As far as Howie Rose is concerned, this isn’t goodbye. At least not yet.

The longtime radio voice of the New York Mets called his final game for the Metropolitans on Sunday — a 7-2 Phillies win — and as he called a ninth inning for the final time, the timeless sound of the Beatles echoed throughout Citi Field. Rose, a self-diagnosed Beatlemaniac who even left the booth mid-game this season to share pleasantries with Sir Paul McCartney, didn’t let the song’s title — “Hello, Goodbye” — be the last words he ushered into this new era of Mets baseball.

“It’s not goodbye as far as I’m concerned,” Rose said on air, as fans in the stadium chanted his name loud enough to hear over the broadcast. “I’ll still be here for the ceremonies, and I don’t mean the retirement ceremonies. I mean Opening Day, and when we have Mets Hall of Fame Day, or retire a number, have an Old Timers’ Day. So I’m stepping away. It’s basically a retirement.”

An emotional Howie Rose reacts to Mets fans chanting his name as he begins his final inning: pic.twitter.com/YuB9Pvmvro

— WFAN Sports Radio (@WFAN660) September 20, 2026

Rose has previously left the door open to calling an occasional game after stepping away for good, saying last month he could see himself dropping in for one or two once he’s officially retired. But Sunday still carried some sort of finality, the culmination of a farewell Rose had already begun articulating a day earlier, hedging against a forecast that threatened to wash out Sunday’s finale.

“Whether they play tomorrow or not, I just preemptively want to say how much you all mean to me,” he told listeners Saturday, calling Mets fans “kindred spirits” who could just as easily be sitting in his chair, having grown up, like him, in the upper deck of Shea Stadium.

While the Mets pushed Rose’s formal ceremony to next season, Sunday’s game went on as scheduled anyway, giving Rose his actual final broadcast.

In honor of Howie Rose calling his last game, the Mets collectively tipped their hats towards the radio booth 🥹

“Fitting tribute for a legend” – Gary Cohen pic.twitter.com/HXwscTl04e

— SNY (@SNYtv) September 20, 2026

The Mets entered 2026 with the since fired Carlos Mendoza texting Rose in spring training to promise this would finally be his year, the World Series parade that had eluded both the team and its 52-year broadcaster. Instead, the Mets spent the year settling for far less than that vision, and Rose, whose ongoing battle with bladder cancer kept him off the road this season, called every one of his final home games anyway, unwilling to miss a single one. It was a quieter final chapter than the one he authored just two years earlier, when his calls of Francisco Lindor’s and Pete Alonso’s postseason home runs during the Mets’ 2024 NLCS run became the signature calls of his career.

While Rose certainly deserved better than a rain-postponed ceremony and a season that fell short of the World Series ending he’d hoped for, he closed out Sunday’s broadcast the way he’s closed out thousands of others: thanking his broadcast partners, his producers, and the fans who’d spent decades in the car, at the beach, or hiding a radio under the covers during a late West Coast game.

@Mets Hall of Fame Radio Voice Howie Rose says his Final Goodbye! pic.twitter.com/T4ZNZCA15j

— Mets Radio 880 (@metsradio880) September 20, 2026

“So for Keith, Ed and Pat McCarthy, I’m Howie Rose,” he said. “Thanks for joining us once again.”