Back in the late 20th century — err, actually, the majority of those 100 years — Red Sox fans (pre-obnoxious bandwagon) stuck to the “There’s Always Next Year” feel-good phrase amidst Dan Shaughnessy’s “Curse of the Bambino.”

Well, so far in the 21st century, and the Yankees are 0-fer in World Series championships, prompting Young ‘Brenner to embrace the aforementioned loser motto.

“We’re going to win it next year. If we need to add a top veteran pitcher, we’ll do that. We’ll do whatever we need to do. Next year we’ll be extremely dangerous.” — Hank Steinbrenner told the NY Post today.

Yes, hearing Yanks brass sputter the Sox former words of frustration seems a bit odd. However, it’s nothing compared to how much parody has injected (terrible word choice) Major League Baseball these days:

The $43,820,598 first-place Tampa Bay Rays — eight games ahead of the third-placed Yankees — have the 29th highest (aka second-lowest) team salary in baseball.

Steinbrenner continued on saying that, “they’re not supermen.”

But for $209,081,579, wouldn’t you think they could be supermen? Or at the very least, a Wild Card team? Sure, the Yankees are playing in the NBA Western Conference-equivalent division (competitive wise), compared to the pathetic NL West race; and may have a few bruises along the way.

However, I guess that large sum of cash gets a GM looking towards next season these days.