This week I find myself recalling when the Beatles, at the height of their popularity, decided that they did not know everything about the world they were living in and sought help from a greater being.

That greater being was an all-seeing, all-knowing guru with a magnificent beard and several iterations of beads, stones, and faux jewelry draped around his wrinkled neck.  His name was Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (not related to Berra).

As a preface to the pontifications that follow, I confess to also not knowing everything about the world I live in. Sadly, the Maharishi was unavailable to me, due to his being dead. Undaunted, I offer the following.

How ’bout them Giants? Buster Posey dived boldly into uncharted waters when he hired a manager who’s closest connection to the major leagues was attending a game Kansas City. And I find that OK.

Tony Vitello’s qualifications as the manager of the Giants consist of the fact that he is a teacher. The Giants’ history is that young players are not developed properly before they are rushed to San Francisco and who better to welcome them to the clubhouse than a teacher. I find that a plus.

Tony Vitello is also a rah-rah, go-get-’em cheerleader sort. Or at least he was at the University of Tennessee where his fire and brimstone, go out there and “kill ’em, don’t socialize with ’em” philosophy made him hugely popular with his players, and hugely reviled by his opponents.

Now here I have a bit of a problem.

Baseball is a pastoral game. Its players at the highest level are looking for any edge they can find. Game preparation has become as important as actually playing the game. Clubhouse culture isn’t created by a manager who’s standing on a soapbox sticking pins in a Dave Roberts voodoo doll and screaming that his opponents should all meet a horrible fate. In fact, clubhouse culture is created by the players. And it’s in spite of the manager, not because of him.

The Giants may not have had a season to remember last year, but they did have a great clubhouse. Matt Chapman, Willy Adames and Justin Verlander were the adults in the room and everybody else followed suit.

Drew Gilbert, who the Giants acquired in the mid-season trade with the Mets, played for Vitello at Tennessee and brought that “bounce off the walls” energy with him to San Francisco. It was fun at first. Then it was just tolerated. Ten more games and he likely would have been carefully removing Matt Chapman’s batting glove from his throat.

So my guru-like advice for Mr. Vitello is teach, don’t cheerlead. And let the clubhouse evolve on its own.

OK, my work with the Giants is done. Let’s move on to the 49ers.

Sick, wounded, maimed, bruised — but not often beaten. That pretty much sums up the San Francisco 49ers season so far. And now, the dreaded Los Angeles Rams make a Levi’s Stadium house call.

All right Yogi — give me a good reason why the 49ers should win this game. I’m not certain how the now-deceased Maharishi would have responded to that request, but my guess would be something like: “If the moon were in the second stage, and the eagle flies at midnight on a rainy Tuesday, there could be a scenario where your team can emerge victorious. If, of course, locusts fall from the sky.”

In other words, no bleeping way!

Not so fast my good guru. We have mystics of our own.

What Kyle Shanahan and his coaching staff have done in terms of game planning and scheme this year has been Hall of Fame worthy. If he can manage to do it again this week against a team that is simply better than they are right now, I’m going to start working on a bronze statue Monday morning.

Robert Saleh, the Sancho Panza to Shanahan’s Don Quixote, has done as good a job as can be imagined in preparing a defense composed in large part of players who should be watching and learning instead of lining up across from actual NFL starters.

Can he do it again against a Rams offense that is as good as there is in the NFL, with a quarterback who as long as he remains upright is probably the most accurate passer in the league? Can his secondary, composed of guys who didn’t have the nerve to sign more than a one-year lease, stop the likes of Puka Nacua and Davante Adams?

And what about the offense? You’ve got your back-up quarterback who can hardly walk replacing your starting quarterback who can’t walk at all.

You’ve got a running back whose body is composed entirely of bruises and you’ve got an offensive line which falls into one of three categories: old, hurt, or inexperienced.

Can the 49ers possibly beat the Rams on Sunday? No!

But I’d never bet against Kyle Shanahan. So, yes.

And lest we get off the subject of sick and wounded. How are the aged Golden State Warriors doing? Well, when they’re healthy — pretty well. Alas, here’s the rub. They haven’t been very healthy.

The Maharishi would be quick to tell us that age is a state of mind. Unfortunately, in the NBA it’s also a state of body. And right now the tricenarians — Messrs Curry, Green, Butler and Horford’s bodies are saying, “If you want us to run and bang with a 22-year-old opponent in the spring, best you don’t make us butt heads more than about 28 minutes a game right now.”

The W’s lost the second half of a back-to-back on Wednesday in Sacramento. The old guys didn’t play. But my thought was, you gotta love watching those kids. And if there’s hope for another ring come June, the old guys need to be watching those kids more in November.

Barry Tompkins is a 40-year network television sportscaster and a San Francisco native. Email him at barrytompkins1@gmail.com.