Luck? Perhaps. Fate? Maybe. More like divine intervention — at least for Don Landolphi. “I was watching a baseball team practice back in ’06 or ’07 while I was in Italy, coaching the top Italian team,” the Hall of Fame former baseball coach at Brooklyn College told the Brooklyn Eagle last week.

“I realized,” he continued, “the gentleman instructing that team was a former player of mine — Valerio Raineri. He was coach of a visually-impaired team.” And so, the seed was planted for Don Landolphi — a man who has been involved with baseball for close to 60 years as a player and coach, both nationally and internationally.