On March 20, 2006, just a bit more than a week before the start of the regular season, the Cincinnati Reds swung a trade for a lanky right-hander named Bronson Arroyo, sending outfielder Wily Mo Pena to the Boston Red Sox in exchange.

Arroyo was 29 and coming off his second year in the Red Sox rotation. He was known for getting outs without throwing very hard and wearing a notorious set of cornrows in 2004. No one could have predicted the type of run he’d go on for eight years with the Reds – 265 starts, 1,690 1/3 innings and a 4.05 ERA.

Now, Arroyo has walked away from the game. The Enquirer spoke to several teammates, coaches and executives to collect memories about Arroyo’s time with the Reds. At the time of year for looking back, here is a look at Arroyo’s career with Cincinnati, through the words of those who were there for it.

(Comments have been edited and condensed for clarity.)

First impressions

Dick Williams (current Reds GM): “I started in January of ’06. I came down to spring training not really knowing what to expect. I was in that run-down clubhouse in Sarasota. I’m looking around seeing big-league players for the first time, and I see Wily Mo Pena. You’re looking up at Wily Mo Pena like, ‘Oh my god, this is what a pro athlete looks like.’ This mountain of a man. Soon after that, right there are the beginning of spring, Wayne told us, ‘I got a deal. We’re trading Wily Mo for Bronson Arroyo.’”

Wayne Krivsky (Reds general manager, 2006-08): “It came out of the blue, really. I got a call from (then-Red Sox general manager) Theo Epstein, and they expressed interest in Wily Mo Pena. I said, ‘Well, I need starting pitching.’ He mentioned Bronson. I was floored.”

Williams: “The next day you go downstairs and Wily Mo’s gone. By the afternoon, Bronson’s there, because he just had to drive over from Ft. Myers. ‘This doesn’t look like a one-for-one.’ I remember thinking that.”

Krivsky: “Bronson had just signed a deal with the Red Sox. We had him on a fair contract, I thought. There wasn’t a lot of back and forth. A couple phone calls, and let’s do it.”

David Ross (Reds catcher, 2006-08): “Who was this skinny, longhaired blond kid? We both got over to Cincinnati at the same time. I think he was traded the day before I got over there. We kind of hit it off and both were new. We ended up hanging out and talking to each other.”

Rick Stowe (home clubhouse manager): “I remember our security guard was more excited about it, because he was from Boston. He was so excited we got Bronson Arroyo. I was also wondering how we could pick up a starting pitcher for Wily Mo Pena. I think that’ll probably go down as one of Theo Epstein’s worst trades ever.”

Joey Votto (Reds first baseman, 2007-present): “The first time I saw Bronson, it was when he was with the Red Sox and he had his hair braided up. I had braided my hair, I think, before that. So I thought he was a poser and copying my style. I know I was a minor-leaguer, but that kind of stuff can spread like wildfire.”

Stowe: “By the end of spring, we knew we had a gold mine there. As far as us in the clubhouse, he treated us unbelievable. A lot of times when guys come in, they’ll try to fit in with their teammates first. It’s not, ‘You know what, I want to fit in with the clubhouse guys here.’ It’s not like that. He fit in with everybody.”

Bronson the pitcher

Arroyo became a big part of the Reds rotation right away, posting a 3.29 ERA in 240 2/3 innings in 2006 and making his only All-Star team. He never quite matched that year again, but could be counted upon like clockwork. He’d take the ball every fifth day, wind up with his high leg kick and give his best effort. Sometimes, he’d confound hitters with his breaking and offspeed pitches and his slower-than-average fastball. Sometimes he’d get shelled.

Votto: “The first time I faced him was spring training, and pitchers were throwing live. He’s firing up 82-mile-an-hour meatballs. He’s got this L screen in front of him, and he was the only guy throwing with an L screen because he was not excited about getting the ball shot back at him. But he was throwing so slow, and he wasn’t throwing any breaking pitches. I remember thinking to myself, ‘This is so easy. This is so cake right now.’”

Jonny Gomes (Reds outfielder, 2009-11): “Bronson’s got that embarrassing factor. You’re going to embarrass your family. It looks like you’ve never played baseball in your life. You’ve always got that in the back of your head. ‘How can you not hit an 81-mile-an-hour fastball?’”

