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Welcome back to Baseball by the Numbers. Today we are looking at uniform number 3. Another number with a lot of players. At least 650 players have worn uniform number 3 in the history of baseball, so my criteria will come in handy to narrow things down. Still, I found it a lot harder than anticipated. There were a lot of great players on this list.

Some, like greats Mel Ott and Arky Vaughan wore number 3 for just one season. One of my favorite players mentioned in the uniform number 2 post, Charlie Gehringer, wore it in 1931 for one year with the Tigers, probably because he batted 3^rd that season. Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. wore it for three seasons with the Reds toward the end of his career.

Out of the 650 players who wore uniform number 3, ninety of them had the number for five years or more and thirty-seven had a career WAR over 40, so picking seven was a bit of a challenge. Aside from excluding A-Rod (I’ll get to that at the end of the post), there was another player I struggled with. Not because he wasn’t deserving of the number one spot, but more because I felt he was deserving of his own special place on the list. So, I created a spot. The Legend spot. I may reserve this spot for players who have a career WAR over 100 (there’s only thirty-two in history-a couple controversial) or for some other reason, but for now I think this player deserves it.

The Legend:

I don’t know if I could say anything about the great Babe Ruth that hasn’t already been said. When I was a kid, just learning about baseball, I remember legends about the mythical Babe Ruth. Documentaries and books were everywhere and of course in Massachusetts “The Curse of the Bambino” was more popular than Bloody Mary.

The Sultan of Swat is an American sports icon. His 182.6 career WAR is the highest in all of baseball, and for players who wore the number 3, it was 65 points higher than any other player to wear the number. Ruth played baseball for twenty-two years and wore number 3 for seven. Keeping in mind it was the only number he ever wore, but he played most of his career before teams wore numbers on their uniforms.

Like all of Ruth’s cards, this 1933 Goudey card is iconic. To own a piece of this legend would be amazing, but most of his cards sell for the price of a car or a house or more! Here’s a link to a cool guide on Babe Ruth cards and prices from Throwback Sports Cards. The pictures are worth a click alone.

Ruth played for the Red Sox, Yankees and the Boston Braves. He was both an amazing pitcher and a prolific hitter. Ruth was a two-time All-Star, which sounds crazy, but the All-Star game started in 1933, at the end of his career. He won seven World Series rings. He led the American League in home runs twelve times and in RBIs six times. His career pitching record was 94-46 with an amazing 2.24 ERA and 488 strikeouts. He is third in history with 714 home runs, third in RBIs with 2,214 and thirteenth all time in batting average with .342. He is the all-time MLB leader in slugging (.690), OPS (1.164) and WAR 182.6.

Ruth was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936, with the Hall’s inaugural class that included four other legends; Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb, and Walter Johnson.

Like Bobo Newsom in the 00 post, Ruth is mentioned in Ogden Nash’s 1949 poem “Line-Up for Yesterday” .

Ruth’s uniform number 3 was retired by the New York Yankees in 1948.

Ruth passed away at the age of 53 in 1948 after a battle with cancer.

Number 1:

Jimmie Foxx is the clear number 1 pick after Babe Ruth, even if I had decided to include A-Rod, I would have put Foxx above him. His nicknames alone are the stuff of legend. “Double X” and “the Beast” both sound like characters from an X-Men comic. Foxx was a living action hero, with huge muscles and a confident swagger. Seriously, if you’ve never seen a picture of Foxx with his cut off sleeves and bulging muscles, here’s a link to a great article on SABR. He wore uniform number 3 for twelve seasons and had a career WAR of 92.9.

Jimmie Foxx played for twenty years in the Majors from 1925 to 1945. Foxx played first base for the Philadelphia Athletics, Boston Red Sox (woot, woot!), Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies.

I’ve said it many times, but I love these old baseball cards. Foxx’s 1933 Goudey is another wonderful example of these beautiful and nostalgic cards (even if his name is spelled wrong). You’ll find a lot of errors and misspellings on older cards from pre WWII, because cards weren’t as regulated at the time. Jimmie Foxx is one I’ve seen a few times with the Jimmy spelling.

