By Charles Sacchetti | Special Contributor

In 1955, I decided that I wanted to be a baseball player. My dad had taken me to my first Phillies game, at Connie Mack Stadium, and I was completely enthralled by the smell of the grass and pure beauty of the game. It was with these thoughts in mind that I joined my first baseball team, the Southwest Colts, just before my eighth birthday.

Back then, things were different. Teams played to win and actually kept score. There were no trophies for just showing up. You had to earn them, either individually or by your team’s winning the championship.

Not every kid got to play. You had to beat out the other guy. Because I was the youngest and smallest kid on the team, my position was “bench.” The Colts ended up undefeated that year, and the coach, Charlie D’Amico, played the guys he thought were the best. I couldn’t get into the lineup; it was very frustrating.

After each game, as my dad arrived home from work, he’d ask me two questions: Did you win? Did you play? My answers would be yes and no and always in that order. Dad wouldn’t say much more, obviously feeling that I was now old enough to deal with adversity. I really wanted to show him that I was good enough to play, but the disappointment continued.

Then one afternoon, as I occupied my usual position while doing my best to avoid the splinters, a few tears began to flow as I realized that I’d have to again go home and give Dad my yes and no answers. My dismay turned to horror when I saw my mother talking to our coach. This is a no-no. No kid wants “Mommy” interceding for him.

However, the next thing I knew, the coach said to me, “Grab a bat. You’re pinch-hitting.” It seems Mom had “reasoned” with the coach, just about begging him to give me a chance.

Looking back at that moment now, I can say that my life took a major turn then.

I went to the plate with Mom, my older teammates, and the coach watching intently — and I lined the first pitch right through the middle for a single.

I felt as if I had just won the World Series, although I acted as if it were no big deal. (It was very important to be cool at the age of eight when the other guys on the team were 11 and 12.) I finished that first year 6 for 13. I played sparingly, but at least I could tell Dad I played.

From then on, I played for many teams, including John Bartram High School, Roche Post American Legion, and Temple University. I even had a brief stint with the Phillies organization. I was a free agent second baseman in spring training, but two weeks in was called up for active duty with the National Guard during the Vietnam War. I say with as much modesty as I can muster that my baseball career was filled with many individual and team honors.

In April of 1970, while on the firing range at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., I received a letter from Temple athletic department icon Al Shrier. He offered me the position of business manager of athletics, which I assumed in August. Two years later, I moved on to the facilities department. My boss was Bud Wilson, the brother of my Temple baseball coach Skip Wilson. During this time, I met a sweet young lady, Luann. She was a student, the daughter of my coworker Rose. Luann and I were married two years later. That was 41 years ago. Now there are two children and two grandchildren.

As a benchwarmer in 1955, I could easily have soured on baseball, especially with feeling like a failure and suffering the humiliation of underachieving. Who knows? I might have even given up the game. It certainly wasn’t any fun and I sure didn’t like telling Dad I didn’t play.

It was Mom’s grabbing the coach and pleading with him to give her little boy a chance that made me realize I could play and be successful. From then on, the most important events of my life had a connection to my playing baseball.

One can never know the consequences of a mother’s act of love.

Charles Sacchetti is a member of St. Charles Borromeo Parish, Cinnaminson; owner of Charles Sacchetti LLC. and a budding columnist. This column, Getting In the Game, first appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, May 8, 2016.