Think baseball’s video of the just-ended World Series promises chills and spills? Just wait.

Now that the games are out of the way, the important people in New York and Boston have already returned to the real business of baseball — meddling. Though this offseason is only two days’ old, it’s already promising to be one of baseball’s zaniest ever.

Up next: “Owners Gone Wild!”

Finally, George Steinbrenner has some serious competition. To prove how serious, the braintrust in Boston fired manager Grady Little before the Boss could even make a move.

“He took it very well,” Red Sox president Larry Lucchino reported Monday. “He was very gracious.”

As if Little had a choice. After days of being roasted in the newspapers and on the spit of sports talk radio, Little got a morning phone call confirming he was gone. You can imagine his side of the conversation.

Little took his shot two years ago knowing he had the job security of a burglar. He came in with the new owners and, for a while, things went smoothly. Little averaged 94 wins, soothed petulant superstars along the way, and this season stretched the Yankees to a Game 7 for the American League pennant. Of course, it was Little’s misfortune to screw up that game, which just happened to be the most important sporting event in New England in almost a century.

The guys in charge of the Red Sox said they wouldn’t be swayed by one game, but the way Little’s firing was handled makes you believe they’re not as smart as they’re made out to be. It seems they really believe that “Evil Empire” business.

Somebody in the organization apparently got word that Steinbrenner had summoned Yankees president Randy Levine, general manager Brian Cashman and manager Joe Torre to his base in Tampa, Fla., and ordered a pre-emptive strike at the headlines.

No sooner was Little launched than the Red Sox started promising to be patient once more.

“We’re going to take as long as necessary to find the right manager,” GM Theo Epstein said.

Good luck.

Epstein & Co. are about to find out the real cost of doing business like Steinbrenner. They already knew it was expensive, since there have been a few skirmishes over ballplayers, most notably last December for Cuban defector Jose Contreras. What they’re going to learn is how unsatisfying winning can be.

The Yankees’ glass is never half full. Steinbrenner won’t allow it. If he isn’t happy — which is just about always — then no one else is allowed to be. It’s a miserable, unnerving way to run one of the greatest franchises in sports. But if the Red Sox need a role model, at least they don’t have to look far.

The Yankees went six games deeper into the postseason than Boston, but nobody inside the clubhouse dared spend even a New York minute savoring the accomplishment. At least not in public.

Let the fun begin.