CHICAGO (Ticker) -- They wouldn't be the Chicago Cubs if it wasn't painful.
Rookie Miguel Cabrera homered and drove in four runs and Josh Beckett tossed four superb innings in relief as the Florida Marlins posted a 9-6 triumph over the Cubs and added another chapter to the history of baseball's lovable losers.
While Florida advanced to the World Series for the second time in seven years and became just the fourth team to erase a 3-1 League Championship Series deficit since the best-of-seven format was adopted in 1985, it did so in excruciating fashion for Cubs' fans.
Chicago led three games to one but still felt in command after Beckett threw a gem in Game Five. Headed home with aces Mark Prior and Kerry Wood slated to start the next two games, the Cubs loved their chances of advancing to the World Series for the first time since 1945.
Instead, a disastrous eight-run eighth inning - keyed by fan Steve Bartman interfering with a potential foulout - resulted in a decisive Game Seven. And if that was not bad enough, the Cubs saw Wood, unbeaten in three previous postseason starts, give up a three-run homer to Cabrera in the opening inning in this one.
But Chicago battled back, tying it in the second on a two-run homer by Wood. When former Marlin Moises Alou hit a two-run homer in the third to give the Cubs a 5-3 lead, the party was on at Wrigley Field.
True fans should have known better.
Ivan Rodriguez, the MVP of the series, began the comeback in the fifth inning, when the Marlins scored three times. They tacked on a run in the sixth and two more in the seventh.
As the energy drained out of venerable Wrigley Field, Beckett applied the finishing touch. Taking over for Mark Redman in the fifth, the 23-year-old righthander was dominant, allowing just a solo homer to Troy O'Leary in the seventh.
"There's no question that (Beckett) turned this series around when he stopped the Cubs," Florida manager Jack McKeon said. "They had a great deal of momentum going for them. He shut them out Sunday, and then he was so determined he wanted to pitch again. We were going to go three innings with him; he said he could go four."
"It was my bullpen day anyway," Beckett said, downplaying pitching on short rest. "It was my throw day. I probably threw a couple of extra pitches that I would have in my bullpen. But that's what we needed to do to win, and it worked out."
Ugueth Urbina allowed a leadoff walk in the ninth but struck out Randall Simon and Alex Gonzalez. When Urbina got Paul Bako to fly to long-time Marlin Jeff Conine in left field, it touched off a wild celebration around the mound and broke the hearts of Cubs' fans, who never have seen their team celebrate a postseason series win in the 89-year history of the ballpark.
"It's always painful to lose, especially at this point," Cubs manager Dusty Baker said. "But you've got to also be proud of our guys and the accomplishments this year and how far we came to get to this point in a short period of time."
"It is a tough cookie to swallow," Alou added. "After taking a 3-1 lead in Florida and needing just one more game ... things didn't work out for us."
Asked if he felt burdened by his team's losing history, Baker replied, "If it's a burden this year, it will be 59 (seasons without a pennant) next year, so I don't think that was a burden. Our guys played hard, they played real hard. And like I said, we were close and the Marlins took it from us."
Game One of the World Series is Saturday in New York or Boston. The Marlins became the fourth wild card representative in the last seven years to represent the National League in the Fall Classic.
"I think the Cubs were always America's favorite and now I think we're the darlings of the baseball world now, and I think we'll have all those people rooting for us because they're seeing an exciting team play," McKeon said. "We're going to have some fun, wherever we go."
"It's unbelievable to come into Wrigley Field with all the chips against us, nobody gave us a chance ... it is just a great feeling," Florida center fielder Juan Pierre added.
Florida broke on top in the first inning. Pierre tripled, Rodriguez walked one out later and Cabrera ripped a 1-2 pitch from Wood over the wall in left-center field for his third homer of the series.
But Redman could not hold the lead, allowing three runs in the second, an outburst capped by Wood's homer.
Alou's blast over the left field bleachers in the third had the ballpark rocking, and Wood settled down, holding the Marlins in check through four innings.
But the Cubs' ace walked two of the first three batters in the fifth and Rodriguez delivered an RBI double to get Florida within a run. Cabrera tied it with a groundout that scored Luis Castillo and Derrek Lee followed with an RBI single.
"He was still throwing the ball well," Baker said of Wood. "I mean, it hurt, the two walks that started that inning. He was throwing the ball well. What hurt was the fact that they got three or four two-out RBI hits."
Rodriguez had an NLCS-record 10 RBI in the series.
"I'm very happy," Rodriguez said. "I had a great series against the Cubs."
Beckett took over in the bottom of the fifth and retired the first eight batters he faced. After O'Leary homered in the seventh, Beckett got his final four batters.
Castillo made it 7-5 in the sixth with a single that scored Conine, and Gonzalez ripped a two-run double in the seventh.
Wood (2-1) lasted 5 2/3 innings, surrendering seven runs, seven hits and four walks. The seven runs were one more than he allowed in his previous three postseason starts combined.
"I let my teammates down, the organization down and the whole city of Chicago down," Wood said. "I choked. I choked, that's the bottom line, and that's all I got right now."
"I said coming home here, if they beat my two best, Wood and Prior, then they deserve to go (to the World Series). And that's what they did," Baker said. "They beat two of the best in the business. They beat my two best."
