December 21, 1918: The Death of Hobey Baker

December 21, 1918: Hobey Baker, America's 1st great hockey player, is killed in a plane crash. He was only 26 years old.

Hobart Amory Hare Baker was born on January 15, 1892 outside Philadelphia in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. His family was rich, and could have gotten him into any college he wanted. Instead of the nearby University of Pennsylvania, he chose Princeton University, helping them win National Championships in football in 1911, and in hockey in 1912 and 1914.

He graduated in 1914, and moved to New York where he went to work for J.P. Morgan Bank and helped the St. Nicholas Hockey Club win the national amateur championship in 1915.

In 1917, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Service, a precursor of the U.S. Air Force. By the time the Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918, he held the rank of Captain, and was commander of the 141st Aero Squadron.

On December 21, 1918, 40 days after the Armistice, and the day before he was set to return to America, he was test-piloting a plane in Toul, France, when the engine failed, and crashed nose-first. He was pulled out of the wreckage, but died in the ambulance.

In 1921, Princeton opened the Hobey Baker Memorial Rink. He was the only American among the 1st 9 inductees into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1945. In 1975, he was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame. In 1980, the Hobey Baker Award was introduced, a hockey version of the Heisman Trophy.

*

December 21, 1918 was a Saturday. Born on this day were Kurt Waldheim, the Austrian diplomat who served as Secretary-General of the United Nations 1972 to 1981, and President of Austria from 1986 to 1992, but was later exposed as having committed war crimes during World War II; and Donald Regan, who served President Ronald Reagan as Secretary of the Treasury during his 1st term and White House Chief of Staff for the 1st half of his 2nd, before his resignation over the Iran-Contra scandal.

Baseball was in the off-season. Football season was also over, except for the Rose Bowl, which was an all-military affair: George Halas led the Great Lake Naval Training Station, north of Chicago, to a 17-0 win over the Mare Island Marines, based outside San Francisco, led by former Washington State quarterback Dick Hanley. Both teams went into the game undefeated. Hanley would coach Marine teams in World War II. Halas, of course, went on to found the team that became the Chicago Bears, and co-found the NFL.

There was no serious professional basketball league. But the NHL season opened on this date, with 1 game: The Ottawa Senators beat the Montreal Canadiens, 5-2 at the Jubilee Arena in Montreal.