The following is a transcript of Roy Firestone's recent interview with Stamford Zoots Manager and GM Paul Marazita. Firestone caught up with Marazita after the Zoots stirring 4 games to 2 victory over the Los Altos Undertakers in the Ozzie League Championship Series. RF: Paul, welcome to Up Close. PM: Thanks Roy, it is a pleasure to be here. RF: Tell me a little bit about your childhood -- where does all this competitiveness come from. PM: No offense Roy, but can we cut to the chase? I am about to lock myself in a room for a week preparing for this next series against the finest offense in BDBL history and this touchy-feely, psycho-babble is not exactly my cup of tea. RF: Ummm....uhhhh....sure Paul. Why don't we talk about this past series against Los Altos. What was the difference in the series? PM: Pretty simple really. My pitchers pitched and my hitters did just enough to scrape by. 23 runs in a 6 game series is hardly dominating, but it got the job done and that is what this game is all about. RF: Anyone on the staff stand out? PM: Well, Smoltz was really fantastic in both games he pitched despite getting only one W. Johnson was virtually unhittable in Game 2. Game 5 was not exactly on that same level, but that was probably because he was pretty tired. Los Altos' offense scared me enough to keep Unit in Game 2 one extra inning. That ran his pitch count up to 117 -- a bit more than I would have liked. Its a lot to ask to bring him back on 3 days rest after such an outing. He gave me just about 5 gutsy innings the second time around but he was a shell of his former self. Then there was Brownie. I really did not like the match-ups with Brown entering the series. With Lofton, Walker and Floyd in particular, Los Altos posed a serious challenge for him. I dropped him to the 3rd spot in the rotation. He got smacked around pretty hard in Game 3, but his effort in Game 6 was fantastic. He gave me 5.2 superb (scoreless) innings -- exactly what I needed. RF: What about that Los Altos offense? What happened? PM: Well, a combination of things I think. First, I think my pitchers did an outstanding job. Second, I danced around a lot to get the match-ups that I felt favored my guys. Third, well...shit happens. RF: I thought your second point was interesting -- you say you "danced around" -- are you referring to your NINE intentional walks in the series? PM: Yes, that was a big part of it. I simply decided that Larry Walker and Albert Belle were not going to hurt me if I could possibly help it. It was a risky strategy putting that many guys on base, but I usually did it with 2 outs and the match-ups I got out of it were usually MUCH more to my liking. Will it work every time? No way. Did it work in this series? Absolutely. RF: What about Jeff Paulson? PM: Without a doubt, Jeff is one of the best managers that I face each year. This series was no exception. He pulled every rabbit out of every hat and made every move he should have made -- it just did not work out for him. I don't know if managing really makes any difference in the long run -- I mean the players have to produce -- but it is always fun matching wits with Jeff. RF: You also mentioned getting "just enough" offense. Are you ever going to put together a team where you don't have to scrape for runs? PM: The million dollar question. Roy, there are two answers to your question. First, this is a game of economics. By carrying two, $10M pitchers, you logically don't have as much to spend elsewhere...including your offense. Second, going into this season, the black and white numbers suggested a MUCH better performance from my offense. Vizquel, Palmeiro, Ordonez, Alfonzo etc...not to mention my platoon guys who bring some pretty rich numbers against either lefties or righties as the case may be. To be honest, I expected more. For every Marty Cordova, who performed above expectations, there are at least two guys who simply didn't cut the muster. Ordonez and Alfonzo are just the two most glaring examples -- and these are guys who are cornerstones of this franchise. Add in my pitcher-friendly ballpark and you have some pretty bad numbers. Trust me...I am no big fan of close games. I wish I could blow teams out like the Chicago Black Sox. It just has not been in the cards thus far. RF: Which brings me to the real million dollar question -- the Black Sox. How in heck do you compete with this offensive juggernaut. PM: Roy, I have gone on the record as saying (with no offense to the Undertakers, Mimes, Haymakers etc.) that Chicago has THE most dominating offense I have seen in the BDBL since its inception. There are few if any weaknesses. Bottom line is that this is an uphill battle. My starting pitching must give me 6-7 solid innings per start. At that point, I will play the match-up game and try to put each of my relievers in a position where they can succeed. They will surely fail on occasion, but I think those guys know that I won't ask them to do anything they are not capable of doing. RF: Finally Paul, what about next year? PM: Well, needless to say I have been a little busy in the playoffs to give too much thought to next year. However, my staff has been crunching some numbers and we should be in pretty decent shape. The injury to Gil Meche really hurt. With only 85 innings pitched this year we will have to find the right spots for him. The numbers are very good, but he is not going to be the 170 IP guy we were hoping for at the all-star break. Bungy Kim also pulled a bit of an el-foldo down the stretch, but his overall numbers were still excellent. Obviously, we have the big two starters -- Brownie and the Unit. I expect Johnson will be a little worse than this year, but hopefully Brownie will pick up any difference. The secret will be finding some innings to pair with Meche and picking up a halfway decent fourth starter. RF: How about offensively? PM: Well, that is always the million dollar question. I am thin in the OF -- except for Magglio, no one has really stepped up the way I wanted. The IF is pretty much set with Palmeiro at 1B, Alfonzo at 2B, Vizquel at SS and a Lowell/Koskie platoon at 3B. I have Ausmus behind the plate. I predict another year of scratching for runs to support the big two...and shooting to take 1 of the other 2 games in each 4-game series. RF: Any news on the trade front? PM: Not a damn thing Roy. Most of my staff is focused solely on the playoffs -- between advance scouting, number crunching etc...it doesn't leave much time for trade talk. I expect to get in the game immediately after the World Series though. RF: Anything else? PM: No, not really. Just looking forward to an interesting WS. Pitching vs. hitting -- its the kind of match-up the stat-heads dream of. Will it answer the age old question? Who knows. I do know it will be damn interesting to watch.