A premier baseball essayist, the Brooklyn-born Kahn at twenty-five began covering the Dodgers for the New York Herald Tribune. He later wrote for Sports Illustrated and Newsweek. His 1972 best-seller, The Boys of Summer, an account of the great Brooklyn teams of the 1950s, is a recognized classic. It was followed by Season in the Sun (1977) and The Seventh Game (1982). Kahn bought the Utica club in the New York-Penn League and in 1985 wrote Good Enough to Dream based on that experience. Kahn and Pete Rose wrote Pete Rose: My Story in 1989.
