PORT ST. LUCIE — One less familiar voice will be heard over the Mets’ airwaves next season.

Howie Rose, a longtime fixture in the Mets booth on both television and radio, announced Thursday that he will retire after this season. Rose, 72, is scheduled to work only Mets’ home games this season (and the Subway Series at Yankee Stadium), after reducing his workload in recent years. But he plans to travel should the Mets reach the postseason.

“Trust me, I did not arrive at this decision to retire easily,” Rose said. “I have been going back and forth in my mind about it for the last few years. But the simple reality is that I am 72 years old and my wife Barbara, who has sacrificed so much for so long, deserves to have her husband around a little more often — whether she likes it or not.”

Rose has served as the Mets’ lead radio voice since 2006, following Gary Cohen’s move to the SNY booth. Rose previously served as a lead play-by-play announcer for the team on television, starting in 1996, after beginning his tenure covering the club as a pregame and postgame host on WFAN.

Rose’s signature moments include his call of Mike Piazza’s dramatic home run in the first game played in New York following the Sept. 11 attacks and the final out of Johan Santana’s no-hitter in 2012. It was the first no-hitter in franchise history.

Cohen told The Post he knew Rose was considering retirement based on conversations with him in recent years, but that only slightly dulled the weight of Rose’s announcement Thursday.

“It still hit like a ton of bricks because it’s such a huge piece of the Mets’ firmament that will be going away,” Cohen said. “Howie has been such a touchstone for every Mets fan for so long that, yeah, it really was [surprising].”

Rose, who underwent surgery for bladder cancer in 2021, has served as the emcee at Mets on-field events such as number retirement ceremonies and the team’s Hall of Fame inductions. It’s expected he would remain in that capacity.

“I’m not planning on making a clean break,” he said on a video to the fans. “Hopefully, I will be involved now and then in some still-to-be-determined capacity because for me, letting go of the Mets isn’t hard — it’s impossible. And one of the biggest reasons for that is the bond that we have created with each other through all these years. The warmth, acceptance and, yes, love that you have shown me in so many ways for so long makes this all the more difficult, and I return those feelings in kind.”

Cohen has often referred to Rose as his “brother from another mother.” The two grew up in Queens rooting for the Mets and share a deep knowledge of the franchise’s history.

“The two years that we worked together on radio full-time were two of my favorite years,” Cohen said. “It was almost like, you know how identical twins sometimes have a language that only they can understand? He and I had such similar backgrounds as Mets fans that there was a way we could talk to each other that was different from working with anybody else.

“It was an honor to work with Bob Murphy for 15 years and it’s been fabulous to work with Keith [Hernandez] and Ron [Darling] for the last 21, but those two years with Howie were a completely different experience. It was like we were channeling each other in real time.”

Rose, a former longtime TV voice of the Islanders — after previously working Rangers broadcasts on radio — moved to Florida full time in recent years.

He also called the Rangers’ famous Game 7 win over the Devils in the conference finals when Stephane Matteau scored the double-overtime winner.

“I have got two things on my bucket list: meeting Paul McCartney and/or Ringo Starr and calling the final out of a Mets World Series championship,” Rose said. “Time is getting short for that, at least as far as I’m concerned. Paul and Ringo are in their 80s, too. I have got to hit the gas here, but there is only so much that I can control.”