Pitcher turns one little insult into a comeback attempt

Two long years had gone by since pitcher Jim Parque had bothered trying to throw a baseball any harder than a batting-practice toss.

Previous efforts had ended in frustration for the onetime Chicago White Sox starter, whose once promising career was derailed by a shoulder injury and subsequent surgery. By the time he bottomed out with an awful Tampa Bay Devil Rays team in 2003, still awaiting his 30th birthday, he had started only 13 games and thrown less than 72 innings in a three-year span.

Parque retired after failing to catch on with Arizona the following year, packed his bags and moved to the Seattle area to be near his brother in a city he'd always loved as a big-leaguer. He founded the Big League Edge baseball academy and soon had a thriving business, one in which the only baseball action he saw was "messing around" in batting practice.

That is, until a junior-college prospect attending the camp last July saw Parque on the mound and called out jokingly, "Oh, there's the has-been!"

Parque dared the player to step into the box against him. On his first pitch, he sent an 82-mph fastball whizzing down the heart of the plate.

"I hadn't thrown anything that hard in two years," Parque said. "I didn't really know what to think."

That one pitch led to others, some sessions of playing catch and later some more serious workouts that resulted in Parque, who turns 32 next week, signing a minor-league deal with the Mariners on Thursday. A pitcher who started Game 1 of the 2000 Division Series against Seattle while pitching for the White Sox will get a spring-training invitation and attempt to resurrect a career long presumed dead.

"To put it bluntly, my shoulder, after the surgery, just never came back," Parque said. "It was garbage. Some days, it would rain and there would be pain. Even on a good day, it was just a dull ache."

Parque figures he tried to come back too quickly the first few times. He never regained the form that saw him win 13 games for the White Sox in 2000 — his last complete season in the majors.

The problem, as he sees it, is the shoulder capsule that shrank during his surgery needed all this time to stretch back out again. With more flexibility, the velocity came back and he says he can throw between 85 and 88 mph.

For a left-hander, that's good enough to get teams interested. But Parque wanted to be certain the interest was serious before agreeing to audition on the mound.

He was finally convinced it could be worth his while to attempt a comeback and tried out for a handful of teams. His two-way contract with the Mariners, with one salary if he stays in the minors and a higher one if he makes the big club, contains certain incentives.

"It's the type of contract that shows me they feel confident I can get back to being the pitcher I was," Parque said, declining to get into specifics. "The way I see it, it's win-win for everyone. I didn't leave baseball because I was too old, or tired. I left because I got hurt. This was the first time I felt like my arm was back to normal."

One of the clauses in the contract apparently allows Parque to walk away from it as a free agent if he hasn't made it to the Mariners by June. The likelihood of Parque sticking with Seattle out of spring training is remote, given the recent acquisitions of starters Miguel Batista, Jeff Weaver and Horacio Ramirez and the depth in the team's bullpen.

But Ramirez and fellow starter Jarrod Washburn have had recent injury problems, and a lot can happen the first few months of any season. Parque's baseball academy business has been thriving, with 30 instructors offering elite-level training to about 400 prospects per week.

"I'm going to stay heavily involved in it," Parque said. "But obviously, I won't be able to be there because I'll be pitching."

And the mound, he says, is still where his heart lies.

"I still have the competitive desire and the know-how," he said. "That part never left me."

Geoff Baker: 206-464-8286 or gbaker@seattletimes.com