Hobey Baker - Legacy

Legacy

You seemed winged, even as a lad,
With that swift look of those who know the sky,
It was no blundering fate that stooped and bade
You break your wings, and fall to earth and die,
I think some day you may have flown too high,
So that immortals saw you and were glad,
Watching the beauty of your spirits flame,
Until they loved and called you, and you came.

Baker is considered one of the greatest ice hockey players of his era, and the first great American hockey player. He was one of the first nine players inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame upon its founding in 1945, the first American so honored, and was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame as one of its charter members in 1973. Baker was posthumously awarded the Lester Patrick Trophy by the National Hockey League and USA Hockey in 1987 for his contributions to hockey in the United States. In 1975, he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame and is the only person in both the College Football and Hockey Halls of Fame. Baker was also inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame in 2010.

His popularity was such that, after he enlisted in the military, so many of his fellow Princeton athletes followed his lead that the school had to cancel its hockey team for the 1917–18 season; all five starting players enlisted in the armed forces. Of the eleven players on the team the previous season, nine enlisted shortly after Baker.

Baker was also the inspiration for literary works. In his senior year at Princeton, F. Scott Fitzgerald enrolled at the university as a freshman. Though he only spoke to Baker once during their time at Princeton, Fitzgerald idolized him. His first novel, This Side of Paradise, has several references to Baker: the main character is named Amory Blaine after Baker's middle name, and the minor character Allenby is Baker himself. Mark Goodman's 1985 novel Hurrah for the Next Man Who Dies is a fictionalized account of Baker's life.

Baker's honors included a citation on March 27, 1919, by General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces, for exceptional bravery on May 21, 1918, when he brought down his first plane. The Hobey Baker Award was established in 1981 and is awarded annually to the best player in NCAA hockey. The Hobey Baker Legends of College Hockey Award was also created that year and is given to the "all-time great contributors to the game of college hockey" each year. Since 1950, Princeton has awarded the Hobey Baker Trophy to the "freshman hockey player who, among his classmates, in play, sportsmanship and influence has contributed most to the sport." When Princeton opened their hockey arena in 1921, it was named the Hobey Baker Memorial Rink. At St. Paul's, hockey players compete for an award known as "Hobey's Stick". Inside the bar of the Nassau Inn in Princeton is a photo of Baker flanked by two other famous Princeton athletes, Bill Bradley and Dick Kazmaier. The Ivy Club, of which Baker was a member, has a painting of him in the living room.