Video that appeared to show New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera spitting on the ball made the Internet rounds Tuesday, with Major League Baseball saying there was no reason to consider any discipline.

A YouTube clip from Fox’s broadcast of Monday’s Game 3 of the American League championship series between the Yankees and Los Angeles Angels showed Rivera staring at the ball and then spitting. Because of the camera angle, it appeared the saliva landed on the ball.

“You will see that the spit is never on the ball,” Rivera said Tuesday.

“If you guys locate (the spit), I’ll take you anywhere, anywhere, I mean anywhere in the world,” he said, joking with reporters. “But if you guys don’t locate (it), you’re going to have to take me.”

The clip quickly became fodder for sports talk shows and conspiracy theorists.

“I kind of laughed,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said Tuesday. “He was accused of throwing a spitter. The one thing about a spitter is it consistently does not go one way like Mo’s ball consistently goes one way.”

Girardi, who caught Rivera for four years during his playing days, said it was a non-issue.

“I know for sure he never did anything,” the manager said.

MLB officials said they saw nothing definitive from still pictures of Rivera.

“Why would I get mad?” Rivera said. “I mean, I care about what the fans think about me, but if somebody has followed my career for years, that’s a lot of spit.”

Angels manager Mike Scioscia said before Game 4 that he didn’t know anything about it.

“There are certainly some guys that might be suspect. Never Mariano with anything that I’ve heard or been part of,” he said. “And I’d be shocked if there was anything to that.”

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MANNY’S VIEW: Manny Ramirez didn’t see Jonathan Broxton give up Jimmy Rollins’ two-run double with two outs in the ninth inning of Game 4 on Monday night.

Why?

Because the Los Angeles Dodgers slugger had already hit the showers.

“I saw the highlights and everybody was coming in,” Ramirez said Tuesday, a day before Game 5 of the NL championship series between the Dodgers and Philadelphia. “They turned the TV off.”

Ramirez didn’t want to say much else about it. Dodgers manager Joe Torre had no problem with Ramirez not staying in the dugout for the ninth. Torre put Juan Pierre in left field as a defensive replacement with a 4-3 lead.

“Manny has so much confidence, and when we get a lead late in the game, and I’ve taken him out, whether it be for defense or we have a big lead, when we go up to shake hands after the game, he’s in his street clothes,” Torre said. “So it’s really nothing different than he’s done before. I don’t think it’s disrespect of anything. He wasn’t going anywhere until the game was over, and we can’t put him back in the game.

“But that’s not something I thought was unusual since individuals are all different anyway. But he’s always done that, so it’s nothing that last night was going to be any different. As we say, Manny is Manny. He’s a cool customer. But he certainly didn’t have any lack of respect because of that. I think the way it turned out, it probably doesn’t look good. But it’s nothing different than he had done before.”

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LIGHTS-OUT LIDGE: Brad Lidge earned his first win of the year in Philadelphia’s 5-4 victory over Los Angeles in Game 4 of the NL championship series Monday night.

After going 0-8 with a 7.21 ERA and 11 blown saves in the regular season, Lidge appears to have regained his 2008 form. He is 3 for 3 in playoff save chances and hasn’t allowed a run in four appearances, spanning three innings.

“When I brought him in the game and I told him some things that we wanted to do, and he was very calm, and he talked to me very at ease, and he was very comfortable,” Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said. “And when I see that out of him, I think he’s definitely ready to pitch, and he’s in a good frame of mind and he’s ready to go. I like that because his talent, he’s a very talented pitcher, and his talent most of the time is going to win the game for you. Right now I kind of like exactly where he’s at.”

Lidge was perfect last year, saving 41 games in the regular season and seven more in the postseason to help the Phillies win the World Series. But he struggled throughout this season and temporarily lost his closer’s job a couple of times.

“Once the postseason rolls around, I think there’s kind of a different level of focus, and fortunately for me so far it’s worked out pretty good to where I feel pretty locked in,” Lidge said. “A couple things kind of happened at the right time, and you’ve just got to try and run with it.”

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