Now and then, Glen Lerner would try to engage his father in a discussion about his past; more specifically, how to get out from under that past. “Why can’t you forgive yourself?” the son would ask of a father who was famous for holding grudges against others — and, it seemed, himself. Even now, he wouldn’t talk.

“I could look in his face, and I could see the regret,” Glen says, adding: “There may have been things he did that he didn’t get in trouble for.”

The former athlete who once sprang so gracefully from the batter’s box, bat in hand, and from a sedan, shotgun in hand, could not dodge time. A few years ago, dementia set in. He fell and broke a hip. When death came in 2013, at age 77, he left a son, a daughter, grandchildren and so many questions.

“It’s a whodunit,” Glen says. “You know who did it, but why? Why?”

Maybe Lerner had gravitated toward father figures who had led him astray, his son says, sounding wishful. Maybe he was looking for someone to look up to. Maybe.

“He was very sweet at the end,” Glen says. “He lost a lot of his edge.”

But Maury Lerner never lost his sense of belonging to the professional baseball fraternity. Among its members, he was not known for being anything other than a loyal teammate who could hit like hell. A real pro.

In the years after prison, Lerner began calling former teammates and opponents around the country — people now in their 70s and 80s, who knew him before. He enjoyed reminiscing about the old days, the times spent in baseball’s ports of call: Erie and Boise, Macon and Raleigh, Yakima and Managua.

“He called me,” the former major leaguer Frank Kostro recalls. “And I says, ‘Maury, where you been?’”

The old ballplayer explained as best he could.