AUBURN — They cheered. They applauded. Lisa Pepin of Greene thanked God.

“I’m so happy,” she said. “I’m fighting back tears.”

When the Red Sox recorded their final out late Wednesday — earning their third World Series championship in 10 years — Pepin and the crowd at Legends Sports Bar and Grill in Auburn gathered around the bar and raised a glass.

“That was awesome,” she said.

It was a relief after an October of close pitches and oddball, game-ending outs.

Lifelong Red Sox fans, including Christopher Frazier, hoped Wednesday night for a World Series win, but they counted on nothing.

“They’ll do all right,” he said, sitting beneath a big screen. “(But) I don’t think it’s going to be a walk in the park.”

The season and series had been tougher than the Sox’s last two World Series. There were two losses, two more than in 2004, when the Red Sox swept the St. Louis Cardinals, or in 2007, when the Red Sox swept the Colorado Rockies.

“I just think the Red Sox are too hungry to lose,” Frazier said.

This time, as the Sox faced pitchers who often threw 95 mph or faster, they showed strength tempered by the bombing at the Boston Marathon and the responsibility to lift a city, he said.

“It’s not all about the money for these guys,” Frazer said. “They win as a team, or they lose as a team.”

It was the same throughout the Auburn sports bar Wednesday night.

When pitcher John Lackey stood on the mound, owner Dan Small turned off the jukebox and replaced music with the game’s play by play.

Folks nursed beers in glasses with Sox logos. In the second inning, when St. Louis designated hitter Allen Craig bounced a ball off the left field wall for a single, they gave an “aww.” The sound turned to a pained groan in the bottom of the inning, when Cardinals pitcher Michael Wacha earned his third out by getting Sox basher Mike Napoli to miss with players on first and second base.

It turned to cheers and applause in the third, when Shane Victorino hit a triple with the bases loaded, batting in three runs.

“Yeah!” shouted Pepin. “Awesome”

She sipped a beer and predicted history.

“We’re going to win,” she said. “It’s going to happen.”

All season, she’d been watching the team. She became a pitch-by-pitch fan this postseason, watching every game as the Sox defeated the Tampa Bay Rays for the division title and the Detroit Tigers for the pennant.

“I have a chalkboard at home,” she said. “I keep track.”

In front of her TV at home, she yelled and screamed, she said

On Wednesday night, she wished she’d been in Boston for the Sox’ first home World Series clincher since 1918.

“I’ll remember where I was. This is history,” she said. “If I had the money, I would be there in a heartbeat,” she said.

Dan Johnson of Auburn sat behind the bar wearing his Sox ball cap and predicted a win, too.

None can be taken for granted, he warned.

“I was 50 before I saw my first World Series,” he said, referring to 2004’s championship. It was the first in 86 years.

Young Red Sox fans don’t know that pain, he said.

He didn’t plan a celebration. He figured he’d refocus his attention this weekend on football and the Patriots, win or lose.

“I’ll be a much happier football fan if the Red Sox win,” he said.

dhartill@sunjournal.com

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