The Associated Press

CHICAGO - The biggest comeback yet by the irrepressible Florida Marlins began and ended with hits by Juan Pierre.

Sandwiched between was the most remarkable rally in Florida's serendipitous season, and one of the biggest collapses in the Cubs' humble history.

The Marlins got three other hits in the eighth inning, three walks, an error, a wild pitch, a sacrifice fly and a helping hand from an overzealous fan.

Florida took advantage, scoring eight runs Tuesday night to beat Chicago 8-3 and force a decisive Game 7 Wednesday against the stunned Cubs in the NL championship series.

Trailing 3-0 against Cubs ace Mark Prior, the resilient Marlins rallied faster than you can say Tinker to Evers to Chance.

"It's going to take us the rest of the night to figure out what happened in the eighth," said Florida's Jeff Conine, who drove in the tiebreaking run.

Chicago was five outs from the World Series when Pierre doubled with one out. Then came the play that might haunt the Cubs for decades.

Luis Castillo worked the count to 3-2 and slapped a foul fly down the left-field line. Moises Alou ran to the wall and leaped for the ball, but a souvenir-seeking fan in a Cubs cap in the first row deflected it away.

"The ball was in the stands," Marlins manager Jack McKeon said. "When the ball is in the stands, the fans have a right to catch it."

Alou slammed his glove in anger, glared at the fan and stomped back to his position, perhaps sensing what was to come. The next pitch by Prior was wild, allowing Castillo to reach on a walk as Pierre went to third.

Ivan Rodriguez singled on an 0-2 pitch to drive in Florida's first run.

"I've never been in an inning like that," he said. "Once we got runners in scoring position, it became a completely different game."

Next, shortstop Alex Gonzalez dropped Miguel Cabrera's two-hopper for an error to load the bases. That break was the Marlins' breakthrough.

Derrek Lee hit a two-run double on the next pitch to tie the score. After reaching second base, he threw a roundhouse punch of satisfaction because it was just his fourth hit in 26 at-bats in the series.

That was all for Prior, who deserved better. Kyle Farnsworth came on, and Conine's sacrifice fly - sandwiched between two intentional walks - put the Marlins ahead.

Mike Mordecai, who entered in a double switch in the seventh, cleared the bases with a double off the base off the wall in left-center.

Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown pitched for the Cubs' last World Series championship team in 1908, but the name will no longer be so fondly remembered in Chicago.

Pierre followed with his second hit of the inning, an RBI single off Mike Remlinger to drive in Florida's eighth run. Because of Gonzalez's misplay, five runs were unearned.

Solid Marlins pitching did the rest. Carl Pavano kept them in the game by allowing just two runs in 5 2-3 innings. Chad Fox and Ugueth Urbina retired the final seven Cubs batters.

Accustomed to rallying from behind all year during an improbable run to the NLCS, the Marlins now need one more win to become only the fourth team to overcome a 3-1 deficit in an LCS.

"We're ready to win a championship," Rodriguez said.

The Marlins won Game 5 thanks to a two-hit shutout by Josh Beckett, and they'll pitch left-hander Mark Redman on Wednesday against Kerry Wood, trying to deny the Cubs their first World Series berth since 1945.

"We were supposed to just fall over and play dead," McKeon said. "We came in to make it a seven-game series, and thank God we're going to do that."

For seven innings, it looked as if Florida would fail to capitalize on any bad Cubs karma. The Marlins had at least one baserunner in each of the first five innings, but Prior escaped damage and got stronger, retiring eight in a row.

But the Marlins overcame a 19-29 start this season to win a tight wild-card race. They came from behind in all three division series victories. They erased a 4-0 deficit to beat the Cubs in Game 1.

And in the eighth inning, they rallied again.

"This is the way we've won a lot of our games," Pavano said. "Nothing affects this team's heart and character."