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It’s appropriate that Howie Rose’s final season as a full-time announcer for the New York Mets has essentially been a microcosm and exemplary of the franchise’s history, for which he has been at least of a fan of every single minute. The team came into 2026 with exaggerated expectations buoyed by a bevy of aggressive free agent signings and a reported resolve to rebound from a collapse of epic proportions that saw them fall from the sport’s best record after 70-something games to falling one game short of a seventh seed in a mediocre National League by season’s end. Instead, the team misfired on just about every one of those moves, was beset with a bevy of injuries that now includes $765 Million Dollar Man Juan Soto, and currently finds itself mired in last place in their division. Despite a recent post-trade deadline spurt that has spurred overly optimistic fans’ pious hopes for a miracle finish akin to the final month of 1973 that saw them rise from a similar position to within one game of a World’s Championship even without the current benefit of three wild card slots to vie for, it’s all but a fait accompli that this will be the fourtieth consecutive season without said title–naturally paralleling Rose’s professional association with the team.
For three-fourths of that time Rose has been a play-by-play announcer, the last two decades the anchor of the “Bob Murphy Broadcast Booth” as the successor to its namesake who spent his own last two decades as the team’s radio voice. Rose is as beloved and revered as not only Murphy but just about anyone connected with any team–and yes, I’m including the likes of John Sterling, Ernie Harwell, Joe Castiglione and Vin Scully. Fans of the Yankees, Tigers, Red Sox and Dodgers of multiple generations connected with those radio voices as both the soundtrack of summer and perpetual comfort, a relationship that likely began as a child with a transistor radio on a balmy summer night on a porch or in a humid bedroom.
So yeah, it’s a big story when Rose was honored last night in the manner than INSIDE RADIO’s byline-shy allegedly human authors previewed last week:
“Howie Rose: Put It In The Books,” presented by Resorts World New York City, is a 60-minute documentary examining Rose’s broadcasting career and his impact on New York sports… The documentary takes a personal look at Rose’s life and career, including interviews with family members and a lifelong childhood friend. SNY also accompanies Rose to his childhood home in Bayside, Queens, where he first developed his passion for baseball and the Mets.
“I was awestruck watching the Mets, and being at the ballpark was insular,” Rose says in the documentary. “The entire outside world ceased to exist, and I was in my element.”
I’ve previously mused about my childhood connection to Rose via the day camp he worked at just before he began his impressive career as an updater for the fondly remembered Sports Phone that drove up my parents’ bills well beyond their expected level of tolerance. The documentary fortunately left out those visions but it did include a few pics of Rose as that Queens teen with unkempt shoulder-length hair who I knew was merely biding his time dealing with problem campers like be before he’d head off to Shea in time for that night’s gates to open, eschewing the buses that counselors like him were usually required to ride. Aside from his clearly superior metabolism, on paper he and I were effectively equals. But as he has proven ever since, he is gifted with way more than talent than most Queens teens, present company included.
One other exception was a fellow Bayside resident with unkempt long hair who has a pretty long association with the team himself, and it was therefore serendipitous that what THE NEW YORK POST’s Christian Arnold reported last night served as a promo for the special:
(T)he network had Rose appear alongside SNY broadcaster Gary Cohen for an inning of the Amazin’s 5-2 loss to the Padres…The appearance led to a touching moment between the broadcasters as Rose left the booth.
Rose shook Cohen’s hand, and the two shared a hug as Cohen called his counterpart “the best.” “I’ve never had a brother, but you’re the closest thing, and I treasure you. I really do,” Cohen added…”And you as well,” Rose said back.
Sappy though that exchange may have been, it brought to the surface the emotions I have been feeling that have only mushroomed as this season has slogged on. We are by nature reluctant to want to fully let go of our youth, and it is connections like those with Rose that allow me to maintain such detailed warm fuzzies about those long-ago days in the upper deck of Shea with those $1.30 general admission seats that would sometimes be free of charge if one consumed enough Dairylea cottage cheese and low-fat milk. Rose taking his victory lap is a sobering reminder that no matter how hard we may try to maintain our fading youth like it or not time marches on.
But apparently Rose himself harbors some ambigousness about putting himself in the books for keeps just yet, as we learned on Monday courtesy of YARDBARKER’s Zac Wassink:
Rose is scheduled to work his last MLB game as the team’s radio play-by-play voice when the Mets host the Philadelphia Phillies on Sept. 20.
Rose, 72, previously suggested earlier this summer that he wasn’t having any second thoughts about retiring after the Mets wrap up what almost certainly will be a lost season for the franchise. As Anthony Rieber of Newsday shared over the weekend, Rose will continue his role as master of ceremonies for special team-related events beyond the ongoing campaign. Rose also recently teased that he could still call the occasional game for the Mets. “It’s a people business, and I’m going to miss the people most,” Rose explained. “But thankfully, they’ve been nice enough to agree to dust me off a few times a year to MC the various ceremonies that might take place on the field, and maybe pop into the booth if the kids need a break from time to time. I’m not saying I’ll never do another game after Sept. 20th, but as a full-time thing, that’ll be it.”
After a season this disheartening, and with Rose still yearning to call a Mets World Series win in the same manner than his memorable “Matteau!! Matteau!! Matteau!!” call during a memorable 1994 Stanley Cup run still resonates with New York Rangers hockey fans, it’s almost understandable that he’s having second thoughts. I’ve been inclined to give up on the team for good myself on numerous occasions–certainly this year. But if you’re born within arguable walking distance of a major league ballpark that’s simply not an option. Rose fits that definition. And as long as his health will allow (which thankfully seems to have made enough of a rebound from the bladder cancer battle that kept him sidelined for a good chunk of a 2021 season that was as unsatisfying as this one has been), I’m pretty dang sure he’ll allow that dust to be swept away. We fellow Queens diehards wouldn’t want this book to close any other way.
Until next time…