Somebody grab a handkerchief or some tissues. Or in this case, you might need a beach towel.

Bronson Arroyo is sad. Very sad. He’s been traded from the team he has always loved, the Boston Red Sox, to the Cincinnati Reds.

It is tough to leave one team for another. Just look at Ken Griffey Jr. He took less money to play for his hometown team and he’s been the toast of the town ever since. Other than the boos and talk show critics because he’s been hurt and the management trying to trade him every other week, it’s been glorious to play in the old hometown.

Arroyo took less money only last January — a 3-year deal for $11.25 million — just so he could play in Boston. Unfortunately, that salary made him more attractive to other teams and the Reds had just what the Red Sox wanted in slugger Wily Mo Pena.

Less money isn’t always a lock to stay where you’re at. There is no loyalty in this business. Players like to play the game as well. Dangle an extra carrot and they’ll jump in a minute. The whole time they’re stuffing their suitcase with $1,000 bills and rushing out the door for their new team they’re yelling at the media they really want to stay with their current team but “they just don’t respect me.”

Arroyo thought he had a friend in Boston general manager Theo Epstein. They played guitar together. But it was Epstein who pulled the trigger on the deal with the Reds.

Loyalty is a lost virtue in today’s world, and it has been lost on both sides.

Can you imagine the first conversation between Arroyo and Reds owner Bob Castellini and GM Wayne Krivsky? I wonder if I went something like this…

Castellini: Well Bronson, tell me a little about you.

Arroyo: I was named after Charles Bronson.

Krivsky: Because he was a tough guy in Death Wish?

Arroyo: No, because of his movie “You Can’t Win Them All.”

Castellini: I understand you were really sad to leave Boston. You must have really loved the city.

Arroyo: No. I still haven’t found the “Cheers” bar.

Krivsky: That was just a TV show. They’re not real.

Arroyo: Well, baseball is a TV show and we’re real.

Castellini: Say Bronson, how would like to play a little guitar?

Jim Walker is sports editor of The Ironton Tribune.