Bob Nightengale writes about another dominant postseason from Cliff Lee and his impending free agency. He talks with a few folks from Little Rock, Arkansas, including Lee's wife Kristen. Kristen talks about how nice the short commute from home to Arlington is, and she discusses what it was like to be on the other side of Yankees fans in New York.
↵↵↵Perhaps the Rangers' greatest sales pitch simply was having Kristen sit in the visiting family section at Yankee Stadium during the playoffs. She says there were ugly taunts. Obscenities. Cups of beer thrown. Even fans spitting from the section above.
↵"The fans did not do good things in my heart," Kristen says.
↵"When people are staring at you, and saying horrible things, it's hard not to take it personal."
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Most of us - and particularly those of us whose team has played them in the postseason or visited Yankee Stadium when they were playing our team (or, heck, been at our own park when the Yankees visit) - have experienced the Yankee fan. He can be a completely normal, decent human until he clicks into 'Yankee fan' mode, when a switch seems to be flipped and a stream of the worst general, uncreative taunts he can think of flows. That is, unless you're a relative of a player visiting their park. For you, they've done proper research, and they personalize their hate.
↵As the Rangers dominated the Yankees in Games 3 and 4 in Yankee Stadium last week, aside from whatever they could think of to disparage the state of Texas, the Yankee line was to assure anyone who would listen that this would not happen again because they'll just take Cliff Lee this winter and that will fix everything. It seems appropriate that this same behavior could cost them their savior.