{"id":750099,"date":"2026-07-12T21:57:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T21:57:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/750099\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T21:57:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T21:57:22","slug":"tampa-bay-rays-retire-evan-longorias-number-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/750099\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay Rays retire Evan Longoria’s Number 3"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – After being traded from the Rays in 2018, Evan Longoria never got to return to Tropicana Field in any official capacity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That is, until now.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

“I’m trying to hold in the emotions as best I can, outwardly,” Longoria said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“But inwardly, I think the Rays have been planning this for so long.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Evan Longoria #3 retired <\/p>\n

The backstory:<\/p>\n

A year after Longoria returned to Tampa Bay to sign a ceremonial one-day contract to officially retire from Major League Baseball as a member of the Rays, the man that helped change the course of the franchise returned again to be celebrated inside Tropicana Field.<\/p>\n

“The details were all super special,” Longoria said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Walking onto the field to a live performance of Tantric’s Down and Out, Longoria’s old walk-up song, the franchise leader in home runs, RBIs, runs and games played, watched as former teammate James Shields and former coach Tom Foley unveiled Longoria’s Number 3 on the upper deck of the Trop.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Now that it’s up there and it’s not going to be worn again is just pretty cool,” Longoria said.<\/p>\n

Joining the historic ranks <\/p>\n

By the numbers:<\/p>\n

Longoria’s No. 3 joins Jackie Robinson’s No. 42, Wade Boggs’ No.12 and Don Zimmer’s No. 66 as the only numbers to be officially retired by the Rays.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Being up there next to Zim (Zimmer) is well thought out,” Longoria said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

“Every time I come back here, I’ll be able to look back and have those same emotions come back because, obviously, Zim was super special to me.”<\/p>\n

Rays Hall of Fame <\/p>\n

Big picture view:<\/p>\n

Longoria’s number retirement ceremony was just one part of Longo’s Legacy Weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Longo became the newest member of the Rays Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

“I’m not kidding you. For six months, I’ve been trying to prepare myself for this moment,” Longoria said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

“I did about as much mental preparation as I could and it still didn’t compare.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

What’s next:<\/p>\n

While Longo’s Legacy Weekend may be over, the memories made and shared by the Rays’ legend will be something that the former third baseman will carry forever.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Twenty years of just life, basically, culminating in such a special moment is really cool.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Source: This article is based on in-person interviews and previous statistics on the Tampa Bay Rays.<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay Rays<\/a>St. Petersburg<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – After being traded from the Rays in 2018, Evan Longoria never got to return…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":750100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[5,610,4,169,15094,297,611,5796,2550,68,2551,2549,609],"class_list":["post-750099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa-bay-rays","tag-baseball","tag-fl","tag-mlb","tag-news","tag-pinellas","tag-rays","tag-rays-baseball","tag-st-petersburg","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tampabay","tag-tampabayrays","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116909247639296237","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=750099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/750100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}