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But when it comes to Richard Schenck, few things are as they first seem.

Most who pocket balls at Teachers Billiards in St. Peters know Schenck, if they know him at all, as the owner of their favorite bar.

It’s his other job, the one that makes him more money than the billiards business these days, that prompted a recent visit.

Come out back, Schenck said after a handshake. He hustled into a cramped office, where he grabbed two bats off the wall, then entered the startling sunlight.

Along the way we passed a photo of a pinstriped slugger in the midst of a home run trot. A scrawl of silver Sharpie stood out:

“To Rich, thanks for all of the help last year. You are a game and career changer! — Aaron Judge, 2017 AL ROY.�

This is a story of perseverance. Or, maybe it’s more about obsession. Perhaps it’s just about the power of the Internet. You be the judge.

Regardless, it’s a whopper of a tale, the kind that often turns out to be embellished, especially when it starts at a bar.

Then you hear the 63-year-old swing that bat.

Whoosh.

This bespectacled, barrel-chested husband and father of three never played beyond Division II ball. He was a lousy hitter, even then. Yet a lengthening list of major leaguers — Judge, Cubs utility man Ian Happ and Phillies rising star Scott Kingery to name a few — are turning to Schenck to shape their powerful swings. An entire agency, PSI Sports Management, makes Schenck available to their clients. He spends his days crisscrossing the country for clinics and swing sessions. A check of his direct messages on Twitter often reveals a note from a player — a Padre here, a Dodger there — who wants his help.

Why?

Schenck pulls out his cell phone and scrolls through the countless videos of Judge, Happ, Kingery and those who have asked not to be named. Here’s the one he’s looking for. A bald, muscled man is smashing golf-ball sized wiffle balls with a tiny paddle.

If this hitter had hair, he would look just like …

“Manny Ramirez,� Schenck said.

Ramirez, retired at 46 years old, still hits. He discovered Schenck through a YouTube video. He flew to ºüÀêÊÓƵ to hit with him. Then, he flew Schenck to Florida for four days. Ramirez often told people his swing was impossible to explain, that it was a gift from God. What fascinated him about Schenck is that he’s teaching the gift.

Schenck often introduces himself as “Rich, from my basement,� because that’s where his rise from frustrated baseball dad to swing guru started. He grew tired of watching his two sons slog through the struggles he experienced at the plate. A fascination turned into an obsession around 1998.

Growing up in Iowa, he had fallen in love with pool. Studied it. Mastered it. And after graduating college and spending stints as a teacher and insurance man, he returned to it, opening the pool hall in 1989. When he gets into something, he goes all the way. How could he find a better way to hit a baseball?

“I didn’t think I was such a bad athlete that I shouldn’t be able to hit,� he said. “I just believed there was a technique I hadn’t discovered yet.�

He consulted hitting coaches and scoured the Internet for clues. He set up a tee in his basement and installed a machine that spit out golf-ball-sized wiffle balls. He found his muse.

“It was a Friday night in September of 2006,� Schenck said. “I’m watching the Cardinals play the Giants. Barry Bonds is playing. He’s the best hitter in the game. There is no question about it. All of the guys I argued with on the Internet agreed Bonds had the best swing. I always saw his barrel as going backward, and then launching forward. No. He’s launching it backward, and it comes around. I got down there in the basement that night and started messing around. I started squaring up every ball. The time before I was down there, I couldn’t square up any of them. But that night, everything was different.�

The breakthrough came too late to help his sons in anything but their fast-pitch softball careers, where they began to rake. Schenck, eager to share, started a website (Teacherman’s ) that caught the attention of struggling minor leaguer Dave Matranga, who used the advice to improve. He remembered Schenck when he became an agent for PSI Sports Management. Judge just happened to be a client.

Schenck doesn’t mind if his philosophy is mentioned here for the same reason he doesn’t think twice about posting tips to his Twitter account. It’s hard to understand if he’s not overseeing the instruction.

First, anchor all of your weight on your back leg. Now, focus on launching your bat backward by snapping your wrists, firing the knob toward the sky. That snap, combined with powerful release of your hip, should send the barrel screaming through the zone.

Do it right, and you have eliminated all wasted moments, and empowered a ferocious yet controlled cut.

“It gives them longer to look at the pitch,� Schenck said. “It moves the pitcher back about three feet. It takes 95 mph and turns it into 90. Because your bat gets up to speed so quickly.�

Schenck dismisses launch angle. He preaches “launch quickness.�

It’s not a swing. It’s a snap. But it’s far from simple.

“Unless you get all the plates spinning,� Schenck said, “it feels like crud.�

Perhaps the hardest part? The method asks you to ditch everything you thought you knew about hitting. That’s what Schenck asked of Judge when he first met the 6-foot-7 outfielder in November of 2016.

Judge had averaged .179 and slugged .345 in 27 games as a rookie. He was desperate, and attentive. Especially after Schenck proved to the student that the aged teacher could beat Judge from a stance to hitting a ball off a tee. Since then, thanks in part to countless sessions with Schenck, the two-time All-Star has averaged .284 and slugged .595 while totaling 78 home runs, second only to his Yankees teammate Giancarlo Stanton during that span.

A pitch to the wrist has sidelined Judge for awhile.

The word about Schenck continues to spread.

What he teaches feels impossible at first. The stance seems lopsided. The snap of the wrists is unfamiliar and, if done improperly, somewhat painful. Just when you want to give up, something clicks. The path of a bat makes a sound you wish you would have heard when you played.

Whoosh.

“It’s almost 180 degrees different than everything you’ve been taught,� Schenck said. “And yet it produces a swing that everybody is trying to produce. Figure that one out.�

The only thing more unlikely than the method is its master.