Shortly before the start of the 2026 baseball season, Howie Rose announced his retirement. After 22 years as radio voice of the New York Mets, the job had become too taxing. He was ready to pass the torch, retire to South Florida, and work on his golf game. He’d spend more quality time with his wife Barbara, too, “whether she likes it or not!”
Following a humiliating end to the previous season, and the winter disappearance of much of the team’s beloved core, it should have felt like a crushing blow to a fanbase for whom Rose’s Queens-accented play-by-play has long been a primary antidote to the affliction of rooting for the Mets.
But to rewatch the announcement now—just after witnessing the team’s elimination from playoff contention at the hands of prodigal Pete Alonso’s Orioles in one of the most gruesome weeks of Mets baseball I can remember—is to feel that, somehow, the best is yet to come. “You know, I’m always honored to start the season by emceeing at Citi Field,” Rose said with genial gravitas, improbably bouncing between sincere positivity and patent New York sarcasm. “But this year in particular, I would like nothing better than to bookend that by serving as master of ceremonies on the steps of City Hall after a trip down the Canyon of Heroes immediately following the season. That would make this dream I’ve lived complete.”
This past season, we could at least be grateful to have him on our lifeboat as we watched the highest-paid team in baseball history sink to last place faster than the Titanic. But we wondered how disappointed Howie must be, and how we would survive without him.
I talked to Rose this past week in the Bob Murphy Broadcast Booth at Citi Field, while he prepared to call the first game of the final series of his 40th season with the team. At first, he was confused. Why does GQ want to interview Howie Rose? Not for fashion tips, I assured him. Instead, I was there to hear his philosophy of Mets fandom, to find out how us fans can endure or even enjoy the team the way he seems to.
“You have a choice in this town,” Rose declared. “To root for the Mets, to root for the Yankees… And because you have that choice here in New York, if you choose to stay a Mets fan through down years, when the Yankees are playing in October every year—well, that’s loyalty. And that loyalty is tested by the refusal to jump ship.” He paused, considering it further: “I mean, any idiot could root for a team that is playing for championships most years.”
