In Howie Rose’s second-to-last sign-off, he quoted the Beatles, his favorite band, when the emotions started to overtake him.
“Anybody who knows me knows how much The Beatles mean to me, so I’m going to say right now before we do anything else,” Rose said Saturday afternoon on Mets Radio. “To quote a Beatles song, ‘It’s all too much.’”
It’s fitting, since it feels as though baseball has been losing some of its Beatles-esque voices over the last decade, with iconic broadcasters leaving the booth. The late Vin Scully and Bob Uecker, Joe Castiglione, and now Mike Krukow in San Francisco and Rose in New York.
The story of how Rose became one of the Beatles of baseball broadcasting begins at Shea Stadium. There are places he’ll remember all his life, Shea Stadium being one of them. Rose was one of those rare broadcasters who could make fans feel as though they were right back in those orange seats in the bleachers. He could evoke a feeling of being in a certain place during a certain time.
Broadcasters have a way of becoming part of fans’ families. You invite them into your living room night after night; they feel like passengers in your car while Sunday driving on your way home.
There are so many memorable moments and memorable calls from Rose; they’re longer than the road that stretches out ahead.
“Put it in the books!” became his signature catchphrase at the end of each game. Two years ago, “It’s gone! He did it! He did it! Pete Alonso with the most memorable home run of his career!”
In an instant classic, it inspired a young Mets fan in California named Ethan Cooper to recite the call from the entire at-bat on stage at an elementary school assembly. Impressed by his gumption and execution, Rose invited Ethan, his parents, Josh and Sarah Cooper, and younger sister, Leah, to the Citi Field booth a few months ago when they were in town to visit family.
It’s no surprise since Rose has always subscribed to a philosophy that all you need is love. He has always taken the time to talk with young broadcasters looking for advice. All these years, he couldn’t believe how lucky he was to have his dream job, so he felt it necessary to pay it forward by encouraging those who shared the same dream.
The message was that with enough reps, there’s nothing you can do that can’t be done, nothing you can sing that can’t be sung.
Few have the kind of in-depth, historical knowledge of baseball like Rose, and even fewer are as masterful at weaving words of wisdom throughout games in a way that never felt forced, and always left the listener with something new learned. Listening to Rose meant listening to words flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup as he described scenes from unforgettable to bizarre.
Still, he knew when to give the game room to breathe and allow the crowd to take over. He knew when to let it be.
Often, with the Mets, Islanders, and Rangers, Rose had to take a sad song and make it better. Sometimes he probably wanted to bring Maxwell’s silver hammer down on someone’s head for a sloppy play or a lazy error, and somehow made it sound like poetry. Tasked with making sense of teams that were often roller coasters playing through muddy water, with Rose, the broadcasts were always able to come together.
One tale wove into another; a fact about the 1977 team was somehow relevant to what happened on the field that day in ways only he could see.
In recent years, he got by with a little help from his friends after Rose and his wife, Barbara, relocated their offseason home to Florida. First, he only traveled for NL East games, then he cut his schedule to 100 games, and then this past season, only home games plus the three Subway Series games at Yankee Stadium. There were voices in the booth with him that came and went, and voices he helped mentor, like his current partner Keith Raad, and Raad’s road partner Pat McCarthy, the son of Phillies broadcaster Tom McCarthy, all of whom have expressed immense gratitude for the guidance of Rose.
When Mets fans heard that 2026 would be Rose’s final season, many nearly broke down and cried. Rose did too Sunday, when he addressed a packed crowd and family, friends, media members, former players and former Mets. What he wants to be remembered as is not someone whose stature in the game rivals that of a rock and roll star; Rose wants fans to remember him as one of them.
Rose will never lose affection for people and things that went before.
So, life goes on. Rose will retire to his little hideaway near the waves in Florida to spend more time with his wife and two daughters, Alyssa and Chelsea, and to frustrate himself on the golf course. Rose might be saying goodbye, but next season when the Mets honor him on Opening weekend, he’ll say hello once again. He’d rather save his celebration for next year on a day when the sun is up and the sky is blue.
Rose leaves with no sorrow. There’ll be no sad tomorrow, don’t you know that it’s so?