The Forbes Media Guide Five Hundred, 1994 stated: "Baker, thanks to his singular gift of treating serious, even tragic events and trends with gentle humor, has become an American institution.
The school has a big influence on the young Baker, and he wrote extensively about his youth in Baltimore and his experiences there at the nicknamed "Castle on the Hill" four decades later in his best-selling 1982 first memoir Growing Up, one of seventeen books he was to later write.
He left the service in 1945 and continued his coursework for two more years for a degree in English at Johns Hopkins ], graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1947.
During his long career as an essayist, journalist, and biographer, he was a regular contributor to national periodicals such as The New York Times Magazine, Sports Illustrated, The Saturday Evening Post, and McCalls.
[8][9] After an unsuccessful tryout at the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, Connecticut, the show closed in Toronto and never made it to Broadway.
"[10] In 1993, Baker replaced Alistair Cooke as the regular host and commentator of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS-TV) long-running drama television series Masterpiece Theatre, continuing until 2004.
I fancied that I was an exceedingly charming, witty and handsome young man, and here's this fidgeting old fellow whose hair is parted on the wrong side.
Neil Postman, in the preface to Conscientious Objections, described Baker as "like some fourth century citizen of Rome who is amused and intrigued by the Empire's collapse but who still cares enough to mock the stupidities that are hastening its end.