] 06/09/2007 5:04 PM ET Notes: Dealing with dreary clubhouse Comerica no more welcoming to visitors than older parks By Marty Noble / MLB.com DETROIT -- In almost every ballpark, new or old, the clubhouses are located on the lower levels, usually the lowest, and never exposed to daylight. They can be dreary places and usually are, particularly the visiting clubhouses that are, for the most part, smaller than those of the home teams. Syd Thrift, who served as general manager for several clubs, including the Yankees and Pirates, theorized that dreary living conditions would lead to dreary performance, and so he endorsed use of low-wattage bulbs in the visiting clubhouse in parks where he worked. Well, Thrift would have approved of the visiting clubhouse at Comerica Park. It is a dreary place and belies its age, given that the park opened in 2000. The cinder-block walks have been painted a faded mustard color. Some ceiling tiles are strained, others are out of place or missing. And the clubhouse is cramped with many small rooms, some with slanted ceilings as if they were post-construction afterthoughts. That said, the Mets' quarters this weekend are significantly larger, nicer and more open than the visiting clubhouse in Tiger Stadium. When the Mets played there in 1997, Todd Hundley called it a slum, and he wasn't the first to do so. Bobby Valentine said the manager's office was too small to change clothes, so he stepped outside and used the old line, "So small, I couldn't change my mind, either." John Franco is said to have told big Butch Huskey he could enter only if he removed his freckles. "They take up too much room," Franco told the massive former Met. "Get rid of them or those shouders."