The last time I was in Buffalo was the summer of 2009, during the Bisons’ first year of affiliation with the Mets — the year, you may recall, that prompted the team’s promise to do better by the city of Buffalo. That night, the Bisons started Wily Mo Pena, Jesus Feliciano, Mike Lamb, Javier Valentin, Lance Broadway, etc.

It turns out when you’re not too busy grimacing at the state of the Mets’ farm system to notice, Coca Cola Field is a nice park. It’s got good sightlines, local food options, and a big, informative scoreboard.

Some notes from this afternoon and evening:

– Jeurys Familia appeared to have better control of his breaking ball than his fastball. Familia allowed a few hits in the top of the third, only one of them particularly well-struck, then walked Paul Janish on four pitches to load the bases with one out and one run already in. From there, it seemed Familia started throwing almost exclusively breaking balls to induce two straight strikeouts. I believe he threw seven straight breaking balls to finish the inning.

– By the stadium gun here, Familia sat around 92-94 mph with his fastball. He allowed six hits and one run in five-plus innings, walked two and struck out three. At times it looked like he was getting squeezed by the home-plate ump, but he also allowed a few doubles and a few warning track flies. The most entertaining part of the game was when Joey Gathright struck out swinging at a Familia breaking ball that hit him in the leg and knocked him down.

– Spring Training hot-topic Josh Edgin relieved Familia with a runner on second and no outs in the sixth. He struck out the first two batters he faced — both lefties — on a total of seven pitches. The broadcasters here say he hit 97 mph with a pitch last week, but he topped out in the low 90s tonight. He induced a bunch of swings and misses with his slider.

– Jenrry Mejia relieved Edgin in the 7th. In his first inning, he yielded a couple of ground balls, a double off the wall, and a pop up. In his second, he walked the first two batters on nine pitches, then allowed a ground-ball single up the middle that scored a run.

– Mejia’s wearing No. 57, which is cool because a) Santana and b) Heinz.

– Mookie Wilson is here! He and Wally Backman could probably combine to make a hell of a talk-radio team, what with their distinctive and contrasting voices. Also, they have plenty to say about baseball.

– Matt den Dekker took a high fastball from Tim Gustafson over the left-center field fence in the bottom of the third. Nine of den Dekker’s 13 hits at Triple-A have been for extra bases.

– Many of the Bisons look familiar. Recent Mets Manny Acosta, Pedro Beato, Jenrry Mejia, Elvin Ramirez, Rob Johnson, Brad Emaus, Jordany Valdespin, Valentino Pascucci and Josh Satin are all on the roster. Also, Matt Tuiasosopo looks like a guy who went to my high school.

– I didn’t realize it was Irish night here until the 7th inning. I couldn’t figure out why they kept playing songs from Riverdance.

– For what it’s worth, Tuiasosopo started at third tonight but also appears to be the club’s emergency catcher. The guy from my high school that he looks like played tight end.

– I’m sorry, but “Call Me Maybe” is catchy as hell. Can’t get it out of my head. Growing frustrated.

– On a Tuiasosopo double in the 7th, Fred Lewis tried to hurdle the catcher on a play at the plate. It didn’t work. But wouldn’t it be cool if it did?

– Upon our man Catsmeat’s recommendation, I tried the stadium’s Beef on Weck sandwich, from local Beef-on-Weck purveyor Charlie the Butcher. It’s good. I didn’t know how to dress it so I followed the lead of the local-looking dude ahead of me on line and added horseradish and pickles. Here’s what it looked like:

The Wikipedia tells me pickles do not traditionally top beef on weck sandwiches, but I thought they were good, so bully for that guy in front of me for his creativity. The roast beef was tender and the beef juice tasty, but the real key here is the bread (the weck). It’s a soft, sweet-ish roll topped with salt and caraway seeds, so it’s almost like a big, fluffy rye-bread pretzel. Turns out it pairs well with roast beef and horseradish. I lobby New York bakers to start producing the stuff.

– Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy: But here’s my number…

– The starting catcher for Louisville: Corky Miller, whom you might remember from various short big-league stints. Miller has an amazing Sal Fasano mustache and is in the midst of his 12th consecutive season in the International League.

