Compliments of Salon. Note the date in the dateline.
Oct. 21, 2104 | REPUBLIC OF THE BRONX -- Will this be the year the long-suffering fans of the Bronx Yankees finally celebrate a World Series championship? Or will this season end as the last 103 have, with disappointment in Monument Valley? Will the Curse of the Soriano once again take its toll?
The Yankees are set to begin their North American League Divisional Sub-Sectional Playoff series against the Rangers tonight at Torre Field (11:59 p.m., The Network), and for the first time in a long while, the surging Yankees are favored over their fierce rivals from Texas. The Yanks defeated the Rangers in 13 of 19 games this season, and with the addition of Randy Johnson Award winner Reza Sirizi, the Yankees look unbeatable in a short 11-game series.
The Yankees swear to a man that they don't pay attention to the Curse. But as every baseball fan knows, it's been a long, long time since the Yankees won a World Series. The last time the Yanks won it all, the Bronx was part of New York City; Bill Clinton wasn't on the $2,000,000 bill but he was in the White House; and the White House wasn't even on the moon!
It was back in 2000 that the Yankees defeated the New York Mets (now the Brooklyn Hipsters), 4 games to 1, to win their last World Series. The Yanks got to the Series twice more in the next three years and appeared to be a contender for years to come ... but then came The Trade. The team's owner, George Steinbrenner -- a name forever accompanied, in the Bronx, by a ceremonial spitting on the ground -- traded second baseman Alfonso Soriano to the Texas Rangers for shortstop Alex Rodriguez.
more... ;-)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/10/21/soriano/