Keeping the game enjoyable for the players is no way for a baseball manager to gain genius status. A much better path: never smile. Never make your players crack up. Forever treat the game as if world peace depends on it. Jaws clenched, right foot on the top step, hand on chin, elbow on knee.

That’s the way to draw the awe of the intelligentsia bent on taking possession of the game as a means of softening unpleasant playground memories from the days they weren’t selected to play with the jocks.

Now, if the goal centers on winning, the better way for a manager to accomplish that generally lies in a less self-conscious approach. Use your humor, don’t check your temper, enjoy your job, allow your players to do the same, break the tension, react without censorship to lapses in effort.

Lou Piniella has done well that way. Tommy Lasorda and Sparky Anderson rode that approach all the way to World Series titles and plaques in the Hall of Fame. Today it’s Whitey Herzog’s turn. Herzog had a temper, all right, but most of his players loved playing for him. Take it from a Lawrence resident who pitched for him with the Royals.

“It was one of those days, about 95 (degrees), about 140 off the turf,” Marty Pattin remembered. “I’m going along pretty good, and we’ve got a 7-1 lead in about the sixth inning. I’m just throwing strikes with that big lead, getting a lot of flyball outs.”

Pattin, like most successful pitchers, hated coming out of games and was more than a little surprised to see Herzog make his way to the mound. He gripped the ball tightly and braced himself for a battle.

“I walked to the front of the circle and said, ‘Whitey, what the heck, I’m in command. I’m not tired.’ I was not happy to see him out there,” Pattin said. “Whitey says, ‘Oh, no, you’re fine. I’m not taking you out. I’m just giving your outfielders a rest. You’re running those poor guys to death.”’

A wasted trip, geeks would maintain. Herzog knew better, and so did Pattin.

“Oh, man, you just couldn’t find a better guy,” Pattin said. “He was like one of the guys and just treated everybody the way he wanted to be treated. He just made it fun for you. You had certain things you had to do, and if you did them, you didn’t have any problems with him. I liked the way he handled people.”

Herzog had rules. For one, he required players to weigh in every Sunday.

“Whitey gave you a weight you had to play at, and if you were over, it was a hundred bucks a pound,” Pattin said. “That was a lot of incentive. Come Thursday, we had a long line in the sauna. We did a lot of running, and we’d be dragging going in there on Sundays. Then we’d weigh in and hit the doughnuts, then be back at it the next week.”

Pattin, who said he spoke by phone with Herzog about a week ago, predicts a memorable speech from the manager who got the most out of the Royals and Cardinals.

“He’ll crack ’em up,” Pattin said. “His Casey Stengel rendition is the funniest thing you’ve ever seen.”

Dorrel Norman Elvert “Whitey” “The White Rat” Herzog managed the Texas Rangers (1973), California Angels (1974), Royals (1975-79) and Cardinals (1980-90).