I’ve done a couple of projects with a paint-stripper
called Kutzit.You definitely need to wear gloves for
this (as for any chemical paint-stripper, I expect)
but I’ve seen it go through four layers of paint at
once without tearing up the wood. It’s also provided
at any home-improvement store, so you shouldn’t have
any trouble finding it.

K

Dear K,

Thanks for the tip — other paint removal suggestions are below, and the ones I got more than once are asterisked.

Circa products — Circa 1850, 1880, 1889, et cetera*
Zip Strip
Lay ammonia-soaked rag on surface for 20 minutes; scrape softened paint with steel wool; repeat (with windows wiiiiide open, checking as you go to see how far down you’re getting)
CitriStrip*
Jasco Premium Paint & Epoxy Remover*
3M Safest Stripper*
Take precautions re: airborne lead-paint dust*
Bix sprayable stripper
QRB
Ready Strip
Get them dipped to remove the paint*
Liquid Sandpaper
Vodka
Klean-Strip
Go down to Home Depot/call a professional painter and ask
No sandpaper — fine-gauge steel wool only
A Dremel tool
Peel-Away products, particularly Peel-Away 7*
3M stripping sandpapers
Heat-gun it until the paint bubbles, then use a tool to lever it off*

Most respondents mentioned wearing a face mask and heavy-duty gloves, and I concur.

Sars,

I’ve recently gotten into minor-league baseball.I’m big-time obsessed with my local Class A team, and my summer vacation plans revolved around traveling to see my local team play away games against all the other teams in our league.

But I have a problem — I didn’t grow up as a baseball fan, so there are things I just don’t understand.My husband showed me how to read box scores, and I’m slowly learning the rules of the game and I’m studying strategy.But I keep encountering things I just can’t figure out.Right now, I can’t for the life of me understand the 25- and 40-man rosters in the majors, nor can I figure out how the minor-league players fit into them.And I’m utterly confused by the September 1 shift to a 40-man active roster. I’ve read the relevant Wikipedia entries on the subject, and I just can’t figure it out.What’s the deal, Sars?How do the rosters work?And how can I find answers on my own to similar questions in the future?

Sincerely,
Not a Baseball Annie, Just a Fan

P.S.I know that it’s unlikely that any of the players on my fav class A team will go directly to the majors.I just want to understand how this process works.There is also a AAA team not too far away from me…

Dear Annie,

I’m not really sure how it works except in an impressionistic sense — in other words, I don’t know the history or the official rules of roster selection — but the general idea is that, as the season winds down, the major league clubs pad out their rosters.The winning clubs want to make sure they have enough reserves going into the postseason (and to rest the marquee players — by September, everyone’s out of gas), while the losing clubs want to take a look at the talent in the system and make plans for next year.Triple-A guys come up for the proverbial “cup of coffee,” get some at-bats, and try to make an impression; the managers and coaches take note of who’s available and do a little restructuring.

The disabled/injured reserve lists are also involved in this process somehow, but I don’t know the nuts and bolts.I did manage to find this “Baseball 201” explanation, but it…doesn’t really explain anything.

I think that, basically, the 40-man roster is always in effect, but from the start of the season to August 31, only 25 of those players are travelling with the club/eligible to play.This site offers a history/overview of changing roster sizes which might clarify things somewhat.

I wouldn’t say that this is something you have to understand in order to enjoy the game fully.You know it happens, you know when it happens, and you have a vague idea of why — I think that’s really all you need.

Hi Sars!

So, I have baseball questions. DH and I have gone to several of the local
minor-league games this summer, and had a great time. However, I didn’t grow
up as a baseball fan — my parents are confused by sports in general — and
I’m the kind of person who needs to fully understand what it is that I’m
enjoying; I didn’t like baseball growing up because it seemed like a bunch
of grown men trying to hit an incredibly small object and missing. A lot.
I…didn’t get it.

Like I said, though, I’ve enjoyed the games that we went
to, and now I want to know more. So, questions:

1. What’s a good, general baseball book that will give me some background
(including rules!), but not horribly overwhelm me?

2. What’s a good book, or other resource, that will introduce me to a fair
amount of baseball…stories? Legends? Myths? I’d like to know more about
the history of the game.

3. How do I go about picking a team to root for? Only stipulations: no
Astros, no Yankees (sorry!), and preferably not a team that will have
everyone saying, “Oh, you only like them because they’re hot right now,” or
whatever. DH is a Cardinals fan, and I’m not averse to them, I just don’t
want to hop on the bandwagon just because.

I’m open to multiple suggestions — I’m a big reader, and DH is a big
baseball fan, so it’s not like having more baseball books in the house would
be a bad thing.

Thanks!
Minor-Leaguer

Dear Minor,

1. I’d start with The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary.I don’t know if it has the rules laid out all together, but it does cover stuff like the infield-fly rule.I know for a fact that the Baseball Encyclopedia has a complete list of the rules, including changes made over the years, but that thing is a beast, so for rules and stuff, you might be better off just Googling “MLB rules of play” or something similar.

I can’t really recommend a “general” baseball book because that’s not how I learned about the sport.The best way to get friendly with baseball is to watch the local team(s) every day, day in and day out, all season long.Read the box scores, read the game summaries, read the bloggers who cover your team; read Sports Illustrated‘s baseball coverage.If you don’t understand a term, or a reference, you have the internet, which I did not when I was steeping myself in the game in the mid-eighties — I had to ask my dad why the Star-Ledger columnists kept invoking Gaylord Perry and Burleigh Grimes to talk about Mike Scott.You can Google it and get the context in two minutes.

I would read a bunch of baseball books vs. trying to find one general one that probably won’t give you as good a flavor anyway.Read on…

2. Bill James’s Historical Baseball Abstract is excellent for this.The first portion of the book is also a good historical overview of the game’s progress over the decades — what it was like, major changes, the best players of the time, and so on.It is a brick, and not cheap, but it’s invaluable for all kinds of fans, and you can skip the numbers stuff.I’d also recommend his This Time Let’s Not Eat The Bones, which you’ll have to look for on eBay or at a secondhand bookseller.

I got a lot out of my father’s Fireside Baseball series, which covers the first half of the twentieth century.These books aren’t in print anymore, and it can be slow going at times, because the names of some of these players haven’t crossed anyone’s lips in a hundred years, but man, I loved them.

For a more contemporary take, try Rogers Angell and Kahn; Thomas Boswell; Creamer’s Babe Ruth biography; Red Barber; Doris Kearns Goodwin on the Dodgers of the ’50s; and Ken Burns’s Baseball — the miniseries, not the book.

Just read everything you can find.It’s a game of stories; learn as many as you can.

3. It should be one that plays near you so you can follow it, I think.Again, the internet helps you here; I would have had a hard time following the Giants as a kid because I just had no real way to do it on a daily basis.You don’t have that problem, but getting into conversations about the team with the locals is a valuable tool also, and if you live in Denver, it might be harder to talk about the Braves than about the Rockies.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: you can’t follow a team solely because you want it to win.I mean, you can — people do, all over the country — but all those people who jumped on the Red Sox bandwagon have some pretty nasty splinters right now.I haven’t had this issue much, of late, as a Yankee fan, but into every life a little Irabu or Womack must fall, and you should follow whatever team because it’s yours to follow, not because it’s winning a lot.

With that said, the Cubs are maybe not the best choice.

[10/4/06]

Share!