Eli Manning is a Breath of Fresh Air in Jeter’s City

For over 15 years Derek Jeter has been the sports symbol in this town. The Yankees shortstop benefitted from being in the right place/right time, as the Bombers won a World Series his first season in the big leagues. Jeter was young, playing for an up-and-coming team, and produced big moments on the big postseason stage. He joined the likes of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, and Mantle in the pantheon of New York sports. No one in the four major sports has challenged his throne, but that may change in just over 24 hours as Eli Manning could lead the Giants to their second Super Bowl in the last five years. In a lot of ways Manning is everything that Jeter pretends to be. He isn’t a great quote or dynamic, but I get the sense that Manning is exactly the same on camera as off- I don’t believe the same of Jeter. There is a certain charm to “Peyton’s little brother” that Jeter lost sometime around Y2K. For years, Jeter’s stoicism has been packaged as class. The Yan...