My thoughts, for what they're worth, on the State:
I thought the umpiring was the best I've seen this year. Runners who were safe were actually called safe for a change. Umpires that we had were pretty approachable and not out there with a chip on their shoulder. All were in proper uniform and conducted themselves professionally. I liked how each umpire had a timer to eliminate any controversey over the time limit. It would help if someone reminded all umpires before tournaments that a new inning begins as soon as the last out is made from the previous inning. We were at 16-U and it seemed the same set of umps stayed at 16-U, so my opinion maybe is limited to that set of umpires.
The fields were drug between games, which was good. Of course, water and temporary fences would be great. I understand the logistical problems with watering the fields, but temporary fences should be a must for any State or any other important tournament. Further, temporary fences would also solve the problem of a lack of warmup space at Tealtown. The bases were also kind of silly, but they didn't pose a problem in any of our games.
Concessions were priced low and were fine. There were extremely long lines in between some games on Friday and Saturday. It was a nice touch to have Outback and the private grill there, as well as slushes and whatever else was there.
I liked that one person was stationed to update brackets. I always wonder why tournaments fail to immediately update pool play results and brackets when this is such an easy task. It was good to see these updated immediately.
The air conditioned room was also a very nice idea. It came in handy several times during a long weekend. The mister under the one tent was nice, too, although the wind kept blowing it onto our field (#8) on Sunday.
All in all, I thought things were pretty good. If I had one complaint, it would be the lack of temporary fences, especially at 16-U and 18-U.
