Baseball, writing, history, music, and movies.
My grandfathers, Theodore Stankiewicz and Leroy Muse, both of whom died before I was born. Theodore -- Teddy to friends -- immigrated to America from Poland in the early 1900s and learned to love a foreign game, baseball, taking his sons (my father and uncles) to contests at Navin Field. He lived in Detroit and worked in the automotive factories. Roy spent his life in the pastoral heartland. He was a carpenter and a farmer who at various times called Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska home. It's always helpful to know where you come from in order to know where you're going.
Elton John, particularly the 1970s albums; James Taylor; Crosby, Stills & Nash; Joni Mitchell; Claudia Schmidt; Great Lakes Myth Society; Buck Owens; Taylor Stanton; William Stanton; and Papa Baba Ganush and the Kabob All-Stars.
Wow! Where to begin?
The Simpsons, Seinfeld, Freaks and Geeks, The Office, Cheers, Taxi, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Wonder Years.
So many books, too little space. Anything by Mark Twain, Willie Morris, Pete Hamill, Elmore Leonard, or David Sedaris. Philip Roth's "American Pastoral." Richard Ford's "Independence Day." Plus, many memoirs: Mary Karr's "The Liar's Club," Rick Bragg's "All Over But the Shouting," Tobias Wolff's "This Boy's Life," Lucy Grealy's "Autobiography of a Face," Andre Dubus's "Meditations from a Moveable Chair," Russell Baker's "Growing Up," James McBride's "The Color of Water," Augusten Burroughs's "Running With Scissors," Michael Perry's "Truck," and Joan Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking." Related to baseball: Larry Ritter's "The Glory of Their Times," Robert Creamer's "The Babe," Jonathan Eig's "Luckiest Man," W.P. Kinsella's "Shoeless Joe," and Leigh Montville's "The Big Bam."
My dad, Joe Stanton, and Al Kaline.