Alan Schwarz, a contributor to ESPN The Magazine, is filing regular Pulsecards from spring training. Today he questions Royal authority.

The Royals enjoyed a thrilling, bottom-of-the-ninth win on Raul Ibanez' grand slam today, but Jamie Quirk couldn't consider it a total victory.

Quirk was the skipper of the Royals' split squad facing the Braves while regular manager Tony Muser faced the Marlins with the other half of the team in Viera. Among minor goals like developing talent and getting work for his pitchers, Quirk decided to also give his players a bit of a day off from Muser's militarism. You know, "when the cat's away ..."

"It'll be a little more relaxed here today," Quirk said during BP. "Tony's got that frown on all the time -- he wants to keep the players guessing. I'm a different personality." This is a guy who used to grill hot dogs during games in the Royals Stadium bullpen and administer the occasional hotfoot.

Some Royals players were indeed looking forward to the break, though they didn't want to say so for fear of it getting back to Muser. "Hey, they still file reports," one said. Backup catcher Gregg Zaun did have one idea. "I have these Motorola walkie-talkies that David McCarty and I use sometimes during intrasquad games. Maybe I'll break 'em out if he's at the other end of the dugout and I don't feel like getting up."

Turns out, though, the Royals are whipped into shape pretty good. They still followed all Muser rules. No Oakleys on top of their caps. No saying, "My bad." (They have to say, "My fault" -- seriously.) And Zaun was without a walkie-talkie partner because McCarty left early with a pulled oblique muscle.

So despite Ibanez' homer, Quirk was a little disappointed in his club. "I saw Jermaine Dye in the trainer's room a half-hour before the game fiddling with a pack of matches," he said. "I thought we might see something." Alas, no hotfeet from Dye or anyone else. Just a run-of-the-mill, bottom-of-the-ninth, grand-slam win. Heck, many of these young Royals have never even heard of a hotfoot.

Kids today -- no respect for the game's history.