Singing the blues on way out

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- He wasn't there to see it, having already begun what he termed an uncertain journey to another team, but two young women paraded through the stands in City of Palms Park with a homemade banner that read, ''Bring back Bronson, Wells can't sing."

Bronson Arroyo could be back here as soon as next Thursday, when he is scheduled to pitch in what will be the last Red Sox spring exhibition game in Florida. But if he does, it will be in the uniform of the Cincinnati Reds, the team to which the troubadour pitcher was traded Monday for outfielder Wily Mo Pena.

''Who goes down?" someone asked Arroyo, a joking suggestion that Arroyo might take aim at one of his former mates.

''Who goes down?" he answered. ''I don't know. Manny just signed a bat for me, so I guess it won't be him."

Yesterday morning, Arroyo, who had spent the Sox' off-day Monday at his home in Brooksville, Fla., packing for what he had expected to be a trip to his newly purchased home in Boston, came by the clubhouse to gather up his baseball gear and say his goodbyes.

''It's one of those scenarios you feel will never happen to you," said Arroyo, who knew, he said, as soon as Theo Epstein's phone number popped up on his cellphone Monday morning that he'd been traded. ''Nobody thinks they're going to be the one, whatever, to get in a car wreck to have their, you know, their kids killed in a plane crash, whatever. You don't think those things are going to happen to you. And I didn't think that I'd be traded."

Pookie Jackson, the Red Sox' assistant equipment manager, handed Arroyo a parcel. ''Here's your last package," Jackson said.

''A 3-wood," Arroyo said after inspecting the label. ''I'm going to need it."

While his three-year, $11.25 million contract may have been transferred to the Reds, with the Sox picking up $2.25 million ($750,000 signing bonus, $1.5 million in salary this season) as the price of doing business, it was obvious Arroyo had little appetite for cutting ties with the Sox, the team that plucked him off the waiver wire 37 months ago and gave him the chance to reach unimagined heights. Winning a World Series ring. Stirring the rivalry with A-Rod and the Yankees. Playing his guitar in the Paradise and recording a CD. Rubbing shoulders with celebrities like the ''Desperate Housewives" cast. That was all part of the Arroyo experience in Boston, and it wasn't one he wanted to end.

That's why he signed the contract he did in January, settling for a deal his agent didn't want him to accept, in the hope that it might persuade the Red Sox to keep him. He closed on his house in Boston at almost the same time, thinking he was home.

''Just, you know, going to Fenway Park 81 times a year, man," he said when asked why his Sox connection ran so deep. ''There's an excitement in that place I'm not going to get anywhere in the National League, except maybe Wrigley. So that was the No. 1 thing. And then, just the group of guys we've had . . . pitching to Varitek.

''I felt like Boston was my second home, and I hadn't felt that way about any other place I've ever played. You feel like you're being ripped out of your home. That's the way the game is."

That the eviction notice would be served by Epstein, who shared Arroyo's passion for Pearl Jam, made Arroyo even more conflicted about his departure.

''We were pretty close," he said. ''Probably as close as you can get to a GM as a player. But you know, the game is business, man, that's what it's about. It doesn't matter how you feel personally about somebody. You just make the best move.

''It's like playing a chess match, man. Just pieces on the freaking board. That's what players are in the business. It doesn't matter how much they like you. They're not going to not make a move because of personal feelings."

Was there a part of Arroyo that wanted to say to Epstein, ''How could you?"

''Uh, yeah, a little bit," he said. ''Of course, man. I feel like I've done a lot of good things around here. I've been the type of player that definitely has done things that they've asked of me, but that doesn't always keep you around, you know?"

But he refused to endorse the idea that the Sox had crossed him with the trade.

''I mean, it really isn't about trusting somebody unless they told me point-blank, 'We'll never trade you,' " he said. ''And if that was the case, they would have given me a no-trade clause. So I don't feel like they betrayed me or anything like that.

''It's just a tough situation and I'm disappointed. I mean, I felt like I had done enough around here that they would keep me, but obviously they've got different plans. That's the way it goes."

Arroyo could muster little initial enthusiasm for Cincinnati.

What did he know about the Reds? ''Nothing," he said, other than the fact that he'd played with one Reds player, Dave Williams, in Pittsburgh, and another, Jason LaRue, in the Arizona Fall League.

How about hitting, a pitcher's obligation in the National League?

''No, I hate hitting," he said. ''I hate bunting. I hate learning the signs. I hate sliding. Getting yanked out of games when it's your at-bat and it's the sixth inning, second and third. But I've been there before. I'll go pitch for three years, become a free agent, and see where I end up."

Yes, it was a positive, knowing he could count on starting once every five days for the pitching-starved Reds. ''The only benefit," he said.

As for the town? Pretty dead, he said, from what he remembered.

''I'll probably end up hanging out with Youkilis's parents a lot," he said.