John Montefusco

Montefusco with the San Francisco Giants

Montefusco was born in Long Branch, New Jersey and attended Middletown High School.[1] Named the National League Rookie of the Year in 1975, Montefusco's nickname was "The Count", a pun on his last name which sounds like Monte Cristo. In his 13-year career, his record was 90-83, with 1,081 strikeouts, and a 3.54 ERA. He was a National League All-Star in 1976, winning a career high 16 games that year.[1]

On September 3, 1974, Montefusco entered his first major league game as a relief pitcher. Not only was he the winning pitcher that day,[2] he also hit a home run in his first major-league at-bat.[3] He is one of only a handful of pitchers to do so, and is one of two players to both hit a home run in his first at bat and win the Rookie of the Year Award. The other is Wally Moon.

Before a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers on July 4, 1975, Montefusco guaranteed he would win the game. He proceeded to throw a shutout as the Giants defeated the Dodgers 1–0.[4]

On September 29, 1976, Montefusco threw a no-hitter for the Giants in a 9-0 victory versus the Atlanta Braves. It was the last no-hitter to be thrown by a Giant until Jonathan Sánchez threw one on July 10, 2009.[5]

In October 1997, Montefusco was arrested and charged with beating his former wife of 23 years Doris,[6] whom he had recently divorced, in her Colts Neck, New Jersey home.[7][8] He was held on $60,000 bail and was charged with aggravated sexual assault, making terroristic threats, assault, burglary and criminal mischief.[8][9] Montefusco was indicted in December 1997 and was held on $1 million in bail.[10]

Montefusco was released on bail in November 1999 after serving more than two years behind bars, and in February 2000, he was acquitted of the most serious charges and found guilty of criminal trespass and simple assault and sentenced to three years of probation.[11]

In 2001, a U.S. district judge in Trenton, New Jersey dismissed a lawsuit filed by Montefusco against ESPN. Judge Anne Elise Thompson ruled that being compared to O. J. Simpson is not defamation.[12][13] During a March 19, 2000 broadcast on ESPN's SportsCenter 2000, Doris Montefusco had likened her ex-husband to Simpson, who was acquitted in 1995 of the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson. An ESPN announcer during the broadcast had paraphrased Montefusco's ex-wife as saying "the only difference between this and the O.J. Simpson case is that she's alive to talk about it. Nicole Simpson is not."[13]

At the time of his October 1997 arrest, Montefusco had been a pitching instructor for the Tampa Yankees, a minor league team.[8] He later spent several years as the pitching coach for the Somerset Patriots in the independent Atlantic League of Professional Baseball until resigning in September 2005.[14]

• List of Major League Baseball no-hitters

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or Baseball-Reference (Minors)