The SWAC has officially decided where this month’s conference baseball tournament will be head.
The league announced on Monday that the 2014 tournament will be played at the Major League Baseball Urban Youth Academy in New Orleans.
The tournament was initially scheduled to be held at LaGraves Field in Fort Worth, Texas, but following a recent inspection of the facility, league officials decided to move the event prior to the May 14 date.
Citing unsafe field conditions last month, SWAC officials announced the tournament would be held in at Southern University in Baton Rouge or New Orleans.
Some of the issues with LaGraves Field included an uneven playing surface, nails sticking out of the outfield wall and poor drainage in the dugouts.
“We would like to thank the New Orleans Major League Baseball Urban Youth Academy for hosting the SWAC Baseball Tournament,“ Commissioner Sharp said in a statement. “We believe the venue will give our fans and student-athletes a great experience. The MLB Urban Youth Academy is a state-of-the-art facility and the SWAC has been tied in with the Urban Youth Academies for several years through MLB’s Urban Invitational.”
The New Orleans MLB Urban Youth Academy at Wesley Barrow Stadium opened in 2012 replacing a 55-year-old facility that was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. The new facility has capacity for 650 fans, with a 200-square-foot climate-controlled press box, a public address system and new LED scoreboard.
