Let me say this….
If we were doing Best Mets Announcers Right Now – #1 is Howie Rose. Best Mets Announcers of the 21st Century – #1 is Howie Rose. Best Announcers In All Of Baseball Right Now – #1 is Howie Rose.
Let’s break Howie down into three eras.
#1. Young Mets Extra Howie Rose
Howie was a cranky blogger before we had cranky blogs. Before you could go on twitter and spew frustration at this annoying baseball team we all love, we had Mets Extra. On the radio was a man who understood all the frustrations and how everything could be better if the team weren’t just so stupid – and he was not shy about sharing those emotions.
He was so feisty that the Mets eventually forced WFAN to put a half hour buffer between the Mets game and Howie. Really.
#2 The Booth So Bad It Almost Ruined Howie Rose
One of the shocking things about Howie’s greatness is how bad that Howie/Rusty/Fran booth was. Yes we all know what a great man Rusty was….but that was a bad booth. I’ve never heard a bad word about Fran Healy either – but that booth was boring and bad….and Howie was…ok. But then….
#3 Elder Statesmen Howie Rose
The Voice of the Franchise. The man you bring out on the big days. Notice it’s not Gary Cohen standing next to the good luck horseshoe. It’s Howie that introduces the VIPs on the big days.
And we haven’t even gotten to his great play by play….the way he will change speeds and intonation to create a picture in the mind’s eye. With Vin Scully now retired there is nobody better at calling a baseball game.
