By Mitch Abramson
Rose and Cohen, Mets radio announcers on WFAN, are linked by more then just the timber of their voice and a predilection for Marv Albert. It goes deeper then that.In the transient world of broadcasting where announcers move around almost as much as ballplayers, Rose, in his first full season as the Mets radio voice, and Cohen, in his 16th, are forging an identity that goes beyond the usual forced marriage between announcers. They were friends from opposite ends of the dials early on in their careers when Cohen did baseball for CBS radio in the '90s and Rose was with WFAN from its inception in 1987. It wasn't until they worked together almost five years ago when Bob Murphy began to cut back his schedule that they realized how much they had in common. Both were Queens' kids who bled orange and blue, never imagining that one day they would be the voice of the Mets. For Rose, it still hasn't sunk in.”I'm not a wide-eyed kid anymore,” said Rose, 50. “I'm in my 30th year of broadcasting, but not a day goes by when I don't come to work thinking how as a kid I used to cross Roosevelt Avenue to get to Mets' game. It's a pretty powerful emotion.” Now, not a home game goes by when they don't inhabit their nook high above the field in the “Bob Murphy Radio Booth,” named last season after the legendary announcer who died on Aug. 3 at the age of 79. Linked by their association to Murphy – Cohen was his radio partner for 15 years while Rose took over for the giant after he retired last year – the pair have fashioned an on-air dynamic that is similar to a couple of kids hanging out in the bleachers shooting the breeze.”We both grew up listening to Marv Albert on the radio,” Cohen said before a recent game against the Arizona Diamondbacks. “We both sat in the upper deck at Shea with friends never thinking that we would be here. When Howie finally began doing games for the Mets, we had already known each other for 15 years, so there really wasn't a transition to make. Every time you work with a new partner, there's always an adjustment that you make, but with Howie, it was pretty easy.”That was evident at a recent game against the Houston Astros when the conversation turned into a high school spitting contest between Rose and Cohen after Pete Munro, a former player at Benjamin Cardozo now pitching for the Astros, stepped to the plate and had trouble lying down a bunt.”The Cardozo grad looks a little confused at the plate,” Cohen said on the air.”It's all that soccer they play over there as well as the tough academic standards,” Rose countered with a chuckle, then added: “For a guy who signed a $70,000 contract and then got a $300,000 signing bonus, that's the type of economics you can't learn at Van Buren HS or at Francis Lewis.” The pair and hopefully much of Queens laughed that night, leaving the rest of the city not plugged into schools into the borough to figure out what they were talking about. But that's their style: just a couple of guys at the game having a conversation.Cohen grew up in Flushing and Jamaica but drifted to Manhattan to study at the United Nations HS and Columbia University where he was a dean's list student and a political science major. He was the radio voice of St. John's Basketball from 1995 through 2002. Rose, for his part, grew up in Bayside and went to Benjamin Cardozo HS. He gave up his dream of becoming a pro athlete or even an athlete at Cardozo after a buddy of his almost lost his lunch trying out for the baseball team.”That pretty much told me to go in a different direction,” he said. “But I think I knew from the age of three and four that I wanted to be a radio announcer. I was always interested in the radio. I would stop people on the street and try and interview them. I would listen to the Yankees in 1961 with Roger Maris, and I would imitate Mel Allen: 'Hello there everybody,'” he said mimicking Allen to a tee.It all fell into place for Rose in the fall of 1966 when he stumbled upon a Rangers game on the radio. Listening to Marv Albert call the action was like seeing the Blessed Virgin Mary and made him realize what he wanted to do with his life.”I became infatuated with hockey after that,” he said.He also became infatuated with Albert, calling the radio station when he was a kid minutes before Albert was to go on the air to ask if he and his friends could start a fan club in his name. Albert reciprocated the interest, getting him his first gig at SportsPhone in 1975 doing updates, and offering him detailed critiques of his play-calling thereafter. The two even got to work together doing Ranger broadcasts, but Rose would step out of his mentor's shadow in 1994 after taking over the full-time radio seat on WFAN five years earlier.”Matteau! Matteau! Matteau! And the Rangers have one more mountain to climb!” Rose bellowed following Stephane Matteau's double-overtime game-winning goal to send the Rangers to the Stanley Cup Finals. The call and his work during the 1994 playoffs would win him the New York State Sports Broadcasters Award. Rose, in a role reversal, now calls Islanders games on Fox Sports New York and is entering his ninth year in the play-by-play role. “Very early on when I've listened to my tapes, it kind of sounded like a cheap Marv Albert imitation,” he said. “But you eventually find your comfort level and you find your own voice. You learn to be fair. After working for years hosting a talk show [on Cox Cable) where you wake up in the morning and start ripping people, it takes a while to lose that edge and do play-by-play, but the game is the thing now, and you can't let your endless diatribes enter into your play-calling.”That hasn't kept Cohen, 45, and Rose from muzzling their opinions on the air, as was the case in the 2000 World Series when Roger Clemens threw Mike Piazza's bat at him as he ran to first base. “What's the matter with Clemens? Has he lost his mind,” Cohen said. His creative freedom in the booth comes from his years doing radio with Bob Murphy, during which time he learned one lesson after another. “He taught me that all innings are not the same,” Cohen said. “The same way you approach the fifth inning isn't the same way you would approach the eighth inning. Once you start getting into the later innings, the game requires 100 percent of your focus and more description. Murph did that better then anyone else in the business.”Like Rose, Cohen is a well traveled veteran of the business. For the past 12 years, he has done the play-by-play calling for the NCAA Basketball tournament for CBS Radio and Westwood One, and in 2003 he began doing radio for Seton Hall University Basketball. Like Rose, he still pinches himself whenever he enters the booth to call Mets games.”I never thought I would be in the position that I am in now back when I was broadcasting minor league baseball [for the Red Sox Pawtucket (AAA) club, the Durham Bulls and the Spartanburg Spinners],” he said. “It's beyond my comprehension that I am doing radio for the Mets. It's beyond a dream come true.” Reach reporter Mitch Abramson by E-Mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300 Ext. 130.
