I actually had catcher’s gear, so I was always allowed to play, even though I was really bad.
You owned the equipment; you owned the position. That's why I would spend my allowance money to buy marked down baseballs in the hardware store around Halloween. You probably got better at catching by playing the position a lot just as I got better at pitching by pitching a lot. So eventually, you graduated from being a crappy player to just mediocre.
A friend of mine (even taller and skinnier) was so bad, I coached him how to crouch to reduce the strike zone and crowd the plate because the only way he could get on base was with a hit by pitch. He never got better than being a really bad player whereas I eventually achieved mediocrity. Funny thing is that he was a math whiz, didn't get married until he was 39 and did great in real estate and stock market investments. We still joke about how baseball showed him that even bad players could become a success.