I've got over 50 pineapples growing in my front yard (nicely hidden by the shrub so hopefully when they start blooming no thievery).
I have close to a 90% success rate just by sticking the tops in the soil. All of these in this picture were just twisted off and put into the ground.
If they don't grow in the middle (and of the 90% take rate almost 90% of those grow in the middle even if the leaves easily pull out), then they throw off 1, 2 or 3 shoots from the sides like this.
Heck, i've even taken pineapple tops that i cut into quarters and got the quarters to grow. The ones that i quartered are the smaller ones in the picture.
I started putting the tops in the ground last May - so the bigger plants in the picture are around a year old and as you look into the picture the further down the row you get the younger the plants are.
There's a fancy fruit market in our area that normally sells them for $2.00 or $2.50 each and I pick up one a week. If the price is more than $2.50 I pass. A few weeks ago Save-A-Lot was selling them for 99 cents so i bought 4 of them that week. I will keep adding by putting the tops in the ground until production on my home ones start then I just use those to grow new ones.
That being said, if i could get my hands on another 50 or 100 tops for free then i'll put them in the garden between the tree rows very similar to the way pineislander is doing it between his DF's.
And pineislander, may i add that picture looks fantastic.