by Mike Vaccaro at the World Series , The New York Post

Pedro Martinez for the Phillies.

It's impossible to conjure a pairing that could be more meaningful for the 50,000 people who will come to Yankee Stadium hoping to see an on-field celebration, hoping to experience an in-person celebration.

It is worth remembering that the last time the Yankees won a World Series, in 2000, it was Pettitte who started Game 5 at Shea Stadium against the Mets, who kept the Yankees in the game by matching AL Leiter pitch for pitch and grunt for grunt. It was also Pettitte who started Series-clinching Game 4 in San Diego in 1998, the game that closed out the 125-win masterpiece.

And Pedro?

On Sept. 11, 1999, he pitched what David Cone once called "the best game I ever saw," which is some kind of compliment given that Cone saw David Wells' perfect game and had pitched one of his own earlier that same season. Of all of Pedro's greatest hits, that one-hit, 17-strikeout gem (in which he outdueled Roger Clemens) may have been the greatest.

And, of course, the bookend to that was Oct. 17, 2003, the night he brought a 5-2 lead into Game 7 of the ALCS, stood five outs away from ending the Curse . . . and instead was kept on the mound to bleed away the lead and Grady Little's career as manager of the Red Sox.

Maybe this was a match-up that would have been must-see TV in 1999; in 2009, it'll still be that way, if only because of the stakes, even if the arms aren't quite what they used to be.

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