BOSTON (AP) – His Boston Red Sox had left the scene hours earlier, and all remnants of the previous night’s celebration were nearly gone, thanks to sidewalk power-washers and garbage collectors.

But Steve Duhamel showed up Friday at Fenway Park anyway, basking in the win and talking about why this could finally be the year.

These Red Sox never die, he said, noting a slew of comeback wins. The team hits like crazy.

The new ownership has an instinct for picking up the right players, he added.

So, Duhamel was asked, all that stuff about the team’s disappointing playoff history, the supposed “Curse of the Bambino,” that’s irrelevant nonsense, isn’t it?

“No,” said Duhamel, 37, of Warwick, R.I. “Not at all. … Everybody thinks about the curse and it’s in the back of everybody’s mind.”

Duhamel’s combination of excitement and anxiety was shared by other fans who gravitated to Fenway on Friday. They couldn’t quite shake worries that the team’s current success was just a setup for a repeat of past disappointments.

Paul O’Connor, a South Boston native who lives in San Francisco, was smiling about the Red Sox wildcard-clinching Thursday win over Baltimore, even as he expressed a fatalistic outlook.

“What’s going to happen here?” he asked, rhetorically. “How are we going to blow this?” But Mike Latino, 46, of Newton, would have no talk of a curse.

“I think it’s garbage,” he said as he stood outside a souvenir shop in a new shirt commemorating the wildcard berth.

The past is irrelevant, said Dave Hurley, an NStar employee working on Lansdowne Street Friday. The team’s new management has re-energized the team with fan friendly ideas such as the Green Monster seats, and by bringing in hard-nosed players fans can relate to, such as first baseman Kevin Millar, second baseman Todd Walker and third baseman Bill Mueller.

“I don’t even think about the past,” said Hurley, 39 of Braintree. “When they lost before, that’s just baseball. That’s the way it goes. Every year is a new year and this is a good team.”

The Red Sox last made the playoffs in 1999. Since then, the team was sold to an ownership group headed by John Henry that has put a friendlier face on Fenway, mingling with fans, building the popular Green Monster seats and bringing in revenue with new events at the old ballpark, such this summer’s Bruce Springsteen shows.

Their general manager, Theo Epstein, has shown a knack for picking up undervalued players and his youth (he’s 29) underlines the team’s emphasis on the future.

But the Red Sox last won the World Series in 1918, though they came agonizingly close in 1946, 1975 and 1986. When the team starts playing well, talk of the 85-year championship drought heats up, along with the supposed curse visited on the Red Sox after they sold Babe Ruth, the Bambino, to the Yankees after the 1919 season.

Matt O’Hara, a 21-year-old Boston University senior, said he has a simple explanation for why the Red Sox haven’t won in so long: they’ve never had enough good pitching.

He doesn’t believe in any curse, but he admits that it might be easier for younger fans to say that.

“We definitely don’t have memories of the Red Sox in, like, ’45 blowing it, or whatever the year is,” O’Hara said. “It’s kind of tough for people who’ve been in the gutters for 75 years to give up the past.”

Wendy Tilyou, 33, of Warwick, R.I., said she thinks the curse is just a crutch for disappointed fans.

“It gives them an excuse if they don’t go far, or they don’t make it,” she said. “They say, ‘Oh, it wasn’t the players, it wasn’t the players. It’s the curse.’ It’s kind of like a cop out.”

Hurley said he realizes that if the Red Sox lose in the playoffs the curse will be blamed, no matter what the real reason is. But he has advice for Sox fans fretting about the past as they look to the coming playoff series with the Oakland A’s.

“Look forward to the next game, that’s it, and enjoy the game,” he said. “Why even look past the next series? Just enjoy every game.”

AP-ES-09-26-03 1647EDT