Michael aptly summarizes the unique charms of Howie Rose as a Mets announcer, a job he has held since 1987 and, as a play-by-play man, since 1995. As Michael notes, Howie is not the “voice from nowhere” favored by professional broadcasting; he has been deeply and unmistakably a voice from somewhere, a Jewish kid from Bayside with a Queens accent and a perspective that comes from that world. That has always made him more interesting. My son and I were at the game on Sunday that was his finale, and we bailed out after eight futile innings to listen to him give his valedictory in the ninth, which included a disquisition of some Yiddish slang that was very New York.
I’d add this: the New York Mets have been remarkably blessed with broadcasters both skilled in their trade and genuinely interesting in their perspectives — including not only the original triumvirate of Bob Murphy, Lindsey Nelson, and Ralph Kiner, who stayed together from 1962 to 1977 — but also varied successors such as Howie, Tim McCarver, and the current television team (now finishing their 21st year) of Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez, and Ron Darling. The best of them were never generic or interchangeable. Murph was the consummate Irish optimist who would always tell you how many men needed to hit safely in order to bring the tying run to the plate, and he’d offer “the Happy Recap” on those rare occasions when the team won. Keith, of course, is the cool cynic who sees every angle on the field and launches into stories he can’t finish on television. Ralph had been a player, general manager, and early union activist with strong Ted Williams–esque opinions on hitting, and he would tell stories about his mentor Hank Greenberg and discuss what Rogers Hornsby’s swing looked like. Tim, of course, had his own distinct takes on the game that propelled him to national broadcasting.
Howie’s angle was that he’s been a Mets fan since the creation in 1962, the kind who knew the names of every player who had ever worn a Mets uniform and could tell you his favorite Aspromonte, or which Bob Miller was which. He’d paid his dues in suffering, and such is the lot of Mets fans that he was still paying them this weekend through rain that canceled his pregame tribute and some terrible baseball. His departure cuts the last living link in the daily life of Mets fans to the original Amazin’s.