Kosuke Fukudome’s welcome to Wrigley Field moment came as he darted up the dugout steps and onto a playing field that was completely made over in the offseason.

Overcast and damp, the conditions were a bit different than the ones he encountered during six weeks of spring training in Arizona with the Chicago Cubs.

“It is cold,” Fukudome said Sunday after the Cubs’ 90-minute workout on a 40-degree day, adding he was eager to make his major league debut Monday against the Milwaukee Brewers.

The narrow right-field corner near where he will line up is one of baseball’s trickiest, made even moreso by a bullpen mound that is nearly on the foul line.

Manager Lou Piniella, wearing a ski hat over his baseball cap, told both of his corner outfielders, Fukudome and left fielder Alfonso Soriano, to study the bullpen and see if it needed to be sloped more to decrease the danger when they run into it to chase a foul ball.

Fukudome, the Cubs’ main offseason acquisition as they try to repeat as NL Central champs and end a 100-year drought since their last world championship, said he would adjust.

“As long as I’m aware of where the mound is, I don’t think it will be that big of a factor. You don’t see that in Japan and it’s going to take more than one game to get used to it,” he said.

The Cubs are facing the team they had to catch and pass last season. Chicago was 8 1/2 games back on June 23 before overtaking the Brewers and winning the division on the final week of the season. It will be Chicago’s Carlos Zambrano facing Ben Sheets on Monday.

With the weather so fickle early in the season, some wondered why the opening series wasn’t played in Milwaukee instead of Chicago because Miller Park has a retractable roof.

Cubs first baseman Derrek Lee was asked about the possibility of playing early games in a dome or at a warm weather city.

“That way you ensure no rainouts or snowouts,” Lee said.

“You’d rather play when it’s warm than cold, but it’s also nice to play on your home field on opening day. … It kind of goes both ways.”

The Cubs got off to a slow start last season and were nine games under .500 in early June. Piniella spent those first two months of his first season in Chicago figuring his team out and experimenting with different lineups before the Cubs began to click.

“Like I told our team in a meeting the National League as a whole is tougher and our division has gotten tougher and we’ve got to be ready to play right out of the gate,” Piniella said.

“We play a lot of games at home early in the season and a good start is very important for us.”

Brewers star Prince Fielder, who led the NL with 50 homers last season, didn’t participate in the workout Sunday at Wrigley because of the flu. But he will play Monday.

“He’s fine,” manager Ned Yost said. “He threw up a little yesterday and had the chills and stuff. But today he rode the team bus, looked great, felt great, was laughing.”

Both teams were trying to test the remade playing surface at Wrigley during their chilly practice Sunday. Some opposing players criticized the surface in the final weeks of last season, saying it was dangerous.

The warning track has been widened. Seventy-one seats were added near the left-field bullpen, reducing the amount of foul territory. The crown of the infield was reduced, and the new grass was noticeably shorter with the cold Chicago winter stunting its growth. That made the infield play fast.

“It’s a lot more level,” Lee said of the surface, which was soft in some infield dirt spots. “Not as drastic a change as I expected in my mind, but definitely different. … I think the summertime it will play even better.”