Mets radio voice Howie Rose cuts road games from his schedule

New York Mets radio voice Howie Rose is cutting back his schedule again this season, but as long as it prolongs his career, fans should be happy about the decision.

After reducing his schedule to 100 games in recent seasons, Rose has decided to eliminate travel this year. Newsday’s Anthony Rieber reported Rose will call 84 games this season, working all home broadcasts from Citi Field and three Subway Series road games from Yankee Stadium in September. But should the Mets advance to the playoffs, Rose plans to call every home and road postseason game. As far as his future beyond this year, Rose continues to take it one season at a time.

“I’m going to work this whole season,” Rose told Rieber. “And whether or not I work next season is not a matter of whimsy or anything like that. I’ll know. When I decide to say it – and it could be at any time – it could be in a couple of years. Who knows?”

Rose began reducing his schedule after he was diagnosed and started treatments for bladder cancer in 2021. And Rose has similarly addressed his future at the end of recent seasons, stating he expects to return the following year, but reserves the right to reassess once he gets to Florida for the offseason. Thankfully, Rose is back as expected this season, choosing to further reduce his schedule. But working 100 or 84 games in a season can still be a grind.

“It’s just that the baseball season, even though my travel has been reduced significantly over the last few years, it’s such a grind,” Rose told Newsday. “What it’s done for me is just sort of morph into a different kind of grind because the games themselves are relatively easy. If you could parachute me into the booth at 7 o’clock every night and parachute me back home when the game is over without dealing with traffic and preparation and everything else, then I’d go indefinitely.”

Get the parachute ready, Steve Cohen. Because if there’s a way for Howie Rose to continue calling games on the radio indefinitely, then the Mets should figure out how to make it work.

This will be Rose’s fourth season with broadcast partner Keith Raad for the Mets on WCBS-880. And when Rose is out, pre and postgame host Pat McCarthy, the son of Rose’s former radio partner and current voice of the Philadelphia Phillies, Tom McCarthy, will join Raad in the booth.

“The other things that, I suppose contribute to an ultimate decision is do I want to continue leaving my wife home at night all the time?” Rose said. “Do I want to continue working at night? Do I want to continue finding the energy to prep properly for a game? Those are the things I evaluate.”

At the end of last season, Rose spoke to Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman about not wanting to be a broadcaster who continued working for longer than they should. And while Rose may have noticed some changes in his performance, saying, “the synapses don’t fire quite as quickly as they used to,” fans continue to relish hearing him in the booth.