In 1933 he won the triple crown with 48 home runs, 163 RBIs and a .356 batting average. He also only struck out 93 times that season. I found it interesting that in 1932, he had more home runs (58), RBI’s (169) and a better batting average (.364) than his 1933 season, but he didn’t win the crown. This was due to a player named Dale Alexander who hit .367, beating out Foxx by just a few points. Alexander was a great hitter in his own right (he has a career .331 batting average), but by today’s rules he would not have qualified for the batting title as he only played in 124 games that season. Foxx would have had two triple crowns in a row.

Foxx was a nine-time All-Star. He was the AL MVP three times (’32, ’33, ’38). He was a two-time batting champ, four-time home run leader and a three-time RBI leader. He also won two World Series (1929 and 1930) both with the Philadelphia A’s.

For his career, Foxx had 2,646 hits with a career .325 batting average. He is nineteenth all-time in home runs with 534 and tenth all-time in RBIs with 1,922. His career OPS of 1.038 is sixth all-time and his career slugging percentage of .609 is eighth.

He is a member of the Philadelphia Wall of Fame, the Red Sox Hall of Fame and the Athletics Hall of Fame. Foxx was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1951.

Like Bobo Newsom in the 00 post, and Babe Ruth above, Foxx is mentioned in Ogden Nash’s 1949 poem “Line-Up for Yesterday” . He is in the X spot due to his “Double X” nickname.

He passed away in 1967 at 59 years old.    

Number 2:

Alan Trammell played for twenty years in the Majors from 1977 to 1996, all of them as a shortstop with the Detroit Tigers. Aside from the nineteen games he played in the ’77 season, Trammell wore uniform number 3 for the entirety of his career (nineteen seasons).

Trammell was another one of my favorite players when I was in elementary school. As I mentioned with his teammate Lou Whitaker, I was a Tigers fan for a short period in the beginning of my baseball journey because Tigers were cool animals. At that time my Zoobooks and Becketts were piled together on the shelf (oh to be 10 years old again, when cool animals and baseball were all that mattered).

Trammell has a career WAR of 70.6 and, as I mentioned, wore number 3 a long time, so he was an easy choice here. I looked at a lot of different cards but just loved this 1994 Flair card. Flair was a product from Fleer for a few years in the early and mid ‘90s (I think 93 to 96). Personally, I think they made some great cards. This Trammell not only shows his number 3 on the front of that awesome Tigers uniform and also has the added fielding photo. Such a cool card.

Trammell was a six-time All-Star. He was a part of the World Series winning 1984 Tigers and was the MVP of the World Series having hit .450 with two home runs. He was a four-time Gold Glove winner and a three-time Silver Slugger. He batted over .300 seven times in his career.

During the early ‘90s he saw a significant dip in production due to injuries and missing time. He retired in 1996 and would become a manager and a coach. He had a career .285 batting average, with 2,365 hits, 1,231 runs, 412 doubles and 236 stolen bases.

In 2018 Trammell would become a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

His number 3 was retired by the Tigers in 2018.

Number 3:

Harmon Killebrew played for twenty-two years in the Majors from 1954 to 1975. He played first, third and leftfield for the Washington Senators, staying with them when they became the Minnesota Twins in 1961. He would play almost exclusively with the Twins until 1975 when he joined the Kansas City Royals for one season. Killebrew wore uniform number 3 for nineteen of his twenty-two seasons.

As you’ve probably noticed by now, I sort of like almost all of the older Topps sets. 1972 is another design that I just love, and I felt that this card captured the essence of Killebrew perfectly. The way he’s holding the bat toward the lens, a steely gleam in his eye, centered in the archway of the design. It just felt powerful, like the man himself. 1972 was the first year after nine straight that Killebrew was not named to the All-Star team. He was nearing the end of his career by ’72 but still had a great season with 26 home runs and 74 RBI’s.

