It is hard to imagine a place less like Madison Square Garden than the cement slab where Ron Baker spent countless hours honing his game in high school.
This is a visitor’s first thought as the Knicks guard gives a tour of the court his father poured in the front yard of the house where he grew up. Baker and his siblings’ names are etched into the concrete, there is an old tractor parked across the street and a cornfield just a few blocks away.
Agriculture, family and sports are infused into every corner of this remote farm town in western Kansas. Scott City has two traffic lights, eight churches, 3,890 residents and some 150,000 beef cattle. The tallest structure in town is the grain elevator and the most important is the football stadium, which looks like something straight out of Friday Night Lights.
“Every small-town cliche you hear, it’s legit for me,” said Baker, who was a three-sport star _ quarterback, basketball forward and baseball pitcher _ at Scott Community High School.
The visitor has come to Western Kansas to see if she can figure out how Baker was able to leave it, to figure out what in Baker’s makeup gave him the confidence he could play significant minutes for a storied NBA franchise in the biggest city in the country.
No American-born player since John Starks has made a more improbable journey to Madison Square Garden than the one Baker has made. Baker, who paid his own tuition as a redshirt freshman at Wichita State, is believed to be the first college walk-on to play for the Knicks since Starks started 10 games in 1990-91. Now, after 52 games, including 13 starts, his rookie season, the Knicks are giving him a significant role in their rebuild. Last month, he agreed to a two-year contract reportedly worth $8.9 million.
“I look at Ron as a guy who can play both guard positions,” Knicks coach Jeff Hornacek said last week. 
“He’s not the traditional point guard where he can blow by you and use his speed to get around you. He does it with strength. The game of basketball isn’t always about speed. If you know angles and create openings, you can make a lot of plays.
“Ron’s a tough kid and plays hard and does whatever you ask. Those are guys who have a chance to grow as players. We feel Ron is just at the tip of it with what he can do out there on the court.”
Knicks fans certainly hope so. Given that it was unclear if Baker, a restricted free agent, had drawn interest from other teams, there were a few raised eyebrows when the contract was reported. Those who know Baker say having to prove himself is not a problem. In fact, he thrives on it, given that he is a player who has been under-estimated every step of his career.
“He’s never been afraid of that big stage,” said Brian Gentry, who coached Baker in both football and basketball at Scott Community High School. “When he was young, he was never afraid to step in with older kids. The fear of failure never seemed to bother him no matter where he was coming from.”
In fact, playing sports in Scott City once seemed like the big time for Baker. Before moving there in middle school, he lived 50 miles to the east in Utica, where his father’s family owns a 6,000-acre wheat farm. With a population of 152 people, Utica is a city only in name. Not only does it not have a traffic light; it doesn’t have paved roads. In elementary school, Baker never had more than six students in his class.
Like other kids in Utica, Baker helped out on the farm and he talks about agricultural equipment and crop rotation in the same offhanded, familiar manner that kids on Long Island talk about summer camp and trips to the beach. When he wasn’t working or in school, Baker played every sport he could. The nearest basketball court was at a park several miles outside of town.
The Bakers are an athletic family. Baker’s mother, Ranae, played volleyball, basketball and softball on scholarship at St. Mary of the Plains College. Ron’s father Neil played baseball at Fort Hays State University. Ron played everything growing up and always wanted to win. “He’s very competitive,” Ranae said. “When he didn’t win when he was little, he would pout. It didn’t matter if it was a board game or whatever.”
And in Western Kansas, they seem to be able to turn just about anything into a competition. Take the Scott County Free Fair held in July. In addition to carnival rides, chocolate waffle booths and livestock contests, there’s a zucchini-growing event, a table-setting competition, something called cow-pie bingo and a hay bale decorating contest. First prize this year in the hay contest went to a bale that was decorated to look like Ron Baker holding a basketball.
Baker permanently cemented his status as a local celebrity since scoring the winning basket in the championship game of the 3A state tournament his senior year.