For Angels’ Michael Kohn, lunch would have to wait

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Michael Kohn was enjoying his lunch on Monday, a sandwich from Jason’s Deli in Salt Lake City. His cellphone rang around 1 p.m., and he did not recognize the number.

‘I didn’t know who it was,’ Kohn said. ‘I just answered it.’

Good thing. His Salt Lake manager, Bobby Mitchell, was calling to inform Kohn he had been promoted to the major leagues -- and that his flight to Anaheim would leave in little more than an hour.

‘I didn’t get to eat my sandwich,’ Kohn said. ‘I had to go straight to the airport, and I couldn’t bring it past security. So I got through and got a burger from Burger King.’

Kohn, 24, had hoped to play pro baseball as a hitter. He got on the mound one day -- ‘as a joke,’ he said -- as a senior at the College of Charleston. He hit 95 and 96 mph on the radar gun -- no joke -- and the Angels took a 13th round flier on him in the 2008 draft.

After pitching all of 13 innings in college, the right-hander rocketed through the Angels’ minor league system, soaring through five leagues without pitching more than 37 innings in any of them. In 26 games at triple-A Salt Lake, he had a 1.95 earned-run average and 32 strikeouts in 28 innings, and he held opponents to a .170 batting average.

-- Bill Shaikin