By the start of the 2010 season, the Cubs will be one of only eight teams (Cubs, Red Sox, Jays, Rays, A's, Dodgers, Marlins, Royals) to not play in a "modern" venue (a baseball-only venue built or renovated extensively after 1990) and of those eight, the Marlins will have a new ballpark within five years, Kauffmann just finished its renovations (though to the best of my knowledge, they don't include upgrades to the clubhouse facilities), Fenway is upgraded a little bit every offseason and the Rogers Centre is still a relatively modern facility, though I obviously can't speak as to the quality of the clubhouse facilities of the last three. The punchline to this is that I think that it's slowly getting to the point where, if Chicago weren't the world-class city that it is, if Wrigley weren't the cathedral/gold mine that it is (beautiful old ballpark in a cozy urban neighborhood surrounded by bars, apartments and restaurants that doubles as a tourist attraction when the Cubs aren't playing or aren't fielding a competitive team) and if the Cubs weren't as legitimately competitive as they've been (or made an effort to be) in the last decade or so, the team might eventually start losing out on potential free agents just on the basis of the difference between the facilities the Cubs can offer as compared to what the Mets, the Yankees, the Phillies or any other similarly-payrolled team with a new facility could offer. This may just be me, but I thought it was worth bringing up anyway.