FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) – David Wells’ curveball needs work. His mouth is in midseason form.

The left-hander who switched sides in the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry says that it’s good that bars close earlier in Boston than in New York, that witnesses are important when you get in a fight and that he plans to retire after the 2006 season.

“I’m trying to retire, but they keep sucking me back in,” Wells said Friday. “If they’re going to offer you a good contract, it’s kind of hard to turn down.

“Where (are) you going to make this kind of money if you’re out of (baseball). Financially, I’m secure, but it’s the love of the game. It’s awesome,” he said, but “I know next year’s my last year.”

In December, Wells signed a two-year contract with Boston worth a guaranteed $8 million with performance bonuses that could raise the total to $18 million. He had become a free agent after spending one season with San Diego.

On Friday, he threw about 60 pitches of batting practice. Manager Terry Francona said Wells would pitch for the first time in spring training on March 12 at home against Tampa Bay.

“Is that what he said? Cool,” Wells said. “I’ve got to get my curveball down, huh?”

It wasn’t breaking Friday as much as he would have liked, but he felt fine physically, he said with ice taped to his back and left shoulder after his workout. “I threw like 60 pitches today, which was good,” Wells said. “I could have thrown a lot more. That’s a good sign, right there.”

Wells pitched for the Yankees in 1997, 1998, 2002 and 2003. Boston hasn’t been such a hospitable place for visitors, he said.

Pitcher Tim Hudson, then with Oakland, was involved in a confrontation in a Boston bar on Oct. 3, 2003, while he signed autographs. Hudson said there wasn’t a fight.

“You saw what happened with Tim Hudson,” Wells said. “He went out there and he got provoked and that’s what I think people are doing now with athletes is trying to provoke them to do that, trying to ruin their career.

“They just home in on the people who are vampires, like me.” His nocturnal excursions could be curtailed in Boston because of its earlier bar closings.

“That’s good,” he said. If “I can just keep myself inside I’ll be all right.”

At least now Boston fans will be on his side in a rivalry that reached a milestone when the Red Sox overcame a 3-0 deficit and beat the Yankees in the AL championship series, then swept St. Louis in the World Series.

“I’m sure it (the rivalry) is going to get a lot better now because now Boston doesn’t have to take the flak from New Yorkers,” Wells said. “They can walk around proud and now they can talk the talk.”

And he’s getting used to being in a Red Sox uniform.

“It’s not as bad as I thought,” he told ESPN.

In January 1997, while in San Diego for his mother’s funeral, Wells got into a street fight outside a bar and broke his pitching hand. In 2002, while with the Yankees, he was punched in the face by a man during an early morning argument in a New York diner and lost two teeth.

He knows that people might want to fight with wealthy players so they can sue them.

“Exchange of wealth,” Wells called it. “That’s why you let them hit you first and make sure there’s a witness.”

He doesn’t seem ready to leave his fun-loving ways behind, even when it was jokingly suggested that going to bed at 8 p.m. was responsible for his longevity in baseball.

“Yeah, that clean living is pretty good. Each individual is different,” Wells said. “Look at Mickey Lolich and those guys, Mickey Mantle. Those guys enjoyed life and they had great careers and they hit the towns hard.

“Babe Ruth, of all people, he’d pull a (all) nighter and go out and hit three home runs so it worked for some people. I don’t recommend it for everybody.”

AP-ES-03-04-05 1939EST