What the hell? That's an expression that Charlie Manuel uses a lot, a verbal shrug, especially when he gets a little wound up. Nobody wants to become the butt of jokes or be mocked for the way he talks or the way he walks. The Phillies manager certainly doesn't.

Then again, when you've twice been stretched out on the table and heard - actually heard - the medical personnel discussing the fact that you're probably going to die . . .

When you grew up as one of 11 children with a father who was a Pentecostal preacher, a man so strict that the price of playing ball was a good spanking . . .

Sticks and stones may break my bones.

What the hell?

When Manuel was hired on Nov. 4, 2004, the news wasn't particularly well received. He was replacing Larry Bowa, the popular former shortstop on the only Phillies team ever to win the World Series. Many fans wanted Jim Leyland instead.

As he enters his fourth season on the job, Manuel hasn't changed.

Only the perception of him has.

Some of that, obviously, is because the Phillies made the playoffs last season for just the second time in 23 years. Winning has a way of burnishing any manager's reputation.

Another part of the equation, though, is that it sometimes takes people a while to get past the Virginia drawl and the occasional battles with grammar and the mispronunciations to find the real person behind the hastily drawn stick-figure caricature based on his chicken-fried roots.

"I think [the fans] kind of accept me more now," Manuel said, sitting in his office at Bright House Field recently after batting practice and before an exhibition game against the Tampa Bay Rays. "The way we've played, and the fact that we won the division last year, definitely helps.

"I know I've got a lot better personality than people see. They see the Southern Comfort guy and all that. Ol' Uncle Chuck. Which is OK. I've never had a problem with that. As long as I know myself. I am who I am. I'm very comfortable with who I am. I like being who I am."

Maybe image isn't everything after all.

Shortstop Jimmy Rollins senses the shift. "In the light of us winning, yes. If it wasn't for us winning, it would still have been, 'Charlie, he's not smart.' 'He stutters when he talks.' Et cetera, et cetera," he noted.

"But when you win, people start saying, 'Hey, you know what? There has to be something more to him. The players like him. Even though he doesn't come off well in the media, he still has a job and he got an extension.' So you start giving him the benefit of the doubt.

"Those become things you start liking about the person. Instead of viewing him in a negative light, you start viewing it as, 'That's his personality. That's what he does to keep the team loose.' "

Added second baseman Chase Utley: "He's a very bright baseball man. Obviously, he has the accent and he's got a funny little stroll. But that's what makes him who he is. He's been around the game a long time and he's seen it all. So I would definitely disagree with anybody who says he doesn't know much about baseball."

Manuel had just had his first heart attack. While he was waiting for the doctor, one nurse remarked that he was the best patient she'd ever had because he wasn't complaining about how much pain he was in.

The other nurse wasn't as impressed. "Not necessarily," he heard her say. "Maybe he just gave up, knowing he's going to die. "

He mustered up the strength to turn and stare. Hard.

Years later, when he was managing the Indians, he needed surgery because of an infection of his gallbladder, colon and liver. For some reason, though, the anesthesia didn't take and the doctors couldn't put him to sleep. As they continued to work on him, he heard the doctor say, "This guy's not going to make it."

Here's the thing, though: Manuel never doubted, not for one instant, that everything was going to work out.

"You may not believe this, but it didn't get me down," he said. "Because I definitely felt like I was going to live and didn't want to give up. I was always upbeat even though I heard them say that."

For a while, he managed with a colostomy bag under his warmup jacket.

These are the sort of experiences that put things in perspective.

"That definitely helps," he said. "When people say [stuff] about you, write it, it's easier for it to bounce off. Without a doubt that plays a role."

Even before that, growing up in Buena Vista, Va., had a way of teaching young Charlie that life wasn't always going to be fair.

His mother had 14 children. Three were stillborn. Kids in large families learn quickly that they're not always going to get their way. There was also the fact that his father was a no-nonsense disciplinarian.

"My dad was very strict," Manuel recalled. "First of all, he didn't think sports was good and I always loved to play sports. We had to be home at a certain time. My sister was a [junior varsity] cheerleader and we used to go to games and if we weren't back by 8 o'clock, we got a spanking. And you knew you were going to get it.

"I actually used to like to take my whipping before I'd go play. I'd say, 'Dad, we've got a game tonight or tomorrow or whatever.' And I'd say, 'If you're going to whip me, why don't you just whip me now? That way it will be over and I won't have to think about it.'

"He was strict on us but, at the same time, the way he taught us definitely helped me."

Really, now. Would you expect a person who's been through all that to get all bent out of shape just because somebody disagrees with how he runs a baseball game?

By now, even Manuel's most persistent critics concede that the players go all out for him. And in an era when the average big-league salary is more than $3 million a year, managing the egos is every bit as important as knowing when to bunt and when to hit away.

That's why general manager Pat Gillick ignored some strong public sentiment and brought him back for the final season of his original contract last year, why he gave him a 2-year extension plus an option after the season ended.

To an extent, Manuel is proud of that reputation.

"The way our players talk about liking to play for me. Believe me, I like that in some ways," he said. "But at the same time, I want people to know that I'm about winning and I'm about our players playing right.

"For somebody to say, 'We really enjoy playing for Charlie.' I don't want somebody to take that as, hey, this guy's a pushover. He's just an easy dude. He's just an old Southern guy. Easygoing Chuck or whatever."

Manuel may be slow to react. But he also can be stubborn. And, like anybody, he has pride. So even though he may not show it often, it bothers him when people write him off as little more than a rah-rah guy who has trouble grasping the double-switch.

