In the business of sportswriting, nothing carries less redeeming social value than a prediction. I printed one, anyway, on Nov. 13, 2003, and it was the subject of some ridicule from longtime colleagues and friends.

I authored a column around the notion that Alex Rodriguez was destined to end up with the Yankees. "Put it in the books," I wrote. "Theirs will be a marriage of necessity over convenience, a union colored by a player's desperate bid for his first ring and an owner's obsessive bid for his seventh."

The piece in The Journal News of New York inspired a roundtable segment on Madison Square Garden TV, featuring a couple of nationally renowned baseball columnists (Joel Sherman and Jack Curry) swinging heavy lumber at the pinata disguised as me.

On one level, the prediction made little sense. The Yankees would never ask Derek Jeter to vacate the shortstop position, A-Rod was nobody's idea of a second baseman, third baseman Aaron Boone had just delivered one of the most dramatic home runs in franchise history, and Joe Torre had won four championships with a selfless approach that Rodriguez didn't exactly personify.

On another level, A-Rod clearly wanted to leave Texas, the hated Red Sox were reportedly interested in acquiring him, and the spend-crazy Yanks hadn't won it all in three long years.

Two months later, there was Jeter at the news conference to introduce A-Rod as his teammate. Even though Rodriguez had agreed to change positions, Jeter looked as if someone had stolen his bike, his supermodel girlfriend, or both.

Sure, a strange set of circumstances was needed to put the deal in place. The Rodriguez-to-Boston trade had to unravel in a hard-to-believe way, Boone had to wreck his knee in a pickup basketball game, and one of the greatest shortstops of all time had to agree to move to third.

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For Rodriguez, the fit just isn't right. The dynamic is all out of whack.

The man drove the Yanks to the playoffs last year, and he has put up megastar regular-season numbers since his arrival. A-Rod even had a hell of a postseason run going for himself in 2004, when he hit .421 against the Twins in the Division Series and saved the Yanks from an 0-2 deficit with a 12th-inning double. In fact, Rodriguez would've stood among the heroes of a League Championship Series sweep of Boston had Mariano Rivera put away Game 4.

Rivera failed, the Red Sox managed their own deferred sweep, Rodriguez was widely mocked for slapping at Bronson Arroyo's glove on a putout, and the rest is history.

In the 2005 Division Series loss to the Angels, A-Rod hit .133 and then announced he had "played like a dog." In the 2006 Division Series loss to the Tigers, A-Rod hit .071 and compelled Torre to bat him eighth in the order. In last year's Division Series loss to the Indians, A-Rod managed a .267 batting average and his first postseason RBI since the calamitous Boston series of '04.

In between, Rodriguez hardened his status as the game's leading drama queen. The World Baseball Classic waffling, the World Series opt-out, the poker clubs, Madonna and so much more.

A-Rod carries too much baggage to the plate in critical, must-hit situations, and the process is wearing out a fan base still hopelessly in love with the Jeter-led team that built a dynasty around pitching, chemistry, clutch hitting and a commitment to treating little things as big things.

Nobody doubts A-Rod's otherworldly talent, but everybody questions whether he'll ever get it. At the All-Star Game in July, another goodbye event for Yankee Stadium, Jeter understood it was important to stay for all 15 innings, while Rodriguez had checked out hours earlier.

So amazingly enough, Yankee fans talk about being "stuck" with A-Rod for another nine years, all the way through 2017, despite the fact he might finish his career with more than 800 homers and 4,000 hits.

"We can win three World Series," Rodriguez said after winning the 2005 American League MVP award, "(and) with me it's never going to be over. My benchmark is so high that no matter what I do, it's never going to be enough."

That's what happens when you sign two contracts worth more than half a billion dollars combined. Fair or not, Yankees fans hold A-Rod largely responsible for the postseason failures of the last five years. They care far more about Jeter's one World Series MVP award than they do about A-Rod's two Yankee regular-season MVP awards.

A new building isn't likely to bring a new day in the relationship between megastar and crowd, either. Figure two more title-free seasons across the street will convince the Steinbrenners to do for another team what Texas owner Tom Hicks once did for them.

They'll need to persuade Rodriguez to waive his veto power for the good of all concerned, and they'll need to convince themselves that eating tens upon tens of millions of dollars — and trading away the home-run record to boot — makes sound business sense.

If the Yankees assume enough of the contract's burden, maybe they'll even persuade a team to trade them a worthy successor to Jeter at short.

Right now, this much is clear: Rodriguez isn't making it through 2017, not like this, not if the fans have anything to say about it.

He arrived in the Bronx about eight years too late. So sooner rather than later, A-Rod will get his escape from New York.

Only this time the Yankees will opt out on him.