Howie Rose almost put his Mets career in the books 15 years ago.

The longtime Mets radio voice says he almost quit as a Mets broadcaster in 2004 when he left their TV booth and joined Gary Cohen on the radio.

The prospect of doing a full radio schedule was “daunting,” Rose told SNY’s “Rain Delay Theater” podcast, but at the time he was worried about the noise of an NHL lockout taking away his Islanders television gig for a season. So he took it, and he joined the Mets out on the West Coast shortly after the Islanders were knocked out of the 2003-04 playoffs.

“I was on the treadmill in the hotel we used to stay at in L.A., the old Century Plaza, and while I’m on that treadmill, for about 60-120 seconds I was gonna leave the Mets,” Rose said. “I said, ‘I can’t do this.’ I said, ‘This isn’t fair to my wife. I know about the money.’ I said, ‘I can’t do this to myself. I’m not gonna have a life.’

“I started thinking while I was on the treadmill, ‘It’s early enough in the day. Eddie Coleman is out here. Gary, he was the primary guy on radio, I was the No. 2 guy, so I honestly was making plans in my mind — ‘OK, when I finish this workout, I’m just gonna go to a travel agent. I’m gonna book a flight home. Eddie will pick this up and they’ll figure out the rest. I don’t care. I can’t do this.'”

Before Rose could get off the treadmill and skip town, he “had a vision.”

“I know this sounds corny, I know probably nobody is gonna believe it, but my dad, who’s been gone since 1978, he just came into my vision,” Rose said. “It’s not like I heard him say anything to me, but I could see him inferring to me, ‘Under no circumstances are you giving up what’s a dream job. Don’t you dare.’

“Then I kind of had that moment where you slap yourself back to reality and I said, ‘All right, I guess I’m working tonight, and the next night, and the next night, and the next night, and the next night. But I’m telling you, probably for two minutes that day on the treadmill, I was leaving the Mets. I couldn’t do it.”

Rose did play-by-play in the Mets’ television booth from 1996-2003 before entering the radio booth, where he took over the No. 1 spot in 2006 when Cohen switched to TV. Rose retired from calling Islanders games in 2016.