Kirk Gibson fired by Arizona Diamondbacks

The Arizona Diamondbacks fired Manager Kirk Gibson on Friday, one day after hiring Dave Stewart as their new general manager.

The decision to fire Gibson -- and bench coach Alan Trammell -- was announced not by Stewart but by Tony La Russa, the Diamondbacks’ chief baseball officer.

Gibson led the Diamondbacks to the National League West championship in his first full season, in 2011, but the team finished at .500 in the next two years, blowing a 9-1/2-game lead over the Dodgers last season. The Diamondbacks (63-96) have the worst record in the major leagues this season.

Gibson won the NL most valuable player award for the Dodgers in 1988, but a developing rivalry put him at odds with his old team and some of its fans. After the Dodgers clinched the NL West in Arizona last September and celebrated by jumping in the Diamondbacks’ pool, Gibson slammed the Dodgers on a Phoenix radio station.

“If you look around at some of the classy organizations around the league, they wouldn’t have done that either,” Gibson said. “They make their choices and they’ll be held accountable for them, one way or the other.”

After the Diamondbacks sent MVP runner-up Paul Goldschmidt to Australia to promote this season’s opener there -- and the Dodgers sent catcher A.J. Ellis -- Gibson told the Arizona Republic: “Who’s the other team got down there? Are they too [expletive] good? Honestly?”

Gibson and Stewart forever are linked in Dodgers history. It was Gibson’s fabled home run -- as a limping pinch-hitter, off Dennis Eckersley -- that deprived Stewart of the victory in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series. The Dodgers beat Stewart and the Oakland Athletics in five games.