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There was definitely something in the air because the parallel was uncanny. Four years after Tyree’s “Catch 42,” Manningham introduced “Super Mario” into the lore of spectacular Super Bowl receptions. Unlike Tyree, Manningham didn’t need his helmet, just toes and fingertips.

In a terrific football game that included 133 offensive plays and nearly 750 combined yards, it came down to toes and fingertips. Manningham’s 38-yard catch with 3:39 left in the fourth quarter was the longest play in Super Bowl XLVI, and it was the biggest play in the Giants’ 21-17 victory over the New England Patriots at Lucas Oil Stadium.

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It was breathtaking. It was gutsy. Eli Manning threw a rocket and it came down like a feather, and the Giants were on their way to their fourth Super Bowl title.

“I didn’t have much room,” Manningham said afterward, meaning the space between his toes and the sideline. “Good thing I wear an 11 [shoe] and not 11½, or else I would’ve been out.”

There’s something about these Giants, who have the craziest ability to make plays in the fourth quarter. Once again, it was an unheralded receiver stepping up in the biggest moment, Manningham doing a Tyree, beating the Patriots with a play that will be talked about forever.

“It really is eerie,” co-owner John Mara said in the middle of the locker room, shaking his head. “So many things were similar to four years ago.”

Manning called it “a big-time play,” and it was. But before we get to the artistic beauty of it, you have to appreciate the circumstances. The Patriots neutralized the Giants’ vertical passing attack with a two-deep zone that tested Manning’s patience, forcing him to throw underneath. He was waiting, waiting all game to take a shot, and he took it on first down, ball at his own 12-yard line, down by two points.

Just before the snap, the Patriots rotated into a two-deep look, with their two safeties dropping into deep “halves.” Manning recognized it. Quarterbacks aren’t supposed to throw deep sideline routes against a Cover 2 — too risky — but Manning looked to his right and didn’t see anyone open.

Victor Cruz and Hakeem Nicks ran corner routes on the strong side, but they were well-covered. Manning did something the great quarterbacks do, using his eyes to freeze the safeties for a nanosecond. That opened the smallest of windows for him to throw to the back side, to throw to Manningham.

Rob Carr/Getty ImagesMario Manningham’s 38-yard grab in the fourth quarter was the longest — and most memorable — play of Super Bowl XLVI.

“It was Cover 2. Usually, that’s not the matchup,” Manning said, admitting that what he did went against the Quarterback Handbook.

Technically, it was called a “Cloud 33″ coverage by the Patriots. Manningham beat his man at the line, safety Sterling Moore, and ran a “go” route up the left sideline.

Manning dropped back and looked. And looked. The Patriots’ Vince Wilfork, the size of a FedEx truck, bull-rushed guard Kevin Boothe. He bull-rushed closer and closer, and got a hand in Manning’s face as he launched the ball from the 5.

Forty-five yards later, the ball dropped into Manningham’s pleading fingertips. It may have been the best shot in the state of Indiana since Bobby Plump’s famous final bucket for Milan High in 1954.

Moore, trailing the play, tomahawk-chopped Manningham’s right shoulder pad just as the ball arrived. Safety Patrick Chung, quickly recovering from Manning’s eye fake, arrived at full speed and blasted Manningham just as the ball arrived.

Bang.

Bang.

Remarkably, Manningham, who had botched a similar chance on the opposite sideline earlier in the game, held on to the ball. He got his left foot down and dragged his right, barely touching the turf with his toes. Patriots coach Bill Belichick challenged the play, but the replay clearly showed those toes grazing the surface.

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“I knew I had to freeze my feet when the ball touched my fingertips,” Manningham said. “Wherever I was at when the ball hit my fingertips, I just froze my feet and fell. I knew I was either going to get hit or hit the ground. I knew something was going to happen, but I knew that I couldn’t let that ball go.”

Try that at home. Try a toe-tapping catch when you know you’re going to get blindsided. Ain’t easy.

“He had both feet down,” Chung said. “Good throw, good catch, man.”

No, it was a great throw. Try that at home. Try hitting a soda can from 45 yards away. Ain’t easy.

“He squoze it in there,” said Manningham, using imperfect grammar to describe a perfect play.

It meant everything for the Giants because, just like that, they had field position and time, and they calmly marched to the go-ahead touchdown, Ahmad Bradshaw‘s 6-yard run with 57 seconds left.

Manningham caught two more passes on the drive, finishing with five receptions for 73 yards — all in the second half. It was a night of vindication for Manningham, who basically had lost his starting job to Cruz earlier in the season. He was the forgotten receiver, just like Tyree four years ago on that memorable night in Arizona.

“Words can’t explain this,” he said. “Thank God I had great footwork and thank God for Eli’s arm.”

When it was over, Tyree stood in the middle of the madness, almost giddy. He watched the entire game from the sideline, which he decided was too stressful. But he loved Manningham’s play, and he doesn’t mind sharing a pedestal with his former teammate.

“I thought it was definitely like mine in many ways, as far as the importance and significance of it,” Tyree said. “But I think it was more like well-dressed Amani Toomer with that footwork. It was something special.”

Tyree noticed Manningham dressing a few feet away.

