Originally published February 2, 2007 at 12:00 AM | Page modified February 2, 2007 at 8:01 PM

M's sign pitcher who hasn't pitched since 2004

A joking taunt from a student at his Seattle-area baseball academy last summer helped launch former pitcher Jim Parque on a major league comeback attempt with the Mariners.

By Geoff Baker

Seattle Times staff reporter Seattle Times staff reporter

Talk about it in the M's fan forum

A joking taunt from a student at his Seattle-area baseball academy last summer helped launch former pitcher Jim Parque on a major league comeback attempt with the Mariners.

Parque, 31, who agreed to a minor league deal with Seattle on Thursday, was throwing batting practice at the academy he runs in Auburn when a junior college player couldn't resist a jibe.

"He came by and said 'Oh, there's the has-been','' said Parque, who hasn't pitched in the majors since 2003 after undergoing surgery on his left shoulder. "So, I told him to step in and see what he could do.

"My first pitch was 82 miles per hour.''

Parque hadn't been able to throw a ball nearly that hard in almost two years. He says his rotator cuff surgery led to a shrinkage of his shoulder capsule — and that it's taken all this time for the capsule to stretch back out again and allow him to throw normally.

The former 13-game winner for the Chicago White Sox, who turns 32 next week, hasn't pitched in the majors since going 1-1 with an 11.94 earned run average in five starts for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2003. He was cut by Arizona in spring training a year later and has been out of baseball ever since.

Parque -- who started Game 1 of the division series for Chicago against the Mariners in 2000 — moved to the Seattle area because his brother lives here and he "always loved the city as a player.'' He founded the Big League Edge baseball academy two years ago and now offers elite level instruction to about 400 players per week.

The two-way contract is laden with a number of incentives and will see Parque get an invitation to Seattle's major league camp this spring.

'The way I see it, it's win-win for everyone,'' he said, adding that he now throws 85-87 miles per hour. "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.''

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