These games matter to M's Parque
PEORIA, Ariz. (AP) - For most veteran Mariners, it was a day off from the tedium of a spring training game. A chance to get an early start on golfing, relaxing or partying.
For Jim Parque, the 20-minute drive to Surprise, Ariz., to play Kansas City was the latest, biggest thrill of his new, old life.
He even likes practice. Spring training practice. There's a good reason for that.
"I don't take anything for granted. Every pitch, every step that I take ... I live in the moment," said Parque, the 31-year-old Seattle non-roster invitee who is trying to come back after 3½ years out of the major leagues.
Before the Royals' Billy Butler whacked a mammoth, three-run home run off him in the seventh inning of Kansas City's 11-3 win Thursday, Parque said he was throwing better and smarter than he ever has.
"I have a proven track record," said the owner of a 31-34 record from 1998-2003. "I'm back to where I was before - and that was good enough to be a No. 3 starter and go to the playoffs. So hopefully it's good enough here."
In this ho-hum, routine setting where a Sunday seems like a Wednesday, Parque is like an excited kid. He eagerly puts on his uniform and appears ready to play some more each day by 8 a.m. Many of his groggy teammates meander in rubbing their eyes a half hour or more later.
The 31-year-old left hander was a rising star and 13-game winner with the White Sox in 2000. His season - and career - peaked when he struck out then-Mariner John Olerud to get out of a jam in his only start of an AL division series.
As the crowd inside sold-out Comiskey Park roared for the strikeout, Parque could hear his left, pitching shoulder "pop." He didn't know it then, but he had torn the labrum cartilage. Five starts into 2001, he had surgery. Chicago released him after he had just one win the following year.
The shoulder developed tendinitis while he was in Tampa Bay's rotation to begin '03. By May of that year, he was out of the majors for good.
The former UCLA All-America-turned-flameout became bitter toward baseball.
"I had a jaded view about it, just because you work your entire life for that one season. I throw one pitch, and it was all taken away," he said. "I took it for granted. I wish I savored things more."
He spent all of 2005 brooding.
"When I left the game I completely severed ties," he said, slapping one hand into the palm of another.
He avoided baseball on TV, in newspapers and on the Internet for a full year. Then he started a baseball academy in Puyallup, Wash., where he had moved to be closer to family. The academy, with a staff of 40, teaches young players individual responsibility and how to master mental challenges more than fastballs and breaking pitches.
"It took me back to when I played Little League and high school and Connie Mack, seeing the intensity," he said. "It healed my heart, healed my emotion."
It also resuscitated his dead career.
He was casually throwing to a student in the batting cage when a junior-college player walked by and said to Parque, "Oh, he's a has-been."
"I said, 'Why don't you step in there?'," Parque recalled, smiling.
"I threw one, it was 81, 82. I was like, 'What?' That's the hardest I've thrown in two, three years. It perked my interest."
He lined up a tryout for some teams. Seattle was the only one to be as perked as Parque was. A Mariners scout, Dan Evans, used to be with the White Sox when Parque was in Chicago. Evans encouraged the Mariners to bring Parque to training camp.
"I'm not a guy who came into the league, had success and then pitched myself out of the league. I got hurt. There is a big difference between that," Parque said. "And so the mystery surrounding it was, 'We hear he's back. Is his arm back?'
"And I think I've answered all those questions. My arm is back. And in actuality, some of my pitches are better."
He said his fastballs have been between 86 and 88 miles per hour this month. He was at 88-90 in 2000 with Chicago.
Sunday, many of his students from the baseball academy were in Scottsdale, Ariz., watching him shut out the Giants over two innings. He struck out three.
Thursday, he was one strike from a third consecutive scoreless outing, including an intrasquad game last month. Then he hit a Royals batter with a 2-2 pitch. Butler then hit the monster home run, the kind the cocky junior-college kid thought he could hit off Parque in that Puyallup batting cage.
Mariners manager Mike Hargrove isn't giving this feel-good story much love. At the beginning of camp, when hope shines like the desert sun, Hargrove said, "Jim's chances are slight.
"But that doesn't mean they are nonexistent."
Parque says he'll accept an assignment to Triple-A Tacoma at the end of this month.
"Oh, yeah. I mean, second time around, Triple-A is not a demotion, it's a promotion for me," he said. "But at the same time, I'm not just happy to be here. I'm fighting for a job. I feel like I have a good chance of making this club.
