Your seat will not be sticky from melted ice cream or cotton candy. Your team will not yet be mired in futility. Opening Day is imbued with the promise of the dawn on a fresh spring morning.

There was a palpable sense of optimism here Friday night as the San Diego Padres took the field for their 2007 home opener against the Colorado Rockies. The Padres were coming off two consecutive National League West championships. Continued progress could only mean an NL pennant or a World Series title.

I was attending my first game at Petco Park, a splendid place to watch a game despite its dog of a name. This will be the fourth season since the ballpark was built and I told myself I’d have to check it out soon. Better late than never.

Somewhere in the recent past I also missed the conversion of the Padres’ colors from chocolate brown to white and blue – a darker shade than Dodger blue – with tan trim. You could recognize long-time fans by their brown jackets and caps.

Petco stands up well in comparison to my most frequent baseball habitat, Dodger Stadium. While the L.A. landmark is surrounded by a vast parking lot (where the entrance fee has been inflated to $15), Petco is surrounded by new high-rise hotels, condos and office buildings at the busy eastern edge of downtown San Diego. Visitors lodging at the hotels could easily walk to the game. The adjacent Omni Hotel is connected to the stadium by a bridge. Many locals arrived at the nearby trolley stop.

The Amtrak terminal is a short trolley ride from the ballpark. You could take a train from Santa Barbara and attend a weekend of Padres games without ever needing an automobile.

Petco Park is a cousin of other modern ballparks that are designed to evoke the past, like Baltimore’s Camden Yards. They are asymmetrical on purpose. Petco’s unique feature is the Western Metal Supply Co. Building (dating back to 1909) in the left-field corner. Beyond the center-field fence is a public park where restless kids can run around and play wiffle ball during the games.

There was a party atmosphere inside the stadium Friday night, with fireworks and streamers filling the sky before the game. A contingent of Marines from Camp Pendleton unfurled a flag that covered the outfield during the singing of the national anthem, and two military helicopters flew overhead.

The game was almost an afterthought. I had wanted to keep my own scorecard and expected to buy a program, but while there were more than a dozen beer vendors and souvenir stands, nobody was hawking programs on the upper concourse. I later found that the only facsimile of a program was a monthly magazine that featured the Padres but did not include rosters of visiting teams.

I guess the full-service scoreboard is supposed to enable fans to keep track of the game. It is a marvelous advancement over the old score-by-innings models, providing pictures of the players, past performances and a stream of trivia. It’s as if former Dodger announcer Ross Porter was connected to the scoreboard by electrodes in his brain.

The spectators were so dependent on the big screen that the only time they became vocally aroused was when the order appeared in big letters: MAKE NOISE and GET LOUD.

It was an interesting game. Greg Maddux, the 333-game winner who had a cup of coffee in L.A. last year, was San Diego’s starting pitcher. Kaz Matsui, the Rockies’ new second baseman, gave him fits. Matsui tripled home an early run, and later he beat out an infield single, stole second on a pitchout, went to third on an overthrow and scored on Maddux’s first wild pitch in two years. Matt Holliday’s homer gave Colorado a 4-1 lead in the sixth and sent Maddux to the showers.

Fewer than half of the record crowd of 44,267 remained in the ninth inning, when Khalil Greene launched a two-run dinger for the home team that made the score 4-3. That’s how it ended, the Padres’ first loss in four Petco Park season openers.

Something seemed lacking in the experience, and I realized what it was when I read a quote by former Padre great Tony Gwynn in the San Diego Tribune. He said that he preferred the season’s second home game over Opening Day because “that’s when you find out who the real fans are.”

And so it was at Petco Park on Saturday night. It was “Military Opening Day,” and the Padres wore desert camouflage uniforms for this game only. David Wells was pitching for San Diego. He, like Maddux, throws a lot of off-speed stuff that produces ground balls and easy flies.

A knowledgeable fan displayed this sign:
We eschew the K
They take all day
Efficient outs
Are what it’s all about

This time, the score was tied going into the bottom of the ninth, and San Diego won 3-2 on an RBI double by Adrian Gonzalez.

The Padres are built on solid pitching and defense rather than heavy hitting, so they expect to play a lot of tight games. The Colorado series could not have been much tighter. Sunday’s finale was tied 1-1 after nine innings, and the Padres won 2-1 in the 10th when Greene tripled with one out and rookie Kevin Kouzmanoff singled him home. For the second consecutive day, they celebrated on the diamond.

Many pundits favor the Dodgers to win the division, but it would be foolish to count out the Padres – especially in view of their 13-5 record against L.A. last year.