Tyler Kepner | |
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| Born | John Tyler Kepner 1975 (age 49–50) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
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| Alma mater | Vanderbilt University |
John Tyler Kepner (born 1975) is an American author and sports journalist who is currently a senior baseball writer forThe Athletic, after spending more than 23 years writing baseball forThe New York Times.[1]
Kepner was born in Philadelphia and attendedGermantown Academy andVanderbilt University. He became interested in baseball as a child, and created a monthly baseball magazine as a teenager. While in high school, he received a press pass to cover thePhiladelphia Phillies. In 1989, he was featured inSports Illustrated Kids andThe New York Times.[2][3]
While in college, Kepner interned forThe Boston Globe andThe Washington Post. He was hired byThe Press-Enterprise as Angels beat writer in September 1997. He joined theSeattle Post-Intelligencer as Mariners beat writer in September 1998 and began writing forThe New York Times in 2000. After two years as a Mets beat writer and eight as a Yankees beat writer, he became the newspaper's national baseball writer in 2010, moving on toThe Athletic as a senior national baseball writer in September 2023.[4]
In 2019, he published his first bookK: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches. The book received mostly positive reviews from critics, and was praised for its writing style and informativeness.[5][6]Paul Dickson ofThe Washington Post called it "well-written, anecdote rich and filled with seldom-shared insights by players."[7]Kirkus Reviews wrote that it "belongs in the first ranks of books on America's most written-about sport."[8]
Kepner published his second book,The Grandest Stage: A History of the World Series, in 2022.[9] The book chronicles the history of theWorld Series and received critical praise.[10][11] Olive Fellows, writing forChristian Science Monitor, called it "quirky and engrossing."[12] Richard Crepeau, in a review for theNew York Journal of Books, praised the book for its nuanced overview of history.[13]