At 5’9″, Bob Baun was a rarity on the blue lines of the National Hockey. In today’s NHL, he would be rejected by 30 teams, simply because of his size. Yet, Baun was one of the most punishing defensemen to play for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Bobby Baun played over 1,000 games in the NHL, including playoffs. He was a two time Memorial Cup champion in junior and a four time Stanley Cup champion in the NHL. Bob is not in the Hockey Hall of Fame, does not have his number retired by the Maple Leafs and was never honoured with the Norris Trophy. Yet, his name is well known to anyone who even pretends to be a hockey fan in Canada.
Junior and Minor Pro
Hockey Card Collection
NHL Career
Rookie Card
Career Stats
Bob Baun – Junior and Minor Pro
Baun played four years of junior hockey with the Toronto Marlboros from 1952-53 to 1955-56. In the last three of those seasons, the Marlboros played in the OHA’s Robertson Cup finals. In 1953-54, Toronto lost to the St. Catherines Teepees in seven games.
Bob Baun Collection
The next year, they exacted their revenge on the Teepees. In 1955-56, it was another championship, this time over the Barrie Flyers. In both those 1954-55 and 1955-56 seasons, the Marlboros won the Memorial Cup championship, beating the Regina Pats in each year.
Bobby’s time in the minors was very limited. In 1956-57, his first year of pro hockey, he split the season between the Rochester Americans in the American Hockey League and the Toronto Maple Leafs. He played 46 games for the Amerks, his only 46 games in the minors.
In that 1956-57 season, Baun finished ninth in the AHL with 117 penalty minutes over his partial season. The Americans reached the Calder Cup finals before losing to the Cleveland Barons. However, Bobby was in the NHL by that time and did not play for Rochester in the post season.
Bob Baun – NHL
Between 1956-57 and 1972-73, Baun played 964 regular season games in the National Hockey League. He appeared mostly with the Maple Leafs but also played for the Oakland Seals and Detroit Red Wings.
Over his career, Bobby scored just 37 goals and assisted on 187 for 224 points. In the Stanley Cup playoffs, he appeared in 96 games and added 15 points.
Bob played a major role in four Toronto Stanley Cup championships. These include the three consecutive from 1961-62 to 1963-64 and the unlikely 1966-67 win. He was part of the team when they lost in the finals to the Montreal Canadiens in both 1958-59 and 1959-60.
In 1964-65, Baun finished fourth in the NHL with 160 penalty minutes. He was just 17 PIM behind leader and Toronto teammate Carl Brewer.
The Oakland Seals selected Bob in the third round of the 1967 NHL Expansion Draft, 18th overall. He played just the 1967-68 season with the Seals and served as the franchise’s first team captain. With Oakland, he was teamed with Billy Harris, Wally Boyer and Charlie Burns, three of his teammates with the Memorial Cup winning Toronto Marlboros.
Right after that 1967-68 season, Baun was traded to the Detroit Red Wings with Ron Harris for Gary Jarrett, Doug Roberts, Howie Young and Chris Worthy. His time in Detroit would come to an end eleven games into the 1970-71 season.
The Buffalo Sabres claimed Bobby off waivers at the start of that 1970-71 season. Buffalo then immediately traded Baun to the St. Louis Blues on November 4 for Larry Keenan and Jean Guy Talbot. St. Louis traded him nine days later to the Toronto Maple Leafs, straight up for Brit Selby.
Got it? Baun was property of the Red Wings, Sabres, Blues and Maple Leafs in November, 1970 but never played for Buffalo or St. Louis.
His career ended in Toronto five games into the 1972-73 season. Baun suffered a neck injury after a hit from Mickey Redmond which forced him to retire.
After two years away from the game, Bob Baun took the thankless job of coaching the Toronto Toros of the World Hockey Association in 1975-76. Just the Denver Spurs/Ottawa Civics had less points that year and that’s because they folded after 41 games. The season ended and so did Baun’s coaching career.
Bob Baun – Rookie Card
The Bob Baun rookie card appears as number 45 (Toronto 20) in the 1957-58 Parkhurst hockey card set. His last card is included in the 1972-73 O-Pee-Chee set. Both cards show him as a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
There is a common theme throughout his hockey card collection. It is often mentioned that Baun was a hard hitter that played the 1963-64 Stanley Cup championship game with a broken foot and scored the winning goal in overtime.
The 1968-69 Topps Baun card is the only one that shows him in an Oakland Seals jersey. The card has him as a member of the Red Wings. His 1968-69 O-Pee-Chee card has him in a Red Wings jersey with the number 3 scratched out off the shoulder. It’s hard to tell if his head in this card has been attached to another Detroit player’s body. If so, the editing is some of the cleanest by O-Pee-Chee in what is one of the sloppiest hockey card sets in existence.
Bob Baun Career Stats
| Season | Team | Lge | GP | G | A | Pts | PIM |
| 1952-53 | Toronto Marlboros | OHA | 16 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 12 |
| 1953-54 | Toronto Marlboros | OHA | 59 | 2 | 15 | 17 | 63 |
| 1954-55 | Toronto Marlboros | OHA | 47 | 3 | 6 | 9 | 99 |
| 1955-56 | Toronto Marlboros | OHA | 48 | 5 | 14 | 19 | 93 |
| 1956-57 | Rochester Americans | AHL | 46 | 2 | 13 | 15 | 117 |
| 1956-57 | Toronto Maple Leafs | NHL | 20 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 37 |
| 1957-58 | Toronto Maple Leafs | NHL | 67 | 1 | 9 | 10 | 91 |
| 1958-59 | Toronto Maple Leafs | NHL | 51 | 1 | 8 | 9 | 87 |
| 1959-60 | Toronto Maple Leafs | NHL | 61 | 8 | 9 | 17 | 59 |
| 1960-61 | Toronto Maple Leafs | NHL | 70 | 1 | 14 | 15 | 70 |
| 1961-62 | Toronto Maple Leafs | NHL | 65 | 4 | 11 | 15 | 94 |
| 1962-63 | Toronto Maple Leafs | NHL | 48 | 4 | 8 | 12 | 65 |
| 1963-64 | Toronto Maple Leafs | NHL | 52 | 4 | 14 | 18 | 113 |
| 1964-65 | Toronto Maple Leafs | NHL | 70 | 0 | 18 | 18 | 160 |
| 1965-66 | Toronto Maple Leafs | NHL | 44 | 0 | 6 | 6 | 68 |
| 1966-67 | Toronto Maple Leafs | NHL | 54 | 2 | 8 | 10 | 83 |
| 1967-68 | Oakland Seals | NHL | 67 | 3 | 10 | 13 | 81 |
| 1968-69 | Detroit Red Wings | NHL | 76 | 4 | 16 | 20 | 121 |
| 1969-70 | Detroit Red Wings | NHL | 71 | 1 | 18 | 19 | 110 |
| 1970-71 | Detroit Red Wings | NHL | 11 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 24 |
| 1970-71 | Toronto Maple Leafs | NHL | 58 | 1 | 17 | 18 | 123 |
| 1971-72 | Toronto Maple Leafs | NHL | 74 | 2 | 12 | 14 | 101 |
| 1972-73 | Toronto Maple Leafs | NHL | 5 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| NHL Totals | 964 | 37 | 187 | 224 | 1491 |