Named the National LeagueRookie 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,[3] he also hit a home run in his first major-league at-bat.[4] 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.[5]
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.[6]
In June 1980, Montefusco got into a fight with Giants manager Dave Bristol after defeating the rival Los Angeles Dodgers. Montefusco was angry at Bristol for removing him from the game too early. [7]
After the 1983 season, Montefusco signed a three-year, $2.3 million contract to remain with the Yankees.[8] He started the 1986 season in the team's bullpen but pitched in only four games before hip pain became too severe to pitch through.[8] On September 28, he retired.[8]
Legal problems
Montefusco and his wife had been residents of Colts Neck Township, New Jersey.[2] In October 1997, Montefusco was arrested and charged with beating his former wife of 23 years Doris,[9] whom he had recently divorced, in her Colts Neck Township home.[10][11] He was held on $60,000 bail and was charged with aggravated sexual assault, making terroristic threats, assault, burglary and criminal mischief.[11][12] Montefusco was indicted in December 1997 and was held on $1 million in bail.[13]
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.[14]
During a March 19, 2000, broadcast on ESPN's SportsCenter 2000, Doris Montefusco likened her ex-husband to O. J. 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."[15] Montefusco filed a lawsuit against ESPN. In 2001, Anne Elise Thompson, a U.S. district judge in Trenton, New Jersey, dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that being compared to Simpson is not defamation.[16][15]
^ abCapezzuto, Tom. "From the Mound to Harness Racing", The New York Times, May 24, 1991. Accessed May 15, 2022. "John Montefusco, a Keansburg native and a former major league pitcher, knew in 1986 that his 13-year career in baseball was coming to a close because of a severe hip ailment.... ... 'I was working for Bell Labs in 1970 when Brookdale Junior College was opening up for the first time,' said Mr. Montefusco, a Middletown High School graduate."
^Hurte, Bob. "John Montefusco". Society for American Baseball Research. Retrieved February 9, 2018.