Bryan Price (Reds pitching coach and then manager, 2010-present): “That was one of the first things I asked him when I got the job here. We were together in spring training, and I said, ‘Did you always throw the baseball this way? Were there people there that tried to change you?’ He said, ‘Number one, yes. I’ve always thrown the ball this way. Number two, yes. People have tried to change me but I’ve been able to always throw strikes and always compete and always win.’

Gomes: “It’s like going to a gunfight with a BB gun and just plunking everybody off because you’re a great shot.”

Price: “He’d give up a homer on a particular pitch, and the next time the hitter got up he threw him the exact same pitch. His theory, and he could validate this, was that the hitter’s already checked that pitch off and he wouldn’t see it rest of the game. For Bronson, it was a free strike. So if he threw a guy a strike curveball and the guy hits it out of the ballpark, he’s going, ‘That guy’s thinking I’m not going to throw him another curveball.’ Boom, there it was. First-pitch breaking ball for a strike.”

Ross: “The three years I was there, every time I caught him he would lob in the first pitch of the game. He would throw literally an 80 mile-an-hour batting practice fastball right down the middle, and the guys would take it every time. Then the league started to learn that he would do that and he had to start changing it up.”

Price: “You ever notice how many breaking pitches or change-ups he threw first pitch of the game? He just wasn’t sold that he could pump a first-pitch fastball right down the pipe and the hitter would take it. ‘Why would I want to go down 1-0 on the first pitch of the game?’ You could darn near guarantee it was going to be a slow curveball or a change-up first pitch of the game.”

Ross: “He had his own system for signs. He could tell you what he wanted to do with his eyes. With two strikes, he’d make eye contact and look up. You knew he wanted a high heater. You kind of learn when he wants it, so you knew when to make eye contact with him.”

Price: “He just has such great trust in himself and what he sees. He was always very involved in our pre-game discussions about the opposing team. However, I think he saw what he needed to see right in front of him. He could see the approach of the hitter, he could see areas of the plate that were vulnerable based on the speed and shape of a particular pitch. And he was all ears if you had different ideas.”

Ross: “He would call a lot of his own pitches. He loved to shake off. I called him the human bobblehead. Sometimes you’d put down the wrong pitch just so he’d shake to the one I wanted.”

When Arroyo pitched, two things were consistent – he’d work quickly, and he’d go as deep into the game as possible. In his eight years in Cincinnati prior to his 2017 swan song, he fell short of 200 innings just once, by a single frame.

Votto: “In 2010, I had tickets to Game 7 of the NBA Finals in Los Angeles, to watch the Lakers play the Celtics. We were at home against the Dodgers, but were playing in Seattle the next day, so I was making a pit stop in L.A. At the time, I was a league-minimum player, so the idea of getting your own plane was out of the question. There was a commercial flight somewhere around 4:30 or 5 o’clock range. It was direct from Cincinnati to Los Angeles. The only way that I could have gotten to that game is if the starter had pitched faster than two hours and 45 minutes, and even then I still probably wouldn’t have made it. It turns out Bronson, aware of that, pitched a two hour and twenty minute game. I just made it. To this day, I’m still thanking him for that.”

Gomes: “There’s not many things you can write in pen throughout the season. But there was a nine-year stretch where you could grab the schedule and count every five days and put his name down.”

Votto: “There were too many occasions where he probably should not have started, where other players would have passed on it.”

Price: “The only year he struggled was 2011. But that was one of the most memorable. He’d pitched six seasons in a row when he’d thrown 200 innings. We got to his last start of the year against the Mets in New York. He had 191 innings. He had gotten sick in spring training. He’s already thin. He can’t afford to lose a lot of weight. He lost weight and missed time. He never had a lot of energy. He went from averaging 88 to 90 down to 85-86.”

Williams: “He pitched eight innings that day. If he’d gotten a nine-inning complete game, he would have gotten his 200. Dusty got him out of there after the eighth. A lot of guys would have made a big deal about it, because Bronson was really proud of that 200-inning streak. But he was cool about it. The game situation dictated that we needed a reliever to come in.”

Price: “Throwing 199, considering what he went through that year, was the standout season of all. We didn’t have a real good year. We finished four or five games under .500, if I remember correctly. But he remained a constant in our rotation with such a dramatic difference in quality of stuff.”

