AS SCORES of frustrated opponents will testify, St Kilda tagger Steven Baker plays the game pretty hard.

And scores of locals from his home town of Barongarook, near Colac, know to expect no less either, even when they front up to the Baker family property each Christmas for the traditional game of backyard cricket.

"We have a season opener, and if you hit it over the fence, you've got to go and get it and get pelted with grapefruit," he laughed. "We've had a few injuries with that one; a few getting KO'd, and there's always people coming out with black eyes. It gets pretty painful."

But bloody good fun. As life still is for Baker, for all the intensity and ultra-professionalism that goes with forging a career playing AFL football.

The game's premier "stopper", a best-and-fairest winner in 2005, works as hard and diligently as anyone, driving a constant stream of more feted opponents to distraction with his close-checking niggle.

He's done it to Melbourne's Travis Johnstone already this season, and held Brownlow medallist Simon Black in relative check last week even as the Brisbane Lions ran all over St Kilda at the Gabba.

They're the sorts of jobs that require complete focus. But there's still plenty of scope to unwind when they're done.

Baker loves nothing more than getting back home, where his parents, Greg and Gayle, live on about six hectares. "It's not actually a working property. I don't think Mum and Dad can be bothered. It's just there for a bit of fun, I think. They've got one cow and one horse … actually, the cow thinks it's a horse, and the horse thinks it's a cow.

"Whenever I've got a spare weekend, I head straight back to Mum and Dad's. My brother (Michael) is assistant coach at South Colac, so I watch them, and just catch up with the old footy boys for a quiet beer."

All the Bakers (Steven also has a younger sister, Vicki) are good at having a good time, whatever they're doing. Greg and Gayle are regulars at St Kilda games, happily making the 170-odd kilometre drive to watch their middle child do his stuff. "Mum and Dad always enjoy themselves at the footy," Steven said. "I think it's a race to see who has the most beers so they don't have to drive home. They're usually having a pretty good time by the end of the game."

Baker recounts a story much-loved by his St Kilda brethren about the 2004 preliminary final against Port Adelaide at AAMI Stadium, when Saints' full-forward Fraser Gehrig kicked his 100th goal for the season, sparking a minor crowd invasion.

"I was up around the middle at the time, and I hear this: 'Go Stevie'. I thought I recognised the voice, and I look around, and there's the old man patting me on the arse with this big smile on his face, running around like a kid, patting everyone. I think I was just in disbelief that he'd actually go out there."

St Kilda lost an epic encounter by just one straight kick, but Baker's parents had to be back home the next day for Vicki's netball grand final.

"They drove all the way back to Colac, then Dad's come out at half-time of the netball grand final dressed in one of my sister's leotards," he chuckled. "Vicki had a good win, and Dad was the half-time entertainment … It was a good weekend for the Baker family."

The demands of AFL football these days don't leave a lot of time over for much else, but Baker still makes sure that even when it comes to pursuing business interests, there's as much focus on fun as finances.

He and Stephen Milne last year set up "Saintly Entertainment", but this year, it's Baker and ruckman Michael Rix running the show. "We do a lot of kids' birthday parties," he said. "We give them some presents, might be a signed jumper and showbags, we make up a highlights DVD, which they get to keep, we do a bit of a Q and A and give prizes out, then we run a bit of a footy clinic in the backyard with the tackle bags and stuff. It goes for about an hour, the kids love it, and I love playing with them and making them happy."

It seems a little at odds with the image most AFL fans see of the gritty St Kilda stopper, and fair enough.

No one who watches Baker is left in any doubt about his relentless on-field aggression, hardness and relish for the physical contest, qualities he's not alone in fearing might be becoming less central to the game he loves most.

"With the rule changes, in the last couple of weeks, I've seen some blokes a bit hesitant to go fully at it because they're worried about giving away a free kick," he said. "It's disappointing that a bit of the hardness aspect's gone out of it. I know the rules are there to protect and prevent injuries and stuff, but I personally think it is sad, and it's turned the game a little bit too soft."

Not that Baker fears becoming obsolete. While firmly locked first and foremost on shutting down his opponent, he's also conscious of the need to generate some drive of his own, of which he did plenty against the Demons a fortnight ago, with 17 disposals and two goals.

"I still think there's a spot in the game for a tagger, and always will be, but guys like (Sydney's) Brett Kirk have added another string to their bow with their run, and now it's turned around and they're getting tagged," he said. "I don't think I'll ever have to worry about getting tagged, but maybe I might be able to get a little bit more dangerous, maybe even kick three goals. I've never kicked more than two in a game … I think if I kicked three, I'd be doing cartwheels."

All that running and toil keeping up with and blanketing the AFL's finest midfielders takes a toll, though.

Baker is regularly physically ill during games, sometimes discreetly, sometimes not so, like against the Demons, when he nearly threw up on his new coach, Ross Lyon.

"It was three-quarter time," he explained. "He (Lyon) was talking to us, and I was at the front of the group, and I thought: 'Christ, I'm going to spew on his feet here if I don't get out the back.' So I moved away and started heaving. All the trainers started crowding around to block it from the crowd because it was a pretty awful sight. I had about five or six power spews. Reckon I lost about two litres.

"Some of the things they feed you these days … they put a lot of electrolytes and hydrolytes and 'whateverlytes' into you, and I just reckon some of it doesn't agree with my guts."

Obviously not. But, typically, Baker can still have a laugh about it. It's no great surprise he's a favourite of St Kilda fans, though he still reckons it comes as "a bit of a shock" when he attends supporter functions and people recognise him.

It's different in Barongarook, of course. Back there, you've only got to hear the cries of pain from the thwack of grapefruit on flesh to know there's another Baker backyard cricket match going on, and that Steven, as usual, is right in the thick of the action.