Cliff Lee: Yankees fans spit on Rangers’ families

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Yankee Stadium can be an unforgiving place -- if not for opponents, then for anyone wearing their colors. During the American League Championship Series, fans there spit on families of the Texas players, Rangers ace Cliff Lee said Tuesday.

‘There were some people that were spitting off the balcony on the family section and things like that, and that’s kind of weak,’ Lee said, ‘but what can you do?’

‘You can’t control 50,000 people. Some people get a little alcohol in them and act inappropriate. But it is what it is. There’s so many people there you can’t control them all. I know it’s been made into a big deal, but that’s really all it is, just two or three or four people just acting like fools. ... You can’t group them all together. But there’s always going to be a couple goofballs in the crowd that think they have a right to do that stuff.’

Lee’s wife, Kristen, told USA Today that fans not only spit on the Rangers’ families but threw beer on them and heckled them with obscenities.

‘The fans did not do good things in my heart,’ she said.

Her comments drove New York into a state of panic, since the Yankees have planned on buying Lee this winter. But, with no interest in dampening his market in free agency, Lee said a guy spitting on his family would not deter him from signing with the Yankees.

‘No, I don’t know the guy that did it,’ Lee said. ‘It could be anyone. Who knows? Who cares? They’re at home right now.’

-- Bill Shaikin in San Francisco