SURPRISE, Ariz. -- George Brett definitely has a mischievous side. So he approached his assignment as the Royals' manager Friday with a twinkle in his eye.

Brett was named manager of the Royals' split-squad team for a Cactus League game against the Texas Rangers because skipper Trey Hillman was absent. Hillman was attending the funeral of general manager Dayton Moore's mother.

For managerial inspiration, Brett had to look no further than his old Royals boss, Whitey Herzog.

"I have a little Whitey in me," Brett said. "If the game's not going my way, it'd be a good time maybe to get the fans in Surprise riled up. Maybe I'll go out and have a little argument with the umpire and get kicked out of the game or something, just try to get some excitement going."

Now Brett was getting charged up.

"I'm not going to be afraid to do it. If I don't like a call, I'm doing it!" Brett exclaimed with a laugh. "My wife and kids got in yesterday. I haven't seen 'em for three weeks, and I might want to get home early."

Hmm, wouldn't he get fined for getting thrown out?

"I never even got fined for the Pine Tar thing," Brett said. "If you don't get fined for what I did there, how bad can it be to argue a ball and a strike?"

Brett, a club vice president who serves as a Spring Training instructor, sat in twice for bench coach John Gibbons this spring and liked the duty. On Friday, with Gibbons handling the other split-squad at the Milwaukee camp, Brett got his managerial shot.

And it was a smashing success, a 4-1 victory that was reeled off in two hours, 18 minutes, a whirlwind time for a Spring Training game. And there was absolutely no reason for Brett to argue.

In fact, he said: "The umpiring was great. The guy behind the plate [Delfin Colon], I thought did a great job. I thought it was the best-umpired game that I've seen this spring."

Brett got two-run homers from Ross Gload and John Buck.

"We got four hits and scored four runs," Brett said. "We played great, pitched great, the defense was great, base-running was great."

The managing?

"The managing was all right," Brett said. "Did a good job, I had a good support staff today -- Burgie [Omaha pitching coach Tom Burgmeier] ran the pitchers good. We had it all set up. Everything went smooth."

Brett made a decision to take out David DeJesus after the third inning when the left fielder said he wasn't feeling up to par.

"I read one time, somebody said, 'Err on the side of caution,' and we erred on the side of caution," Brett said. "He wanted another at-bat, and I said, 'No.'"

Afterward, DeJesus said he just had sore feet, nothing serious.

So Brett's managerial stint went splendidly.

"It was a lot of fun," Brett said. "I don't know if I'd want to do it for a living, but it's fun down here."