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THE HITMAN
Matthew Garringer
August 31, 2023
Good evening. This is Dead Legends. We’re the Allstate of the email game.
When you’re with us, you’re in good hands.
Let’s dive in.
Today's story is about a minor leaguer turned vicious hitman.
Maury Lerner was a promising prospect who went into pro ball straight outta high school.
Unfortunately, couldn’t hit the side of a barn in his first season with the Senators; batting a miserable .167 in 13 games.
After that year, Lerner enlisted in the Marines.
He returned in '57 to join the Milwaukee Braves in Boise, and when he showed up, he was dialed in.
Maury had 158 knocks in 127 games and batted an impressive .328.
He continued to have success in the following years, including a stellar season in '59 when he hit .372 with the Wilson Tobs, a team in the Pirates organization.
Pittsburgh’s front office was watching, just in case Bill Mazeroski at second or Dick Groat at short got injured.
In the meantime, Maury was committed to his craft, and was ahead of his time in many ways.
He read books to improve his skills, paid attention to nutrition, and was lifting weights at a time when almost no one in baseball concentrated on strength training or conditioning.
Unfortunately, he had a bad habit of sabotaging himself.
Every time Maury would come close to achieving his dream of playing in the show, he would do something to mess it up.
By '61, he was playing for the Macon Peaches, a collection of has-beens; the kind of team where "once-upon-a-time prospects" go to die.
It was around this time that he was arrested for armed robbery of a furniture store and sentenced to three years probation.
By '62, he was on his way out of baseball, even though he spent part of the season with the Raleigh Capitals, of the Senators organization, hitting .308 and blasting eight home runs; the most of his professional career.
It was all downhill from there.
Lerner started hanging out with two well-known New England criminals, John "Red" Kelley, and George Agisotelis, also known as “Billy A.”
It was alleged that Red and Billy A were flush with cash after they robbed a mail truck for $1.5 Million.
Lerner started thinking about taking his talents to a new kind of team.
Shortly after, he put in his notice with the Raleigh Capitals.
Lerner and Kelley were recruited to the Patriarca crime family, a organized crime syndicate based out of Rhode Island.
Maury immediately started putting his athletic skills to use - turning his baseball swing into a lethal weapon against his enemies.
He became a ruthless killer with no remorse towards those he felt might be a hinderance to "the business."
Lerner was linked to several murders including Tommy Richards, a friend of John Kelly's who was supposed to testify against him in the case for the mail truck heist.
Ultimately, it was the killing of bookmaker, Rudy Marfeo, and his bodyguard, that would come back to haunt Lerner, though.
On April 20, '68 Maury and John Kelley entered Pannone’s Market in Providence, RI and brutally murdered the two men.
By the time police showed up, no one had "heard" or "seen" anything.
Their getaway Buick was later recovered, with a sawed-off M1 carbine, two sawed-off shotguns and two .38-caliber pistols still inside.
And for a while, things were quiet, but by '69, Maury’s friend and mentor, John Kelly, had been turned into an informant for the FBI.
Kelley told federal investigators that Lerner, was bright, courageous and homicidal: the most dangerous man he had known in his 25 years on the dark side.
Then he told them about the incident at Pannone’s Market.
Agents arrested Lerner at his home, and after a theatrical trial, he was given consecutive life sentences.
At 34, Maury Lerner was hanging up his street clothes forever in exchange for an orange jumpsuit.
In prison, he was regarded as a model inmate; he even saved a prison guard who was being choked by another convict.
After 18 years, Lerner was released on a technicality after his old friend John "Red" Kelly admitted that his original testimony wasn't the whole truth and thus perjured himself.
Lerner moved out to the West Coast and lived a relatively quiet life after his release.
He died in 2013 at the age of 77.
ON TOP OF THE WORLD
If you’ve ever had the chance to watch your favorite team win a World Series, it’s one of the best feelings on Earth.
Because let’s be honest, baseball is an emotional game, and even as fans, we feel the ups and downs of the 162-game roller coaster ride that every season brings.
That’s why Homage dropped a whole collection of World Series Championship tees so you can remember the good times.
Here’s a quick sneak peek:
Quick Links:
STRANGE NAMES
If you're just joining us, we play this game every day where we try to find the weirdest names throughout baseball history.
Why? Don't ask us, it's just something we like to do.
If you've been rocking with us for awhile now, you know what time it is.
Today's winner is:
Clarence Jenkins was a two-sport superstar.
He was a stellar leadoff hitter, and a beastly point guard in the early days of pro basketball.
Clarence’s older brother was known as Big Fats, so naturally he was called “Little Fats” - which eventually just got shortened to “Fats.”
Jenkins is considered one of the greatest outfielders in Negro League history, and in 2021 he was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
THE DEAD LEGENDS ARCHIVE
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