From a look around the baseball sites on the intarweb, it looks like my friend Mike Thompson (recent game coverage) is most likely going to be called-up on Wednesday or Thursday to be added into the starting pitcher rotation for the San Diego Padres! 
Given their recent trades and injuries, as well as the fact that he’s out pitching everyone else at Portland, it seems imminent that he’ll be called-up. I unexpectedly came across a blog that his mom contributes to and sent my congratulations to him through her.
This is very cool and I’m both excited and very proud of him– I lived down the street from him for a few years in Elementary School and we hung-out quite a bit then (and had a clubhouse), had a little two piece band with him in High School, played sports with him growing up, etc. It’s really awesome to see someone from my little hometown in the middle of nowhere go so far. I can still remember pro scouts showing-up to our baseball games over the years, not to mention his impressive High School pitching career (all-state all four years of HS, all-USA Honorable mention, at least one State Championship, etc).
He’s an incredibly talented guy even beyond baseball (I still have a few tapes of us playing in our little band back in the day) and a recent article covered that. He’s worked his way up through the farm system starting in 1999, and even just having a chance to throw a pitch in the pros after being drafted is a very rare feat, much less getting the chance to play on a farm team.
I’m going to try and find somewhere that I can watch the Padres play the Diamondbacks on Wednesday or Thursday evening, and it looks like I can actually download the game from mlb.com for a small fee if it doesn’t work-out (I’ll be packing for my road trip on Thursday evening).
Update: It looks like it’s official.
That’s awesome, B. When Jen and I were in Eugene, we caught an Emeralds game (I think the AA affiliate of the Padres). Did he ever spend some time up there? Just curious. If he did, I’m sure Jen’s cousin knows him; he’s a season ticket holder.
He played AA ball for the Mobile Bay Bears, and it looks like Eugene is a class A affiliate of the Padres actually. He played for the Lake Elsinore Storm when he was in class A (I think most pro teams have 2 class A teams?). It’s certainly possible he played for Eugene before that as I wasn’t really able to follow his progress on the internet until 2001 or so.