Howie Rose rejuvenated by return to the ballpark to call Mets games

Howie Rose is living what he calls “a new normal” in the wake of a health issue that cost him parts of last season and required major surgery.

But the Mets radio announcer said the best therapy for him has been working, now two weeks into another long regular season.

“It’s been the revelation that my wife and some close friends told me it would be,” he told Newsday before Wednesday night’s 5-2 loss to the Giants at Citi Field.

“They said, ‘You have to get back to work.’ I’m down in Florida playing golf, riding my bike, having a good time, and healing. The healing has its challenges now and again, but thankfully they’re manageable and that’s how I have to live my life, a little bit of a new normal.

“I’m very fortunate that I have that opportunity. I get that intellectually. But there are still moments when your mind wanders to having to have made certain changes or deal with that new reality and I find that when I’m at the ballpark, especially when I’m talking into a live microphone, I’m not thinking about that stuff.

“I’m enjoying what I think I was put on this Earth to do. I don’t mean call baseball games necessarily, but communicate, be in my element, enjoy on a very elementary level what it is that turned me on to being a broadcaster in the first place.

“I know people say you get an appreciation for different things when you go through a tough time, and maybe I wasn’t really looking at it that way consciously. But I think if I had to take a step back and describe what it’s been like to be back in this environment for the first couple of weeks, I’d say there’s a lot of truth to it.”

On Friday, Rose will begin the first of several planned breaks that mostly will involve skipping road trips to Arizona, Colorado and California.

The Mets visit the Diamondbacks and Cardinals over the next week. Sitting in for Rose alongside Wayne Randazzo will be Jake Eisenberg, who grew up in Port Washington and is the play-by-play man for Triple-A Omaha, the Royals’ top affiliate.

Rose, 68, said he “absolutely” plans to listen to Friday’s game, and that doing so will not be awkward for him. He said even without his health scare, he was moving in the direction of less travel, like other announcers of his generation.

“The games I’m taking off are more a reflection on I just need to be careful not to overdo things at this stage of my life and career,” he said. “I was just looking to cut the long ones out, because I need it.

“It’s like being a player. I’m not 21 anymore. I’m the equivalent of probably a 37- or 38-year-old player who needs to be managed in terms of the workload.”

Eisenberg was in the Mets clubhouse before Wednesday’s game, getting acclimated and meeting people, including for the first time SNY play-by-play man Gary Cohen, who shared his experience of calling his first Mets game as a radio fill-in in 1988.

Rose has been aware of Eisenberg for years, since he was tipped off to his ability by longtime sports radio executive Eric Spitz, whose son attended the University of Maryland with Eisenberg, a 2017 graduate.

“I’m so thrilled for him,” Rose said of Eisenberg, one of several young sportscasters whom he has spoken to about the profession in recent years, some of whom were candidates to be his fill-in.

“Frankly, you could have flipped a three-sided coin if you said there were three people in there,” Rose said. “But I’ve been following Jake for years. I know he’s ready for this. I’m just so happy for him, because I remember being whatever age he is, full of ambition and wonder and dreaming of doing what I’ve been blessed to do for a living.

“I so love the whole concept of pay it forward. I had people do that for me when I was young, so I get a great deal of satisfaction, not only that I’m working with a young broadcaster, but to see him get to the point where Jake is now . . . I’m very excited for him."

By Neil Best

neil.best@newsday.com@sportswatch

Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.