PARTING IS SUCH SWEET SORROW

A look at N.Y. franchises’ most bitter divorces

Eli Manning’s pending divorce with the Giants hasn’t gotten ugly. Yet. Thus far, the Manning saga has just been heartbreaking for the quarterback, emotional for a fan base on the verge of revolt, and uncomfortable and awkward, which is typically the case when an iconic player reaches the end of the line.

Breaking up is hard to do, especially when you’ve shared as many good times as Eli and the Giants have. They’ve been going steady for 13 years, 210 games and two Super Bowls, so this inevitable breakup will be difficult. It already has been hard to watch.

The New York sports landscape is littered with the carcasses of plenty of other athletic careers whose end was unpleasant. The clueless and heartless manner in which Ben McAdoo clumsily executed a franchise directional shift created a humiliating end for Manning. His embarrassing cameo running the scout team this week, topping two years of digs by the bumbling coach, with no intervention from ownership, has set the stage for a another potentially ugly local sports divorce.

Perhaps when Manning v. Giants is done, it will rank somewhere on this list of the very worst breakups in New York sports:

The end of the Manning era is off to a rocky start, but it couldn’t possibly reach the team’s nasty split with Tiki Barber.

Barber, a homegrown Giants lifer, retired after a Pro Bowl season in 2007. Barber was a distraction his final season, he was critical of coach Tom Coughlin, clashed with Michael Strahan, and after he left the team, Barber burned what was left of the bridge by taking shots at Manning’s leadership skills. The Giants went on to win the Super Bowl the next season

In 2010, Barber, who had left his pregnant wife for another woman, was loudly booed by Giants fans at a Ring of Honor ceremony, and when he attempted an NFL comeback in 2011, Giants players like Justin Tuck were unwilling to forgive him.

“We all disagree with how he left and what he said,” Tuck had said.

Honorable mention: When Dan Reeves released Phil Simms in 1994, it was a shock. Wellington Mara called it “a day of overwhelming sadness.”

The ugliest divorce in Jets history was actually between the team and a coach when Bill Belichick infamously resigned as “HC of the NYJ” in 1997. On the day the Jets were ready to introduce him as their new head coach, the successor to Bill Parcells, Belichick quit. Total mic drop. He went on to win five Super Bowls and forge a Hall of Fame career with the Patriots.

Honorable mention: The only quarterback the Jets ever had that can compare to Manning is Joe Namath, who won half as many championships as Eli has. But just like Manning isn’t getting any younger, Broadway Joe was unceremoniously waived by the Jets after the 1976 season. The Namath era ended with a thud, a 4-17 record over his final two years with the Jets.

No divorce was more bitter than the fracture between the Knicks and Patrick Ewing in 2000. The end of the Ewing era was painfully played out, as subtle as a garbage truck after he demanded a trade that was finally realized after months of trying. Injuries slowed Ewing, and while he nursed an achilles injury in 1999, the Knicks made it to the NBA Finals. There was a sentiment that the Knicks would be a better team without Ewing, and that hurtful diagnosis essentially pushed him out of town. The Knicks have been reeling ever since.

Honorable mention: The Knicks have a long history of ugly breakups with coaches like Jeff Van Gundy quitting 19 games into the 2001-02 season, but Pat Riley quit via fax in 1995. Walt Frazier’s trade to Cleveland following the 1976-77 season was a shocker.

After the Nets joined the NBA, the team had to pay the Knicks a $5 million territorial tribute owner Roy Boe could not afford. Boe also promised Julius Erving a big, new contract going into the 197677 season, but because money was tight, Boe went back on his word, Erving held out, and refused to play for the club. Erving was eventually shipped to the 76ers for $6 million.

As a sign of the bad blood that led to the trade, that’s why Erving wore No. 6 with Philadelphia.

