Kahn began his newspaper career in 1948, when he took a job as
copy boy for the
New York Herald Tribune. A keen
Brooklyn Dodgers fan, he reported on their games over the 1952 and 1953 seasons. He became sports editor for
Newsweek in 1956, and editor-at-large of the
Saturday Evening Post in 1963. His best-known book is
The Boys of Summer (1972), which examines his relationship with his father as seen through the prism of their shared affection for the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 2002, a
Sports Illustrated panel placed
The Boys of Summer second on a list of "The Top 100 Sports Books of All Time". In addition to
The Boys of Summer, Kahn wrote books such as
Good Enough to Dream, a chronicle of his year as the owner of a
minor league baseball franchise;
The Era 1947–57, an examination of the decade during which the three New York clubs – the Dodgers,
Yankees and
Giants – dominated
Major League Baseball; and
Memories of Summer, a look back at his youth and early career, plus extended pieces on New York baseball legends
Willie Mays and
Mickey Mantle. He also wrote a biography of the heavyweight boxing champion
Jack Dempsey, entitled
A Flame of Pure Fire. Kahn's 2006 book
Into My Own is a
memoir describing his friendships with
Robert Frost,
Jackie Robinson,
Pee Wee Reese,
Eugene McCarthy, and, in its last chapter titled
Rescuing Roger, focuses on his son who predeceased him, Roger Laurence Kahn, who died by suicide via
carbon monoxide poisoning in 1987. It covers the younger Kahn's
bipolar disorder, heroin addiction, and time he spent with the educator
Michael DeSisto at the
DeSisto School; Andrew Ervin wrote in
The Washington Post that the book "proves that Kahn's not only a great baseball writer but also something rarer: a great writer whose subject happens to be baseball." Kahn cited as his journalistic influences,
Stanley Woodward,
John Lardner, and
Red Smith. == Honors, awards, distinctions ==