THE TEMPTATION will be overwhelming, of course. You know that already. When this baseball season ends for the Boston Red Sox, so will Pedro Martinez’s contract with them. He will be a free agent, available to any team willing to fork over the necessary boatload of millions.

Make no mistake: As human as Martinez has seemed this year at times, if he looks at all fallible, it is only in relation to everything he has done and everything he has been throughout his career. He is still an elite pitcher, one of the very best in the game, an ace on almost every other staff in Major League Baseball.

Including the Yankees.

Which certainly will catch the attention of George Steinbrenner, assuming it hasn’t already, and that’s probably a poor assumption. Steinbrenner craves stars the way a midnight drunk craves White Castles, so you know he has had his baseball people drawing up scenarios for months already, wondering if that would be doable, feasible, reasonable.

It is probably all three.

The Yankees should resist it anyway.

Martinez simply is too perfect a villain, and for the Yankees, he may be more valuable to their cause wearing someone else’s black hat than their own dark blue one. The fans certainly will come along, if they really have to, even if they greeted Martinez with regular choruses of “Who’s Your Daddy?!” last night, before and during Game 2 of the ALCS between the Sox and the Yankees at Yankee Stadium.

The first reaction will be to reach for the history lever, which is what all Yankees fans do, referring to their charts and lists the way a weatherman seeks out a Doppler radar machine. And, yes, it’s true: The Yankees have welcomed the unwelcome-able before. Ruben Sierra is a recent example, Roger Clemens the most famous one.

But even Clemens never had the kind of deep, abiding history with the Yankees Martinez has. In fact, it hasn’t been close. Clemens’ only direct confrontation with the Yankees came in 1998, while he was wearing a Blue Jays uniform. All the years Clemens pitched for the Red Sox came outside the windows of the Yankees-Sox rivalry peaks. The Sox were the better team, for the most part, during Clemens’ Sox years. But that rarely resulted in any direct showdown with the Yankees, and never a memorable one.

But Martinez’s career has been defined by his encounters with the Yankees. Maybe not in Boston, where he remains a secular deity, and where he surely will remain one if he does the right thing and stays there, where he belongs. Martinez has enjoyed the highest of highs: his 17-strikeout game; his 2-1 duel with Clemens; his effort in Game 3 of the ’99 ALCS, when he gave all of Boston a chance to praise him and pummel Clemens.

And, of course, the time he offered to drill a disinterred Babe Ruth where the sun hasn’t shone since at least August of 1948.

He also has suffered through more lows than any one great pitcher probably ever has suffered against any one team, no matter how great. Game 3 last year, when he ignited a near riot. Game 7 last year, when he came within five outs of vaulting the Sox into Valhalla. His various and sundry failures this year, capped by accusing the Yankees of paternity.

Hollywood couldn’t invent a villain this perfect. And Hollywood wouldn’t dare ask him to switch sides. So neither should the Yankees. Some things in life just weren’t meant to be. Rick and Ilsa weren’t meant to live happily ever after. Wings was never going to be bigger than The Beatles.

And Pedro was never designed to be a Yankee.

Postseason Pedro

Pedro Martinez took the mound for the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium, the fourth time he face the Bombers in the postseason. His starts against them were very similar to his playoff starts against other teams.

Here’s a look at how they compare:

YANKEES

Date Site IP H R ER BB K Result

Oct. 16, 1999 Fenway 7 2 0 0 2 12 Red Sox, 13-1

Oct. 11, 2003 Stadium 7 6 4 4 1 6 Yankees, 4-3

Oct. 16, 2003 Stadium 7 10 5 5 1 8 Yankees, 6-5

NON-YANKEES

Sept. 29, 1998 Cleveland 7 6 3 3 0 8 Red Sox, 11-3

Oct. 6, 1999 Cleveland 4 3 0 0 1 3 Indians, 3-2

Oct. 11, 1999 Cleveland 6 0 0 0 3 8 Red Sox, 12-8 *

Oct. 1, 2003 Oakland 7 6 3 3 4 3 A’s, 5-4

Oct. 6, 2003 Oakland 7 7 3 3 1 6 Red Sox, 4-3

* – in relief