This facility should not be used for rec league, much less a state tournament. The covered bleachers were nice, the playing surface was horrible. There were large berms down each infield baseline that caused several players to stumble over as they ran the down the lines. The grass in the outfield had gone awhile without a mower going over it as well as the surrounding area outside of the complex where teams would warm up. Being from Texas, I would hope that we could take more pride in choosing a complex to host a state tournament at so teams outside our state would want to come back.

Completely agree!! This is an embarrassing complex to host a state tournament. The covered bleachers were the only nice thing about Kiest...they were large enough to keep all the players and spectators protected from the pouring rain. If you can't consider a better complex, i.e. better drainage, maintained field conditions, maybe turf...how about considering a different date or city.

Unfortunately, because of how this tournament was run, my team won’t be returning.

I was extremely disappointed in this years Texas SSUSA State tournament. For majority of the SSUSA tournament its a struggle to get enough teams in your bracket to make it worth the average 7 hour drive to play. Up until this past weekend every SSUSA tournament in Texas this year the highest number of teams in the bracket was 4. So for the state tournament this year I was excited to see the number of teams in our bracket. It was time for Texas to shine and SSUSA dropped the ball.

Several things about this tournament were not handled correctly but I will only mention a few of them.

So there's the weather/rain. No one can control that. It's part of playing ball. But what I find baffling is why not book a park that has turf fields. It's not like there aren't numerous turf facilities in Texas and in the Dallas area specifically. It actually rains at this tournament practically every year. It doesn't take genius to figure out prior to booking a facility that there will be a good chance of rain that time of the year and that a turf facility should be booked.

So fortunately for Friday SSUSA was able to access the fields in Euless to get a few games in. That was well done. But what I don't understand is how come the fields Kiest Park weren't worked on Friday after the rains Thursday. It's not like SSUSA could not have been aware of the need to work the fields. I understand it was probably the owner of the park (city, county etc.) responsibility but ultimately the buck stops with SSUSA. If the entity that was responsible wasn't going to do it then it's up to SSUSA to do it.

Lastly, Saturday morning SSUSA had 8 am games scheduled. They knew (or definitely should have known) Friday evening the fields would not be playable for Saturday morning at 8. Why not send out an update Friday evening advising everything will be pushed back X hours instead of waiting to most players for 8 am game were already there???


So if SSUSA management is sitting around wondering why there isn't better attendance to SSUSA tournaments here's a good strong example.

Do better

For whatever reason, the city of Dallas has not maintained the fields at Kiest park. There was a time when those fields were in excellent condition and a great place to host a tourney. I heard that they had not cut the outfield grass due to the amount of rain just prior to the tourney starting. That was unfortunate. We have also had bad luck with the weather the last few years of this tournament, previously in Grapevine.

To me, the best solution is try and move it back one month or so,and hope the spring rain season has let up. I hope SSUSA can also consider moving it to a turf field complex - like they did on Friday (to Euless) and/or Waxahachie. I understand there are cost and availability elements - but many teams have been negatively impacted, either by shortened or cancelled games, several times in each of the last 3 years.

This year had a great turnout, with several teams from outside Texas participating. I hope we can figure out a way to insure this tournament is a huge success moving forward. Later in the season and/or different complexes could both help.

We were told by numerous people including umpires and local teams that you need to be out of there (Kiest Park) at night fall for security purposes. I have my comments about the fields and game scheduling but one thing that we take as guaranteed when we attend tournaments is that it is safe for us and our families to be at. I didn't hear any of any actual issues and we made sure to get out of the park immediately after being done with our last games which we were luckily able to do prior to it getting dark, but it was definitely a concern for those that came with us. Seems like there should be better options than that available in a city like Dallas and the surrounding communities.