Hobey Baker is considered one of the greatest American ice hockey players of all time, and 106 years after his tragic death, ESPN is alleging in a new three-part podcast that he was gay.
That's the main takeaway from the latest “30 for 30 Podcasts” in-depth entry, “Searching For Hobey Baker,” which aims to explore the life of a multi-talented man known for his athleticism, intellect, bravery in World War I, good looks and seemingly loving relationships with other men.
The revelation that Baker is gay is new — a search through Outsports' 25-year archives will not reveal Hobey Baker's name even once — and the ESPN podcast will leave some scratching their heads.
Get off the sidelines and get in the game
Our Weekly Playbook is packed with information on everything from locker room chatter to pressing LGBTQ sports issues.
But ESPN and the podcast's producers have maintained that Baker was gay (or, in the words of a podcast spokesman and producer, a “queer man”).
“That's our argument,” executive producer and researcher Andy Reynolds said, “but it's based on a huge amount of research and documentation. We know we have to draw all the dots and all the crosses to have a conversation about what this means and how to get this right.”
“Our bar for relevance in storytelling has to be very high.”
After listening to the podcast narrated by actor David Duchovny twice, and speaking with various people involved in the podcast's production and distribution, as well as my Outsports colleague Jim Budzinski (who also listened), there's a compelling case to be made that Baker, a revered figure in hockey and the only American inducted into the first Hockey Hall of Fame in 1945, was gay.
Who is Hobey Baker?
Hobey Baker contributed to the American war effort as a pilot in World War I, but is best known today for having his name inscribed on the trophy awarded annually to the “Most Outstanding” NCAA men's hockey player, which takes into account excellence and character on the ice.
However, in 2024, few people will know the man the trophy was named after more than 60 years after his death.
“We want to uncover stories that you think you know or maybe you don't know at all,” said Marcia Cook, vice president and executive producer of ESPN Films and “30 For 30.” “Hobey is a statue that amateur athletes covet, and if you asked the most recent Hobey Baker Award winner, you might not know much about him.”
Baker was a standout athlete at Princeton University, and during his time on the Tigers football team, they compiled an impressive record of 20 wins, 3 losses, and 4 ties (at a time when low-scoring games and ties were much more common).
The ESPN podcast talks about Baker's time as a football player, but most of the sports talk is focused on Baker's impressive hockey plays, including at one point leading the United States to a win over Canada, a feat that was a source of great pride for the United States at the time. The podcast delves into Baker's many sporting achievements in the pre-World War I era and his impact on American sports.
Baker has a remarkable athletic legacy, being the only person to be inducted into both the hockey and college football halls of fame.
He was a talented athlete on a par with his contemporary Jim Thorpe, who excelled in multiple sports.
One notable point made during the podcast was that Hobey Baker was beautiful, with teammates commenting on his physical appearance.
“He had a lean but muscular build and a handsome, manly yet boyish face that made him a man of interest to men and women alike,” a former roommate wrote to Baker biographer John Davis.
But according to the podcast report, he had no interest in women, and in one anecdote, a classmate recalled running out a back door from Princeton's hockey arena to avoid a woman who Baker was asking out on a date.
Was Hobey Baker “gay”?
Andy Reynolds is a renowned scholar of LGBTQ history and politics. He is the executive producer and, along with Tim Smith, writer for the Searching for Hobey Baker podcast.
Reynolds told Outsports he started the project four years ago after a colleague told him about an intriguing historical figure named Hobey Baker.
For Reynolds, recasting characters from the past as “queer” and “gay” is no small thing to take lightly: these terms were not used in the same way in 1924 as they were in 2024.
Still, Reynolds' research is thorough, and even though Baker died in 1918, he uncovered a wealth of information that led researchers and the ESPN team to one conclusion: Baker was in a same-sex relationship and was gay (or, in Reynolds' words, “queer”).
“We basically collected letters and memories and also dug up a lot of new stuff,” Reynolds said. “It's a 90-minute podcast, but there's a lot more to it than just the tip of the iceberg.”
