Umpire Profile
Michael Chmar
By Gary Reals
Hear Michael himself, “I struggle with just okay. It’s very important for me to get better.” Amen!
Back in 2017, Michael’s son was playing rec ball up in Pikesville, outside of Baltimore. Dutiful Dad, while assisting the coach, quickly became aware of obvious shortcomings in all aspects of play: the players, the coaches and the umpires. Michael recalls one umpire who stood at the height of 6’7”, and called strikes at the top of his son’s head. “I can do better than that,“ he thought. That idea coincided with another one: “I’m very realistic. For me, I could no longer provide the skills necessary to provide a good game as a coach.” Time to exit woeful baseball.
Escape
Aware that Michael was determined to learn how to umpire properly, a couple of umpire friends, Ben Wilson and Sean Harlan, steered him to MAC. Good call! Before he knew it, Chmar was being tutored up in a crash course led by Paul Porto and Big John Epperson. Good pivot!
Michael started working MAC games in 2018. His skill set grew quickly: “The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn” he recalls. The next year, Chmar attended not one but two camps: 2-man and 3-man. “It became very addictive,”but he realized,“it also became better for me.”
There’s More
Blues, permit us to interject that at this point of Michael’s life-story, the intensity factor was not, and has not been, confined only to baseball and umpiring. As is so often the case, in his early years growing up in Baltimore County, Michael’s life was shaped in large part by a couple of events. He was a “devout Orioles fan.” Secondly and sadly, his Mom passed when he was only 16. The good news: his grandparents provided Chmar a loving home, but also a degree of expectation that their college-bound teenager might get a job and do some providing for himself. Let’s just say right now…that worked BIG time!
The Kitchen Beckons
No McDonald’s for Michael Chmar. He started as a dishwasher at the Milton Inn, which just happens to be a local gem. Its website boasts, “The Milton Inn is a 283-year-old fieldstone house lauded as one of Maryland’s historic treasures. Located in Sparks, Maryland, the fully restored and reimagined country retreat boasts amazing food and an impeccable cellar. Elegant comfort at its best.”
Needless to say, young Michael washed dishes for a couple of minutes. In short order, he was promoted to salad cook as well as line cooking. But the significance here is that early kitchen experience launched what would become his restaurant/culinary career that continues to this day…side-by-side with his umpire career.
Remember the Chmar credo: “The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn.” Well, while attending a culinary event in the 1990’s at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, Michael ran mouth-first into “a dish that absolutely blew me away!” The smoked chicken & black beans was still on his lips as Chmar not only tracked down, but befriended the gent who created the dish. Of course, that gent just happened to be a world-famous chef! To make a long story a little shorter, Stephan Pyles, owner of the Star Canyon Restaurant, one of Dallas’s finest, invited Michael down to Texas to work for him. And to learn from him, the master. And that Chmar did from 1994-99.
Bad Call!
Upon returning to the DMV, Michael worked for a couple of restaurants in Georgetown for a handful of years. However, Mr. Intensity describes himself “as a glutton for punishment.” So, in 2004 he left his passion for food behind, and where did he go for the next 13 years? Mortgage financing, of course! Do ya think gluttony and intensity might not be a healthy combination? Duh! Bad call, Michael! Suffice to say, the financial world “was not my passion.”
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
As it unfolded, 2017 became a grand arc, kind of like a gorgeous rainbow, in the life of Michael Chmar. As previously noted, he ran into his budding passion for umpiring. But he also got together with a couple of pals in College Park, where he had earlier attended the University of Maryland.
Together, those young men formed an ownership group and opened The Board & Brew, a board game café located walking distance from the campus where thousands of students are always searching for fun diversions from their classrooms and books. Fast-forward a few more years here in 2025, The Board & Brew is prospering not only in College Park, but also up in Philadelphia near another large campus with thousands of occasionally distracted students at Drexel University.
For Michael, who writes all the recipes and menus for the two cafes, his restaurant career is not only a passion, but just like baseball, it is both therapeutic and an escape.
So let’s get back to baseball. For the past 4 years, Chmar has been on a full diet of training and working Division III and JUCO games. “I’ve learned there’s so much more to learn. There are so many ways to get better,” Chmar declares, “It’s awesome!”
He commits to this: “Everything I do has to get progressively better.” Michael is dedicated to a profound yet simple tenet, “If you pursue perfection, you will achieve excellence.”
Now, brothers, we might be tempted to believe the inability to achieve perfection may drive Mr. Intensity absolutely nuts. On the other hand, Michael the umpire has been lifted up by many magnificent mentors in recent years: Chris Segal, Ryan Wills and Randy Rosenberg among others. “I love working with those guys…who are significantly better than me. They fix me up.”
Here in 2025, Michael Chmar’s aim is dead on target, of course: “My goal is to be the best I can be and see where it takes me.”
Blues, hold on! This is going to be fun! And undoubtedly intense!!