Mark Buehrle never wanted any of this.
That’s what has made him so endearing to White Sox fans.
Moments after watching his statue unveiled on the Rate Field concourse Friday night, he was talking about what he’d rather be doing: working on his tractor and managing his fantasy baseball team.
Tractors might not be as common on the South Side as they are further south, in Buehrle’s native Missouri, but Sox fans can probably relate anyway. Buehrle was and remains an everyman who just happened to have one of the best careers in franchise history.
“You don’t play the game for any of this,” Buehrle said. “I went out there and played because I loved baseball, loved competing. All the numbers and all that stuff comes of it. But you never think of this: number retirement, statue.
“I can’t even wrap my head around it. It doesn’t make sense.”
Mark Buehrle’s family unveils his new statue at Rate Field @suntimes_sports pic.twitter.com/l7dqm7TmWN
— Vinnie Duber (@VinnieDuber) July 12, 2025
It makes plenty of sense, though, to anyone who watched him play.
Buehrle’s career highlights are as easy for Sox fans to rattle off as their home address: a perfect game, a no-hitter, a World Series championship, a bunch of trips to the All-Star Game and a closet full of Gold Gloves.
But for South Siders, the man goes beyond his resume. He was the tarp-sliding, beer-drinking, between-the-legs-flipping life of the party during his dozen years with the Sox. A 38th-rounder turned franchise legend.
For all that, Buehrle joining Frank Thomas, Harold Baines, Carlton Fisk, Minnie Minoso and all the rest in bronze is a no-brainer.
It just never will be for Buehrle.
“People are saying, ‘You’re worthy of this. You earned it.’ I didn’t earn it,” he said. “You don’t go out there and play to earn a number retirement, a statue. You go out there and just play to try to win the game, and maybe that’s why [I resonate with Sox fans] because I just left it all out there. I had fun.”
But Buehrle, still nervous at the thought of addressing fans and the media – he said he only got three hours of sleep Thursday night and was sick to his stomach throughout the day Friday as he approached his post-unveiling thank yous – made a bigger impact than just what he did between the lines.
His teammates, assembled this weekend for the 2005 championship reunion, described him as a great teammate who inspired and showed them the way, whether he was trying to or not.
“We came up together and played here for parts of eight years together,” Jon Garland told the Sun-Times. “I didn’t have to fight to get into the stadium, I didn’t have to pay for a ticket. I was able to sit in that dugout and have the same seat every one of his starts.
“[He was] something I was striving to be. I watched a guy go into the seventh inning almost every damn game. And that’s all I was trying to do, I was trying to match that. I wanted to be as good as he was, with the innings piling on, out there for his team.
“It’s a person, [when] you come up, you watch, see how he goes about his business, see what he does. And it’s not like there’s anything fancy, it’s not like there’s anything out of the ordinary. But it’s consistent, it’s consistent every day. He’s here to get down to work.”
Mark Buehrle and his 2005 teammates pose with his newly unveiled statue @suntimes_sports pic.twitter.com/WZCSyd8DQz
— Vinnie Duber (@VinnieDuber) July 12, 2025
Another teammate echoed how all the folks in No. 56 jerseys Friday night felt.
“Mark’s obviously one of our favorites,” A.J. Pierzynski said, “everyone’s favorite.”
Thomas could hit like no Sox player before or since. Paul Konerko was the captainly slugger who came up with one of the biggest swings in club history.
But it would be no surprise if Buehrle’s statue quickly becomes the most visited, if only because fans can see so much of themselves in the guy who never wanted the spotlight.
How fitting, then, that the statue itself is a reminder not of one individual moment but the ultimate memory for Sox fans, depicting Buehrle’s final pitch from his save in Game 3 of the World Series.
“All the individual stuff is awesome, but the whole goal is to bring a World Series to the team you’re playing [for], the city you’re at, and that’s what we accomplished,” Buehrle said. “I was wanting something with the World Series emblem, something to remember from that.”