Killebrew had two nicknames, “Hammerin’ Harmon” and “the Killer” both of which make him sound quite intimidating, and I’m sure he was…to the pitchers facing him, but to those who knew him, he was described as a quiet and kind man who never drank or smoked, and stayed away from drama and controversy.

Killebrew was a powerful home run threat having led the league in home runs six different times. He was a thirteen-time All-Star, the AL MVP in 1969 and lead the AL in RBIs three times.  He retired in 1976 and became a broadcaster in the late 70s and ‘80s.

His 573 career home runs make him twelfth in history. He had 1,584 RBIs and a .256 career batting average with a career OPS of .884.

Killebrew was a member of the Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame and was voted to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1984. His number 3 was retired by the twins in 1975.

Killebrew passed away at the age of 74 in 2011.

Number 4:

Willie Davis played eighteen years in the Majors from 1960 to 1979 (he had a two-year gap where he played in Japan; ’77 and ’78). He was a center fielder who played with the Dodgers for fourteen years, then played with the Expos, Rangers, Cardinals, Padres and ended with the Angels in 1979. He wore uniform number 3 for fifteen seasons. His career WAR was 60.8.

Who doesn’t love Kellogg’s 3-D cards?  For fourteen years Kellogg’s gave out their groundbreaking 3-D cards in boxes of Corn Flakes, and sets could be ordered via mail-ins. If you want to learn more about the cards check out this article in Sports Collector’s Digest.

This 1972 card of Willie Davis is a perfect example of why these Kellogg’s cards are so cool. I was excited when I saw the card had his number 3 easily viewable right on the front (an opportunity to share a Kellogg’s card, sign me up!) In 1972, Davis was a Gold Glove winner with a .289 batting average, 19 home runs and 79 RBI’s, to go along with 20 stolen bases.

Davis was a two-time All-Star who won two World Series rings with the Dodgers in 1963 and 1965. He also won three Gold Gloves. He left baseball first in 1977 to play in Japan for two seasons with the Chunichi Dragons and Crown Lighter Lions. He would come back for one last season in 1979 and play forty-three games with the California Angels before retiring.

He is fourth all-time for games played in centerfield behind only Willie Mays, Tris Speaker and Steve Finley.  He has a career .279 batting average with 182 home runs, 1,053 RBI, 2,561 hits and 398 stolen bases. He is not in the Hall of Fame and has never been on a ballot, which I find to be surprising. Do you think Davis is deserving? His career WAR is 60.8 which is pretty darn good.

Davis passed away in 2012 at the age of 69.

Number 5:

Another player who is not in the Hall of Fame, Dale Murphy, played eighteen years in the Majors from 1976 to 1993. He played catcher, first base and outfield for the Atlanta Braves for fourteen and a half seasons, with the Philadelphia Phillies for three seasons and the Colorado Rockies for his final season. He’s another player that I remember well growing up. For kids growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s, Murphy was a popular player even outside of Atlanta.Murphy wore uniform number 3 for eighteen seasons and has a career WAR of 46.5.

1981 Topps was another great ‘80s design. I love the cap logo in the bottom corner. This Dale Murphy card is especially nice. The blue and green color scheme with that great photo of Murphy’s beautiful swing, his name and number visible on the old school Braves uniform. Too bad 1981 wasn’t the best year for Murphy. He was coming off an All-Star season, but only played in 104 games, had a .247 batting average and only 13 home runs and 50 RBIs. A far cry from the next season that would see him become the NL MVP.

Murphy would be the NL MVP two years in a row in 1982 and ’83 while leading the league in RBIs both seasons. He was a seven-time All-Star, a five-time Gold Glove recipient and a four-time Silver Slugger. He led the National League in home runs twice in 1984 and 1985 and in RBIs in 1982 and 1983. He was a member of the 30-30 club in his 1983 MVP season.

In 1993 after only 26 games with the Rockies, he decided to retire from baseball. He finished his career with 2,111 hits, 350 doubles, 398 home runs, 1,266 RBIs and a .265 batting average. He is a member of the Braves Hall of Fame.

