Lou Merloni acknowledges cheers from fans while attending a Providence College basketball game earlier this year.

The Providence Journal / Gretchen Ertl

As Lou Merloni, WEEI radio personality and NESN television broadcaster, sat at a table in McCoy Stadium signing autographs for fans, it was easy to forget he ever had another career at all.

Nearly every person who came to the table — and there were many — complimented him on his broadcasting, on how much they love listening to him on WEEI, or on how they’ve enjoyed his NESN television spots.

Very few handed him old baseball cards, or talked about his days as a Red Sox infielder. One man did unearth a pair of tickets from the Framingham, Mass., native and Providence College product’s 1998 major league debut, which earned him a raised eyebrow from Merloni.

Merloni, too, has moved on, in a way that has surprised even him.

After playing baseball non-stop professionally for his entire adult life, Merloni has picked up a glove and ball only twice since officially retiring in March. The funny thing is, he’s barely noticed the void.

“I don’t miss playing, to be honest with you,” Merloni said.

Merloni wasn’t one of those players who had an outsized press conference announcing his retirement. He won’t have his number hung on the walls of Fenway, and he didn’t have people debating his standing in the pantheon of their team’s greats. He faded away quietly during spring training this year, taking his .271 lifetime average and 14 home runs with him.

“I was lucky enough to know when it was time. No regrets,” Merloni said.

He spent his last year in Sacramento, playing for the River Cats, the AAA team for the Oakland Athletics. The team won the Pacific Coast League championship, but Merloni spent much of the year on the sidelines after he was hit in the head with a pitch.

It was the first time he had been hit in the head, and it was a jarring experience. He suffered from vertigo for much of the season, and despite the River Cats winning the PCL championship, Merloni knew it was over.

“I think [the injury] had a lot to do with it. It kind of put things in perspective. It was that serious of an injury. I think because of that injury, I was there all year long at AAA, and with the travel, I realized I just didn’t want to do it anymore,” Merloni said.

“Spending the whole year in the PCL with the flights, and the travel, and the 6:30 a.m. flights, the two-hour layovers, it was too much for me,” he said.

Toward the end of his playing days, he had talks about a front-office job, perhaps within the Indians organization, but ultimately settled on a broadcast career.

At 37, Merloni is now transitioning from being a peer to the players on the field to being something of an outsider. The players in AAA Sacramento were often 15 years his junior. Even on the Red Sox, only a handful of players remains from his time on the team, and many of the others watched him play on television when they were growing up.

Getting his head around the dual roles of reporter and analyst also has been an adjustment. He must figure out how to capitalize on but not abuse his insight and his friendships with the men he used to play with.

“We just chat. That’s the tough part — being an analyst and being a reporter. Being an analyst, I can just go in there and talk with them,” Merloni said.

“Being a reporter, going in there and asking them questions, I still feel uncomfortable. I like being an analyst, watching the game, analyzing the game. The reporting side is a little bit of a stretch still.”

One of the toughest lines to straddle as an analyst is being harsh on the people you must also ask for information, assistance and insight. That can be doubly tricky as a former player, because you remember what it was like to be on the receiving end of an analyst’s invective.

“I think one of the things that people have said to me is that they appreciate that I don’t hold back. I give my opinion. If someone’s not doing something right, I’ll talk about it,” he said.

Merloni said players are well aware of how they’re performing, and sometimes being called out on their struggles can help compel a player to turn things around.

“As a player, when I look back, if I was doing something wrong, I knew it. That’s the way I looked at it — they’re right,” Merloni said. “Am I happy that it’s in the paper? Am I happy they’re talking about it? Of course not. But they’re right.”

At the fan day in Pawtucket this winter, Merloni was clearly a draw. He played in front of these fans so often that the Boston-to-Pawtucket trip became known as the Merloni shuttle, and despite — or because of — his retirement and his broadcasting debut, Merloni seems more accessible and more popular than ever.

Perhaps Merloni need only look across the broadcast booth to see what his future might hold. Jerry Remy, the former Red Sox second baseman from Fall River, parlayed his playing career and local ties into a successful career as the Red Sox color broadcaster, and then into several local businesses.

Merloni could easily become a Remy type: the local boy who made good, the reliable former Red Sox player, the likeable television everyman. And in that, Merloni could be a name alive in Red Sox nation when his heavier-hitting peers are long forgotten.

dbarbari@projo.com