Right now it’s just been deli shops, subway trains, pizza, and hot dogs.

– Brandon Nimmo.

Click through to Amazin’ Avenue for Pack Bringley’s entire interview with the Mets’ 2011 first-round draft pick.

I went to Governor’s Ball on Randall’s Island last night (more on that to follow, possibly) and missed the finale of this edition of the Subway Series. From the reaction, it seems many fans questioned Terry Collins’ decision to use Miguel Batista against Robinson Cano with Tim Byrdak available in the short-staffed bullpen. Cano homered, the Mets lost and Byrdak, for once, did not pitch. So that’s bad.

That the loss came to the Yankees, or that there was all sorts of posturing before and after the series and a live chicken somehow involved, doesn’t mean all that much. The Mets are 39-34 on the year and still very much in the hunt for one of the two Wild Card spots. They need to win as many games as possible, obviously. Going 1-5 against the Yankees is bad mostly because they lost four more of those games than they won.

The good news is that the team called up Justin Hampson today, which will give them a full bullpen and a second lefty. Hampson’s been good for Buffalo this year, sporting a 2.13 ERA and striking out 42 batters in 42 1/3 innings.

Given the way Collins relies on platoon matchups and the frequency with which Byrdak has been used, there’s no harm in giving Hampson a shot. Josh Edgin has struggled of late in Triple-A, plus Hampson was good in his 84-inning tenure with the Padres from 2007-2008.

Hampson’s 32 so he’s not exactly a sexy prospect, but it’s probably at least worth noting that Byrdak was 33 when he broke into the Majors for good. Randy Choate only had one full season on his resume when he re-emerged as a big-league LOOGY at 33 in 2009. Pedro Feliciano pitched in Japan in 2005 before he became the Mets’ near-everyday lefty at 29 in 2006, etc. Sometimes these guys show up from off-the-radar and contribute. Maybe Hampson can, too.

The roster still looks heavy on slap-hitting middle infielders, though.

The Mets activated Ronny Cedeno from the disabled list today and sent Elvin Ramirez back to Buffalo. If you’re playing at home, that means the Mets are short on relievers and very long on light-hitting middle infielders.

Including Daniel Murphy, the Mets have five guys who primarily play second base or shortstop on the active roster tonight. Of them, the best hitter this year (in a tiny sample) has been Omar Quintanilla, followed by Cedeno, Valdespin, Murphy and Turner.

Ramon Ramirez is set for a rehab outing in Triple-A tonight. Presumably if that goes well, he’ll join the club in short order and replace one of the multitudes of middle infielders. Another will likely go when Ruben Tejada gets back, as Tejada, too, is rehabbing in Buffalo.

There seems to be some clamor from Mets fans these days about starting Valdespin every day at second over Murphy based on Valdespin’s performance in his first 60 Major League plate appearances. If you’re making the case based on defense, that’s one thing. If you’re saying Valdespin’s a better hitter than Murphy, you’re wrong.

Say this out loud so you don’t forget it: Jordany Valdespin is not a better hitter than Daniel Murphy. Really emphasize every syllable: Jordany Valdespin is not a better hitter than Daniel Murphy. Now say it as slowly as you can, and let the sounds all wash around your mouth: Jordany Valdespin is not a better hitter than Daniel Murphy.

Valdespin has had a few big hits and flashed some power. He has a .250 on-base percentage. He has walked once in the Majors and only 34 times in 841 plate appearances, the type of aggressiveness likely to be exploited by Major League pitchers. His career Triple-A stats translate to a .242/.269/.343 Major League line in a neutral park. His best Minor League stretch — 404 at-bats in Double-A Binghamton in 2011 — translates to .232/.268/.361 rates.

Murphy, meanwhile, has nearly 1,500 plate appearances on his resume to show he’s a credible Major League hitter. He’s had a rough month and he doesn’t have a home run yet. I know those things. But he’s got a lifetime .288/.337/.421 line and he’s 27. If he’s healthy, he will hit.

Maybe Murphy’s hurt or got some awful case of the yips or something and will never hit like Daniel Murphy again, and maybe something suddenly clicks for Valdespin soon and he starts getting on base like a capable Major League position player should, but I would guess the chances of either happening soon are slim and the chances of both happening are minuscule.