Honorable mention: It was a coup when Byron Scott was fired by the Nets in 2004 after coaching them to the NBA Finals two years in a row. Players such Jason Kidd and Kenyon Martin clashed with him near the end of his tenure and rumors swirled that Kidd lobbied for a coaching change. Kidd denied it, but Scott was replaced by Lawrence Frank in a very ugly split. Part of the infamous “Midnight Massacre,” the Mets traded three-time Cy Young Award winner Tom Seaver to the Reds for Pat Zachry, Doug Flynn, Steve Henderson and Dan Norman in 1977. For Mets fans, that was the worst moment in franchise history, a deal that vanished their best player, in the prime of his career, overnight. The divorce, while heartbreaking to fans, was also the end of a protracted fight between he and the team. But if you think the rift between Manning and McAdoo is bad, the one between Seaver and Mets chairman M. Donald Grant was worse. “The trade was generated by me as much as anyone. I had to get out of there,” Seaver said earlier this year. “I couldn't work for that man anymore.” A classic breakup-makeup, Seaver returned to pitch for the Mets in 1983 and went into the Hall of Fame wearing a Mets cap. Honorable mention: Darryl Strawberry turned down a four-year, $15.5 million free-agent offer by the Mets in 1990 after months of bitter negotiations. He left for his hometown Dodgers, who ponied up a five-year, $20.25 million deal, that was, at the time, the second-biggest contract in baseball. Yogi Berra was more than just the Yankees manager in 1985. He was a Yankees icon, gifted with artificial job security by George Steinbrenner. “Yogi will be the manager this year, period,” Steinbrenner had said earlier that year. “A bad start will not affect Yogi's status, either. In the past I have put a lot of pressure on my managers to win at certain times. That will not be the case this spring." Lies. Just 16 games into the season, Berra was fired. He swore never to step foot inside Yankee Stadium again as long as Steinbrenner owned the team. The break was deep and lasted 14 years until 1999, when Berra and the Boss buried the hatchet.

Honorable mention: Reggie Jackson and the Yankees broke up and got back together more than Ronnie and Sammi on “Jersey Shore.” The Jackson-Steinbrenner skirmishes are legendary but the first fracture formed in 1981 when Jackson was in the final year of his Yankees contract. Steinbrenner played mind games with him, made him take a physical, and even consulted Jackson about signing Dave Winfield. Winfield got a deal, the biggest in baseball at the time, while Jackson got played. He left for Anaheim in 1982 and finished his career out west.

Breakups aren’t always nasty and ugly. Sometimes they’re just sad, like when the Rangers waived Eddie Giacomin. The gutsy goalie played nine years for the Rangers, but by 1975, he was starting to break down. The Rangers put him on waivers and Giacomin was picked up by the Red Wings. Four days later, he was back in net at the Garden, playing for Detroit. The crowd chanted “Eddie! Eddie!” all night, rained boos on the Rangers, and Giacomin won the game.

Honorable mention: It was a real tear-jerker when the Rangers lost love for a 36-yearold Mark Messier in 1997 and the Cup-winning captain was forced to leave as a free agent.

When the Islanders and Alexei Yashin broke up in 2007, the Isles basically packed up Yashin’s stuff and threw him out of the house. Five enigmatic seasons into a ridiculous-atthe, one-time, 10-year, $87.5 million contract, Yashin finally wore out his welcome. Unpopular with fans and unproductive on the ice, the Islanders bought Yashin out of the remainder of his contract and never played in the NHL again.

Honorable mention: Bryan Trottier won four Cups with the Islanders, but in 1990, the best player in team history was released. He went on to win two more Cups with Pittsburgh, coached the rival Rangers, and reportedly held up his number retirement over finances.

A statue of Martin Brodeur was built in Newark, but it’s there for what he did when he was in the prime of his career, not the twighlight. By his final year with the team, Brodeur shared the net with Corey Schneider and, in declining health and ability, left for St. Louis as a free agent in 2014. He retired a year later.

Honorable mention: Scott Niedermayer had some hard negotiations with GM Lou Lamoriello, but the defenseman won a huge arbitration settlement in 2004. The hardfought deal was nullified by the NHL lockout that year, and when the league reopened, Niedermayer took less money to play with his brother in Anaheim.