On May 17, 1998, David Wells of the New York Yankees pitched the 15th perfect game in Major League Baseball history and the second in team history. Pitching against the Minnesota Twins at Yankee Stadium in The Bronx in front of 49,820 fans in attendance, Wells retired all 27 batters he faced. The game took 2 hours and 40 minutes to complete, from 1:36 PM ET to 4:16 PM ET. Wells claimed in a 2001 interview with Bryant Gumbel on HBO's Real Sports that he threw the perfect game while being hung over, calling it a "raging, skull-rattling" hangover. Jimmy Fallon claimed in a 2018 interview with Seth Meyers that he and Wells had attended a Saturday Night Live after-party until 5:30 A.M. the morning of the game. In an interview, Wells also mentioned having partied with Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers the night before. However, there was no new episode of Saturday Night Live the previous night, as the season finale had aired the week prior; additionally, Fallon wouldn't join the cast of Saturday Night Live until that fall while Meyers wouldn't join until 2001.

John Francis Hirschbeck is a former umpire for Major League Baseball. He worked in the American League from 1984 to 1999 and worked in both leagues from 2000 to 2016. He was a crew chief at the time of his retirement, and wore uniform number 17 throughout his career. Hirschbeck announced his retirement following the 2016 season. In 2000, Hirschbeck was elected as the first president of the newly certified World Umpires Association, a position he held until 2009.