Baker made a major impact with the Cubs in 2003, his first season as manager for the ball club. With the help of an impressive pitching staff and big gun batters such as Sammy Sosa and Moisés Alou, the Cubs were able to claim their first division title in 14 years. However, the Cubs’ hopes for winning a World Series title were cut short during the 2003 National League Championship Series against the Florida Marlins, which included the infamous Steve Bartman Incident in Game 6 when the Cubs were up 3-0 and five outs from their first World Series appearance in almost 60 years. The Bartman incident proved to be a media distraction, but in fact it was critical execution failures by Cubs' players, such as a ball-four wild pitch, a fielding error on a would-be inning-ending double play, and a bad throw from the outfield after a single, which permitted the Marlins to score 8 runs in that eighth inning, to win the game 8-3. The Marlins would go on to win Game 7, and the 2003 World Series.