John Joseph Montefusco Jr. (born May 25, 1950), nicknamed "The Count," is an American former professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

player and

coach Coach may refer to: Guidance/instruction * Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities * Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process ** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers Transportation * Co ...

. He played as a right-handed

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

from 1974 to 1986, most notably as a member of the

San Francisco Giants The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco, California. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1883 as the New Yor ...

with whom he won the National League Rookie of the Year Award and pitched a no-hitter. He also played for the

Atlanta Braves The Atlanta Braves are an American professional baseball team based in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The Braves compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) National League East, East division. The Braves ...

San Diego Padres The San Diego Padres are an American professional baseball team based in San Diego. The Padres compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1969, the club has won two NL penna ...

, and the

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Amer ...

Baseball career

Born in

Long Branch, New Jersey Long Branch is a beachside City (New Jersey), city in Monmouth County, New Jersey, Monmouth County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 United States census, 2010 U.S. census, the city's population was 30,719,< ...

and raised in Keansburg, Montefusco attended Middletown High School (since renamed as

Middletown High School North Middletown High School North, home of the Lions, is a four-year comprehensive public high school located in Middletown Township, in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States, serving students in ninth through twelfth grades as one of the tw ...

).Capezzuto, Tom
"From the Mound to Harness Racing"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', 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." Named the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...

Rookie of the Year in 1975, Montefusco's nickname was "The Count", a

pun A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophonic ...

on his last name which sounds like Monte Cristo. In his 13-year career, his record was 90-83, with 1,081

strikeouts In baseball or softball, a strikeout (or strike-out) occurs when a batter accumulates three strikes during a time at bat. It usually means that the batter is out. A strikeout is a statistic recorded for both pitchers and batters, and is deno ...

, and a 3.54

ERA An era is a span of time defined for the purposes of chronology or historiography, as in the regnal eras in the history of a given monarchy, a calendar era used for a given calendar, or the geological eras defined for the history of Earth. Comp ...

. He was a

All-Star in 1976, winning a career high 16 games that year. On September 3, 1974, Montefusco entered his first major league game as a relief pitcher. Not only was he the winning pitcher that day, he also hit a home run in his first major-league at-bat. 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 Wallace Wade MoonSteve Springer"Dodgers' Moon found success in Coliseum" ''Los Angeles Times'', March 23, 2008. (April 3, 1930 – February 9, 2018) was an American professional baseball outfielder in Major League Baseball. Moon played his 12-yea ...

. Before a game against the

Los Angeles Dodgers The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Established in 1883 in the city of Brooklyn ...

on July 4, 1975, Montefusco guaranteed he would win the game. He proceeded to throw a

shutout In team sports, a shutout ( US) or clean sheet ( UK) is a game in which one team prevents the other from scoring any points. While possible in most major sports, they are highly improbable in some sports, such as basketball. Shutouts are usuall ...

as the Giants defeated the Dodgers 1–0. On September 29, 1976, Montefusco threw a

no-hitter In baseball, a no-hitter is a game in which a team was not able to record a hit. Major League Baseball (MLB) officially defines a no-hitter as a completed game in which a team that batted in at least nine innings recorded no hits. A pitcher wh ...

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 Jonathan Omar Sánchez (born November 19, 1982), nicknamed "The Kid" and "The Comeback Kid", is a Puerto Rican former professional baseball pitcher. He is one of only three Puerto Rican players to throw a no-hitter game in MLB, the others bein ...

threw one on July 10, 2009. In June 1980, Montefusco got into a fight with Giants manager

Dave Bristol James David Bristol (born June 23, 1933) is an American former manager in Major League Baseball in the 1960s and 1970s. He managed the Cincinnati Reds, Milwaukee Brewers, Atlanta Braves, and San Francisco Giants during this period. Success in th ...

after defeating the rival

. Montefusco was angry at Bristol for removing him from the game too early. After the 1983 season, Montefusco signed a three-year, $2.3 million contract to remain with the Yankees. 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. On September 28, he retired.

Legal issues

Montefusco and his wife had been residents of

Colts Neck Township, New Jersey Colts Neck Township is a township in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. It is located in the New York Metropolitan Area. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 9,957, down from the 10,142 counted in the 2010 census, i ...

. In October 1997, Montefusco was arrested and charged with beating his former wife of 23 years Doris, whom he had recently divorced, in her Colts Neck Township home. He was held on $60,000 bail and was charged with aggravated sexual assault, making terroristic threats, assault, burglary and criminal mischief. Montefusco was indicted in December 1997 and was held on $1 million in bail. 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. In 2001, a U.S. district judge in

Trenton, New Jersey Trenton is the capital city of the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat of Mercer County. It was the capital of the United States from November 1 to December 24, 1784.ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

. Judge

Anne Elise Thompson Anne Elise Thompson (born July 8, 1934) is a Senior status, senior United States federal judge, United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. She was the first female and first African American f ...

ruled that being compared to O. J. Simpson is not defamation. 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 Nicole Brown Simpson (née Brown; May 19, 1959 – June 12, 1994) was the ex-wife of the former professional American football player, O. J. Simpson, to whom she was married from 1985 to 1992. She was the mother of their two children, Sydney an ...

. 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."

Coaching career

At the time of his October 1997 arrest, Montefusco had been a pitching instructor for the

Tampa Yankees Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and ...

, a minor league team. He later spent several years as the pitching coach for the

Somerset Patriots The Somerset Patriots are an American Minor League Baseball team based in Bridgewater Township, New Jersey, that is the Double-A affiliate of the New York Yankees. They compete in the Eastern League, known as the Double-A Northeast in 2021, and ...

in the independent

Atlantic League of Professional Baseball The Atlantic League of Professional Baseball (ALPB) is a professional independent baseball league based in the United States. It is an official MLB Partner League based in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern United States. The Atlantic League's ...

until resigning in September 2005.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Montefusco, John 1950 births Living people Middletown High School North alumni San Francisco Giants players Atlanta Braves players San Diego Padres players New York Yankees players Major League Baseball pitchers Baseball players from New Jersey Brookdale Jersey Blues baseball players Major League Baseball Rookie of the Year Award winners National League All-Stars People from Colts Neck Township, New Jersey People from Keansburg, New Jersey Sportspeople from Long Branch, New Jersey Sportspeople from Monmouth County, New Jersey Amarillo Giants players Columbus Clippers players Decatur Commodores players Phoenix Giants players American people convicted of assault American sportspeople convicted of crimes

Baseball career

Legal issues

Coaching career

See also

References

External links