Bon Voyage, Eli

The early days of this week brought the news that a New York sports icon had attained immortality through enshrinement into his sport's Hall of Fame.   

Today, another New York sports icon announces his retirement.  I do not pretend to know whether at some point down the road he shall attain immortality in his sport through enshrinement into its Hall of Fame.  No shortage exists, apparently, of those who possess an opinion on that particular topic.  

Whether the final movement of his NFL life is from the football field in East Rutherford, New Jersey to the Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio or not, Eli Manning has always struck me from afar as a man who went about his business in a way that shall allow him to look at his career through the sometimes harsh light of self-examination and say, truthfully, he never gave less than his best effort, even when the game's outcome was unfavorable.  Does that make him a Hall of Fame player?  Maybe, maybe not.  

It makes him a person who showed up for work every day and, whether he felt 100% or something decidedly less so, earned the money he was being paid by working hard and by doing his job as well as he could.  If at day's end that is "all" he is, then so be it.  We live in a world pockmarked by frauds and dilettantes, who go about their day-to-day scheming their way into getting more than they deserve.  

There shall hopefully always be a place in this world for a person like Eli Manning.  Whether there is a place for him in the Hall-of-Fame is at best a secondary consideration.     

-AK