BUTLER TWP — Six outs from history.

The Chicago Cubs were there 17 years ago, needing to retire the Florida Marlins in the eighth and ninth innings at Wrigley Field to win Game 6 of the National League Championship Series and advance to the franchise's first World Series since 1945.

Meridian resident and Butler graduate Matt Clement sat in the Chicago dugout that night — a Cubs starting pitcher with a vested interest.

“If we had won that series in seven games, I would have started Game 1 of the (2003) World Series in Yankee Stadium,” Clement, now 46, said.

As fate would have it, he was denied.

The Marlins scored eight runs in the eighth inning and won Game 6, 8-3. They took Game 7, 9-6, taking the lead for good with a three-run fifth inning.

“(Cubs pitcher) Kerry Wood hit a home run to tie that seventh game (in the second inning),” Clement recalled. “The place was so loud ... The ballpark was actually shaking. That was such a cool experience.”

The Marlins went on to defeat the Yankees in the World Series that year. The Cubs and Marlins have not met in the postseason since — until now.

And the Marlins did it to Chicago again, sweeping their best-of-three series last week at Wrigley Field as part of the revamped 2020 major league season.

There were 16 teams in the MLB playoffs when they began this year this year. There were eight in 2003.

“Personally, I love it,” Clement said of the expanded postseason field. “It's great for the fans of all these teams. There's something like 64 different combinations of what the World Series could be.

“For the top 20 percent of the teams, it's tough. The Dodgers could lose two games to (sub-.500) Milwaukee and be out of the playoffs. Losing two games in a baseball series is nothing. That can happen to any team at anytime.”

The Cubs' odds of getting to the World Series in 2003 were much better than with this year's format, of course.

Clement helped increase those odds.

He won Game 4 of the 2003 NLCS in Miami, defeating the Marlins 8-3 to put Chicago up three games to one. Clement worked 7 2/3 innings, throwing 98 pitches and allowing the three runs.

Aramis Ramirez hit two home runs in that game.

The day before that game, the Clement family celebrated the first birthday of their son, Mattix, at their hotel in Fort Lauderdale.

“Definitely my best outing in postseason and one of my top three or four memories in baseball,” he said. “We had Carlos Zambrano, Mark Prior and Kerry Wood lined up to pitch.

“I loved our chances.”

But Josh Beckett — the eventual NLCS and World Series MVP — tossed a two-hitter and struck out 11 in the Marlins' 4-0 win in Game 5 in Miami.

Game 6, of course, was the infamous Steve Bartman game. Prior took a 3-0 lead into that ill-fated eighth inning. That was the frame in which Cubs left fielder Moises Alou was ready to make a catch of a fly ball down the left field line when Bartman reached out of the stands in an attempt to snare the ball.

His contact with the baseball prevented Alou from catching it. The Marlins' eight-run inning erupted.

“We still had the lead at the time, so we didn't think much of it,” Clement admitted. “Here was a kid with his headset on, probably listening to Ron Santo and the Cubs broadcast, just trying to get a foul ball.

“When things played out the way it did, I remember thinking, 'that guy is in trouble.' He had to be escorted out. It wasn't his fault. It's just that passion, the anticipation of the Cubs getting to the World Series ... it was exploding. It was just an extraordinary circumstance.”

The Marlins got to Wood in Game 7 and the hearts of Cubs fans were broken.

Clement still has fond memories of his time therre.

“I root for the Cubs today because of their fans,” he said. “They are so into the team. It was a blast playing there.”