His classic 1972 memoir, The Boys of Summer, examines his relationship with his father seen through the prism of their shared affection for the Brooklyn Dodgers, a team Mr. Kahn would cover as a young reporter for the New York Herald Tribune. Kahn's two seasons (1952-53) as a Dodger beat writer coincided with the peak of the Jackie Robinson era in Brooklyn, when Robinson - by now established as a major star and a leader of the Dodgers - still had to confront racism on and off the field.

Kahn later worked as a general-assignment magazine writer and has excelled in writing about non-sporting topics as well. But, as an author, his work on baseball ranks among the best of his 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, and 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. His acclaimed life of the great heavyweight boxing champion, Jack Dempsey, A Flame of Pure Fire, is under development as a major motion picture

Kahn's latest book, Into My Own, (publication June 2006) is a memoir describing friendships with Robert Frost, Jackie Robinson. Pee Wee Reese, Eugene McCarthy, and his late son, Roger Laurence Kahn, who died by his own hand in 1987. Mr. Kahn lives in a Hudson Valley community with his wife, the psychotherapist, Katharine Colt Johnson. He was inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame on April 30, 2006. On that occasion Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig wrote, "Roger is an icon in our sport." Dave Anderson, the Pulitzer-Prize winning sports columnist of The New York Times, added: "Anyone who has ever read any of Roger's vast collection of writing knows only too well that he is not merely one of America's great sportswriters, but one of America's great writers period."