The star all-rounder this week became just the eighth Pelican to receive the accolade and is one of just four surviving life members.

“It was pretty surprising, really,” Baker said. “I’ve been there 20-25 years now, it’s a good reward.”

Baker has made more than 10,000 runs in A grade and division one cricket at an average of 36.31 and claimed 404 wickets across 271 games top-grade games.

He has played a total of 310 games for Bookaar, making 48 half-centuries and 25 centuries.

Impressively, he scored two of his centuries alongside his father Keith (in 2003 and 2005) and  also made one in the same match his brother Clinton, now at Mortlake, reached the ton (2005).

Baker has seen team success, winning three A grade premierships with the Pelicans and a premiership with Warrnambool and District club Wesley-CBC during a three-year stint there. He was also part of the three South West Cricket Melbourne Country Week grand final-winning teams.

His career has also been littered with individual accolades, claiming 10 Bookaar cricketer of the year awards and five association cricketer of the year awards – across the Mount Emu Creek and South West competitions.

Baker started playing for Bookaar – a family his grandfather, dad and uncle have also pulled on the whites for – when he was 11 years old.

He has spent most of his career there, bar short stints with Geelong, in his teens, and Wesley-CBC. But he returned to his family’s cricketing home when the club was still based out at Bookaar and struggling for numbers, and has been there since.

As well as the three premierships, he lists coaching the Pelicans juniors to a flag – after he helped them get back up and running – among his greatest highlights.

“There were a couple of young kids looking for a game. I knew their dads, so I thought we’d get a team up and running again,” Baker said.

“It was good – we’d only been going three years when (we won the flag).”

Now, Baker’s sons Paddy and Thomas are carrying on the family tradition in the next generation, playing in the under 16 and under 13 sides at the club.