The Brewers lease at Maryvale Baseball Park is up after this year. Depending on your perspective that could be good news or it could be bad news.

The good news is that the Brewers could demand something bigger, better or flashier. The bad news is that they could easily get everything they need and continue playing in a bad neighborhood.

Bigger, better and flashier is the trend in the Cactus League today, particularly over the last three years.

But that's not really Milwaukee, is it?

After all, even when Miller Park was built, while it had everything the Brewers needed in terms of facilities (both from a baseball and business perspective) it is hardly the fanciest stadium in baseball.

Similarly, when Maryvale Baseball Park opened in 1998, it provided the Brewers with the opportunity to spread out from the relatively cramped quarters they had in Chandler the previous 11 seasons. Instead of just two practice fields, there were now seven. For the first time, the Brewers were able to have their entire minor league facility just across the parking lot and also had the ability to use the complex year round for developmental and rehabilitation purposes.

But 15 years later, Maryvale has begun to show its age. The stadium seats are faded from the Arizona sun, and what was once a large, sprawling clubhouse has become cramped and unworkable by today's major league standards.

After all, Maryvale Baseball Park is now one of the oldest spring training facilities in baseball. Only Peoria (San Diego and Seattle) and Phoenix (Oakland) are older un-renovated stadiums in the Cactus League, and the A's have been talking about leaving aging Phoenix Municipal Stadium for years.

Spring training was once considered little more than a nuisance to ballplayers and nothing more than a necessary expense by teams. In the early days of the Cactus and Grapefruit Leagues, exhibition games were just a way to raise some cash to defray the costs of players having to train for six weeks. The length of baseball's pre-season was determined to be this long because often times players would report horribly out of shape without having picked up a ball or bat in months.

Remember, before salaries got silly in the majors, players would need off-season jobs. Not the intelligence-insulting jobs college athletes have had for generations (including but not limited to the paid task of insuring the team's stadium didn't get stolen, for example), but real, back-breaking labor. Because of the economics of the game, an actual training regimen was instituted as a way for out of shape players to reconnect with the game.

But today, off-season jobs have long been extinct, yet spring training is still six weeks long. Of course, this is irrespective of the fact that any player worth his salt has been working out all winter to be able to report in shape, have an impact season, help his team win, and then hopefully be rewarded for that during the next off-season.

Any player, coach, manager, or general manager will tell you that spring training today is much, much too long. However, the game is not run by those that actually are expected to perform. No, the game is run by bean counters. And since the early 1990s, the nerds in accounting that actually run the game say that the business of spring training is too great to shorten it up.

After all, the Cactus League alone pumps an estimated $300 million into the local economy every year. In 2011, more than 1.59 million fans attended spring games in the Phoenix area alone. So, despite the overkill of a full month of meaningless games, the schedule isn't about to be shortened anytime soon.

When the Brewers were looking at new spring facilities in 1997, they were lured by developer John T. Long, who wanted a catalyst to help the struggling west side section of Phoenix called Maryvale. That catalyst, in Long's mind, was Major League Baseball. When Maricopa County and the State of Arizona kicked in $17 million to build the Brewers their new digs, it was considered state-of-the art.

Last season, the newest crown jewel of the Cactus League opened when the Diamondbacks and Rockies began training at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick. Both teams have six full-size practice fields and 85,000 square feet of office and clubhouse space (as opposed to Maryvale's 22,000 square feet afforded to the Brewers). Salt River Fields also cost $100 million to build, and has other clubs salivating over what they could be in for next.

But the Brewers seem content at Maryvale. They don't necessarily like the idea of sharing a stadium with another club, they enjoy having the minor league operation in the same complex, and they don't even complain about the decaying neighborhood.

While the baseball park was supposed to be the economic catalyst to a brighter future for the Maryvale part of town that simply has not happened. In fact, just saying the word "Maryvale" to area residents will evoke a "hope you brought your Kevlar vest" response more often than not. Still to this day the Brewers do not play games at night there.

To their credit, the Brewers say they don't need something like what the Diamondbacks and Rockies have at Talking Stick. After all, just like Miller Park, something ostentatious wouldn't be very Milwaukee.

An expanded clubhouse, they say, would be helpful. The weight room is so small that players have to work out in shifts. As the Brewers front office has grown, the office space in which to house them has not. The minor league clubhouse outgrew itself a decade ago. The problems have become more reality than perception, as the Brewers are now lagging behind many of their counterparts in terms of adequate spring facilities.

The Arizona Republic has reported that the Brewers are first in line to receive funding from the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority, which has budgeted $46 million in Cactus League facility renovations. Over the last 20 years, it has spent upwards of $200 million (not including Salt River Fields; that was funded entirely by the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community) on new complexes, but has also lured several teams, such as the White Sox, Dodgers, Rangers, Reds and Royals to abandon Florida's Grapefruit League for the desert.

Likewise, the Brewers have had preliminary discussions with representatives from Florida about the possibility of moving their operations out of Arizona. However that seems somewhat unlikely because of the close proximity of all of the teams in the Cactus League within the Phoenix metro area, the Brewers' lifelong association with Arizona and the much more consistent weather.

It seems hard to believe, but the Brewers have spent more years training at Maryvale Baseball Park than any other facility in their history. They spent their first three years at the original Tempe Diablo Stadium; then it was off to Sun City from 1973 to 85. From there it was Compadre Stadium in Chandler from 1986 to 97, and Maryvale ever since.

From a fan's perspective, Maryvale is adequate. There isn't anything to do there but soak up both the game and some rays, but that's okay. The stadium, while beginning to show its age, is still serviceable. It doesn't have the wow factor of a Salt River Fields, Goodyear or Surprise Stadium, but it gets the job done. The stadium workers are friendly and many are originally from Wisconsin.

But the neighborhood is bad and hasn't improved. The same can be said of the ballpark food, which is simply awful. The PA announcer makes you long for Robb Edwards back home in Milwaukee. The ballpark gift shop could benefit from an expansion, as well.

Then again, as I look out my window and see more snow falling, there is no place I would rather be.

Neither would you.