Many people feel that Murphy deserves a place in the Hall of Fame. Outside of the steroid era, he and Roger Maris are the only two multiple MVP award winners not in the Hall. Murphy has a stellar reputation on and off the field, including a lot of humanitarian work, which has also led many to feel he is an ideal Hall of Famer. His reputation and charitable work has led to several awards including the Lou Gehrig Memorial Award (‘85), “Sportsman of the Year” (‘87), Roberto Clemente Award (‘88), Bart Giamatti Community Service Award (‘91) and the World Sports Humanitarian Hall of Fame (1991).

I think he deserves the Hall and would love to see him in. He is a great example of a baseball star both on and off the field. Do you, my readers, agree or disagree and why?

Murphy’s uniform number 3 was retired by the Braves in 1994.

Number 6:

I love this project! There are always amazing players who I’m not familiar with, like Frankie Frisch, who had an amazing career and stories. Frisch had a couple of awesome, DC Hero like nicknames, “the Fordham Flash” and “the Old Flash”. As you probably guessed, he was fast, leading the NL in stolen bases three separate years.

Frisch played in the MLB for nineteen years from 1919 to 1937. He played second base with the New York Giants until 1926. In 1926 he was traded from the New York Giants to the St. Louis Cardinals for the great Rogers Hornsby, and stayed with them from ‘27 to ’37, while also managing the Cardinals as a player/manager from ’33.

This card is awesome! I absolutely love it. It’s a 1934 Diamond Stars and I’m starting to think there are no cards in those old ‘30s sets that I don’t love. The colors, the picture, the background art are all wonderful. It might be one of my favorite Diamond Stars cards yet. In 1934 Frisch was an All-Star. He had a .305 batting average with 30 doubles and 75 RBI.

Frisch was a switch hitter who was an All-Star three times as the All-Star game just started toward the end of his career. He was part of four World Series winning teams, two with the New York Giants (’21 and ’22) and two with the St. Louis Cardinals (’31 and ’34). In 1934 he was also the Cardinals Manager. He was the NL MVP in 1931.

Frisch was the player/manager for the Cardinals from 1933 to 1937 when he would retire. He remained manager through 1938. He went on to manage the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1940 to 1946 and the Chicago Cubs from 1949 to 1951.

Frisch would end his career with a .316 batting average, the highest career batting average for a switch hitter in MLB history. He would end up with 2,880 hits, 466 doubles and 419 stolen bases. He is third in career World Series hits with 58, and tied with Reggie Jackson at eighth for career World Series total bases with 74, and tied for first with Yogi Berra for career World Series doubles with 10. His career managerial winning percentage is .514.

He is a member of the Cardinals Hall of Fame and was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1947. Like Bobo Newsome from the uniform number 00 post, and Babe Ruth, Frisch is mentioned in Ogden Nash’s 1949 poem “Line-Up for Yesterday” . I wonder if I will get every player from that poem in the lists.

Frisch passed away at the age of 75 in 1973.

Number 7:

Evan Longoria is the most current player to make this list. Longoria played for sixteen years in the majors from 2008 to 2023. Known as “Longo”, he was a third baseman for the Tampa Bay Rays, San Francisco Giants and Arizona Diamondbacks. Longoria wore number 3 for eleven seasons and has a career WAR of 58.9.

This 2014 panini auto was one of the only cards I could find with his number 3 displayed where he was on the Tampa Bay Rays. I found a couple on Arizona, but I really wanted his Rays jersey as he was a hero in Tampa. Though I’m not a fan of Panini baseball cards overall, this is a nice card with his signature, and I like that it’s a relic card. In 2014, Longo played in all 162 games, which is quite an accomplishment in today’s game. He had 22 home runs and 91 RBIs for the Rays.

Longoria is a three-time All-Star and a three-time Gold Glove award winner. He was AL Rookie of the Year in 2008 and won a Silver Slugger in 2009. He has been to two World Series (2008 and 2023) and although his team lost both, his fifteen years between the two are the longest gap for any player in MLB history (there’s a trivia question for you). He has hit a home run against all 30 current MLB teams (a bonus trivia question).

