Report: Pitcher Parque admits to doping

CHICAGO, July 23 (UPI) -- Former Chicago White Sox starting pitcher Jim Parque has admitted to using human growth hormone during his major league career.

Parque, 33, said the use began after a start against Seattle in Game 1 of the 2000 American League Championship Series when he suffered a shoulder injury and spent the offseason in pain.

Pain was the reason for a slow beginning in the 2001 season, he wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times.

A wife, a new baby, and a demotion to the minors by General Manager Kenny Williams in 2002 were followed by the use of an unidentified human growth hormone. He pitched in the majors from 1998 to 2003 for the White Sox and Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

"The decisions I made are mine to deal with, and I take full responsibility for them," Parque wrote. "They are decisions I'm not proud of, decisions that haunt me to this day, but decisions you might have made if presented with the same circumstances and pressures.'

Parque said he felt disgusted, bitter, scared, and guilty about his demotion because he felt his career potentially was going to end and he had no other job skills.

"Trust me, if I was good enough to make that upper-echelon salary, I would have said, 'See ya,' but I needed baseball for my family and for myself."