When Tony DeMacio landed his first full-time baseball scouting job, with the Atlanta Braves, he was given a list of amateur players to follow in New England for the spring of 1984.
The first on the list was a high school pitcher from the Boston area named Tom Glavine, whom DeMacio and the Braves would draft in the second round that year.
“He sort of stood out. He is an excellent competitor and he is very smart,” DeMacio, a former resident of Stuarts Draft and Virginia Beach, said of Glavine in a recent phone interview. “He was a really intelligent kid, and his dad did construction. It was my first sign.”
The lefty broke into the majors three years later, won 305 games in The Show and went into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014. According to Baseball America’s Ultimate Draft Book, the Toronto Blue Jays would have picked Glavine next in the second round in 1984.
Then in 1990, DeMacio was a crosschecker for the Braves covering the state of Florida, on top of other duties, when Atlanta drafted Chipper Jones in the first round out of a Jacksonville high school. Jones, a switch-hitting third baseman, would smash 468 homers in the Majors and was enshrined in Cooperstown in 2018.
So DeMacio helped sign two future Hall of Famers while in scouting.
“The thing that I am most proud of is I started as an area (scout) guy,” he said.
Jack of all trades
That was a long way from his first career as a high school football coach at Staunton Military Academy and then as a football and baseball coach, and for a time athletics director, at Riverheads High School.
“I came from a strong athletic program,” said DeMacio, who played high school football near Pittsburgh, a region that has produced several NFL Hall of Famers. “I had a good background.”
His football background would be surpassed with his baseball acumen.
“Met Tony in 1989 at a HS game in Dubois, Pennsylvania, seeing a RHP, Bub Maietta, who was drafted in the 11th round by the Tigers,” long-time Louisa County resident Steve Fleming, now with the Colorado Rockies, wrote to the AFP.
“Tony and I were the only scouts there, and we were spending most of our time trying not to get bit by the yellow jackets that were hanging around the stands. I’ve worked with Tony and against Tony with other clubs. Great scout and even better person. He is in the Pro Scouts Hall of Fame.”
Fleming, a former resident of Chesterfield, played in the minors for the Pittsburgh Pirates and also has also scouted for the Braves and Pirates.
Fleming’s son, Kyle, was named the head baseball coach at Hargrave Military School in Chatham on Aug. 13 after playing at Army and working for the Braves, Tampa Bay Rays and Washington Nationals.
His brother, Kurt, played in the minors for the Braves and Seattle Mariners and is a former assistant baseball coach at JMU.
A third son, Kenny, was a standout at Louisa County High School, played in the minors for the Danville Braves and was the head coach at Averett in Danville before stepping down after the 2025 season.
Their mother, Kimberly, was an All-American swimmer at Alabama and is in the school’s Hall of Fame.
The Parsons College connection
DeMacio was a baseball standout at Parsons College, a private liberal arts college in Fairfield, Iowa, that opened in 1875 and closed in 1973.
The school produced at least four MLB pitchers:
- Jim Todd, a Lancaster, Pa., native who played for the Chicago Cubs, Oakland A’s and Seattle Mariners from 1974-1979.
- Rich Folkers, who appeared with the New York Mets, St. Louis Cardinals, San Diego Padres and Milwaukee Brewers from 1970-1977.
- Dick Mills, who pitched for the Boston Red Sox in 1970.
- Charlie Williams, who pitched for the Mets in 1971 before he was traded for Hall of Famer Willie Mays; Williams pitched for the San Francisco Giants through 1978.
Don Mason, who also went to Parsons, was an infielder with the Giants and Padres in the 1970s.
DeMacio was teammates with the four pitchers at Parsons, along with future MLB infielder Tom Heintzleman, who played for the Giants and Cardinals.
All roads lead to Staunton
After not being chosen in the MLB draft, which had begun in 1965, DeMacio started a teaching career in Illinois when he heard from a college roommate, Jim Zerilla, who was also from Pennsylvania and was managing the Staunton Braves for the 1967 season.
“He said, ‘Why don’t you come to Staunton and play for the Staunton Braves?’ So, I drove from Illinois to Staunton,” DeMacio recalls.
The shortstop on that Staunton team was Craig Robinson, a future big-leaguer, while Zerilla – who attended SMA – eventually became a scout for the Padres.
After playing for the Braves, DeMacio also managed the team and was the general manager until the early 1980s; he is in the Valley Baseball League Hall of Fame, as well as several others.
He coached football four seasons at SMA through 1972.
As the varsity football coach at SMA in 1970, he took his team to play the junior varsity squad of East Carolina. Later that afternoon, the East Carolina varsity beat visiting Marshall. After the game, the Marshall plane crashed on the way back to West Virginia.
“Marshall had watched us play that day,” said DeMacio, somberly.
The movie “We Are Marshall” told the story.
Amazingly, another future MLB scout with Virginia ties was in Greenville that day. Tony Guzzo, later to became the baseball coach at ODU and VCU and a scout for the Boston Red Sox, kicked the winning field goal as ECU downed Marshall.
After he coached at SMA, DeMacio moved in 1972 to Riverheads, where he stayed until joining Atlanta in time for the 1984 baseball season.