Ross: “He’s a one-track mind. He’s so good at his craft and how he takes care of his body and the way he prepares. He’s so routine-oriented. He knows what he wants to do out there. I learned a lot about game-calling from catching him.”

Price: “You could never find a more committed player as far as being prepared to pitch, physically and mentally. He would challenge guys like Mike Leake and Cueto and Latos and say, ‘I’m going to outlast you. I’m going to pitch longer than you are, because I’m going to outwork you.’ He’d say it tongue-in-cheek and in jest, kind of as a way to prod those guys and make sure they were working.”

Walt Jocketty (Reds GM, 2008-16): “He would come in off the road trips sometimes, and even if it was kind of late he would go work out in the weight room at the ballpark. If he didn’t get a decent workout during the day, he did it when he got off the plane.”

Stowe: “Every day off day, he’d call me up. ‘I need to go to the ballpark.’ He needs to lift and feel the balls, he says. He’d go out and long toss every day. He’d always need to go in and throw a ball. If he couldn’t find a player to go in, it would be myself or my brother who would be on a trip. If something happened and he wasn’t able to get to the ballpark, you’d see him out in a parking lot in Miami or something. He’d be in a parking lot throwing against a wall or something.”

Bronson the person

On the field, Arroyo was known for his consistency. Off the field, he was a Hall of Famer. He was the stereotypical glue guy, except that there was nothing stereotypical about him. Everyone loved him.

Votto: “He’s this really nice hybrid of needs to socialize to be happy, but needs to be himself to be happy.”

Price: “There’s just a unique quality about him that makes you want to be around him.”

Stowe: “He knows everything about everything going on in this clubhouse. He knows every guy.”

Ross: “I’ve never met a more honest guy. He’ll shoot you straight. It’s not malicious, but it’s just the truth.”

Stowe: “He would stir my dad (late clubhouse manager Bernie Stowe) up. He come in and go, ‘C’mon Bernie, tell me some of them stories! Give me some stories of the old days!’ He’d get him riled up every day. I’d be like, ‘Bronson, get away from him! Leave him alone!’ He had that effect. ‘Tell me about Pete! Tell me about Johnny!’ He did it every day.”

Gomes: “He was like a chameleon. This dude would get down with the country guys, this dude would get down with the hip hop guys. He’d play the bongos with the Latins. He was loved by all.”

Stowe: “He never spends money on himself. I’ll never forget – this was after 2011 or 2012 – he was living in Mt. Adams in the upstairs of a two-family home. He wanted a bicycle, but he didn’t want to pedal up all those hills. So he got a motorized bicycle, and he felt very guilty about buying that motorized bicycle. It was the only thing he purchased for himself in I don’t know how long.”

Ross: “He is a tightwad.”

Zack Cozart (Reds shortstop, 2011-17): “He’s very smart with his money.”

Ross: Every time I would see him, he was talking about saving money in some shape or form. The only thing he ever splurged on was a nice boat in Cincinnati on the water. That was the nicest thing he had. He had an old Hummer when we were there, an H2 when they were nice. But it was getting out of shape. If he spent money, it was a well thought-out thing.”

Cozart: “We talk about money all the time, how you shouldn’t spend it crazy. But he goes into big details with stuff like that. He’ll talk about the pension. He starts doing these calculations on if you should take it out when you’re 45 or when you’re 62 and how much over the long run would you really get.”

Stowe: “He did take the whole clubhouse staff down to Costa Rica for a week, all expenses paid. I didn’t go. Married, with four kids at the time. But the whole clubhouse staff went. He does stuff like that all the time. We’re always included. His buddies come in for concerts or something. ‘Hey, I’m getting tickets. Who wants to go to the concert?’”

Arroyo also loved to pull pranks.

Price: “The best ones are the ones you don’t want to share.”

Billy Hatcher (Reds first- and third-base coach, 2006-present): “You can’t trust Bronson, and you can’t get him because he’s not afraid of anything. He lives in Florida and messed with alligators and snakes and everything. You just say, ‘That was a good one’ and leave it alone. If you try to retaliate, it’s going to get worse.”

Price: “He was the one that had the fake article written about Billy Hatcher, about being the best third-base coach, and then would spread it around the clubhouse. Inevitably, one would land around the coaches’ room and Hatch would read it. It was brilliant.”

