For four months, all that winter buzz surrounding the arrival of the New York Mets hasn't translated to a hum at the turnstiles for the Buffalo Bisons.

Blame the weather. Blame the team's bad record, topped by its horrific 2-17 start. It looks

almost certain that paid attendance for this season at Coca-Cola Field will be the lowest

since the park opened in 1988. In tickets sold, the Bisons are down nearly 1,400 a game from

last year's final figure and more than 900 a game at the same number of dates.

But a funny thing happened last week as the skies — finally — cleared during

this summer of our meteorological misery: People started coming to the ballpark again.

The Bisons sold 45,452 tickets for a four-game series against the Pawtucket Red Sox. And

they even won three of the four games to post just their second home series victory all

season.

Friday night's season-high crowd of 17,788 is believed to be the largest of the year in the

entire minor leagues.

It's not going to completely patch the wounds of 2009, but Herd officials at least have

some hope that good August weather will get them close to last year's figures at the gate.

"We're getting away from some of our marketing messages from earlier in the year and we're

turning the page in August," Bisons Vice President and General Manager Mike Buczkowski said.

"We want to get a month of summer. We're going for a "Let's get summer started' kind of theme.

We've still got plenty of things at the ballpark for people to come and do."

The Bisons have had six home postponements this season, not an inordinately high number.

But rain in the mid to late afternoon can often be a bigger dent on the crowds than no game at

all or a bad team.

"It's not the six rainouts but it's the six-to-eight other games we've had delayed,"

Buczkowski said. "Or it's the night where it's rained north of the city all the time and isn't

raining here. So now half your audience is sitting at home thinking it's raining."

Bisons at the gate

YearAttendanceDatesAverage

2009387,396527,450

2008590,386678,812

RecordsAttendanceYear

Highest total1,240,9511991

Highest average17,2351991

Lowest total551,9172003

Lowest average8,2762004

The Bisons sold a shade over 590,000 tickets last year, averaging 8,812 per game. This

year, the average is only 7,450 through 52 dates (the average through the same number of dates

last year was 8,358).

The lowest total ticket count in the ballpark's history was 551,917 during a 2003 campaign

that saw all but Opening Day wiped out on the first homestand due to snow. The lowest average

was 8,276 in 2004.

Both those marks might fall this year. The Bisons need to average 8,043 over the final 14

dates just to get to 500,000. But they should be able to do it with no more rain because they

have two Fridays left as well as the always-popular Fan Appreciation Night. They return home

Monday to start a nine-game homestand with a doubleheader against Rochester.

The Mets drawing card was quickly KO'd by the team's woeful 2-17 start and its season-long

struggles at home, where the Herd is likely to break its modern-era record of 40 losses set in

1994 (it's currently 20-35).

The weather has been lousy and the economy shaved season ticket sales under 4,000 for the

first time as many customers switched to minipacks to lessen the cash outlay for 72 games. But

the team's start remains a huge factor in the attendance drop.

"The momentum we gained in the offseason was gone at 2-17. We were back to Square One,"

Buczkowski admitted. "Not only were we 2-17 but a team in our division [Scranton/Wilkes-Barre]

seemed to be about 17-2. It was the first few days of the season but the standings already

looked bleak."

So what happened last Friday? The Bisons had sold more than 13,000 tickets for their July

17 game against Toledo that was rained out. There had not been a standard Friday night affair

since June 12 (the July 3 game was the annual Independence Eve concert that charges premium

prices). And it was finally a clear, rain-free day and night.

"Finally, nobody was calling for rain," Buczkowski said. "People wanted to come to a Friday

night game. We're not home again for a while. Baseball fans will come out if the weather is

iffy to see a player or a team. But families come for the experience and when you're marketing

to them, the weather is a huge part of the decision."

The Bisons are just seventh in the International League in attendance, slipping the last

couple of seasons as new ballparks kept opening (Columbus debuted one this year). The Bisons

aren't in a new stadium anymore as Coca-Cola Field is the second-oldest in the IL.

"Ten or 15 years ago, you can't compare to Buffalo because they had a brand new ballpark

and we're in an older park," Buczkowski said of teams' dilemmas. "Now it's reversed and we

look more at our own trends versus what's going on around the rest of the league."

Buczkowski is hopeful the team will keep playing relatively competitive baseball the rest

of the way. And the Bisons are crossing their fingers they might get some big-name Mets on

injury rehab. Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado, Billy Wagner, J.J. Putz and perhaps Jose Reyes

all figure to need rehab assignments this month.

"Our fans would embrace a Jose Reyes, any of those guys," Buczkowski said. "It's just a

case of us being home when their work needs to get done. It would help us but we've been

better lately.

"A portion of our audience makes up their mind right at the beginning. We can't change

that, unless we go win 10 or 15 games in a row. But we're much happier with what we see."