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<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\tNo Tampa Bay Ray will ever wear No. 3 again.Before Sunday’s game against the Mariners, Longoria’s bright white and blue jersey was lofted into the stands to hang above the diamond at Tropicana Field. Longoria spent the first half of his career with the Rays, having been drafted third overall in 2006. “I’m trying to hold in my emotions the best I can,” Longoria said in the depths of the “Trop” during a press conference. He quickly made his way through the minor leagues, playing stints with the Durham Bulls, Montgomery Biscuits and Scottsdale Scorpions before getting his call to the majors.His rookie season was nothing short of extraordinary for the Rays. The third baseman from California slugged 27 home runs and hit .272 in 448 at-bats. He was elected to represent the American League in the All-Star Game that year and played amongst the best in baseball at only 22; he would go on to make two more appearances in the July classic.He wrapped up his rookie season placing 11th in MVP voting and being recognized as the American League Rookie of the Year. In total, “Longo” spent 10 years with the Rays before packing up and moving to San Francisco. He appeared in 1,435 games for the Bay, smashing 261 home runs and scoring 780 runs across his tenure in Tampa. Longoria is widely considered the greatest player in Rays history. The star third baseman earned three Gold Gloves and, most notably, hit an iconic walk-off home run on the final day of the 2011 regular season that sent the Rays to the playoffs.Longoria was joined by some familiar faces as he took the field at the “Trop” for the first time since his retirement in 2023, including former teammates Eric Hinske, James Shields, Chris Archer, Alex Cobb and Kevin Kiermaier. Fellow Rays Hall of Famer Wade Boggs was in attendance, as were the families of late Rays Hall of Famers Don Zimmer and Dave Wills.Longoria’s No. 3 will forever be enshrined in Rays history, hanging alongside the jerseys of Wade Boggs, Don Zimmer and Jackie Robinson.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tTAMPA, Fla. \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
No Tampa Bay Ray will ever wear No. 3 again.<\/p>\n
Before Sunday’s game against the Mariners, Longoria’s bright white and blue jersey was lofted into the stands to hang above the diamond at Tropicana Field. Longoria spent the first half of his career with the Rays, having been drafted third overall in 2006. <\/p>\n
“I’m trying to hold in my emotions the best I can,” Longoria said in the depths of the “Trop” during a press conference. <\/p>\n
He quickly made his way through the minor leagues, playing stints with the Durham Bulls, Montgomery Biscuits and Scottsdale Scorpions before getting his call to the majors.<\/p>\n
His rookie season was nothing short of extraordinary for the Rays. The third baseman from California slugged 27 home runs and hit .272 in 448 at-bats. He was elected to represent the American League in the All-Star Game that year and played amongst the best in baseball at only 22; he would go on to make two more appearances in the July classic.<\/p>\n
He wrapped up his rookie season placing 11th in MVP voting and being recognized as the American League Rookie of the Year. <\/p>\n
In total, “Longo” spent 10 years with the Rays before packing up and moving to San Francisco. He appeared in 1,435 games for the Bay, smashing 261 home runs and scoring 780 runs across his tenure in Tampa. <\/p>\n
Longoria is widely considered the greatest player in Rays history. The star third baseman earned three Gold Gloves and, most notably, hit an iconic walk-off home run on the final day of the 2011 regular season that sent the Rays to the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\t\t<\/p>\n
Longoria was joined by some familiar faces as he took the field at the “Trop” for the first time since his retirement in 2023, including former teammates Eric Hinske, James Shields, Chris Archer, Alex Cobb and Kevin Kiermaier. Fellow Rays Hall of Famer Wade Boggs was in attendance, as were the families of late Rays Hall of Famers Don Zimmer and Dave Wills.<\/p>\n
Longoria’s No. 3 will forever be enshrined in Rays history, hanging alongside the jerseys of Wade Boggs, Don Zimmer and Jackie Robinson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No Tampa Bay Ray will ever wear No. 3 again.Before Sunday’s game against the Mariners, Longoria’s bright white…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":750846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[152,5,9236,9635,93133,93132,14,2335,487,4,3354,297,93131,30316,2550,68,2551,2549,3805,8607,1319],"class_list":["post-750845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa-bay-rays","tag-american-league","tag-baseball","tag-durham-bulls","tag-evan-longoria","tag-famer-wade-boggs","tag-famers-don-zimmer","tag-game","tag-home-run","tag-jersey","tag-mlb","tag-no","tag-rays","tag-rays-hall","tag-rookie-season","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tampabay","tag-tampabayrays","tag-third-baseman","tag-tropicana-field","tag-year"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116913977948091827","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750845","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=750845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/750846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}