Don't be fooled, Chicago White Sox fans.
Jerry Reinsdorf's heart didn't grow three sizes bigger on Tuesday when he fired team president Kenny Williams and general manager Rick Hahn. That was just the White Sox's Grinch putting on a Santy Claus hat and coat and fooling you like the rest of the innocent children down in Whoville.
Don't forget that just two days earlier, threatening reports surfaced that the Sox's Grinch was thinking of stealing your Christmas by considering a move of the team to another state when the lease on his castle ran out in six years.
That was just the Grinch's way of reminding everyone who was in charge. He then reminded Hahn and Williams one day later.
The Hahn and William firing was just Jerry the Grinch finally screaming out, 'Noise, noise, noise, noise. The one thing I hate. All the noise, noise, noise, noise."
Grinch Jerry knew that the annoying noise from Soxville would stop the moment he fired his loyal dog Max (Williams) and Max's chew toy (Hahn).
The Chicago White Sox have made two major changes already.
You got what you wanted, Soxville. Yes, of course, the head of Sox's Grinch still isn't screwed on right and his expensive shoes are still too tight. But Kenny and Rick are gone. They didn't keep the noise away from the Grinch's castle and now they are gone.
So, yes, it's OK to sing and dance in Soxville once again.
We don't have to hear anymore how every ridiculous and ludicrous decision made by Kenny and Rick was justified because they brought us the 2005 World Series trophy. That alone is a reason to dance and sing.
It was two decades of bad trades and awful free-agent signings. A failed rebuild full of lies and deception that resulted in a roster full of selfish, lazy, one-dimensional, overhyped players.
That's what Sox fans have had to endure during the Grinch, Max and Max's chew toy regime.
None of them cared what you thought. How dare you criticize the people who gave you the 2005 World Series trophy?
There's no gifts under your tree on Christmas morning? There's no Who pudding or Who roast beef on your table? Just be quiet, buy tickets, and keep stuffing your face like good, little Soxville residents.
You'll get what you get and you'll like it because we already gave you ungrateful Soxville gluttons a World Series, remember?
Sox fans, of course, are not gluttons. Yankees and Dodgers fans are gluttons. Sox fans are, in fact, starving. The last two decades coupled with the eight decades or so before the 2005 World Series prove that Soxville is filled with loyal subjects.
Sox fans had all the right in the world to make unbearable noise this year. They were lied to by their Grinch, Grinch's dog, and Grinch's dog's chew toy.
But now they can give their raspy and hoarse voice to rest for a while. Kenny and Rick are no more. There is joy in Soxville once again.
It's OK to give Grinch Jerry credit for dumping Kenny and Rick. It's perfectly fine to think he has finally come to his senses and did the right thing. He, after all, is still up in the castle looking down on you.
None of that, of course, is true. Grinch Jerry isn't listening to you. He just wants you to be quiet.
But it doesn't matter how it happened. Maybe Tony La Russa told him to do it. Maybe Kenny and Rick were fighting too much and making too much noise outside the Grinch's door.
All that matters is that it happened. Christmas morning finally came to Soxville on Tuesday and that, more than anything else, is what matters.
Just don't believe that anything of substance has really changed. The Grinch is always plotting something evil and, well, this was likely just the first step in his latest plot.
The neighborhood around the Grinch's castle, after all, isn't growing more and more appealing with each passing year. Fellow Grinches, who might want to give Grinch Jerry a couple of billion dollars for the White Sox, might not be tempted to even pay a visit to Soxville.
It's only a matter of time (about six years) before Grinch Jerry also gets out of there. We got the first hint of that inevitable conclusion to the Grinch's regime earlier this week. This (the firing of Kenny and Rick) might just be the first step in the long, tedious moving process.
So don't be fooled, Sox fans. Grinch Jerry isn't finally listening to you. You don't truly matter, remember? He just doesn't want your noise to ruin his plan of making a couple of billion dollars or so when sells the team before he eventually goes to that great Grinch castle in the sky.
You don't want Kenny and Rick? Ok, fine. Now put those "Sell The Team" banners away and be quiet.
Grinch Jerry is evil. But he's not stupid. It was clear to Grinch Jerry that the good folks of Soxville were about to abandon the team. Loyal season ticket holders were about to vanish. The Grinch castle was about to resemble an abandoned anchor store at a fading mall.
Grinch Jerry simply couldn't allow that to happen.
So Grinch Jerry gave you what you wanted on Tuesday before you turned his $2 billion White Sox into the Kansas City Royals and Milwaukee Brewers.
Do you think those reports earlier this week of Grinch Jerry moving the team or selling it to a fellow Grinch who would move the team were started by those folks up north in Wrigleyville?
Think again. They likely were started by Grinch Jerry himself.
Grinch Jerry has no clue about how to run a successful baseball organization. But he does know real estate. It's how he became Grinch Jerry. The White Sox to Grinch Jerry have never been about owning a baseball team. They always have been just another real estate venture.
The time has come for Grinch Jerry to either convince Soxville to build him a new castle or find another city who will. That's how you make money in real estate.
The news this week that Grinch Jerry might move the franchise coupled with the firing of Williams and Hahn didn't happen by accident or coincidentally.
Nothing Grinch Jerry does is by accident or by coincidence. And nothing Grinch Jerry does happens without Grinch Jerry orchestrating it.
You might think you had something to do with the Williams and Hahn firing. But that is only because Grinch Jerry wants you to think that. You now want to buy Sox season tickets because you think you have a voice in what the organization does, right?
That's what Grinch Jerry wants you to think.
But, again, that is OK. The firing of Kenny and his chew toy this week is what you wanted. There's hope in Soxville again. It doesn't matter how it happened.
And, who knows?
Maybe, just maybe, if there is some singing and dancing in the Soxville streets we just might just see Grinch Jerry's tiny heart finally start to grow.