CURTIS HENRY
Sports Editor
Ken Johnson’s streak of 373 consecutive Buffalo Bills games attended is impressive, but it isn’t impressive enough. At the least, it is not impressive enough for the man who is affectionately known in Buffalo and nationwide as the ultimate fan.
“Yeah, it’s at 373 games. I hate that number,” he scoffed. “I’ve got to wait until the season starts for the number to go up. So for now, I’m stuck saying ‘373’ each time someone asks me where the streak is at. It’s annoying. I’m sick of it.”
He’s a software engineer in Victor, N.Y., during the week. Come weekends during football season, Johnson embraces one of the best aliases in all of sports: Pinto Ron.
Three hundred seventy-three games in, and with no signs of slowing down, Pinto Ron is everything that epitomizes being an NFL superfan. He will be celebrating his 60th birthday later this year, but is adamant that he does not plan on breaking the streak anytime soon.
The count of 373 doesn’t only include Bills home games: it accounts for each and every game on the Bills schedule since the team’s 1994 season opener. That’s a lot of football and a lot of miles.
“Naturally, I started going the year after they went to the four straight Super Bowls,” said Johnson. “It has still been a hell of a time.”
Johnson is also a season-ticket holder for Sabres home games, but the Bills are his true passion as a fan. The tailgating of Pinto Ron has become legendary in league-wide fan circles, and the story of his pregame rituals have been told all over the country. He has been featured in publications like USA Today, VICE magazine and Complex, and he has even seen airtime on ESPN’s “Sunday NFL Countdown.”
His pregame routines are as random as they are spectacular. Nothing gets you prepared for an outdoor sporting extravaganza in Buffalo in the cold of December quite like ripping a shot of 100-proof liquor from a bowling ball. If consuming alcohol isn’t on your pregame agenda, worry not: a myriad of game day appetizers await you on the hood of Johnson’s red 1980 Ford Pinto wagon. (Suddenly, the name “Pinto Ron” is making a little bit more sense.)
If you really don’t care about food and drinks and are only interested in creating chaos, have no fear. There are even options available for someone like you, like taking part in Pinto Ron’s signature ketchup and mustard ceremony that takes place 90 minutes prior to kickoff each time the Bills play a home game.
“When it started out about 30 years ago, it wasn’t at all what it has become today,” explained Johnson. “It started out as a simple contest to see how far we could spray ketchup and mustard onto a burger accurately. Eventually, we got too far and I would be getting ketchup and mustard on me. Just a little.”
That little ketchup and mustard stain somehow blossomed into a full-blown coat of condiments, and the act would soon become a full-time ritual. The most impressive part of the feat? Probably how long it takes Pinto Ron to clean up.
“Only takes me about 10 minutes to clean up. I’ve got a pretty strong routine going,” said Johnson, chuckling.
Beneath all of the rowdiness, excitement and alcohol consumption that accompanies a Pinto Ron tailgate lies a burning question: Is it hard to be a fan of a perceivably bad team?
“I don’t think about them as a bad team, especially now,” said Johnson. “I know about the drought. I know there have been struggles. The truth is, I’m there every game to see the Bills win on that day. If I think they’re going to lose a game, I don’t go. And I haven’t missed a game in 24 years.”
Johnson is a part of a Buffalo fan culture that will not quit on these teams, regardless of the perpetual losing that has plagued the city in this century. Since 2000, only four NFL teams have fewer wins than the Bills: the Texans, Raiders, Browns and Lions. Discount the Texans, who were absent from the league in 2000 and 2001, and only three teams have fewer wins than Buffalo in an equal amount of regular season games played.
However, even the teams with fewer wins than the Bills this millennium have clinched a playoff berth at least once, something that has eluded Buffalo for a tally of 17 consecutive seasons.
“A good Bills fan needs to be in a constant state of denial,” said Johnson with a laugh. “I know I am.”
He might be right.