BOSTON (AP) – They were supposed to be “victory cupcakes,” decorated with a Boston Red Sox “B” and covered in red and blue sprinkles. Bill Anzivino ordered 500 Thursday to celebrate Boston’s upcoming trip to the World Series.

But things went awry. First, the bakery messed up the frosting. Then, the New York Yankees messed up Boston’s season with a 6-5 comeback that ended the Red Sox’s 85th straight season without a title.

On Friday, Anzivino, head of food services at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, was instead stuck handing out 500 mud-brown “Wait Until Next Year” cupcakes.

“Everyone’s down in the dumps, everyone’s exhausted, everyone’s miserable,” Anzivino said. “You’ve got to do something.”

Around New England, Red Sox fans were trying to stomach another wrenching big game loss, this time in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series against the rival Yankees.

Aaron Boone hit the game winning home run and instantly took his place on the list of villains who have stood in the way of a Red Sox victory.

Bucky Dent’s home run crushed the Sox hopes in 1978. Bill Buckner’s fielding error cost them Game 6 of the 1986 World Series against the New York Mets. Johnny Pesky gets blamed for holding the ball when a crucial run scored in the 1946 World Series against the Cardinals.

Friday morning, rabid Red Sox fans looking for a goat were heatedly debating manager Grady Little’s decision to stay with ace Pedro Martinez after he’d already thrown 100 pitches.

It all adds up to lots heartache – and not a single World Series championship since 1918.

Joe Flaherty, 62, of Boston, said he was on the phone commiserating with a fellow fan until 2:30 a.m. He’s followed the Sox for decades, and said their continued failings have pushed him toward an existentialist philosophy.

“The end of life will always be death. This team, to me reinforces that inevitability,” he said, speaking in Boston’s Downtown Crossing shopping district. “There will always be that last out and we will never be as happy as we could be.”

Richard Johnson, curator of The Sports Museum of New England in Boston, said he did laundry and packed boxes for hours after the game because he was so stunned.

The part of him that’s a Sox fan is still a kid. After a loss like Friday’s, Johnson said, “there’s no adult in the room that can explain it to you.”

Despite the long line of hard losses, Sox fans tend to be optimistic. Rob Sirica, 28, of Cromwell, Conn., said he already had a ticket to see Game 5 of the World Series in Miami, hoping the Florida Marlins would be hosting Boston that day. After the Sox loss, those plans were scrapped.

“The Yankees didn’t win, we lost the game,” he said. “That’s what I’m standing by. Flags should be half-mast today.”

Others have learned to prepare themselves for the worst. Linda Robinson, a hot dog vendor on the Boston Common who described herself as a lifelong Red Sox fan, said she went to bed when the Sox were winning 4-0, convinced she’d wake up to hear Boston had lost.

The Red Sox tend to fold under pressure, said Robinson, 40, of Everett. Plus, the team made the mistake of painting a World Series logo on the outfield grass at Fenway Park before they’d beaten New York.

“That was an omen,” she said.

Anthony Brown, 20, of Boston is too young to remember many of the past Red Sox failings. He said he’d always dismissed talk of the “Curse of the Bambino,” which has supposedly doomed Boston since they sold Babe Ruth, “The Bambino.”

Now, he said, “I’m starting to believe.”

Ray Arruda, a 32-year-old financial adviser in Providence, R.I., clutched a baseball and stewed over yet another big-time loss that he thought should have been a win.

But all hope was not lost for Arruda.

“I’m going to Sports Authority to get a Patriots jersey,” he said.

AP-ES-10-17-03 1535EDT