"Every day I come to this ballpark, my mind-set is I'm going to try to impress, improve and move forward. That's it.
"Nothing else matters."
For Jim Parque, the 20-minute drive to Surprise, Ariz., to play Kansas City was the latest, biggest thrill of his new, old life.
He even likes practice. Spring training practice. There's a good reason for that.
"I don't take anything for granted. Every pitch, every step that I take ... I live in the moment," said Parque, the 31-year-old Seattle non-roster invitee who is trying to come back after 3½ years out of the major leagues.
Before the Royals' Billy Butler whacked a mammoth, three-run home run off him in the seventh inning of Kansas City's 11-3 win Thursday, Parque said he was throwing better and smarter than he ever has.
"I have a proven track record," said the owner of a 31-34 record from 1998-2003. "I'm back to where I was before - and that was good enough to be a No. 3 starter and go to the playoffs. So hopefully it's good enough here."
In this ho-hum, routine setting where a Sunday seems like a Wednesday, Parque is like an excited kid. He eagerly puts on his uniform and appears ready to play some more each day by 8 a.m. Many of his groggy teammates meander in rubbing their eyes a half hour or more later.
The 31-year-old left hander was a rising star and 13-game winner with the White Sox in 2000. His season - and career - peaked when he struck out then-Mariner John Olerud to get out of a jam in his only start of an AL division series.
As the crowd inside sold-out Comiskey Park roared for the strikeout, Parque could hear his left, pitching shoulder "pop." He didn't know it then, but he had torn the labrum cartilage. Five starts into 2001, he had surgery. Chicago released him after he had just one win the following year.
The shoulder developed tendinitis while he was in Tampa Bay's rotation to begin '03. By May of that year, he was out of the majors for good.
The former UCLA All-America-turned-flameout became bitter toward baseball.
"I had a jaded view about it, just because you work your entire life for that one season. I throw one pitch, and it was all taken away," he said. "I took it for granted. I wish I savored things more."
He spent all of 2005 brooding.
"When I left the game I completely severed ties," he said, slapping one hand into the palm of another.
He avoided baseball on TV, in newspapers and on the Internet for a full year. Then he started a baseball academy in Puyallup, Wash., where he had moved to be closer to family. The academy, with a staff of 40, teaches young players individual responsibility and how to master mental challenges more than fastballs and breaking pitches.
"It took me back to when I played Little League and high school and Connie Mack, seeing the intensity," he said. "It healed my heart, healed my emotion."
It also resuscitated his dead career.
He was casually throwing to a student in the batting cage when a junior-college player walked by and said to Parque, "Oh, he's a has-been."
"I said, 'Why don't you step in there?'," Parque recalled, smiling.
"I threw one, it was 81, 82. I was like, 'What?' That's the hardest I've thrown in two, three years. It perked my interest."
He lined up a tryout for some teams. Seattle was the only one to be as perked as Parque was. A Mariners scout, Dan Evans, used to be with the White Sox when Parque was in Chicago. Evans encouraged the Mariners to bring Parque to training camp.
"I'm not a guy who came into the league, had success and then pitched myself out of the league. I got hurt. There is a big difference between that," Parque said. "And so the mystery surrounding it was, 'We hear he's back. Is his arm back?'
"And I think I've answered all those questions. My arm is back. And in actuality, some of my pitches are better."
He said his fastballs have been between 86 and 88 miles per hour this month. He was at 88-90 in 2000 with Chicago.
Sunday, many of his students from the baseball academy were in Scottsdale, Ariz., watching him shut out the Giants over two innings. He struck out three.
Thursday, he was one strike from a third consecutive scoreless outing, including an intrasquad game last month. Then he hit a Royals batter with a 2-2 pitch. Butler then hit the monster home run, the kind the cocky junior-college kid thought he could hit off Parque in that Puyallup batting cage.
Mariners manager Mike Hargrove isn't giving this feel-good story much love. At the beginning of camp, when hope shines like the desert sun, Hargrove said, "Jim's chances are slight.
"But that doesn't mean they are nonexistent."
Parque says he'll accept an assignment to Triple-A Tacoma at the end of this month.
"Oh, yeah. I mean, second time around, Triple-A is not a demotion, it's a promotion for me," he said. "But at the same time, I'm not just happy to be here. I'm fighting for a job. I feel like I have a good chance of making this club.
"Every day I come to this ballpark, my mind-set is I'm going to try to impress, improve and move forward. That's it.
"Nothing else matters."
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