Kirk Gibson out as manager … Smart move or sweet revenge?

Former Major League pitcher, assistant general manager, coach and player representative Dave Stewart was announced as the Arizona Diamondback’s new general manager Friday morning. Not long after noon, Diamondback’s manager Kirk Gibson was fired, along with bench coach Alan Trammell.

Many of you may not get the ultimate irony (and satisfaction) of this situation for people like myself who were old enough to remember the 1988 World Series between the Oakland Athletics and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Not to mention to really understand the irony of the situation you’d probably need to be a fan of either one of the two teams.

Lucky (or not) for me I am an A’s fan, I was seven years old, it has been 26 years and I remember it clearly. It’s game one of the World Series and the A’s are considered to be the heavy favorites.

It’s the bottom of the ninth inning, the Dodgers were down 4-3 and down to their final out. The A’s have their American League Championship Series MVP closer, the best in the game at the time, Dennis Eckersley on the mound. Kirk Gibson hobbles up to the plate with injuries to both legs to unexpectedly pinch-hit for the pitcher, Alejandro Pena.

Gibson fouled off the first two pitches for strikes, everyone was thinking, “What can this guy possibly do? This one is in the bag!” However, we could not have been more wrong. What happened next is one of the most memorable moments in the history of the game.

After fouling off a few pitches with Mike Davis on first base (he eventually swiped second but that didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things) and three outside pitches from the A’s closer, Gibson got what he was looking for.

Here he was up to bat against the American League’s most dominate reliever and he wanted a 3-2 count? According to a 2013 report by The Huffington Post’s Chris Greenburg Gibson did. He stepped out of the batters box and remembered something one of the Dodgers scouts, Mel Didier, had once said about facing The Eck.

"“He stood up in the room,” Gibson told Gordon Edes of the Los Angeles Times in March 1989. “And he said, ‘Pardner, as sure as I’m standing here breathing today, if you get to 3-and-2 he’ll throw a back-door slider to you.’ I said those exact words to myself, stepped back in, and that’s what he threw me, a back-door slider.'”"

The rest is history, the Dodgers won the game 5-4. The momentum of the series changed and the Dodgers went on to take the 1988 World Series title four games to one.

Many A’s fans to this day remain spiteful towards the Dodgers, although I will say that it is a very real fact that the trend has changed of late. With younger fans becoming involved in the game and older ones realizing that we don’t resent the Dodgers, just Gibson, the dislike of the team as a whole has dissapated.

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Add to that fact that the Dodgers and the Athletics have mutual enemies. The Dodgers and the Giants are bitter rivals as are the Giants and the A’s. Then when the Anaheim Angels became the Los Angeles Angels, with the Angels having always been A.L. West division rivals with Oakland, now taking over the Dodger’s city name? Well, let’s just say that things have gotten interesting. Things have changed and I would say for the better.

Now what does this has to do with the firing of Kirk Gibson? Honestly? Absolutely not a single thing. It’s just funny.

The whole scenario is just too ironic for someone not to mention, so why shouldn’t that somebody be me?

Tony La Russa who is, for all intents and purposes, the head of the Arizona Diamondbacks organization was the manager of those 1988 Oakland A’s and Dave Stewart started that game one of the 1988 World Series.

Stewart and La Russa back together officially for mere hours and it’s bye bye Gibson. One has to laugh.

Of course the real reason Gibson was fired was because he wasn’t exactly doing his job leading the D-Backs to one of the worst records in baseball as well as in their franchise history. They were 8-22 to start the season’s first month. Trammell was just a causualty, being Gibson’s bench coach.

It has been no secret since the Diamondback’s brought in La Russa as Chief Baseball Officer that changes would be made. Gibson’s lack of job security was made apparent when La Russa fired former GM Kevin Towers.

His fate was all but solidified when a couple weeks ago FoxSport’s Ken Rosenthal reported that Gibson had lost the support of his players.

When you’ve lost your clubhouse’s support you have to know your time is up. Sure, Gibson will likely find another job in baseball. If being fired in baseball meant you’re suddenly an outsider then who would be left to guide the players of the future? And if he doesn’t, well, I guess he’ll always have 1988.

(Oh and fyi, the video was added for the benefit of the reader. I did not rewatch the true horror of that day. Everytime it is replayed I look away. Kirk Gibson will not get any satisfaction from my obvious childhood trauma. haha! Just kidding, well kind of …)