Howie Rose set to retire from Mets radio booth after '26 season

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- Howie Rose, the charismatic play-by-play man who has called Mets games in various capacities since 1995, announced Thursday that he will retire after this season.

Rose had previously said he hoped to continue announcing until the Mets win another World Series. But he has cut back his schedule multiple times over the past several years, in part due to health issues stemming from a battle with bladder cancer that began in 2021. Travel remains difficult for Rose, who will not call any road games this year until the postseason.

“I just felt it was time, and a lot of it has to do with things other than broadcasting,” Rose said. “My wife and daughters, Alyssa and Chelsea, have sacrificed so much for so long. I’m 72 now, so effectively I’ll be retiring at 73. To me, that’s just enough.

“I don’t want to hang around too long to where things become noticeable, they’re not what they were. I don’t want to be one of those guys where people say, ‘What’s he still doing on the air? Doesn’t he have any other interests?’ I’ve got some other interests, and I’ll pursue them at the end of this season.”

• Rose shares his best Mets call

Rose, 72, broke into broadcasting in 1975 and has been part of the Mets universe since 1987, beginning his run with the team as a pre- and postgame host on Mets Extra. Nine years later, Rose began calling games full-time on television, before eventually transitioning to the radio. He also called NHL games earlier in his career, spending his baseball offseasons with the Islanders until 2016.

“His passion for the Mets has carried across the airwaves and into the homes and hearts of fans everywhere, bringing the franchise’s most memorable moments to life,” Mets owners Steve and Alex Cohen said in a statement. “Generations of Mets fans have grown up listening to Howie call the game with authenticity, energy, and a deep appreciation for what this team means to our community.”

Among Rose’s highlights have been calls from Johan Santana’s 2012 no-hitter, the Mets’ run to the 2015 National League pennant and Pete Alonso’s go-ahead home run in 2024 NL Wild Card Series Game 3. (He is perhaps best known for a hockey moment: his call of Stéphane Matteau’s overtime goal to lift the Rangers into the 1994 Stanley Cup Finals.)

A childhood Mets fan who grew up attending games at Shea Stadium and idolizing broadcasters Lindsey Nelson, Bob Murphy and Ralph Kiner, Rose is a member of the Mets Hall of Fame, the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and Museum, the New York State Baseball Hall of Fame and the New York State Hockey Hall of Fame. He won the Baseball Writers’ Association of America New York Chapter’s “You Gotta Have Heart” award in 2023.

Known for his deep knowledge of the Mets, Rose sprinkles his broadcasts with anecdotes, jokes and even Yiddish phrases, which have endeared him to generations of listeners.

“Vin Scully left the Dodgers, and life goes on out there, and they’re doing just fine,” Rose said. “I would never be so bold as to put myself in that pantheon. So if I just look at it through this narrow prism of Mets broadcasters, what they meant to me growing up, and extrapolate from that what that might mean that I mean to a current generation of Mets fans? That is extremely humbling, because I know what Lindsey Nelson, Bob Murphy and Ralph Kiner meant to me.

“They were in my eyes and ears for seven months of every year -- counting Spring Training and maybe through a postseason, even eight on a couple of occasions. So they became very much part of a family of sorts. I look at them in an avuncular way -- my uncles. And so when people tell me that I’ve had that impact on them, as those three did on me, that’s frankly the most flattering thing anybody could say to me and the sentiment that humbles me the most.”