“Hey, Manningham,” he called over. “They’re going to ask me about you all day.”

All day, all week, all time. Fingertips and toes, and into the history books.

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The City of Mount Vernon will come alive once again on March 11th 2012 with the third staging of Linkage Productions annual award show.
This award show promises to be bigger and better than the last, with awards, surprises and special performances from some of Jamaica’s greats as well as artists that are blazing the airwaves.

Governor Cuomo Launches Summer Jobs Express To Encourage Businesses To Hire 16,500 Youths

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For the Republican candidates’ debate in Iowa on Saturday night, Yahoo News posed real-time questions to those watching the event live stream to gauge their feelings about candidates’ responses to moderators (and each other), and solicited comments on a live blog of the event. Here are the key takeaways from our audience feedback, along with other nuggets from the social sphere:

Romney’s $10,000 bet was a mistake
Yahoo! readers watching the debate were not impressed by Mitt Romney’s suggestion that Rick Perry take a $10,000 bet on whether the former Massachusetts governor was really for individual health care mandates. Viewers expressed strong disapproval in the comments of our live blog: “$10,000 is more than some people make in a year,” wrote one commenter. When we asked viewers, “Did you like seeing Mitt Romney ask Rick Perry to accept a $10,000 wager?,” just 33 percent of the first 1,200 people who responded answered “yes.” By the time the question closed at 11 p.m. with just over 25,000 votes, 70 percent of Yahoo! watchers said “no,” they did not like the wager. You can watch a clip of the moment above.

NPR politics editor Neal Carruth commented on Twitter: “Suspect the $10,000 bet will remind people of this photo.” The picture, from the Romney’s days at Bain Capital, shows the candidate and his colleagues gleefully posing with money. Jonah Goldberg of the National Review Online tweeted, “Memo to Romney: Please don’t now say that proceeds from $10,000 bet would have gone to charity.” Our own Zachary Roth crunched the numbers and calculated that $10,000 is .005 percent of Romney’s net worth.

Twitter jumped on the $10,000 figure immediately. It spiked as a topic, with 3,400 real time tweets, according to an analysis by ABC and Blue Fin labs. Minutes after the debate ended, the moment was already on its way to becoming a meme—Reuters social media editor Anthony De Rosa noted that #What10kbuys was trending worldwide.

Viewers’ top issue: the economy
Yahoo! visitors began the debate most interested in hearing the candidates discuss jobs and the economy: at the kickoff, 70 percent of those offering audience feedback said they wanted to hear about those issues the most.

And after moderator Diane Sawyer asked the candidates about job creation early in the debate, 72 percent of viewers who answered the question, “Are you satisfied with the candidates’ answers on how to stimulate the economy?” said “no.”

And when we later asked, “Which issue would you like to hear more about in the last 25 minutes of the debate?” over 20,000 people responded “job creation.” Candidates, take note.

Twitter: #debate trending, Romney paid for placement
On Twitter, #iowadebate was trending by 9:07, soon after the debate began. Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) purchased the promoted tweet for that hashtag and ran it with this tweet: “If I’m president, I will be true to my family, my faith and our country and I will never apologize for the US.”

Yahoo! audience divided over Gingrich’s ‘Ted Kennedy’ attack on Romney
The most popular question in our live poll was regarding Newt Gingrich’s attack on Mitt Romney over running to left of Ted Kennedy in 1994, which garnered more than 28,000 votes. “The only reason you didn’t become a career politician is you lost to Teddy Kennedy,” Gingrich said. The responses were split, but slightly more (55 percent) respondents said they didn’t like the attack, versus the 45 percent who did. You can watch a clip of the attack below:

The Palestinian question
Around the second hour of the debate, Gingrich’s Friday statement about Palestinians being “an invented people” was raised by moderator George Stephanopoulos. Yahoo! IntoNow watchers had flagged it early in the debate as a topic they wanted to hear about. Omar S. wrote, “Ask Newt about his Palestinian statement, It was clearly racist and actually not factually accurate.”

But another Yahoo! commenter wondered at the foreign policy discussion the question produced, “With as broken as this country is why are they wasting so much time on Bibi and co.?” You can watch the debate exchange below.

Have the candidates experienced financial hardship?
Yahoo! solicited questions from readers leading up to the debate, and  moderators choose this one from among thousands of submissions: From Andrew, 32, of Texas, “When was the last time you had a personal financial strain that forced you to not only give up luxury but also to cut back on necessity? And what were the consequences you faced?”

But as the candidates responded, a slim majority of viewers said they were not more likely to support a candidate just because he or she had suffered financial hardship. One commenter on the Yahoo! liveblog took the opportunity to circle back to Romney’s bet: “mr.romney, i work 3 jobs to keep my family in the lifestyle i feel they deserve, how do you claim to be in touch with the ‘middle class’ when you casually propose a 10k bet so whimsically?”

In the final tally after the debate concluded however, the numbers had shifted: 61 percent said that a candidates’ experience of lean times would make them more attractive.

The front runners: Newt vs. Romney
The final questions we asked Yahoo! readers had to do with whether they were satisfied with the performances of the two current front runners: Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney. Gingrich won this round: 55 percent approved of his performance while 65 percent of viewers disapproved of Romney’s performance.