As mentioned in the podcast, Reynolds referred to apparent love letters between Baker and Percy Rivington Pine II, brimming with emotional and physical affection. Percy was one of the wealthiest men in the country at the time and a Princeton University graduate himself. Baker and Pine lived together in Pine's lavish Manhattan home for two years and were reportedly inseparable, becoming fixtures in New York socialites.
“When you present this evidence of a man and a woman, there's no question of viewing them as a romantic couple,” Reynolds said. “In this case, the experts have told us they view this as a very strong, loving relationship.”
Of course, this isn't the same thing — in 1915, men and women didn't live together outside of a romantic relationship — but many men then, and now, had male roommates. Still, Reynolds argues there's deeper evidence, and she lays out much of it in the podcast.
The most commonly used term in the podcast and in ESPN's media coverage is that Baker is “queer,” but the podcast includes scenes in which Baker hides or runs away to avoid romantic interest from women (as mentioned above), and while there is a reference to the term “gay” not being applicable in the cultural context of the early 1900s, the podcast does refer to contemporary composer Cole Porter and Baker's supposed lover, Pine, as “gay.”
The podcast uses the word “queer” to describe Baker. The biggest takeaway from this podcast was that he was gay.
While it's easy for the choice of experts on a topic to bias a study, Reynolds assured Outsports that this wasn't the case here.
“Their opinions were consistently shared among all the experts we spoke to. We never received feedback like, 'No, you're wrong here,' and we were careful not to prejudge their assessments. We gave our opinions and asked, 'What do you think based on your expertise?'”
A fair criticism of the podcast is its handling of Hobey Baker's tragic death.
If there's any legitimate criticism of the three-part podcast, beyond its use of the words “queer” and “gay,” it has to do with Baker's death at age 26.
What is not disputed is that Baker was a pilot who died in a plane crash in France on December 21, 2018, shortly after receiving orders to return home after the end of World War I.
The podcast speculates, with little evidence beyond one historian's assertion, that Baker committed suicide in the plane crash because he was gay and didn't want to return to an intolerant America, even though the podcast notes that America at the time, and New York City in particular, was not particularly intolerant of gay people.
Lead investigator Reynolds told Outsports he doesn't believe Baker took his own life intentionally.
“A lot of people say it was an accident,” he said. “To be honest, that's my take on it. I don't think he caused it himself.”
Why did the podcast include speculation that Baker committed suicide because he was gay, when the project's lead didn't believe it? It's hard to defend. For years after Baker's death, there was speculation that he may have deliberately crashed the plane because his relationship with his ex-fiancée Mimi Scott had ended.
The claim that he may have committed suicide because he was gay is unfounded and does not fit with the well-documented story.
The Cultural Impact of “Looking for Hobey Baker”
The NHL was founded in 1917, one year before Baker's death.
Since the NHL's founding, no current or former NHL player or coach has publicly come out as gay.
In contrast, the NFL, NBA, MLB, and MLS each have multiple players and coaches (current and former players) who have come out publicly.
As Outsports has documented in detail, hockey's culture for gay and bisexual men has been some of the worst in North American sports for decades.
Related
This has increased the importance of openly gay male players, such as Nashville Predators' Luke Prokop, who could potentially make it big in the NHL.
“My job is to be visible and to be at the table to change the conversation,” Reynolds said, “and that has the effect of role models, validation, and young people seeing gay people in public.”
Some may be wondering about the timing of the podcast during Pride Month, etc. Is ESPN trying to provide content for the LGBTQ community?
Everyone Outsports spoke with was adamant that the project is the culmination of years of research and that the company believes it reflects the lives of the sports legends whose names are announced annually to honor college hockey's greatest players.
“We've been committed to telling Hobie's story in the most sensitive and complete way,” said Priti Bharathan, head of the 30 for 30 podcast. “It's important to me to recognize that there will be backlash to the stories we produce, and like Andy, I'm thinking of queer players in hockey. What we're telling is documented and evidence-based.”
ESPN's “Searching For Hobey Baker” is available on the Apply podcast.
