NEW York loves its baseball players, of course. Joe DiMaggio always got Table No. 1 at Toots Shor’s. Mickey Mantle rarely had to pay for a drink in New York, and took full advantage of the privilege. Derek Jeter and Mike Piazza have lived like princes from the moment they arrived.

New York loves its basketball players, of course, because basketball is the City Game, and so the men who won championships for the Knickerbockers, and the erstwhile kids who took St. John’s to the Final Four, are remembered around here with a fervent reverence.

New York loves its fabled hockey heroes, Messier and Gilbert and Leetch; it loves homegrown kids who go out to conquer the world, the way John McEnroe did in tennis. But New York loves quarterbacks best of all.

New York is Joe Namath, who liked his women blond and his Johnnie Walker red. New York is Phil Simms, who may not have been beloved when he was active but now stands as the gold standard for all New York wants its quarterbacks to be: tough, good-looking, able to take a hit or 12 and still deliver a gut-shot touchdown pass inside the two-minute warning. New York is Y.A. Tittle, and Chuckin’ Charley Conerly and even Vinny Testaverde, in that wonderful autumn and winter of 1998-99, when he turned into a football Joe Hardy and damn near took the Jets back to the Super Bowl.

“If I could wish one thing for everyone on this earth,” Tittle once told me, “it’s that they could spend one Sunday being the quarterback of the Giants when times are good. You’re not only the toast of the town, it feels like you’re the king of the universe.”

Chad Pennington has that within his grasp now, if his surgically-repaired shoulder allows him to reach it. Eli Manning has that within his grasp now, too, if his sprained elbow allows him to clutch it. They share a number, 10, and a rare opportunity: the chance to co-own New York, to take turns owning the deed on the town in a way only quarterbacks ever can.

“Succeeding in New York is a special thing because of all the guys who have done it here and how much the fans care about their teams,” says Pennington, who has had his share of success and a hint of failure and can tell you with grand eloquence how much better the former is than the latter.

“Giants fans support their team so great, I’ve had so much support from the moment I came here,” says Manning, who earned a battlefield promotion last year when a leaky offensive line prevented him from showing much of what he’s capable of. “They make you want to perform even better than you want yourself to perform.”

It’s been a while since both New York teams had quarterbacks of such grand pedigree, with the potential to offer so much. Maybe you have to go all the way back to the 1960s, when Namath was performing as many miracles on Sunday afternoons in Queens as he was on Saturday nights in Manhattan, and when Fran Tarkenton was running for his life at Yankee Stadium, worth the price of admission all by himself, which was a good thing, because you couldn’t have gotten two bits for the rest of those Giants teams.

“When you have a great quarterback,” says Allie Sherman, who coached Tarkenton in those days, “then anything is possible.”

He’s right. Anything is possible. Pennington has been the Jets’ starting quarterback for only 35 regular-season games, even if it seems like he’s been around the Jets since Weeb Ewbank was popping his liver pills on the sideline. And there are times when you watch Manning play when you really could see him put up numbers that would make his pop and his big brother proud.

And if either – or both -starts to win, and win big?

They’ll own the town so fiercely, even Jeter will have to start paying rent.

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TIM HASSELBECK

When Tim Hasselbeck was eight years old, he remembers watching his dad help mentor a rookie tight end named Mark Bavaro, remembers having Bavaro sleep over the house, remembers that Bavaro became the favorite player of the entire Hasselbeck clan.

“Vivid memories,” Hasselbeck said.

Don Hasselbeck, a tight end himself, spent nine years in the NFL and played for the Giants in 1985. He’s the father of Matt, currently the Seahawks’ starting quarterback, Tim, the Giants’ backup to Eli Manning, and Nathanael, a safety at Boston College.

“[Tim’s] got a good pedigree, he got good bloodlines,” said Giants linebacker Antonio Pierce, Hasselbeck’s teammate for two seasons with the Redskins. “Tim knows the game. I think he’s more confident and comfortable than people think.”

Not drafted and not highly regarded, Hasselbeck has kicked around with six different teams in a meandering five-year career. He’s started only five games – all with Washington in 2003 – and did not play a single down last year. When he was released this past spring the Giants were awarded him off waivers.

“For me, just the opportunity to keep playing and keep competing, that’s the opportunity I see and I get excited about,” said Hasselbeck, 27, who on the social scene is known as the husband of TV star Elisabeth Hasselbeck “I’d rather do that than selling something or sitting behind a desk.”

Paul Schwartz

JAY FIEDLER

The Jets are in much better hands at backup quarterback this season should they fall out of Chad Pennington’s hands the way they did last season.

Gone is the enigmatic Quincy Carter, with whom the Jets survived a couple of games in spite of his ineptitude with Pennington hurt last season.

In is Jay Fiedler, a four-year starter with the Dolphins, whom he led to the playoffs twice. Fiedler was 37-23 as starter in Miami, where he was the starter right up until last season.

Point is: He might be the most capable backup QB in the league. In the first three games in preseason, he showed some flashes of that.

“We’re lucky to have Jay Fiedler,” Herman Edwards has said more than once.

“I think coming out the first [preseason] game and bouncing back off an interception and leading the team on a 98-yard touchdown drive definitely showed [the Jets] I can put things behind me, come back out and focus on the next play,” Fielder said. “In the [second] game, putting a scoring drive together in two plays right off the bench shows that if something goes wrong, then I can come in and there’s nothing to fear.

“I think I’ve earned their respect throughout the offseason and continue to earn that respect on the field.”

Fiedler, from Oceanside, is the third Jets’ QB to come home, so to speak, following Islip’s Boomer Esiason and Elmont’s Vinny Testaverde.

“I thought it would always be a great experience to come back home and play,” Fiedler said.

Mark Cannizzaro