He owns several Tampa Bay records, and in 2025 Longoria signed a contract with the Rays to retire with the team that started it all. He would complete his career with a .264 batting average, 1930 hits, 431 doubles, 342 home runs and 1159 RBIs.

Final Score:

This is so much fun for me! My lists never go as expected and sometimes I must be flexible and change things around a bit (like adding the Legend spot for Ruth). Which brings me to this next little bonus.

There was a player who had the number 3 for twenty-two seasons from 1980 to 2001. He played DH and outfield for five teams, including the White Sox and Orioles three different times each. His career WAR was 38.8, just missing my criteria of 40. His name is Harold Baines. He was a six-time All-Star, a World Series champ in 2005 and won a Silver Slugger in 1989. His number 3 was retired by the White Sox in 1989, and he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2019. I didn’t pick Baines, but he deserves a card just for having the number 3 so long. Would you have made him a top seven and in whose place? Here’s a 1983 Topps (another favorite design from the ‘80s) with the awesome White Sox ‘80s uniform and the number 3 on his leg!

Aside from the players I mentioned in the intro, I wanted to shout out a few other players who wore uniform number 3. Bobby Grinch (WAR 71.1) wore it for five years with the Orioles. Johnny Mize (WAR 70.6) and Carlos Beltran (WAR 70) for two seasons. Hall of Famers Bill Terry (WAR 56.6) and Mickey Cochran (WAR 49.8) both wore it for 4 seasons. Controversial players like Rafael Palmeiro (one season) and Gary Sheffield (two seasons) also wore it.

Another controversial player who met all my selection criteria was Alex Rodriguez. He wore number 3 for ten years (which is quite a long time) and his career WAR was well above 40 coming in at a whopping 117.4. He wasn’t controversial just because he was on my least favorite team, the Yankees, either, but I just do not like him as a player. That’s my personal preference, but I’m sure there are many who feel the same. It’s also not just the PED issues, or the 162-game suspension or the fact he has not been included in the Hall of Fame, though these would all be reasons to leave him off the list. While I have criteria, I also reserve the right to include, leave off or move players based on my own personal thoughts, and truth is, I just liked the players I chose more than him. Although I left him off, I still felt he was worth mentioning and for any Alex Rodriguez fans who are offended, here’s a card just to make amends.

There were many other players I could mention, but these posts would get ridiculous if I just started naming everyone, so I’ll leave it here. I hope you’re enjoying this series and come back for uniform number 4. Like uniform number 3,  I think it’s going to be another tough one that will pose more challenges to my criteria. Like the fact that three players had a career WAR over 100.

PLAYER NAME	YEARS WORN	CAREER WAR	NUMBER RETIRED	OTHER ACHIEVEMENTS
Jimmie Foxx	12	92.9	No	9x All-Star 3x AL MVP Triple Crown (33) World Series Champ (29, 30) HOF (51)
Alan Trammell	19	70.6	YES (Detroit Tigers 2018)	6 x All-Star 4x Gold Glove 3x Silver Slugger World Series Champ (84) HOF (18)
Harmen Killebrew	19	60.4	YES (Minnesota Twins 1975)	13x All Star 6x AL HR Leader AL MVP (69) HOF (84)
Willie Davis	15	60.8	No	2x All-Star World Series Champ (63, 65) 3 X Gold Glove
Dale Murphy	18	46.5	YES (Atlanta Braves 1994)	7x All-Star 2x NL MVP 5x Gold Glove 4x Silver Slugger
Frankie Frisch	6	72	No	3x All-Star NL MVP (31) World Series Champ (21,22, 31,34)
Evan Longoria	11	58.9	No	3x All-Star 3x Gold Glove ROY (2008) Silver Slugger

Sources:

https://www.baseball-almanac.com/

https://www.baseball-reference.com/

https://www.sabr.org

Lehman, 2017 “Kellogg’s baseball card set in 1970 started a 14-year run” Sports Collector’s Digest

Shout out to all the cool cards and creative commons for my pictures! Thanks Topps and Upper Deck and Fleer and Donruss and all the rest!