TAMPA -- Evan Longoria stood up, slipped off his suit jacket and slid his arms through the sleeves of a home white jersey with “Rays” across the front, his name and No. 3 on the back. He picked up a navy “TB” hat and pulled it down on his head.
It looked right -- Longoria, the greatest player in franchise history, back in a Rays uniform. He stood beside principal owner Stuart Sternberg next to a plaque featuring a signed contract, two photos and the words “Evan Longoria -- Forever a Ray.”
That felt right to him, too.
“This always felt like the place for me,” Longoria said. “I always felt comfortable putting on the Rays jersey, and it feels good to put it back on. The jersey still fits.”
On Saturday, Longoria officially brought his playing career to a fitting conclusion. He signed a ceremonial one-day contract and retired with the Rays. The club recognized his excellent career before and throughout the game against the Marlins on Saturday afternoon at George M. Steinbrenner Field, and Longoria threw out a ceremonial first pitch to manager Kevin Cash.
“It's a memorable day for us to celebrate the most memorable Ray of all, and I imagine that's going to be like that for decades and decades to come,” Sternberg said during a pregame press conference. “You're looking at the person who was the most transformative player we have had, by leaps and bounds.
“We've had some great, great players over the years [and] wonderful people, but nobody put those two together as much as Evan Longoria.”
Longoria’s presence prompted a standing ovation from the fans at Steinbrenner Field, many of them wearing his promotional giveaway T-shirt, when he emerged from the home dugout around 3:50 p.m. He made a few stops, signing autographs and taking pictures with fans, then stood near the Rays’ dugout as he watched a video on the scoreboard flashing through highlights of his career, starting with the day he was drafted third overall in 2006.
Longoria tipped his cap to the crowd and made his way to the mound as his walk-up song, Tantric’s “Down and Out,” played over the speakers. He waved in appreciation of another ovation, posed for photos with his wife, Jaime, and one of their children, then threw a handful of baseballs into the seats before walking down the dugout steps.
Longoria’s impact is evident in the Rays’ record books, of course. Having played 10 of his 16 Major League seasons with Tampa Bay, he is the franchise’s all-time leader in WAR (51.7), games (1,435), home runs (261), RBIs (892), runs (780), extra-base hits (618) and walks (569).
He earned plenty of hardware during his time with the Rays, too, and he was responsible for a number of the most memorable moments in franchise history, none more indelible than his walk-off homer in Game 162 of 2011.
But what truly made Longoria “transformative,” as Sternberg put it, was the fact that he was at the center of their turnaround from the cellar-dwelling Devil Rays to the perennially contending Rays.
The Devil Rays had the worst record in baseball from 1998-2007. Since his rookie season in 2008, which ended with a trip to the World Series, the Rays have the third-best winning percentage in the Majors.
Sternberg, former baseball operations leader Andrew Friedman and former manager Joe Maddon played significant roles in that. Countless players contributed. But nobody better represented the new era than Longoria.
“The things that he did on and especially off the field and in the clubhouse were -- again, they were transformative,” Sternberg said. “Any and all successes we have to this day are somehow tied back to Evan joining us.”
“It's right that he's coming home. He got traded and went to play for San Francisco, finished out his career in Arizona. But, I mean, he's a Ray,” added Cash. “I think as much as Stu and Andrew and Joe were part of turning this organization around, Longo was the player that was the face of it, that did it.”
The Rays will further fortify Longoria’s place in franchise history by inducting him into the team’s Hall of Fame next year, when they hope to be back at Tropicana Field. No player has worn his No. 3 since he was traded to the Giants in December 2017, and it seems inevitable that the club will officially retire it in the near future.
After being traded, Longoria never got to return to Tropicana Field as a visiting player to say goodbye. He finally came back last July to throw out a ceremonial first pitch. But he said this ending had been on his mind for some time.
When it became clear his playing days were over, he worked with president of baseball operations Erik Neander and director of communications and player relations Elvis Martinez to make Saturday a reality.
On Saturday, it became official: Evan Longoria, forever a Ray.
“I already knew what I wanted to do,” he said. “I knew I wanted to come back here and end my career, somehow, as a Ray.”