2/14 New spring digs

On Wednesday, Dale Sveum and some of the other Cubs coaches and staff toured the Spring Training construction site, located in west Mesa. It’s scheduled to open in 2014.

“It’s going to be one heck of a place,” Sveum said Thursday. “The designs and the pictures we saw and the models we saw, it’s going to be one special place. The weight room alone will be 9,000 square feet. The stadium looks really, really neat. It’ll be really fun to move in there next year.”

Will it make a difference in the Cubs’ record?

“It’s not going to make you win, it shouldn’t,” Sveum said.

But what it could do is help lure free agents to the Cubs who like the new set-up. Sveum helped with some of the planning.

“We basically did most of the cosmetic stuff that will go into the clubhouse,” he said. “The designs were what they were and [they asked] what do we want here? Where do we want the emblem? Where do we want TVs? What kind of TVs? How big? All the little things that go into a clubhouse that a lot of clubhouses have now, like iPod [docking stations].”

Sveum isn’t worried that the players will be spoiled by such perks.

“No, everybody else has it,” he said. “All the other clubhouses and new stadiums are all very, very nice. We’re just trying to keep up with the Joneses.”

– Carrie Muskat