The manager of the Philadelphia Phillies is from the western part of Virginia, where suburbia gives way to Appalachia, and has an accent so thick that it invariably becomes part of telling his story.

But look deeper, and the clichés evaporate. Manuel is the same manager who went to the front office after his first season with the Phillies in 2005 and demanded more players who fit his personal standard of commitment. Significant changes followed.

All-Star shortstop Jimmy Rollins, twice benched by Manuel for disciplinary reasons, says “Chuck’’ is the best manager he has ever played for.

Manuel also is only the fourth manager in the last 40 years to guide a National League team to consecutive World Series appearances. The Phillies, who last season won their first world championship since 1980, face the Yankees in Game 1 of the Series tonight.

The $210 million Yankees have home-field advantage and are favored to win their first title since 2000. But the Phillies have lost only one game in each of their last five postseason series. No team in baseball has a greater sense of purpose.

“I talk a lot about excellence,’’ Manuel said. “I talk about the elite team and how to play, and I think that we’ve got a bunch of guys who love to play.’’

And those players have a manager who loves to talk. Manuel is a storyteller with a sharp sense of humor and has become a chore for the poor souls who work for ASAP Sports, the stenography service Major League Baseball employs during the postseason to transcribe comments made in the interview room before and after games. His fractured syntax delightfully meanders from one paragraph to the next.

A question during the NL Championship Series about how Manuel felt about winning the World Series last year morphed into a tale about his watching a young Kirby Puckett playing Rookie League ball in Tennessee in 1982. The next day included a vivid play-by-play description of a driveway basketball game against his son 25 years ago. The rose bush near the fence was out of bounds, as it turns out.

“The man can talk,’’ said veteran Matt Stairs, Manuel’s favorite pinch hitter. “I think everybody on our team can do an impression of Charlie, and they’re all pretty good. He keeps us laughing.’’

That is part of his well-honed appeal. Manuel was an accomplished enough basketball player in high school to merit a recruiting visit from North Carolina coach Dean Smith. But baseball became his life. A .198 hitter over parts of six seasons in the majors, Manuel became a star attraction as a power hitter during a six-year stint in Japan. He then returned home and managed nine years in the minors before the Cleveland Indians made him their hitting coach in 1994.

That led to three seasons as manager, then a second chance with the Phillies in 2005 after the Indians fired him.

“I can walk in any ballpark in the world and I can go out on the field and I can get close to the players. I believe that,’’ Manuel said. “I start having conversations with them and I start letting them talk to me and I get a feel for them . . . whether he’s got a bad attitude or a good attitude or any of those things, I feel like I can say that.’’

That confidence allows Manuel to walk through the clubhouse and warble off-color lyrics to whatever song is on the stereo knowing his players are laughing with him.

“We make fun of him because he makes fun of us,’’ righthander Brett Myers said. “He’s a fun guy to be around and he never gets uptight. When he gets mad, it’s at the whole group and not one individual. Players appreciate that.

“I had a pitching coach in the minor leagues - I won’t say who - who used to tell all the pitchers to stay away from the manager. I took that to heart until I played for Charlie. I didn’t think I had the status to go talk to the manager. But Charlie is hard to stay away from.

“You want to tell him how you feel because he’ll tell you what he honestly feels. With all of his experiences, he relates to everybody in a normal human manner. He took me off the roster in the LCS and I was actually OK with it after we talked.’’

Those relationships, burnished over time, helped turned the Phillies from a team that was never quite good enough under Terry Francona and Larry Bowa into the three-time National League East champions.

“Just watch the way they play,’’ Dodgers manager Joe Torre said. “It gives you an indication how they feel about Charlie.’’

Manuel has been the most adept manager of this postseason, rebuilding the shattered confidence of closer Brad Lidge, mending a bullpen that turned unreliable during the season, and constructing a lineup that has averaged 6.1 runs over nine games. Those who believe the Yankees will win easily have not paid close enough attention to how well the Phillies have played.

“Charlie’s the same guy every single day, whether we’re playing well or whether we’re playing poorly,’’ second baseman Chase Utley said. “You can’t say enough about him.’’

CC Sabathia, who starts tonight for the Yankees, played two seasons for Manuel in Cleveland. In 2001, when Sabathia was 20, Manuel won an organizational debate over whether the lefthander was ready for the majors.

“I owe him everything,’’ Sabathia said. “Charlie told me at the beginning of spring training if I pitched well enough, he was going to take me. He kept his word. He was great to me and we have a great relationship.’’

Manny Ramirez, another Manuel loyalist, waited patiently outside the Philadelphia clubhouse last week so he could personally congratulate his former hitting coach for getting back to the Series.

There is even respect among the notoriously hard-to-please fans in Philadelphia. When the Phillies beat the Dodgers in five games last Wednesday, the crowd chanted “Charlie, Charlie’’ when he was introduced.

“That’s the part that makes you feel good, when they holler your name and stuff,’’ Manuel said. “I think they’re doing that because they love the way our team plays and the fact that we are successful.’’

Said right fielder Jayson Werth, “I don’t think you can find another guy who would be more perfect for this team and this city right now.’’

The trick is to listen to what Manuel says, not how he says it.

“I know how it is because I’m from the South myself,’’ said Myers. “People underestimate Charlie because of his accent. When he first got to Philadelphia, they thought he was a stupid redneck. But you’d better be careful, that dumb redneck will sneak up on you.’’

Peter Abraham can be reached at pabraham@globe.com.