ShawneeDispatch.com

Former Kansas City Royals manager Tony Pena wasn't shy about trying all sorts of gimmicks to get his players to believe they could win baseball games.

For a while that seemed like a good strategy, one that players and fans alike embraced in the form of an eternally positive attitude and T-shirts screaming "We Believe."

The strategy worked in 2003 as the Royals posted an 83-79 record - their only winning year since the 1994 Royals went 64-51 during a strike-shortened season. A miserable 58-104 campaign followed in 2004, and Pena went so far as showering in his uniform after the game to try to amuse his players into winning games. When that failed, Pena went AWOL and the Royals spiraled into further misery.

Pena's successor, Buddy Bell, wasn't a showman, and neither was the substandard roster he was forced to deal with for much of his two-plus seasons at the helm.

First-year manager Trey Hillman's approach is similar yet different from both Pena and Bell. He's a positive, enthusiastic manager like Pena, yet he's not here to entertain you. He won't turn cartwheels after a loss and expect it to make a difference. At the same time, he's a livelier version of the baseball-is-business Bell.

Hillman seems to encompass the best characteristics of both of his predecessors, and I find that enjoyable when listening to him describe the latest shortcoming in a season where the Royals are 23-34 and have lost 12 of their last 14 games.

I like that Hillman doesn't feed us a load of bull. If something's unacceptable, he says so, but he also discusses solutions - solutions that aren't found on the backs of T-shirts or in clubhouse gimmicks.

That being the case, there is an outside source of motivation that Hillman's club could learn from. He should contact Shawnee Mission North baseball coach Jayson Poppinga - a fellow first-year skipper - and invite the Indians out to the ballpark for a workout with the big leaguers.

Hillman's not about putting on an act, he's about teaching lessons. Right now his team needs to learn a few lessons; how to appreciate the game they're paid millions to play; how to play hard for their teammates; and how to find a way to win.

North's players know plenty about appreciating the game, about fighting for their teammates and about overcoming adversity.

The Indians went 0-18 during the regular season in the always-tough Sunflower League. They were hammered by Olathe East, 19-4, during the regular season. Then they got paired against top-seed East in the regional opener.

Against the odds, North pulled off a shocking 3-0 victory. The Indians didn't make it to state, but that wasn't the point.

The point was that they stuck together, persevered through adversity and found a way to win. The Royals play a 162-game regular season, so they're going to win some games here and there. At the moment, however, their chemistry seems bad. They're inventing ways to lose and $12 million-a-year-man Jose Guillen is calling his teammates babies through the press.

Hillman's club needs to learn a lesson, and some local high school players might be the best ones to teach them.