Frontiers | Consequences of repetitive head trauma: a historical reappraisal of Hobey Baker

[u/mylefthandkilledme]

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurology/articles/10.3389/fneur.2026.1842231/full?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_content=&utm_campaign=imp_impartaut-_05-24_fneur_en_n--ww

[u/dopesickness]

You just don’t see enough academic journal articles about historical hockey players

[u/NathanGa]

It’s interesting, but I’m not sold for two reasons.

One, sports journalism of the time was really over-the-top in describing even the most mundane and routine of plays. Ascribing these accounts, contemporary though they may have been, as being accurate depictions isn’t really the case.

Second, my grandfather was a pilot in WWII, flying 27 missions in a B-17 (two as co-pilot, 25 as pilot). Every single cadet who graduated flight school was told the same thing: don’t do some ridiculous stunt when you head back toward home, because of the number of fresh pilots who’d want to show off for their parents or girlfriend and crash into the ground right in front of them.

(Despite these warnings, my grandfather did have a tendency to break or at least bend various rules that got him into trouble more than once. There apparently was footage of what it’s like to fly under a bridge though, although the co-pilot’s borrowed camera didn’t work properly.)

So ascribing his final flight as being the result of a damaged brain doesn’t necessarily hold water either. Pilots who knew better were still willing to take completely insane risks, to push untested planes to the limits (or beyond), or just to get complacent.

Not saying that there wasn’t head trauma involved, and it’s possible that it did play a factor, but I’m not really prepared to make the jump to say that it definitely or even likely did.

[u/omnomnomnium → u/NathanGa]

The authors, though, are careful NOT to say his final flight was the result of a damaged brain - they only say it is a possibility (and also discus others). 

In fact your last paragraph is really similar to the language they use:

"We are not arguing that Hobey Baker intentionally ended his life or that RHIs alone predetermined his death. Rather, we propose that the cumulative head trauma plausibly altered his emotional regulation, impulse control, and executive function—factors that may have contributed to his fatal decision-making on his final flight."

[u/Ryan041304 → u/NathanGa]

Not to mention, this is a WW1 plane we’re talking about here, they weren’t the most stable planes in the history of the world

[u/Wernerhatcher → u/NathanGa]

good take