"I definitely don't think that's right. Definitely," he said sternly. "I think it's knowing the players and putting them in the right situation. If I have to make a double-switch, I definitely can do it if it's to leave a [relief] pitcher in the game for a period of time.

"But why should I take Pat Burrell or somebody out of the lineup if he's a better hitter than who I'm putting in and that guy's going to get two more at-bats when Burrell might get one more at-bat and then I've still got those guys on the bench? That's how I look at it.

"How would you feel if you were a position player and you started the game and, after one at-bat, I yanked you out? Hell, if I was a player, that would [tick] me off."

That doesn't mean he's always right.

"There have been times when I definitely felt like I could have managed better. But the game didn't work out the way we wanted it to, the way we had it set up. Sometimes that happens," he conceded.

"Don't ask somebody to do something they can't do. And a lot of times, that's where the talent part comes in. You ask any manager in baseball, he doesn't want to come out and say, 'You know what? That guy can't handle that situation.' He don't want to say that because that deflates the guy and sends a bad message to his team.

"So they'll put a guy up there and hope he comes through. There are guys in the big leagues, you know if you send them up there they're going to get real antsy and real nervous and scared or whatever and they're going to jump at the first ball that's thrown up there. And you're just hoping he'll be a little bit patient and get something to hit. You're hoping he's going to do it but down inside you don't know. There's a lot of doubt, but still you've got to be positive. And you'll see him sitting there like, 'He's got to use me here.' And he's right. You should. But do you want to use him?"

Often the problem isn't that Manuel doesn't know what he's doing. It's that he has difficulty explaining his thinking after the game. Sometimes it's because he's trying to protect a player. Sometimes it's because he doesn't want to tip his hand to the opposing team by revealing which players were unavailable due to a minor injury.

And almost always it's because the televised postgame press conference, the setting in which most outsiders see him, isn't his strength.

"When you talk about knowing baseball, the man knows baseball. Straight up," Rollins said. "It's just when he gets in front of a big group, it seems like it's a lot more difficult for him to express that because he gets nervous and that's when he starts stuttering.

"You pull him over, you see him in back of the [batting] cage, the man can talk without stuttering. And he can talk about baseball, he can talk about hitting, he can talk about pitching.

"Charlie gets a bum rap. Just because he stutters and gets nervous in front of the media. But that's not who Charlie really is. Charlie is a very one-on-one type of person. So now that fans, media, even players when they come in here, they notice that right away. This is a real good guy. He's not a dummy. And it's not what you see across from the other dugout when you're actually out there with him."

Conceded Manuel: "Sometimes when you put me in a room and we've just had a bad game and we didn't play good and there are a lot of things the media wants to ask me, you're right. I get uncomfortable because I want to give the right answer.

"At the same time I never, ever will try to throw a guy under the bus. Never. I'm man enough to take the hit for him as long as he becomes a better player and realizes what I'm talking about."

That can be difficult at times because the fact is that Manuel isn't really that comfortable fudging the facts.

"My dad used to say, 'As long as you tell the truth, you'll never get caught in a lie.' He'd say that he guessed a lie was OK as long as nobody ever found out about it," he said. "At the same time, if you're a good person, you don't look at it that way."

Even with his coaches, he admits, he sometimes doesn't express himself as well as he could.

"I think I know the game and I know everything about it. And sometimes because I think I know what I'm doing and somebody asks me what you might call a simple question, sometimes I give an answer before I even think. And it don't sound right.

"Sometimes I definitely answer before I think. Sometimes I answer [when] I've got something else on my mind."

And make no mistake. Manuel may not be at ease discussing supply-side economics or Mideast policy. But when it comes to baseball, he has all the confidence in the world in his abilities.

"I used to run the whole game [in the minors]," he said. "I used to do all the signs to the catchers and the pitchers and all that. I used to put on all the bunt signs. As a matter of fact, I added bunt plays [in the minor leagues for] Cleveland and eventually the major league teams used them. I don't think people realize that.

"The pitching chart, the big, long pitching chart. In 1984 I made that pitching chart and now most teams in the major leagues have it. It's been updated, but that's basically my chart. Also, when I first started managing in Double A and Triple A, I had OPS [on base plus slugging percentage], late hitting in the game, you name the stat. Big, thick books. I still have them somewhere."

It mystifies him, honestly, that he so often seems to be the one defending himself.

"You know what I can't understand? Sometimes I see the other managers do things and I think, 'Wow, how the [bleep] could he do that?' I see them do [bleep] and nobody will say a damn word about it. Seriously. I see them do things and I say, 'How the hell could he get away with that? They'd shoot me if I did that,' '' he said.

"Don't get me wrong. Second-guessing is all part of it. That's definitely part of the game. And if they don't like you for some reason, they're inclined to say it's the wrong move. And that's not necessarily true."

"I can take criticisms," Manuel said. "I can take jokes and things like that. As long as it doesn't get personal and cross the line. On a certain day, if someone pushes buttons and making accusations about you that you don't like . . . There are times I definitely feel like I have to stand up for myself.

"Everything in baseball is kind of a fine line. Like our team, like the way we play, like the way we have fun. All of a sudden, if that fun starts getting out of hand, it's not fun anymore."

There's just one thing, really, that he would like people to realize. Just one.

"Sometimes I don't think people get how much I really care. I want them to know that I probably want to win more than anybody in baseball," he said. "I always talk about winning. That's all I talk about."

And if people don't grasp that, well, what the hell? *