CHICAGO -- The White Sox will unveil a statue of former All-Star left-hander Mark Buehrle outside of Rate Field in a July 11 ceremony, the team announced Friday at its fan convention.
Buehrle, 45, already has his No. 56 retired by the team but now will be immortalized outside the ballpark he pitched in for the first 12 years of his 16-year career.
"Retiring my number is an incredible honor, but then to put a statue up, it's something's that's going to be of me out there forever," Buehrle said after the announcement. "I guess the number could be unretired, they could take it out and put it back into play. But the statue, unless somebody tears it down or does something, it's always going to be there."
Buehrle said he was informed of the decision by owner Jerry Reinsdorf last summer, then quickly asked about having to give a speech at the ceremony. Known for keeping it short with reporters during his playing days, he said he plans on doing the same when they unveil the statue.
"When they asked me about it, I threw that out there and said, 'Is there a speech attached to it?' And they said, 'We'll work with you,'" Buehrle said. "I don't know necessarily about a speech. I'll get up there and say a few words. I don't plan on it being very long."
The ceremony will be part of a 20th anniversary reunion of the 2005 team, which won the World Series, going 11-1 in the postseason. Buehrle finished fifth in the American League Cy Young Award voting that season. Of his 214 career wins, 161 came with the White Sox. He had a career 3.81 ERA and 14 straight seasons of throwing 200 or more innings.
Earlier this week, Buehrle received 11.4 percent of Hall of Fame votes in his fifth year of eligibility.
"I don't sit down and look at numbers," he said. "I can't tell you exactly what my numbers are compared to [Andy] Pettitte, compared to [CC] Sabathia, but I know there's some guys that are not in the Hall of Fame that have better numbers than I do. Are you going off innings? You going off strikeouts? You going off of WAR? There's so much stuff you can go off of. I'm literally just honored to be on the ballot for this many years."