Tyler Kepner

Kepner was born in Philadelphia and attended Germantown Academy and Vanderbilt 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 the Philadelphia Phillies. In 1989, he was featured in Sports Illustrated Kids and The New York Times.[2][3]

While in college, Kepner interned for The Boston Globe and The Washington Post. He was hired by The Press-Enterprise as Angels beat writer in September 1997. He joined the Seattle Post-Intelligencer as Mariners beat writer in September 1998 and began writing for The 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 to The Athletic as a senior national baseball writer in September 2023. In 2019, he published his debut book K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches. The book received mostly positive reviews from critics, and was praised for its writing style and informativeness.[4][5] Paul Dickson of The Washington Post called it "well-written, anecdote rich and filled with seldom-shared insights by players."[6] Kirkus Reviews wrote that it "belongs in the first ranks of books on America’s most written-about sport."[7]

Kepner published his second book, The Grandest Stage: A History of the World Series, in 2022.[8] The book chronicles the history of the World Series and received critical praise.[9][10] Olive Fellows, writing for Christian Science Monitor, called it "quirky and engrossing."[11] Richard Crepeau, in a review for the New York Journal of Books, praised the book for its nuanced overview of history.[12]