Umpire Profile
Anthony Mayer
By Gary Reals
By the second day of 2025, Anthony Mayer had already received 15 JUCO and Division 3 college assignments for the approaching season. So early and so many games speak loud volumes of just how quickly Mayer’s star is rising in the umpire world. MAC Training Chief Paul Porto agrees such a bounty of early games is both “amazing” and testament to the high esteem Anthony has garnered so soon after launching his umpire career only 5 years ago.
On that note, we are so blessed to still have him. Blues, it was a very close call! Mayer began working games in 2020. Not good timing. Covid was just beginning to spread its wings too. Games were reduced in number. Mechanics were modified to comply with safety protocols. Anthony almost quit just as he was getting started, recalling “I hated it!” Not so coincidentally, it was Paul Porto who saved the day. “I talked him off the ledge,” Paul recalls. He assured Mayer things would improve shortly. Sure enough, that fleeting moment of hate was soon dwarfed by Anthony Mayer’s love of baseball, umpiring and the mentoring of young umpires. Hallelujah!
The Early Years
Anthony graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School of Science & Technology in 1991, where he grew into a centerfielder extraordinaire (he still covers some serious ground more than 3 decades later.)
After high school, he joined the U.S. Army. In all, Mayer served 4 years as an airborne infantryman with the 82nd Airborne and 6 more years as an officer, also with the 82nd. He rose to the rank of 1st Lt., serving as a platoon leader and “Jump Master.” Mayer estimates he jumped out of airplanes several hundred times. Happily, he was never seriously injured, although once he got a couple of teeth knocked out when, upon landing, his rifle butt kicked up and hit him in the mouth. Ouch!
Lt. Mayer served in Kosovo, Bosnia and Iraq through the 1990’s. During those years of foreign conflict, his leadership skills blossomed. He proudly earned three Commendation medals and three more Achievement awards.
Moving On
However, even the 82nd Airborne Division couldn’t hold him down. After 10 years in the Army, Anthony made one more jump—landing back home in Northern Virginia. In 2002, he began working at ASAP Printing & Mailing as a sales & project manager. Twenty-three years later, he’s still there. ASAP is very fortunate indeed! And best of all, they’re delighted to share the many, many talents of Mr. Mayer with us.
Landing Well
In 2017, Anthony began refereeing basketball games. Undoubtedly, it was an outlet for some of his vast reservoir of energy. During those early years on the hardwood, he met another referee by the name of Sean Cassidy. Need we say anything more?
Well, we’ll say it anyway: thank you Sean! Cassidy recognized Mayer’s potential: yes, a good basketball referee—but so much more. “I’m a baseball guy!” exclaims Anthony, “I love baseball! I don’t even know why I chose basketball first.”
Covid protocols be damned, Mayer began garnering attention and turning heads right away in spring 2020. “The right people saw me at the right time,” he reflects. One of those spinning heads belonged to none other than our Chief of Training, the afore-mentioned Paul Porto. Of Anthony, Paul says, “He’s a genuine leader whose skills are off the chart.”Of course, that helps to explain Mayer’s first MAC award: “2021 Rookie of the Year,” as well as more recently: “Most Dedicated Umpire” received at our December ’24 banquet. In between those 2 headliners, Anthony was 1 of 4 MAC umpires assigned to work the State Semi-final Championship near Richmond last June. Such distinction was followed by his gusher of college assignments in January.
2024 VHSL Championship Crew (left to right): Tom Russo, Paul Porto, Matt Van Parys, and Anthony Mayer
Having Fun
Be assured, all of Anthony Mayer’s success and recognition are founded upon no secrets nor shortcuts. Simply put, “The more games I work, the more training I undertake, the better I get. And, the better I get, the more fun it is.” And, Blues, there’s more: there are mistakes! We all make them of course, and we may guess that Anthony may not make very many, but those he does make “…is when I learn the most.”
If you’re wondering how he manages a full-time job while ascending his newfound mountain of 2025 college game, no problem. No surprise. He does “…a lot of juggling: work and baseball.” Notice: Mayer doesn’t regard the latter as “work.” Remember— it’s fun!
Looking Back & Looking Forward
Anthony wishes he had found baseball earlier, but he had a young family rearing five children in all. Husband & father, not to mention attending college for 7 years of night school, Mayer has no regrets. Like many of us, he came to baseball too late to attain the highest echelons. “I’m aware of my age…and there’s a ceiling,” he acknowledges.
But there’s good news here. Anthony Mayer is now dedicated to pursuing umpiring “…as high up the college chain as possible.” Of course, he doesn’t know where that will ultimately take him. But he does know something else: “I will still work rec games. I love to be around the boys.”, he smiles. Anthony also works under the tutelage of Paul Porto evaluating MAC/NVBUA umpires who usually are unaware they’re being watched out on the field by a keenly trained set of eyes off the field.
Whether he’s working a game on the diamond or from another nearby vantage point, Anthony’s ideal is constant, “It’s one of my favorite things,” he evokes, “I learn a ton of teaching.”
I wonder if that’s why whenever we umpires see a new assignment pending in Arbiter with Anthony Mayer as our partner….we feel instantly uplifted. We know it’s going to be a day or night cloaked in positivity, of watching a master mentor, our partner, having fun.