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This Thursday, Carole Salazar and her son Vic will arrive at Petco Park and take their seats in Section 317, accompanied by Vic’s two children. They’ll watch the Padres open their 2024 home slate against the Giants -- and they’ll do so more or less the same way they’ve done it for half a century.

Thursday’s game marks the 51st straight Padres home opener that Carole and Vic will have attended together. They wouldn’t dream of missing it.

“Opening Day,” Carole said recently, “has always been my New Year’s Day.”

“You just have that thought that this is going to be the year,” Vic said. “And that we're going to be there at the start of it. … It's always been about being with the family. And it's about all of us always being optimistic about the team.”

In 1974, when Vic was in high school, the family had recently moved to San Diego from Orange County. Carole bought tickets for Opening Day at San Diego Stadium through a mail order application she spotted in the newspaper.

It was the same home opener that Padres owner Ray Kroc famously took the mic at the stadium and told the fans in attendance, “I’ve never seen such stupid ballplaying in my life!” The scene left an impression.

“We just thought, 'If this is Opening Day, we don't want to miss this,'” Vic said. “And we have made it happen for, now, going into a sixth decade.”

Now it’s Vic who buys the tickets as part of a 20-game package. There have been a few close calls. But Vic, a longtime news anchor, credits “supportive news directors, who were always baseball fans.”

Only once did the streak come into serious jeopardy. That was in 2019 when Vic’s son Michael, a swimmer at Ohio State, was scheduled to compete in the NCAA championships in Austin, Texas.

Vic made peace with the fact that the streak might be over. After all, the tradition was always about being together with family anyway. He knew where he needed to be.

“Luckily,” Vic says with a laugh, “his first event was scheduled the day after Opening Day. We took the last flight out of San Diego that Opening Day. We took the last flight out to Austin to be there.”

A year later, of course, the baseball world was put on pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When the season started in July, fans weren’t allowed in attendance. Not to be deterred, Carole, Vic and his daughter Christina drove to the ballpark on the day of the game and took a photo outside the gates.

“We thought, 'We're not letting our streak die,'” Vic said. “Our streak has been to be at the stadium on Opening Day. We were going to be there.”

Sometime around the 30-year mark, Carole and Vic began a tradition of holding up a piece of paper with the corresponding number for the streak. In 2020, they added an asterisk.

Michael had his own streak broken when he attended college out of state. Christina had hers broken to attend an out-of-town wedding. They had each been to every Opening Day since they were born -- including Christina at 4 months old. Carole remarried and her husband, Paul Grisham, began a streak of his own.

When Vic and Carole hit 50 Opening Days last season, they got a suite and celebrated with 20 additional friends and family members.

This year will be a return to normalcy. Just Carole, Vic, Christina and Michael. As she does every year on Opening Day, Carole is looking forward to taking in a ballgame with her once-a-year hot dog and bag of Cracker Jack.

It’s her favorite part. Well, except the obvious.

“Just sitting there with my son,” Carole said. “You know, as we get older, we don't get too much time with our grown-up kids. They've got families of their own. I just treasure every moment. It's become even more meaningful now, as time goes on, to the point of tears if I think about it too long.”