Screenshot from Google Maps of Willis C. Winters Park.
Thanks to a collaboration between the City of Dallas and Dallas ISD, the baseball and softball fields at Willis C. Winters Park will get outfitted with turf.
Rudy Karimi, District 14 Park and Recreation Board member and Lakewood Heights neighbor, recalled a neighborhood association meeting in spring 2022 where a woman spoke out about losing an entire season of home games at Willis C. Winters Park. Both Woodrow Wilson High School and J.L. Long Middle School use the park for games, in addition to other leagues.
“We lose 20-30% of our home games just because of rainouts,” Karimi said.
When it rains, it pours because it’s not like the field is ready to use the next day after a rainstorm. It takes days for it to dry out, Karimi said.
This dynamic is why playoff games have been moved to fields with turf instead of being at Willis C. Winters Park. Karimi said it’s more difficult to reschedule those games when you have teams traveling to Dallas from further away. Canceling a game means running the risk of being knocked down to a single elimination game instead of a three-game series, Woodrow Wilson Head Baseball Coach Gill Nelson said.
In addition, natural fields are limited in the amount of use they can sustain.
“Here’s the other perk to artificial turf: it’s a virtually unlimited amount of play during the week or during the month. That’s significant because natural grass, you’re basically only limited to about 30 hours of recreation each week,” Karimi said. “You can’t just overuse those natural grass fields because we can’t over maintain it.”
Dallas passed a bond election in 2024, which entitled the Park and Recreation department to agency matching funds, among other things. This means the City and DISD were both able to commit $1 million (for a total of $2 million) to install turf at Willis C. Winters Park, though Karimi said the project is expected to cost less than that.
This idea was so well received that the City and DISD decided to also install turf fields at three other parks — one to the north, one to the west and one to the south, Karimi said. But Willis C. Winters will be the first.
The responses that District 2 DISD School Board Trustee Sarah Weinberg has heard from the surrounding community have all been positive.
“It just encourages community in another way, through the sports of baseball and softball and bringing people together and bringing people out,” Weinberg said. “I think it’s a win-win across the board.”
Woodrow Wilson High School’s head baseball and softball coaches also gave a thumbs up on the turf plan.
“You don’t have to reschedule games and don’t have to worry about canceling practices,” Nelson said. “When it rains a lot on the field, the dirt was just overwhelmed with mud, so we couldn’t play a lot, or for practice, we had to go somewhere indoors, and it was just kind of a headache. And now that headache is going to be relieved, and we can kind of move on.”
While varsity games usually get rescheduled for rain outs, Head Softball Coach Kylie Sumners said junior varsity teams lose the chance to play at all.
“They come to practice all week, and then they won’t have a game in two weeks, so you lose a lot of kids to that,” Sumners said.
Middle schoolers are in a similar situation of not being able to reschedule games, Sumners said, so they will also benefit from the turf installation.
“It’s just going to be huge for softball, baseball in East Dallas,” she said.
Being able to use Willis C. Winters for playoff games gives our teams home field advantage, Nelson said. Having turf also opens the door to hosting other events, like tournaments.
Karimi suspects the turf will last for at least 12-15 years before it needs to be replaced. The new field will require unique upkeep, but that won’t be as expensive as maintenance for natural grass. Both the baseball and softball fields are expected to be ready to go with new turf by the time the 2026 season starts.
“It will be a game changer,” Karimi said.
Karimi recognized the support of Weinberg, District 14 Council member Paul Ridley and the Friends of Willis Winters Park. To some, this change has been needed for a while. Baseball parent Todd Redmond credited Karimi with pushing the initiative forward and getting the community to voice their opinions at Park and Recreation Board meetings.
“He is the reason this project is getting done because he helped on the city side,” Redmond said.
