The son of the first president of Hunter College, Kieran had the mind of a college professor and the voice of a New York taxi driver. An amateur naturalist, he was an expert in several subjects on the radio program Information, Please for ten years beginning in 1938. He started his newspaper career in 1915, writing at space rates for the sports section of The New York Times, then moved to the Herald Tribune in 1922. After two years with the Hearst papers (1925-26), he returned to the Times to begin the paper’s first bylined sports column, “Sports of the Times,” starting January 1, 1927. In 1943, he went to the New York Sun and wrote a general column. His columns often included bits of poetry. Among his books are Not Under Oath, The Story of the Olympics (with Arthur Daley), and The Natural History of New York. He received the J.G. Taylor Spink Award from the Hall of Fame in 1973.