As the football coach at Riverheads, his teams were among the best in the region. According to former player Mark Meeks, here is how the program fared under DeMacio:
- 1972: 2-8 while playing a Valley District schedule against Lexington, Harrisonburg, Broadway, Turner Ashby, Waynesboro, etc.
- 1973: 4-5-1
- 1974: 9-1
- 1975: 9-2 with loss to Chilhowie in the playoffs at Staunton Memorial Stadium in bitter cold. “I certainly remember that,” DeMacio said.
- 1976: 10-1 with loss to Parry McCluer on the frozen field at SMS in the first round of the playoffs.
- 1977: 7-3
- 1978: 7-3
- 1979: 4-6 with a sophomore-dominated team that lost to state champ Parry McCluer, a Stuarts Draft team coached by future Virginia and JMU assistant Danny Wilmer, Class AA semifinalist Western Albemarle, etc.
- 1980: 6-4
- 1981: 8-1-1
- 1982: 6-4
He was 72-38-2 in 11 years at the school. Among his players at Riverheads who played at a high level in college were Tom Cooper (Virginia Tech), Terry Meeks (Richmond), Bernard Stewrt (JMU) and Greg Stewart (East Carolina).
Meeks coached at several Virginia high schools and was a graduate assistant for the Cavaliers of Virginia with the ACC title team in 1990, as well as 1989. All four are in the Riverheads Hall of Fame.
Charlie Coiner, a 1978 graduate, was an assistant coach with Chicago Bears from 2001-2005 and with the Buffalo Bills from 2006-2009. He also coached at several colleges, including Louisville, LSU, North Carolina and Tennessee.
The Waynesboro native was born in 1960.
Making the Majors
While at Riverheads, DeMacio was approached by Atlanta about being an associate scout with the club.
A few weeks later he got a call from Paul Snyder, then the scouting director for Atlanta, asking if he wanted to go full time. That came just before the senior high school season for Glavine in New England.
Snyder had been at the Virginia High School League all-star baseball game in Charlottesville in 1983, and DeMacio was also there and spoke to Snyder.
Harrisonburg native and Spotswood High School pitcher Daryl Irvine appeared in the game and would pitch for the Red Sox from 1990-1992.
Also on hand was Turtle Thomas, then the manager of the Harrisonburg Turks of the Valley League and a long-time college coach.
DeMacio pointed out to Snyder that he liked Irvine, who was not drafted out of high school.
Augusta County School Superintendent Edward G. Clymore told the Staunton News Leader early in 1984: “We hate to lose Mr. DeMacio, but it is quite an honor for him to be chosen (by Atlanta). You can be assured Mr. DeMacio will be an asset to the Atlanta Braves organization and he will be successful in his chosen field.”
Clymore, who passed in 2024, was spot on.
After scouting for the Braves, DeMacio also worked for the Cleveland Indians (1991-1994), Chicago Cubs (1995-1998), Baltimore Orioles (1998-2004), and Pittsburgh Pirates (2005-2006) before he joined the Braves again in 2007.
Two years later, he was named the scouting director of Atlanta; the last draft of his career was in 2014.
In 2010, the Braves drafted Phil Gosselin out of Virginia in the fifth round; Gosselin played in the Majors for 497 games for several clubs from 2013-22.
Other Braves picks out of Virginia during that time were Atlanta native Jeff Lorick, 20th round in 2009; Kenny Swab, 35th round in 2010; and Jacob Thompson, a Tunstall High School grad who went in the fifth round in 2008.
None of them made the Majors – Swab was later drafted and signed by the Kansas City Royals, in 2011.
While DeMacio was with Cleveland, the club drafted in the first round Manny Ramirez – who hit 555 homers in The Show – in 1991 out of a high school in New York City.
He was the scouting director with the Orioles, during which the club drafted Nick Markakis out of a Georgia college, Young Harris.
Among his area scouts with the Orioles was the late Ty Brown, a long-time resident of Caroline County.
Other future big leaguers he had a role in drafting include Paul Shuey (Cleveland), Kerry Wood (Cubs), Jon Garland (Cubs). Erik Bedard (Orioles), Brian Roberts (Orioles), Tommy La Stella (Braves), who played in the Valley League for Haymarket while at Coastal Carolina, and pitcher John Maine (Orioles), who is from Stafford County and pitched in college at Charlotte.
After living several years in Virginia Beach, DeMacio moved 10 years ago to North Carolina to be closer to three grandchildren.
Changes
DeMacio laments the changing role of the area scout.
“I don’t think we have grown the game like we should,” he told a Baltimore baseball podcast last year. “You have to grow the game. To me, it is disheartening. The bonus money (for draft picks) is out of control.”
The Pennsylvania native notes he once signed Evan Gattis for $1,000 as a 23rd round pick out of a small Texas college in 2010 for the Braves. Gattis hit 139 homers in six seasons for the Braves and Houston Astros from 2013-2019, after playing in the minor leagues for Single-A Lynchburg in the Carolina League in 2012.
“They are more or less reporters,” DeMacio told the AFP of the current area scout. “Major League Baseball eliminated nearly 40 minor league teams a few years ago. The draft is now 20 rounds (it was 40 until 2019 and 50 until 2011). A lot of players are not getting the chance to play pro ball.”
Neither did DeMacio, but he made the most of it – in two different careers.
Share
David Driver
