Port Washington's Jake Eisenberg on how Howie Rose, being a Mets fill-in, prepared him for role with Royals

Port Washington native Jake Eisenberg is having a homecoming of sorts beginning Friday. The radio play-by-play broadcaster for the Kansas City Royals and former fill-in Mets voice will be calling the three-game series against the Yankees in the Bronx this weekend.

But the real homecoming will be in July, when Eisenberg — who also calls about 25 games on television — is behind the mic when the Royals visit the Mets at his old personal and (briefly) professional haunt, Citi Field.

Eisenberg, 31, grew up a die-hard Mets fan. He called 41 Mets games on radio in 2022 when Howie Rose cut back on his travel schedule. All but four of them were on the road.

The four Citi Field games, through the grace of the radio booth scheduling gods, were with Rose.

“I have been so lucky to have a bunch of different jobs in a bunch of different places and found home wherever those places are,” Eisenberg told Newsday last week in a telephone interview. “Thankfully, one of those places was with the Mets in 2022 getting to fill in and do those games, mostly on the road. But getting to do those four games at Citi Field was really, really special, and getting to do games specifically with Howie was incredibly special to me.”

Eisenberg, a former Brooklyn Cyclones announcer who was on the Mets’ and Rose’s radar, was doing play-by-play for the Triple-A Omaha Storm Chasers in 2022 when the Mets called. He also did two Royals games that season.

Since Omaha is a Royals affiliate, it made sense when Eisenberg was promoted to the Kansas City booth before the 2023 season. At the time, he was the youngest full-time play-by-play announcer in MLB at age 28.

As a New Yorker in the heartland, Eisenberg got to relive from the other side the 2015 World Series that his Mets lost to the Royals.

“There was a season-long celebration,” he said. “It did dawn on me that it was kind of incredible to think that 10 years prior I was sitting in the stands at Citi Field for Games 3 and 4 cheering on the Mets. Lo and behold, 10 years later, I'm at the gala celebrating the team that beat my childhood team. Everybody had some good fun with that.”

July 7-9 will be Eisenberg’s first trip back to Citi Field as a broadcaster since 2022. In 2024, he missed the Royals’ series in Flushing because of his sister’s wedding.

Eisenberg said he was initially sad when he heard the news last month that Rose will be retiring after the season.

“Very few people — outside of my parents, my wife, other family members — have had a larger impact on my life as a human and as a professional broadcaster than Howie,” Eisenberg said. “My second emotion, which is the more realistic and more mature emotion, was joy. What an incredible career. What an incredible, indelible, iconic mark that Howie has left on this entire industry, and on the New York Mets. The branches of his broadcast tree are vast, and I am very proud to be even a twig on that.”

Rose, in a recent interview with Newsday, said: “I'm just so proud of him, if I have a right to be proud. He's making quite a name for himself now with the Kansas City Royals. So his star is on the rise.”

With Eisenberg’s star on the rise, could a return to New York for more than just a weekend series be in his future? The Mets are going to have an opening in the radio booth in 2027.

“The truth is I will always listen and be open to any opportunity that makes sense for me and my family, and that's especially true of an opportunity that's close to where I grew up,” Eisenberg said. “But that said, we're really, really happy here in Kansas City, and I'm grateful to be a part of the Royals family. I am overjoyed to be a part of the Royals family. That’s what I would say about that.”

By Anthony Rieber

anthony.rieber@newsday.comAnthonyRieber

Anthony Rieber covers sports media and business and professional sports (you know, games and trades and things). He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since Jan. 1, 2026.