Votto: “He made a song about me. He made a song about me getting a Lamborghini. ‘I’m the MVP and I’m ridin’ in my Lambooooo.’ I came into the clubhouse one day and the song was playing over the speakers. I was like, ‘What is that?’ Then I started listening to it and guys would look at me and point and laugh. It was the year I’d won the Most Valuable Player and I bought a Lamborghini. He was just basically putting me in my place and reminding me, ‘Hey, you’re not immune to our shenanigans.’ I still ask him to this day for that song. I want the mp3 of it so I can listen to it in my Ford Focus.”

Price: “We have the clubhouse music. Most of us on the coaching staff can’t stand the music being played in the clubhouse. I started to moan a little bit about it. ‘I think Sunday day games should be staff music day.’ Bronson followed up and asked, ‘What would you call it?’ I said I’d call it the Soft Sounds of the ‘70s. So he ends up putting together some of the absolute best and worst of the ‘70s – the pina colada song, something by America, something by Bread. He narrated through all of the songs. Anything that he gets involved in is done in such an intricate way. You can always tell it’s a Bronson production.”

Stowe: “I do remember a couple pranks that he’s pulled. Billy Hatcher has got a little phobia of small people.”

Hatcher: “I don’t have a phobia.”

Stowe: “Bronson knew one of the guys from Big and Rich. He brought him and his brother in, who were both… smaller in stature. He hid them in his locker.”

Hatcher: “He told me he was ordering a glove and he had ‘El Snatcho’ put on it. I come in from throwing batting practice one day, and he says, ‘Hatch, I got your glove. It’s in my locker. It’s right there, get it out.’”

Stowe: “There they are behind all his clothes.”

Hatcher: “Two little guys, and I almost s—t myself, is basically what happened. I took off running and they got a laugh out of it. It probably took two or three years off my life.”

Stowe: “He got Billy pretty good that day.”

Goodbye, hello again, goodbye

After the 2013 season, the Reds and Arroyo parted ways. He’d pitch the next season at 37, and the Reds had younger pitchers on whom to spend their money. Arroyo signed a two-year deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks, but then – for the first time in his career – got hurt. He had Tommy John surgery that June.

Price: “He ended up with a two-year deal with Arizona. I don’t think at the time the Reds were able to go down that road, knowing they still had Homer Bailey and Johnny Cueto, younger pitchers with a lengthier future ahead of them. That was an organizational decision. There was no way to get it all.”

Jocketty: “We weren’t in a position at the time to extend him again. It worked out well for us, because that’s when he got hurt, which was really a shock.”

Price: “He and I stayed in touch. When he got hurt and realized he was going to have the surgery, and then the shoulder got done after the elbow, I had a really strong feeling that at some point in time he and I were going to come back together. If I was still in Cincinnati, he would at some point come back. I was very confident in that.”

Arroyo became a free agent after the 2015 season, but hadn’t pitched in a year-and-a-half. He’d turn 39 in February. The Reds thought about a reunion, but the Washington Nationals – and former Reds manager Dusty Baker – jumped first and inked him to a minor-league deal for 2016. Again injured, he barely pitched that season.

Williams: “He’d called me the day he walked off the mound and said, ‘I’m done. I’m totally done. Everything hurts.’”

Price: “Washington got him in 2016 before we did. We were in discussions with him, but they made a commitment first. But when that was over, we made a real strong push to get him back in the organization.”

Williams: “Last offseason, early in the offseason, he said, ‘If I were able to come back and give it one more shot, it would be with you guys.’ Bronson basically said, ‘Fill out a contract. I’ll sign it, whatever you put on there.’ It was the easiest contract negotiation I’ve ever done.”

With injuries forcing him into heavy duty, Arroyo made 14 starts for the Reds this year. Few of them were good, and he landed on the disabled list after the last, owner of a 7.35 ERA. He’d taken his shot, and now he knew his ride was over at age 40.

Cozart: “He doesn’t want to quit playing baseball. He just knows he physically can’t do it.”

Price: “If he in any way, shape or form wants to stay in baseball, it would be great if it could be here in Cincinnati. He’s impactful in more ways than even he may understand.”

Stowe: “I can almost guarantee we’ll see Bronson again down the road.”

The Enquirer's C. Trent Rosecrans contributed to this project.