner, that he seemed to tower over his fellows. With wavy blond hair and soft blue-gray eyes, he was among the handsomest of men, so disarming in appearance that his contemporaries at Princeton were not embarrassed to call him beautiful. Add to all this a humble manner, a noble character and what his biographer, John Davies, calls ''a foreboding, a sense that Hobey was somehow playing out a Greek tragedy,'' and you have the stuff of literature.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, who entered Princeton in the fall of Hobey's senior year, 1913-14, saw 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,'' according to Davies. It is no accident that the protagonist of Fitzgerald's first novel, This Side of Paradise, is named Amory Blaine or that Hobey should appear as a character named Allenby. Fitzgerald describes Amory sitting on the steps of his Princeton rooming house as ''a white-clad phalanx'' of singing students passes by: ''There at the head of the white platoon marched Allenby, the football captain, slim and defiant, as if aware that this year the hopes of the college rested on him, that his hundred-and- sixty pounds were expected to dodge to victory through the heavy blue and crimson lines.''
It was in the hockey rink and on the ice where Baker went from prodigy to legend. The spectators in the crowd often cheered in excitement, “Here he comes!” each time he touched the puck. He was smart, quick, and agile. He even rounded the edges of his skates to turn more easily and effectively. “No player has been able to weave in and out of a defense, change his pace and direction, with the uncanny skill and generalship of Baker,” wrote the Boston Journal. “He is the wonder player of hockey.”
And yet the trait that historians and sportswriters often remark on most when they look back on his collegiate legacy is not all the wins or personal stats, but rather his sportsmanship. His leadership and style of play became known as “The Hobey Code,” an unspoken rule to show humility in triumph as well as defeat. Baker played by the rules, never was a showboat, and declared victory as a team and not as an individual. Throughout his career, he was only penalized once, and out of respect for his excellence the official apologized to him after the game.
After graduating from Princeton, Baker had a brief career at J.P. Morgan in New York City and continued to play amateur hockey. His job bored him, and he was seeking a new adventure he had not previously conquered. After working his day job on Wall Street, he learned to fly in 1916. A year later Baker was commissioned into the US Army and became one of the first fighter pilots to serve overseas in France. When others heard the news, they followed close behind. Princeton had to cancel the 1917-18 men’s hockey season because all five starters went to war with Baker.
Some controversy surrounds Baker’s death. One theory suggests Baker lacked a purpose in his post-athletic and post-war life because he had accomplished so much so early. He felt he would never achieve the same level of exhilaration as he once had playing at the collegiate level at Princeton. “I realize that my life is finished,” he said when he left Princeton. “No matter how long I live, I will never equal the excitement of playing on the football fields.” He may have also believed that the post-war civilian world couldn’t replace the adrenaline experienced as a pilot in war. Whether his death was a tragic accident or a suicide has never been determined.
However, the legacy of Hobey Baker remains. Baker was one of four Hockey Hall of Famers to be killed during World War I, and he remains the only athlete to be inducted into both the College Football Hall of Fame and the College Hockey Hall of Fame. Since 1981, the Hobey Baker Memorial Award has been given to the top NCAA men’s ice hockey player in the nation, the equivalent to college football’s Heisman Trophy. In addition to their athletic achievements, the honorees are chosen for their sportsmanship on and off the ice — a fitting homage to Baker.
Loc: B6
THE LEGEND OF HOBEY BAKER
by JOHN DAVIES
Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1966. First Edition, first printing. Very good hardcover, in good dustjacket. Tight binding, solid spine, clean unmarked text, edge-wear and small tears to dj have been repaired with archival tape. Illustrated, 4to, index, 118 pages. Aviation, Pilots, Fighter Pilot, WWI, World War I, Aviator, Football, Hockey, St. Paul's, Princeton, 103rd Aero Squadron, Military History.
Hobey Baker as a young man received the kind of adulation that only a few people ever get. He was the ideal male in the years before World War I: a star athlete, handsome, moneyed, aristocratic.