So says the Internet, at least. I’m hoping he gets eliminated real quick when he fails a truck-washing immunity contest, or they do some sort of phone-a-friend thing to call in outside help and one of the other contestants brings in Barry Bonds.

The most important thing is that Jeff Kent loses at Survivor. Man I hate that Jeff Kent.

It was Edgardo Alfonzo that got me.

During the Mets’ All-Time Team event Sunday night –- the one that airs tonight at 7 p.m. on SNY, I should say -– Gary Cohen called Alfonzo the team’s “shadow hero,” the guy who always seemed to draw the walk that set up the big hit or drive in the tying run that led to the winning run in the comeback.

And in fact, at the preceding reception and all others I’ve attended like it, most Mets heroes of yesteryear hold court among gleeful fans, smile for photos, point at each other fraternally and generally carry on with the type of understandable bravado developed from a post-baseball life spent encircled by admirers harping on their every word. But Alfonzo, the best second baseman in Mets’ history and an important part of what Sports Illustrated deemed “The Best Infield Ever” — he of over 1,500 hits and an .891 career postseason OPS and countless great games and big moments in orange and blue — seems content to stand or sit in some corner, nursing a drink and picking from the passed hors d’oeuvres like my wife and I do at work-friend weddings where we hardly know anyone.

Thinking about that — and thinking about Alfonzo — got me choked up on my short walk home from the event. I even shed a couple of tears on 89th St., my first since Shea Stadium closed in 2008.

Alfonzo’s only the medium, of course. Most memories don’t come neatly packaged or sharply edited like the baseball highlights shown at Sunday’s event, and there’s no archive we can rely on to summon them when we need them — no play or pause or rewind buttons on our consciousness. And considering Alfonzo, trying to recall his playing days and wondering what it was (and is) about him that pushes him to the margins at these things, inevitably brought back a flood of mostly indistinct memories of my late brother.

Somewhere in my head there’s Chris looking at the roster sometime in the summer of 1995, noticing for the first time that there’s a player on the Mets younger than him and lamenting his fading chances of ever making the Majors. And there’s his voice on the phone from someplace in Texas, providing a recap in exhaustive detail of the dizzy-bat race that won him the broken bat with which Edgardo’s brother Edgar struck his 999th career Minor League hit -– Chris delighting at once in his dizzy-bat victory, the coincidental nature of the prize, and the remarkable fact that Edgardo Alfonzo had a brother named Edgar. And then for just a moment I can see, in crystal-clear high definition, my brother’s grinning face under a Mets hat and backed by the blue seats at Shea, saying, “Fonzie!”

It’s the fleeting feeling of what he was like, and what it was like to hang out with him and b.s. about baseball with him, and it’s the best feeling. And then, when I can’t get it back, it’s the worst.

People say the holidays are the toughest time for missing lost loved ones, but that’s not the case for me. For me it’s right around now, in the crushing New York summer, when school is out and network sitcoms are on hiatus and there’s not much to mark the passing of time besides the steady crawl and awesome enormity of baseball’s regular season. I want to call my brother and talk about it but I can’t.

Then I see Fonzie in the corner and I feel compelled to grab him, hug him, pull him to the center of the room and say, “this guy, here! Does no one here remember how awesome he was? He was our favorite!”

But it would be weird, and it wouldn’t change a damn thing. It thrills me to see Alfonzo in the spotlight at events like Sunday’s because he deserves it, and because it seems like some odd form of validation for my brother’s appreciation of Alfonzo from his rookie year. Then I cry on the walk home because of the awful irony, because no recognition or highlight reel or ceremony can draw my own hero from the shadow for more than a moment.

The Mets, you know, annually seek meaningful games in September. The phrase gets bandied about a bunch, in seriousness and silliness. Naturally, it refers on face to games that impact the pennant race. But really, is any baseball game meaningful? Or is every baseball game meaningful, in May of ’95 and September of ’99 and August of ’03 and in the sticky summer heat at Citi Field last night?

What is any baseball player or baseball itself but a shadow hero behind our appreciation of beauty and greatness and chance, our understanding of joy and community and brotherhood and love? And why would anyone aspire to more?