Howie Rose announces 2026 season will be his last in Mets radio booth

It’s the end of an era of New York Mets baseball, this time in the broadcast booth as longtime radio play-by-play man Howie Rose announced he will retire after the 2026 season. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com reported Rose’s decision.

Rose, who recently turned 72 and grew up in the Queens neighborhood of Bayside, had been in the booth since 1995. He started working with the Mets as a pre-and postgame host on TV in 1987, eventually adopting his catchphrase, “You can put it in the books!” after Mets wins. For losses, he employed a much more subtle “And the ballgame is over.”

Rose also did play-by-play for the NHL’s New York Islanders. MSG Network recently announced that Brendan Burke would succeed him.

His retirement has been hinted at for some time. Rose missed a week of the 2021 season and then the final month to be treated for bladder cancer. He cut his schedule back to 100 games, basically cutting out road trips out west. Later, Rose refrained from traveling at all save for Opening Day or games in Philadelphia. This season, he will not travel with the team until the playoffs.

Neither the Mets nor WHSQ 880 (Formerly WCBS 880) have announced a successor.

This isn’t as seismic a retirement as Yankees radio voice John Sterling’s two years ago, but it’s close. You can’t follow the New York Mets, let alone live in New York period, and not hear Howie Rose’s voice at least once.

Maybe he appeared in a documentary. Your local bodega might have had the Mets game on the radio one summer afternoon in July. Anytime someone says “Put it in the books,” in every day life? Chances are there’s a little bit of Howie Rose memories in ’em.

Regardless, a new era of New York sports radio is upon us and it began when Dave Sims, former WFAN guy and longtime Mariners radio voice, succeeded Sterling in the Yankees booth last year. But even then, Sims just turned 73 and only signed a two-year contract to man the booth with Suzyn Waldman. There’s a good chance we’ll soon see some more turnover in the radio booth in the Bronx.

But that’s a story for another day, today is all about the end of Howie Rose’s brilliant New York tenure. The man’s love for the game poured through the airwaves. He never stopped being a kid from Queens who loved the Mets. Bonus points for his “MATTEAU! MATTEAU!” call as the New York Rangers punched their ticket to the 1994 Stanley Cup Finals.