As an underclassman at Princeton, F. Scott Fitzgerald idolized Hobey Baker. He wrote him into two of his novels. Even as recently as 1984 a Boy’s Life profile described him breathlessly as a civilized sportsman, ‘thoroughly imbued with notions of fair play, decency, dignity, sacrifice and total dedication to the task at hand.’
But before he turned 30 it was all over for him. Gentlemen athletes in the early 20th century did not do the one thing Hobey Baker wanted to do: play sports professionally.
But Hobey was much more than the sum of his achievements. He was the beau ideal of American sport, a hero in every particular. He was, by our standards, a small man, only 5 ft. 9 in. and 160 pounds, but not so small at a time when the heaviest of football linemen weighed barely 200 pounds. And he was so flawlessly proportioned, so impossibly graceful in body and manner, that he seemed to tower over his fellows. With wavy blond hair and soft blue-gray eyes, he was among the handsomest of men, so disarming in appearance that his contemporaries at Princeton were not embarrassed to call him beautiful. Add to all this a humble manner, a noble character and what his biographer, John Davies, calls ''a foreboding, a sense that Hobey was somehow playing out a Greek tragedy,'' and you have the stuff of literature.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, who entered Princeton in the fall of Hobey's senior year, 1913-14, saw 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,'' according to Davies. It is no accident that the protagonist of Fitzgerald's first novel, This Side of Paradise, is named Amory Blaine or that Hobey should appear as a character named Allenby. Fitzgerald describes Amory sitting on the steps of his Princeton rooming house as ''a white-clad phalanx'' of singing students passes by: ''There at the head of the white platoon marched Allenby, the football captain, slim and defiant, as if aware that this year the hopes of the college rested on him, that his hundred-and- sixty pounds were expected to dodge to victory through the heavy blue and crimson lines.''
It was in the hockey rink and on the ice where Baker went from prodigy to legend. The spectators in the crowd often cheered in excitement, “Here he comes!” each time he touched the puck. He was smart, quick, and agile. He even rounded the edges of his skates to turn more easily and effectively. “No player has been able to weave in and out of a defense, change his pace and direction, with the uncanny skill and generalship of Baker,” wrote the Boston Journal. “He is the wonder player of hockey.”
And yet the trait that historians and sportswriters often remark on most when they look back on his collegiate legacy is not all the wins or personal stats, but rather his sportsmanship. His leadership and style of play became known as “The Hobey Code,” an unspoken rule to show humility in triumph as well as defeat. Baker played by the rules, never was a showboat, and declared victory as a team and not as an individual. Throughout his career, he was only penalized once, and out of respect for his excellence the official apologized to him after the game.
After graduating from Princeton, Baker had a brief career at J.P. Morgan in New York City and continued to play amateur hockey. His job bored him, and he was seeking a new adventure he had not previously conquered. After working his day job on Wall Street, he learned to fly in 1916. A year later Baker was commissioned into the US Army and became one of the first fighter pilots to serve overseas in France. When others heard the news, they followed close behind. Princeton had to cancel the 1917-18 men’s hockey season because all five starters went to war with Baker.
Some controversy surrounds Baker’s death. One theory suggests Baker lacked a purpose in his post-athletic and post-war life because he had accomplished so much so early. He felt he would never achieve the same level of exhilaration as he once had playing at the collegiate level at Princeton. “I realize that my life is finished,” he said when he left Princeton. “No matter how long I live, I will never equal the excitement of playing on the football fields.” He may have also believed that the post-war civilian world couldn’t replace the adrenaline experienced as a pilot in war. Whether his death was a tragic accident or a suicide has never been determined.
However, the legacy of Hobey Baker remains. Baker was one of four Hockey Hall of Famers to be killed during World War I, and he remains the only athlete to be inducted into both the College Football Hall of Fame and the College Hockey Hall of Fame. Since 1981, the Hobey Baker Memorial Award has been given to the top NCAA men’s ice hockey player in the nation, the equivalent to college football’s Heisman Trophy. In addition to their athletic achievements, the honorees are chosen for their sportsmanship on and off the ice — a fitting homage to Baker.
Loc: B6
