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Tom Stanton

Tom Stanton, Baseball Author

About Me

I'm the author of four baseball books:* my latest, "Ty and The Babe," a story about the wicked rivalry and surprising friendship between Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth;* the Tiger Stadium memoir "The Final Season," winner of the Casey Award;* "The Road to Cooperstown," a true father-son story about a long-delayed trip to the National Baseball Hall of Fame;* and "Hank Aaron and the Home Run That Changed America."I'm also a longtime Detroit-area journalist, a lifelong Detroit Tigers fan, and a happily married father of three college-age sons.I hope you will check out my website, www.tomstanton.com, and register for my email newsletter (which includes trivia quizzes and prizes) by dropping me a line at [email protected]

My Interests

Baseball, writing, history, music, and movies.

I'd like to meet:

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.

Music:

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.

Movies:

Wow! Where to begin?

Television:

The Simpsons, Seinfeld, Freaks and Geeks, The Office, Cheers, Taxi, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Wonder Years.

Books:

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."

Heroes:

My dad, Joe Stanton, and Al Kaline.

My Blog

One of my journalistic heroes and mentors, Neal Shine, died yesterday.

A former columnist, editor and publisher of the Detroit Free Press, Shine molded generations of young writers -- in the newsroom and in the classroom. He was, to paraphrase one of his friends, the pop...
Posted by Tom Stanton on Wed, 04 Apr 2007 02:11:00 PST